Writing a strong cold email to professors for supervision or scholarship

By now, you should know what cold emailing is about, why it is needed, and the etiquette you should follow while writing it. I know there comes a time in your college career where you’ll need to cold email a professor.

In this section, I will be taking you on the steps of writing a strong professional cold email to a professor for scholarship or supervision. Sending a cold email to a professor asking for supervision means that you are reaching out to a university faculty member who you have not had any relationship with or established any connection with. In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about sending cold emails to professors, lecturers, prospective supervisors or other faculty members.

Here are the step-by-step guide to follow;

Do a Research about the Professor

This is the first thing to do. Conduct a thorough research about the professor’s interest, projects he/she has done in the past, current projects, and publications. You need to show that you are aware of the professor’s expertise and how this matches your research goals.

Also, when you carry out a proper research about the professor, you’d easily identify how his/her interests align with yours and then send them a personalized mail to show that you have taken the time to learn about their work. This can set you apart from other applicants or researchers who send generic emails without doing any background checks or research. Doing a background research is also a way to show respect to the professor and their time, and demonstrates your level of seriousness.

Create a Compelling Subject Line

When you finish doing your background research on the professor, and you are set to start writing your cold email, the first thing to do is to develop or craft a compelling and captivating subject line for the cold email. This is because the first contact between you and the professor is the email subject line, as it is what the professor will see first. As the saying goes, first impression matters a lot. If your subject line is captivating enough, it will lure the professor’s interest to keep reading.

Introduce yourself and your research interest

Here, you write briefly about yourself and your research interest in a sentence or two. You should give a concise summary of your achievements, experience, and qualifications relevant to the open position. You can also mention if a colleague of theirs pointed you in their direction.

The email body should be concise

With this being an email and not a cover letter, keep it brief by attaching your resume which they can preview on their own time instead of reading a long email that discusses all of your experiences. Here, you need to show that this isn’t just another research email. You can highlight aspects of the professor’s research that you find particularly fascinating. You can highlight the gap in the current research and your intended research idea and how it aligns with the professor’s expertise. You should try to articulate these points succinctly and convincingly. You can demonstrate interest by letting the professor know that you found out about their work by:

• Reading some of their papers (cite which ones!)
• Talking to one of their graduate/upper-year students
• Attending one of their talks or seminars

Everyone likes to be quoted. Name drop a recent paper or two that they were first or final author on. Ask a “smart” question about the paper(s) you name dropped (this is to prove that you actually read and understood their papers).

Request the Professor’s Supervision

The goal of a cold email is to get the professor to offer their support and supervision. Therefore, you should make a polite and straightforward request for the professor’s guidance in their intended scholarship. It would help if you asked the professor to supervise you and give them a convincing reason why he should lead you.

Be patient and do a follow-up

It’s important to be patient and not get disheartened if you don’t receive a response immediately. Most professors are often busy with their research, so it may take some time for them to respond to your email. If you don’t hear back from the professor after a week, you can follow up with a polite email, reiterating your interest in their research group.

Things to Avoid when Writing Cold Emails to Professors

Considering that you want to send the professor of your choice a fascinating cold email, there are several things you should avoid to keep your email looking polished and professional. A handful are listed here.

• Generic language: Avoid using template or generic terms in your emails. Learn how to make your email to the professor more unique. You will be able to distinguish yourself from similar mails.
• Lack of research: Make sure you have completed your homework to the highest level by looking up the professor’s profile before writing to them about a scholarship. Demonstrating your understanding of their research field would be excellent.
• Making an immediate request: Establish a connection with the professor by expressing interest in their work. Refrain from requesting for scholarships from them almost immediately.
• Being too informal or casual: In your email, maintain a professional tone and refrain from using slang or excessively informal language.
• Poor spelling and grammatical error: Check your email for typographical or grammatical errors. Spelling and punctuation errors might give you a bad first impression which can negatively impact your chances of winning a scholarship.

Tips to keep in mind:

• If the professor has instructions on their website on how to email them, that obviously supersedes the information above.
• You can schedule your email to be automatically sent at 6/7am if you want it to be at the top of the professor’s inbox in the morning.
• If the professor runs a large lab, consider sending a cold email to one of their graduate students instead of the professor.

With these tips in mind, you can craft a compelling cold email that sets you apart from the competition.