If you are interested in joining our research group, please read the following carefully.
Before sending me any email titled “interested in joining your group” or “…doing a PhD” etc, go through the department’s web page with information about the graduate program:
http://www.me.udel.edu/academics/grad/index.html
Note that:
- Individual faculty/advisers do not make admission decisions
- First year graduate students are typically supported by the department
- Incoming graduate students and faculty interact during the first semester to decide on projects and future financial support.
Thus sending me an email before getting admitted to the program accomplishes nothing. I typically do not make hiring decisions before I meet and work with potential advisees. If you get admitted with financial aid (TA/fellowship) you should come and see me once you are on campus. If you get admitted without aid, then you can send me a shortemail explaining to me why you are special (you have publications in peer reviewed journals or conferences, for example), and convincing me that I have to somehow override the standard procedure and not pick from the standard pool of funded first year students —just sending me your CV will not be sufficient in doing that.
So the sequence is: apply, get admitted, contact me. Please adhere to it. I do not read generic emails of prospective applicants sent before their authors are admitted. If nothing else, these emails suggest that their authors do not bother reading these lines when checking my site to see what I do.