Institute of Biomedical Engineering (BME)

How to approach professors when applying to graduate school

September 14, 2020

Interview with Professor Leo Chou

Transcript

Leo Chou: My name is Leo Chou. I’m an assistant professor in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. I started my lab in 2019. Currently we have a group of about six graduate students.

My first question to you is we have a lot of prospective students from various backgrounds who want to pursue research based graduate work. In your opinion, what is the best way to reach out to your professor? Is it through social media, email or a phone call?

Leo Chou: Well, I think the best platform, at least for me is through email. I check my email multiple times a day, and I do get a lot of students approaching me through email and I read them all. I think you can reach most professors that way.

Obviously, if you take a class and are able to find a professor in one of your classes that suits your research interests, then by all means approach them in person and send a follow up email afterwards. But most of the time, if you are unable to meet the professor in person first then just send them an email and ask them directly if they’re they are looking for new graduate students in the upcoming year.

When they’re sending you an email, student’s usually do not get an immediate response and I think in their mind what they think is the professor is not interested in hiring me, or maybe my application is not as good as I thought. What should the student really expect when they’re sending an email to professors?

Leo Chou: Either possibilities are true. Either they’re just not looking for someone right now, or you’re not a suitable candidate that they’re looking for. But I would say most of the time they’re just too busy to reply at the moment and they forget. I am certainly guilty of that sometimes, I get 40 to 50 emails a day sometimes and one email might have slipped through the crack, and so if it is a lab that you’re really interested in, for good reason, I would say by all means send one or two follow up emails afterwards. And if you still don’t get a reply after a couple follow ups then so be, you can look for other labs. This might not be the best fit for you for a variety of reasons, some of which are not within your control.

When a prospective student is reaching out to you, how should they construct their email, from the title to the body of context to make sure that it stands out in these 40 to 50 emails that you get on a daily basis.

Leo Chou: I think one thing is to approach this exercise as you would any regular job. Some level of professional courtesy and professionalism should permeate throughout the entire email.

Secondly, be as specific as possible. If you’re looking for a graduate position, state clearly in the subject that this is a graduate position inquiry email, and the more information that you can provide that’s unique to you could help you stand out the better. Some emails that I get, the students don’t include a CV or a resume and transcript. Others do, so right off the bat I’m going to read the one with the CV and transcript first.

And in the body of the email, if you are able to do some research about the lab that you’re interested in, and you know a lot about the professor that you’re sending the email to, then by all means, talk about science and talk about your research interest and be as specific as possible. And professors will know whether your interests are kind of superficial and diffuse curiosity, or whether they are the result of some in depth research and introspection. Do everything you can and provide as much information as you can and be as specific as you can to stand out.

Okay, so I’m going to jump in really quickly, you mentioned something about how professors can usually tell when an interest in a specific topic is genuine. How does that come across? Based on your experience when you’re going through applications or the emails that prospective students send to you, how do you evaluate authenticity or genuine interest in the research that you do?

Leo Chou: That’s a great question. I think it comes through in multiple formats.

One could be a very consistent trajectory, so if an applicant said that they’ve always been interested in some form of therapeutics, and you can see that they devoted their summertime to research in that topic and that they have taken certain classes and they’ve done some internships, jobs and co-op opportunities, you know the kind of activities throughout their undergraduate training. And now they’re looking for a position with a similar theme, that suggests to me, that they are really, really interested in this.

Sometimes if your interests have changed over the course of your education, then you can rationalize it through email and tell a compelling story of this is who you are, and this is how you evolved. Then you can see how this person’s developing and why they are interested in pursuing this next step. Conversely, if they say they are interested in this, but they have shown no effort in the past towards this topic, then the story becomes not that compelling.

Let’s say if I’m a student and in my previous employment I’ve only had experience working in a non-research related background, how can someone like that leverage their background to say that I am interested in research, I just never had the opportunity to have a position in research.

Leo Chou: I think that’s a fair point, and this happens sometimes. I think you leverage the things that you have done well at and the skills that you have, you tell a story of what made you decide to pursue a career in academic research at this point, and something that reflects the authenticity of yourself.

That’s the other thing too right. It’s not just your professional interest, but also, we want to know the kind of person, the kind of student and the kind of team member you will be when you join the lab. Whether you bring positive energy and a spirit of teamwork and the spirit of learning to the lab. Those are all kind of soft skills, and transferable skills that we would like to tease out through your email and through interactions with you. Whatever your story is, be genuine about it and tell your authentic story, I think that’s how you can come through the pool of applicants.

Do you prefer long or short emails?

Leo Chou: That’s a good question. I think it should always be short and to the point, just because we get so many emails a day.

And how short should these emails be?

Leo Chou: I think if you want a strict guideline, and again, this is a personal biased opinion, it’s not a universal formula to follow, different PI’s read emails differently, but I would say three paragraphs, the first one tells me who you are. The second one tells me why you’re interested in this lab and what your potential fits are. And the third paragraph tells me, what you’re looking for as next steps and what you’ve enclosed for information to follow up on. Each paragraph should be two to three sentences long to illustrate those points.

How should they address you? You kind of mentioned there has to be some kind of professional demeanor when someone send an email. When they email should they say stuff like ‘Hello, Dr. Chou’ or ‘Hi Leo’/’Dear Leo’/’Dear Dr Chou’. Is there a preference? Do you think that makes a difference?

Leo Chou: It makes a difference just because it’s telling of what kind of person the student is. I think if you’re complete strangers and don’t know each other, and you’re sending an email inquiry, you should address them by their title. It doesn’t matter if it’s ‘Dear Dr. Chou’ or ‘Hello Dr. Chou’ or ‘Hello Professor Chou’. Something along those lines, because if we don’t know each other, why would we address each other on a first name basis? And that’s just my personal bias. I mean, all my current students call me by my first name and vice versa. But when we don’t know each other, we will address each other by a title.

What are some of the best practices in summary in terms of how to write email or reaching out to you?

Leo Chou: I think tip number one is to be specific about what you’re looking for and what it is that you want to get from a professor in this case, because email is fundamentally a tool of communication, you just really should get to the point about what it is that you want.

Tip number two, again, be professional, because this is a professional environment, use professional language.

Tip number three use the subject heading strategically. What I mean by that is, we get so many emails so a lot of time we screen the order of emails we read by the subject heading, or at least I do. Some things are more urgent than others, so if you could write in the subject heading, the summary of your email in keyword form that could really help us in determining whether we should open this email now or later. For example, if you had a specific deadline write it so I know that I need to deal with this right away.

If you have pet peeves in terms of how people email you, what should they not do?

Leo Chou: Well, I guess the obvious one is using universal templates. This applies to graduate inquiries, and the ones that use universal templates makes it really obvious that this is just a universal template and you’re just putting my name on the top. It’s as if I’m opening spam. Every professor will tell you that they don’t enjoy reading that.

The last question is, do you have any advice to people who are reaching out to professors in their application to graduate school.

Leo Chou: What I hear from students is that they would like to know a little bit more about professors, but they find everything interesting, so they don’t know where to begin. That’s really difficult, and in the beginning, I guess that’s just the way it is.

I would encourage people to start early. It is a big decision and try to get as much information as possible and talk to the graduate students in the lab as much as you can to find out a bit more about the topic and a bit more about the lifestyle and management style of the lab, and see that fits you. The more people you talk to, the more informed of a decision you can make, and an informed decision is the best decision.

Interview with Professor Penney Gilbert

Transcript

Penney Gilbert: I am Dr. Penny Gilbert. I’m an associate professor here at the University of Toronto in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, where I hold a Canada Research Chair in endogenous repair. My research team applies engineering principles to uncover cues that guide muscle stem cells and repairing skeletal muscle tissue damage. On a personal level, I am a first-generation university graduate.

You’ve been a professor at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering for six years, seven years?

Penney Gilbert: I started in 2012.

Okay, well, it’s been eight years. So, you’ve had plenty of experience talking to prospective students who are applying to your lab. The first question I want to ask is, what is the best way for them to reach out to you If they want to apply for a position in your lab?

Penney Gilbert: It’s a great question, and you also speak to a unique aspect of the BME U of T admission process. In addition to prospective students needing to meet the minimum academic criteria, it’s also necessary that they secure an advisor in order to be formally admitted into the Master of Applied Science or PhD graduate program.

You can imagine there are lots of ways that someone might think to reach out to a professor that they’re interested in working in their labs. They may use email, LinkedIn or other social media like Twitter, they’ve may do a cold phone call, or you know sometimes they may drop by an office. Although not right now, as we know, things are limited in that regard.

I think I can speak for my BME colleagues when I say that email is the strongly preferred method. One thing that really cannot be overstated is that a professor’s time is really limited. At any moment we’re teaching, meeting with one of our students writing a grant or manuscript, and literally nearly every minute of the workday is occupied.

Ultimately, your goal as a prospective student is to make the best impression that you possibly can, especially the first impression. Unfortunately, a phone call or a drop into to an office, which again, it right now is not feasible, almost always interrupt something and that invariably has this very unintended consequence of leaving a bad impression, which is really unfortunate. So, email really is the best option. It signals that you’re respectful of others time by providing a request for consideration via a mechanism that can be reviewed by the professor at their convenience.

If a student reached out to you, and they don’t get an immediate response within maybe a day or two, how would they evaluate that response? Is it because you’re too busy with your teaching, your research? Or is it because you are not interested in this particular applicant?

Penney Gilbert: I think I will first answer that question by giving you a sense of my experience of emailing my colleagues in BME. Some colleagues will respond within minutes, some respond within 24 hours, and I have several colleagues who I know that I won’t receive a response for about two weeks. Now keep in mind, those are colleagues who I’m in regular contact with, and so I know that two weeks wait has nothing to do with me. It is just the congestion in their inbox, and so students that are sending an email to a professor need to understand that sort of window of response time of somewhere between two hours and two weeks is honestly quite normal. You may not hear for two weeks, you may not hear ever, and not hearing back could be for many different reasons.

Most of those reasons have nothing to do with you. It could be that they didn’t get your message, it could be that they’re traveling, it could be that they don’t have sufficient funding at the moment to take on a student or they don’t have an appropriate project or mentors available. Or maybe they’re just really overwhelmed with applicants in that particular year, and they’ve just already enlisted all the students that they can possibly take, and they’re still receiving large numbers of applications and can’t process all of them. There’s many reasons that you might not get a response right away, or ever, to be honest.

Is there a specific time they should be reaching out to a professor to optimize the chance that there are open positions in that lab?

Penney Gilbert: It’s a good question, and I will admit that I start to receive my first applications for a given matriculation period, one year in advance. And that is really far in advance. In fact, the online portal is not even open at that point for applications to be submitted, but this is usually an inquiry where someone is gauging whether there might be positions and whether their particular background is something that might fit in with the work that we’re doing. Or that they’ve been studying in a particular area and have a very specific interest in joining my lab. A lot of times 75% of the positions that I may have available in any given matriculation year could be filled by the point when the application portal opens, which is the reality of the situation sometimes.

The opening period for graduate school application is usually February of the year?

Penney Gilbert: If we say 2021 as an example, I will start to have individuals reaching out to me for fall 2021 in September October of 2020.

How would a student go about finding out what kind of research projects you’re working on because usually on the website or on a publication, they’re usually two years behind already? Because it will take you two years, or more than two years to publish a paper. And once it’s published, that’s actually a time capsule of two years ago. How would a student find out the more recent research that you’re doing?

Penney Gilbert: To get a sense of what current research might be, the tools that you can make use of are, one to take a look at the lab website. That’s not a guaranteed method and you absolutely have to look at dates and see when the most recent postings are, but the website often is a conduit to have a sense of an overview of the projects in the group.

But also, often linked to social media and in social media, if that group happens to be active, the students will be linked to the lab and they will be promoting awards that they might have received or talks that they’ve given at conferences.

Even through Google, you can get a sense of conferences that students from different labs have gone to and see the titles of the projects that the student’s posters were focused on. Now, that will give you a sense of the more recent work in the lab.

At U of T theses are deposited in the U of T library and oftentimes, stories that are in progress, which are the next in line to be published will be in those theses, and it’s sort of a raw cut of the work that’s going on in the lab, but you can kind of get a sense from those theses, what’s happening in the lab.

And another approach is to look for webinars and other types of recorded materials that professors are involved in that will give you a sense of the types of research areas that they’re working on at the moment. Those are some examples of different ways that you can get a sense of what’s happening in the lab.

When a student is reaching out about a graduate school application or inquiry, how should they construct the content of their email?

Penney Gilbert: This is an area that I’m happy to provide some very specific advice on, that hopefully makes the process honestly just much easier for students as they’re reaching out to a prospective lab. First key thing is you really need to keep the email as brief and focused as possible. You want to make the intent of your email clear in the subject line.

Something like ‘BME direct entry’, ‘PhD inquiry’, or ‘BME, MASc inquiry’ is a good straightforward approach. And then as for the email itself, you can use the following formula, which is four to five sentences that will either hook or not hook the reader but it’s short and gets to the point.

First you need to introduce yourself, you want to say my name is (whatever your name is), and I’m starting my, let’s say, fourth year in such a program at whatever institution. That’s sentence number one.

And then the second sentence is that you need to make some sort of connection, to make it clear that this is not a generic email, and that you’re reaching out because you have a genuine interest in joining the lab. Your second sentence is making a connection that makes it clear you’ve done your homework. You might say, ‘I recently watched your stem cell technologies webinar’, or ‘I read your recent manuscript on engineering skeletal muscle micro tissues’, or ‘I reviewed your website’. You want to say I value the opportunity to join your team to study, in my case, skeletal muscle endogenous repair. Make sure that it’s specific to the group that you’re writing to.

Then in your third sentence, you want to speak to what you can bring to the table. Oftentimes, I see that the email inquiry is ‘I want something’, but the ones that really stand out or where the student provides a little bit about what they can bring to the table to merge with what my group is doing already. You want to explain what type of background you have, and how you see your background adding value to the research program that you’re applying to. You might say I have experience in statistics computation modeling stem cell biology, whatever it is, and that you think might be interesting to apply to, for example, skeletal muscle regenerative medicine in the Gilbert lab. That’s sentence number three, offering what you bring to the table.

Then finally, you’ll want to attach your resume and your transcripts, and then you can state that I’ve attached my resume and transcripts as a single PDF for your consideration. In some cases, you may also like to include a cover letter, that should only be included if there are very specific things that you’d like to expand upon from your resume. And in that case, you can add the sentence I’ve also included a cover letter in which I expand upon some notable prior experiences mentioned in my resume.

Then you conclude, I look forward to your response, sincerely your name. We’re looking at five maximally six sentences, and in those six sentences, you express your interest, you show that you’ve done, your background research on the lab, and you make it clear that you want to contribute as well as to gain experience in a research area.

I do have a follow up about sentence number three, which is for the student to kind of talk about what they’re bringing to the table. I think, you know, I’m kind of speaking from my own experience here. When I was applying for graduate school, I felt like I was not offering that much experience wise or technique wise, and I think I drew a lot of experiences from courses that I’ve taken and not so much the stuff I did in the lab. If I’m a student who’s applying to your lab, how do I maximize what I know and communicate that in terms of what I can actually bring to the table?

Penney Gilbert: It’s not uncommon to for students to think that they don’t have relevant skill sets or any special skill sets. But I find that in conversation with any undergrad I’ve ever spoken with, we can always draw out some special skill that they have that’s different that I would consider valuable in my research lab.

That could be related to your extracurricular activities, it could be related to leadership work that you’ve been involved in outside of courses. It could just be related to your organizational skills in managing your undergraduate studies as an example, all of those things, they may not seem special to you, but to us looking at an applicant, it’s something that you’re highlighting as a unique skill of yours. It tells us that that you’ll proactively contribute to the research mission, even ahead of joining the group,

From what I’m hearing is part of a sentence number three should also convey some kind of initiative.

Penney Gilbert: Yes, that’s a really good way to summarize it.

If you were to kind of summarize all of your tips and advice into three or five tips, what would they be?

Penney Gilbert: For best practices, I would say if you do receive a response to your email, even if it is not the response that you’d hoped for, send a thank you. And the reason is, you never know when your paths might cross again and a simple thank you is so uncommon nowadays, that it really stands out and is remembered so, I would really urge students to do that.

When you attach your transcripts, resume and cover letter, if that is a useful element of your approach, make sure that you attach them as a single PDF. It seems really trivial, but the less buttons that need to be clicked on, the more likely that all of your materials will be looked at. Do make sure that you attach your transcripts and resume in that initial approach because they’re going to be asked for, and you don’t want your email exchange to just be send me your resume or transcripts. Sometimes that could be a reason that you don’t get a response, so make sure that you attach those as a single PDF.

As we already touched on, make sure that you start your process of doing your research and identifying labs that you’re interested in, and reaching out early. Keep in mind that connection is a key, so do your homework, check the website publications. Google is your friend. You know, why do you want to reach out to a specific lab over any other lab that might be in the department or otherwise.

And then finally, with your resume, make sure that it’s brief, at the undergraduate level, it should be one to two pages max. Make sure that it includes education, followed by fellowships and awards, prior research experiences, leadership evidence, any unique skill sets that you may have or certificates. Then it’s always nice to end with extracurricular, we love to see what else people do with their spare time.

In terms of practices to avoid, top of the list is mass emails. Do not send an email where you’ve cc’d it clearly to 100 faculties – that is the fastest way to have your email never read.

Make sure that you don’t send generic emails or emails that are just too superficial. In my area of research, a very common approaches to receive an email entitled something to the effect of interested in stem cells. ‘I’m interested to come to Canada to learn about stem cells’ or ‘come to Toronto to learn about stem cells’. It should be a little bit more specific than that.

Make sure you do a quick spelling and grammar check. Have a friend check over your email text just to make sure that there aren’t any errors. Avoid the as I refer to it, ‘Dear Sir’ email. I can’t tell you how many emails I received that start out as ‘dear sir’. Quick check of my website would probably make one think that it should probably be ‘dear ma’am’ but even then, it’s hard to say how I identify so it’s best just to say ‘dear professor’.

Then finally, you should really avoid excessive resending of emails. If you don’t hear back after a second reminder email, it’s probably not going to be responded to or it will be responded to at a timescale that that is possible for the professor but resending many times does not make a good impression. Those my best practices and practices to avoid.

Okay, Penny, thanks for being here.

Penney Gilbert: It’s been great chatting with you today, Bill.

Interview with Professor Omar Khan

Transcript

Omar Khan: My name is Omar Khan. I’m a professor in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto.

The first question is regarding the first stage in how a prospective student can reach out to you regarding a research position, either a MASc position or a PhD position in your lab. What is the best platform for them to reach out to you?

Omar Khan: I think the best way to start is to always seek out their webpages and from there, you can kind of get a sense of the types of platforms that they encourage. If they list Twitter and LinkedIn and that sort of thing, that probably means its fair game. Otherwise you’re most likely going to be emailing them, or even potentially calling them if that’s also a possibility. But in general, I think email is always a safe way to go.

How receptive would you be if someone randomly calls you on your cell phone or your work phone saying, ‘Hey, excuse me, I would like to apply to your lab?’

Omar Khan: Honestly, I think most of us screen our phone calls anyway, and they go to voicemail and then we check voicemail after. But I think it’s an interesting way to follow up. So, if you do send an email, you can also maybe send a voicemail saying I’m really interested in your lab, I sent you an email and looking forward to hearing back from you. That could be a potential way to combine the two.

Would you respond to student requests through Twitter as well?

Omar Khan: I’m pretty new to Twitter, so personally no, not really. For me email would be the primary way to go. But I do see other professors are much more active on social media and that could potentially be a great way for you to gauge whether or not that’s an appropriate way to go. If they are constantly posting, then they are probably constantly reviewing that kind of content.

To reiterate your point, the first thing they should do is check out your lab webpage to kind of find out what are the most appropriate ways to approach you.

Omar Khan: Yeah, I think that’s a great way to do it.

When they do approach you, how should they construct their email to make sure that it stands out?

Omar Khan: I think it’s a combination of brevity and being direct to the point. Your subject line should always be pretty clear about what you want to do, whether you want to do a master’s degree or PhD it would be great to know that. So potentially writing “I’m interested in graduate school and a master’s degree in your lab”, or a shorter version of that in your subject line, that’s always a great way to go. Then when you get down to the body of the email it’s the same, you kind of introduce yourself and what your intent is. It’s great to talk about your past program and what your degree is in, and what is it about this professor’s lab that intrigues you and makes you want to join up and do some fun and interesting new research. That’s always great, to kind of get that energy across. I think a lot of us see emails that are not necessarily generic, but for examples, some people apply, and their background doesn’t really align with what is happening in the lab. And there’s nothing wrong with that, we are always open to people who want to try new things and learn new things. But it’s always great to know that you acknowledge that and say my background is in photonics, but I’m really interested in doing polymer chemistry to round out my skills, and I’m looking for a potential way to combine them all. That would be a great way to address that early, and shows us when we’re doing our initial checks, and kind of flagging that well, obviously you do know what I do, and you’re not just emailing every professor in the department.

How would you identify an email that can come off as generic versus in your case, you want a more tailored email towards the lab that they’re applying to? What are some of the factors that would make the email stand out as a generic email?

Omar Khan: Well, it might be easier to go the other way and what would make them stand out as being a unique email. And that would be, I reviewed some of your work, I’m really interested in these papers or this potential project and it would be great if I can contribute to that somehow, and I was thinking, perhaps there’s an opportunity we can discuss a chance to pursue graduate research. Something like that, and at least that way you know, for example, if someone’s working on inflammation, saying that I read a copy of your papers on inflammation, and I looked at your lab website and your areas of interest are really interesting to me, and I would love to pursue a masters or a PhD in that area and was hoping you’d be open to having a conversation about that thing. I think that’s really an easier way to go. It should always come from the basic research because remember you’re coming into a lab, and while labs are absolutely able to create new projects and look at new things, you want to kind of get in by saying that I know what the lab does and I’m interested in that, and I think there’s new ways and new possibilities we can look at this. That’s always nice. So really, it’s not necessarily if these are the things to avoid, rather, it’s, construct your pitch based on what you know about the lab and what you see is the perceived fit. So, it’s really coming from both sides, it’s not necessarily 100% on the professor to find the right project for you and it’s not necessarily for you to 100% find the project. If there’s something in the middle, that’s always very easy for everyone and it makes for a great start.

Let me follow up on what you said earlier about when they reach out to you and they want a specific project. Are you more receptive to students who propose their own project, or they’re looking for some guidance when they’re first emailing you?

Omar Khan: For me, it’s the same. I always like it if a student comes in and says, I haven’t really done any work in this formerly in the lab. I’ve done a lot of undergraduate training, a lot of coursework, but I’d really love to explore this area. That’s always great, and it’s just as great for someone to say that I have a real passion about this specific area, and I see you’ve done some work in there and I would love to explore that more with you as my academic supervisor. That’s always a great as well. There’s really kind of two ways you can look at it, and really, it’s about the ability to kind of get that across and communicate that and that’s really what’s important.

So how long should they craft their email? This is another common question that we get from prospective students. They’re not sure if they should write you an essay? Or they should keep it under, let’s say 500 words? Do you have any guidelines on how long that particular email should be?

Omar Khan: I think it’s important to always try to keep things as short as possible, but not to the detriment of your content, and that’s a great way to go. If it’s long for the sake of being long, or if it’s long words just listing your CV and then you have a CV attachment. That is, if there’s interest, we’ll look at the CV and we’ll look at the transcripts, but what we’re trying to do is, understand a bit more about who you are, what your motivations are, and what is it about this lab that makes you think it’s a good fit. Those are really important things for us because we are just beating you. But you’ve had the potential to learn a lot more about us, and anything you can do to help us see what you see is fantastic.

What are some of the best practices that you will suggest? You kind of mentioned some of them already, keeping it brief, as well as identifying the specific interests that they want to pursue in your lab. What are some of the other best practices that you would like to see from prospective students who are applying to your lab?

Omar Khan: It’s always nice to be proactive. Some professors appreciate it if you mentioned that, I’m really interested in applying for this fellowship and or this scholarship, and if I can get your feedback on some of that, that’s great. That also shows some initiative. I know, at least from my time in America, that was a great way a lot of professors filtered out just the shotgun emails that went to everyone, or they say that I’m interested in joining your lab, would you be interested in reviewing a scholarship application I’m doing, and if I get the scholarship can I come to your lab. That’s also really handy for students who are aren’t domestic, for an international student because that is also a great way to overcome that kind of activation barrier. That being said at Toronto, we absolutely love having as many international students as we can get our hands on. That extra perspective is wonderful, especially for us with a global outlook, and we absolutely want that.

What I’m hearing from that is there has to be some kind of understanding of the processes of graduate school. You mentioned when students usually come in, they have gone through this process of scholarship applications. And if they can kind of demonstrate the fact that they’re aware of this process, and they have taken the initiative to start that process, that is a boon to make their email or their application stand out.

Omar Khan: Absolutely. I think it may be a bit easier for domestic students because they are already familiar with the system, and for International students again, it’s apologized that it may feel like an extra burden. But it’s also great for them to start that homework early, because then they can at least come in on more of a level footing with others who are already familiar with this system. That’s always great, and again, what we’re looking for is maintaining our global outlook and our diversity, so we want to encourage everyone to do that. And if part of that means you understand the administrative process, you know, absolutely, that’s well worth your time.

After they get through the first barrier, which is that email the next process is really for you to look at their CV and to evaluate their past experiences. What do you look for in their CV or their letter of intent if they do decide to include that in the email?

Omar Khan: While the CV is always great, and things like transcripts are great because they at least tell you if they meet the institutions minimum cutoff. And that way you know that they’re able to get into grad school and join, so that’s kind of the first pass. But I can speak personally about what I look at when I see CV’s and I tend to like people who have interesting perspectives, because I think a diversity of perspectives is excellent for science because people have different ways of looking at problems, and that is always where I find the most fun and creative and interesting innovation comes from. So, don’t necessarily be worried about showing that you’ve done some work in an area that is a bit different from what you would think a standard academic would do. Your collective experiences make you who you are, and, you know, a CV helps us understand a bit more about your path. On my CV when I was younger, I put that I worked in an Ice Cream Factory and you know, it was It was a great experience for me, because I’m a chemical engineer and what we’re working with is basically like a plant that makes ice cream, and it was a lot of fun.

After this podcast is published, you’re going to get a lot of students who are going to say that their past experience has been working in an Ice Cream Factory.

Omar Khan: Well, I don’t know if they would like that experience, especially when the cooling system fails, and all the ice cream goes rancid. I don’t eat ice cream anymore. I’ll tell you that.

Well, Omar thanks for being here.

Omar Khan: Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate the invite and happy to be here.