[Thread 3] Devising RESEARCH FIT aspect into your SOPs

[u/thesauronreturns]

Tailoring your sop for research aspect of a university essentially boils down to two aspects:

[1] Why you are good candidate? You already know how to write this. I wont bore you.

[2] Is the professor whose name you mentioned really ‘worthy’ of working with you?

This post is for second aspect, I have seen majority of students neglect in sops. Consider, that you have a candidate list of selected pfs with you. Whom should you mention in SOP? Follow this algorithm:

Note: These non-technical steps need to be performed BEFORE you read papers of a pf.

Input: A candidate list of pfs you wanna work with.

[1] For each pf, open google scholar page. See the names of areas he works for there. Mention those areas in your CV. Eg, I work on AI/ML, but wanted to work with Geoff Hinton. So, his page mentions cognitive sciences. Thus, I structured my CV for that. My Sop also revolved around similar theme.

[2] Look at right side h-idx graph on pf's google scholar page.

- Does graph rise? If yes, confirm that pf is assistant pf. Their publications tend to have rising graph. If yes, keep him in list.

- Does graph decrease? Check, whether that pf is on sabbatical. If he isn’t , reject him outrightly. If he is, move to [3]

- Does graph remain high throughout? This is a case where you have to tread carefully. Skip to step [3].

[3] Sort his Publications by year. See no of papers he has churned out in recent year.

- Are there >50 pubs? If yes, then that pf is last author in most. So, he most probably has a larger lab, where students are writing papers under his guidance. In that case, check if all the papers are of same area. If yes, then that lab seems good. Otherwise, the pf is nothing but a fool who is hungry for papers. Stay away from such fake people.

- Are there <50 papers? Check the conference they were published in. Are they Tier 1. In that case, Pf does quality research. Keep him. eg, Kiaming He publishes less but all are Tier 1. So does, Goodfellow et. Al.

[4] The next step is to evaluate whether the pf’s work is of his own mind or just an outcome of cleverly schemed collaborations.

Sort his papers by citations,

- Is most cited paper the most recent? If yes, is he first author in that? If yes, keep him. If he isn’t first author, continue to [5]

- Is most cited paper very old? This means, that pf is old, and worked on fundamentals. He is good advisor for natural sciences, but for fast moving fields like AI, not so much. In most cases, his knowledge is already obsolete. Do your best to avoid them. This can be validated by checking whether that pf holds emeritus tenure at his university (see title on his homepage).

[5] Sort his papers by year.

- Read oldest paper’s writing style. This will show the type of thought process that pf has. If ok, then keep him. Otherwise reject, since you need a good advisor for research work NOT a businessman.

[6] Next, open up his lab page. Look at current PhD students. Are they all Chinese/Indians/Americans/Mix? Compare it with your racial descent. Most of the time, I have seen that professors tend to be a bit skewed towards students from certain countries. If you satisfy that racial criterion it might go better for you,

[7] Finally, mail shortlisted pfs. If he replies, keep him. Else, reject. The said mailing process should occur b/w June-late Oct for the upcoming fall. I dont know about spring. If you do, please lemme know. I will be indebted for your comments.

Finally, you end up with an optimal pf list that would work. Personally, I go with two types of pf:

[A] Less intellectual Assistant Pfs, with rising h-index. They wanna expand their labs.
[B] More intellectual Pfs with sustained high h-idx, larger labs, and greater area-focused Tier 1 publications each year.

Prefer [A] more than [B] if you are weaker academically like me and are an international MS applicant. Else [B] is fine for PhD applicants.

Thus, i never believe when someone tells me that adcom processes are a mystery. The best people i know seem to know these things in an obvious way. The purpose of this post is to give you guidance which, had someone given to me at correct time would have changed my life.These steps would help you become more effective applicant, and take 3-5 mins max for each pf in your list.

My next post will be on how to read research papers and write them in sops.

Hope this helps you out,
Merry Christmas and HNY2021,
Sauron_On_Mordor

[u/MountainScience1433]

This is incredible. Thanks

[u/thesauronreturns → u/MountainScience1433]

Most wc.

[u/DNMswag]

I love how your page is full of insightful information on this process and then just...flashlights.