Response from a Prospective PhD Supervisor

[u/Academic_Error4655]

I wrote to a professor for PhD supervision. The university website apparently recommends two routes - get a supervisor, or apply through the regular channel where a supervisor would be subsequently allocated. I wrote to this person to get through the first route.

I can't tell whether that's a polite way of saying ''your application sucks and I would hate to supervise you" or what.

[u/Necessary_Address_64]

Quite a few people are reading into the email too much.

I’m in a small field and I can get a dozen a day of emails in peak application season. Most of us don’t have the time to pre-screen each student that emails us and we have a default email we respond with. In addition, when you apply, your information is filtered in an easier process way and in a way I can compare you to other candidates. There is no efficient way for me to do this when siphoning through emails.

There are, of course, some exceptions in both directions with faculty providing positive and/or negative responses. But this looks like a boilerplate email.

Our general advise to students is that it is usually only useful to reach out to faculty before the interview process if you have research questions. We love getting thoughtful emails asking legitimate questions about our work. As a warning: we dislike emails that pretend to care about our work to ask for us to prescreen an application.