How ‘will you be my supervisor’ emails control entry to PhD study

With unsolicited “will you be my supervisor” emails pinging into academic inboxes at all hours, it is no surprise that scholars aren’t scrambling to reply promptly – particularly when the requests are generic or poorly written.

But this hesitancy might be contributing to huge equity gaps in PhD participation, says a new study into the informal early communications between would-be supervisors and applicants, which discovered huge inconsistencies in how academics deal with doctoral supervision enquiries – with some applicants having to wait weeks before they receive a rejection note.

That tardiness might amount to “exclusionary decisions” against those from ethnic minority backgrounds who may not be as well versed in the PhD application process, suggests the new study, published in the journal Research Papers in Education, which tracked how 19 academics handled such email requests over a six-week period.

In many cases, academics were reluctant to respond at all to email requests, knowing the significant investment of time required to engage with students, the study’s lead author, Emily Henderson, reader in education at the University of Warwick, told Times Higher Education.

“Academics were often so oversubscribed [with other commitments] that they were looking for any reason not to work with a student…and that may mean not replying at all,” said Dr Henderson.

Campus resource collection: Being Black in the academy

Academics were particularly suspicious about emails that did not seem tailored towards them, though it was often difficult for applicants to work out the right person to contact, she continued.

“Applicants will often send many emails to a lot of academics – some will think ‘that’s not targeted at me’ and won’t respond,” continued Dr Henderson, whose study recommends that departmental websites regularly update listings on scholars’ research specialisms and whether they are open to approaches from would-be PhD students.

Universities should also provide a pre-application form for applicants to avoid the ad hoc admission process currently operated at many institutions, the study adds.

“We cannot instrumentalise the whole process, but there are more things that could be offered, like templates for what email approaches should look like,” said Dr Henderson.

Without more signposting of the “hidden” rules of PhD applications, outstanding students with first-class degrees and top postgraduate qualifications were likely to be rebuffed if they didn’t pitch their initial emails correctly, said Dr Henderson.

“Studying at a university is no guarantee that you will understand what a PhD is and how to approach a supervisor,” she said, adding that international students were particularly disadvantaged in this respect.

While many UK universities are now launching their own studentships exclusively for ethnic minority students to address chronic under-representation, monitoring this earlier stage of communication on research projects was also crucial, said co-author James Burford, associate professor of global education and international development at Warwick. “We need to know who is being filtered out and whether these informal gatekeeping practices are exacerbating these inequalities,” he said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com