"Uncompetitive Candidate for a PhD"

avalon68

avalon68 wrote: »

Honestly, they are. But the vast majority of emails are from India and china, poorly written and generic.

This is the shotgun approach, where they send "generic" letters and applications to 20 or more universities. Not recommended.

avalon68 wrote: »

Write a good letter, and follow up... top notch marks are essential, research experience almost essential for the sciences,and lots of extracurricular stuff is usually a must as well. Of course standards vary between universities but generally I would advise to apply to multiple programmes with staff you would like to work with if you plan on going the US route.

The best bet is to have a professor (or research director, project manager, etc.) in your field call research colleagues or their past students that now hold faculty positions in university programmes of interest. This goes beyond the letter of recommendation, and represents a personal/professional contact on your behalf. This kind of networking worked for me.

If you don't have such academic contacts, I would recommend that you identify the names of faculty in the programmes that interest you at perhaps 5 universities, then research their peer-reviewed publications, books, book chapters, and scholarly presentation proceedings going back about 5 to 10 years. Suggestions for future research may occur in these publications. If so, then contact those faculty authors asking questions and indicating your interest to work with them by advancing their research agenda accordingly.