Ok. Here's Part-1 of the grad school application thread where I talk about the first step of shortlisting universities and professors, and writing your first email to them. This is a mix of 'how to' and my own experiences. Can vary for different people. Good luck.

First and foremost. Do NOT associate acceptance with your self worth. There are several reasons why your application will be rejected, and not necessarily because it is bad.

Often, your application may not sit well with the overall focus of the dept you are applying to, or even over the methodological differences. Or maybe because you aren’t Bengali (sorry!).

I applied twice, once after my MA and then after my MPhil. First time, I was rejected from both the universities I applied to. Second time, I was accepted in one, waitlisted in one, and rejected in one.

How to shortlist Universities? No specific answers. Assuming that you have zeroed down onto your research topic, you might have come across senior academics whose work you like or admire. And you may want to apply to universities where they are tenured.

But how do you broaden that list? Don’t judge me for this. I started looking for universities back in 2016. This was the time a lot of international academic solidarity was coming in for JNU students.

I would gloss over the list and look up names of professors who had signed the statements. Checked their research profiles. Read their work. Noted down potential people I could write to.

Also, I used to curiously read acknowledgement notes on academic books. It’s a good place to understand academic networks and find people who you could write to.

You can then check out other people from the department. Which are the other faculty members whose work potentially can help in your research? Thematically, Regionwise, Linguistically, time period.

It is helpful if you can find more than one person that you could work with. Helps the professors also to push for your project during the selection.

Once you have a shortlist of names, start emailing the professors. The mail to professors should be brief and should include a short intro about you, your previous work, your intended project and why you want to work with the said prof.

Some will respond with a lot of interest and encourage you to apply, some won’t. Some will delay responding and some will have the same response no matter what you write.

Some will honestly tell you that they are either not looking for students this year or your research does not fit their/dept’s agenda. DO NOT GHOST THEM. Do respond and thank them for their time.

Be as formal as possible. Get the salutations, titles, gender right. Do not misspell the names. Put your email through grammarly once.

I had made an excel sheet with the names of universities and which profs I had written to and what was their overall response.Once you have that, it becomes easier to decide which universities you have a strong chance over others.

People will generally advise you to apply widely ie to as many unis as possible. There’s no harm in doing so if you can afford it. I applied to only 3 this year where I had a better chance. And it worked. Essentially, there’s no formula for this. Do whatever works best for you.

It is July now so if you haven’t started writing to profs, you perhaps should. Assuming that you’ve already zeroed in with your research idea and have an evolved idea of how the project will progress.

Most of the US universities have 1st Dec or 15th Dec as deadlines. So starting now gives you a 6 month window. Depending on how much time you set aside for it, it could appear more or less.

For someone who procrastinated as much as me, 5 months (I started in August) of just working on the application was enough.

Fin. If you have any specific query, feel free to DM or email.