Tell High School Students to Stop Contacting Professors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s kinda obnoxious for HS kids to think they should get a job doing research.

The professor has a slew of graduate students at his fingertips to help with research. Why would someone think he would ask a kid in HS to help with research?Tell me why. Let me real here.

Go get a job at the mall and leave this professor alone.

+1

It’s insulting. No 17 year old can be helpful to them without a lot of work and handholding. Why does anyone feel entitled to their time?

These are probably the same people who moan about faculty kid acceptances. It’s right in line with the complete disrespect they have for the profession.

So professors shouldn't have an interest in growing their fields and developing talent? Yes, teaching others new skills is work. Professors of course do not have unlimited bandwidth. But it's just depressing that this many academia aren't motivated or creative enough to figure out ways to support younger students at all, and only want help to be a one-way street. BTW, my dad was a professor and dean for decades and made time for his students. But I've also observed plenty of prima donna academics over the years who barely interact with students at all. Seems to be getting worse.

Not with high school students, no. High school students’ interests change often and they should be exploring different subjects and fields, and there plenty of undergrads and grad students for a professor to steer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BECAUSE THERE ARE HIGH SCHOOLS WHO REQUIRE STUDENTS TO DO RESEARCH PROJECTS WITH A COLLEGE PROFESSOR.

My kid had to do that. He cold-contacted dozens of profs in different universities for a school-mandated mini research project. Only one responded, and he was really nice, and my kid was very grateful and tried to take up the least amount of his time as possible. He aced the project and thanked the professor.

You don't even need to respond to these emails, OP. All we're asking is that you stop whining about children who are required by their schools to do certain things. YOU LOOK NASTY.

This must be utter nonsense. I am a college professor. I am beholden to the students at my own institution. Why would I utilize my free time to teach a high school student? This is an asinine expectation from a high school, and so I call BS.

Not BS. The magnet program at Blair has this exact requirement, so my kid as well emailed a bunch of local profs to see if he could work on a project for the summer before his senior year.

If you don't want to help the high school kids, then just delete their emails! They are getting experience reaching out to people who work in fields they're interested in - there's literally no skin off your nose. My kid heard back from 2 of the 5 or so profs he wrote and they were very nice. He ended up doing some math research or something for the one guy, and now goes to that university, and is majoring in that department.

I think OP is kind of jerky. I'm also an academic and I call BS on the "I'm so busy I don't have time to delete emails" line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BECAUSE THERE ARE HIGH SCHOOLS WHO REQUIRE STUDENTS TO DO RESEARCH PROJECTS WITH A COLLEGE PROFESSOR.

My kid had to do that. He cold-contacted dozens of profs in different universities for a school-mandated mini research project. Only one responded, and he was really nice, and my kid was very grateful and tried to take up the least amount of his time as possible. He aced the project and thanked the professor.

You don't even need to respond to these emails, OP. All we're asking is that you stop whining about children who are required by their schools to do certain things. YOU LOOK NASTY.

This must be utter nonsense. I am a college professor. I am beholden to the students at my own institution. Why would I utilize my free time to teach a high school student? This is an asinine expectation from a high school, and so I call BS.

Not BS. The magnet program at Blair has this exact requirement, so my kid as well emailed a bunch of local profs to see if he could work on a project for the summer before his senior year.

If you don't want to help the high school kids, then just delete their emails! They are getting experience reaching out to people who work in fields they're interested in - there's literally no skin off your nose. My kid heard back from 2 of the 5 or so profs he wrote and they were very nice. He ended up doing some math research or something for the one guy, and now goes to that university, and is majoring in that department.

I think OP is kind of jerky. I'm also an academic and I call BS on the "I'm so busy I don't have time to delete emails" line.

I agree. I formerly was an adjunct professor and it is no big deal to say no, ignore/delete, respond, or engage. Since it clearly works sometimes, there is no reason for kids not to try this route if they want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am horrified by this and would never allow it as a parent. But you are a business professor: they want something from you.

On the other hand, sometimes professors in severely undersubscribed areas are really the ones who should be wanting something from the student. After all, some humanities departments are dying on the vine.

For that reason, I did allow/encourage DC to write two very brief emails: one to a professor in a niche humanities major at a top 10 SLAC, and one to a professor in the same field at a very large but prestigious oos state flagship.

To my great surprise, the large school professor answered; he was lovely and informative. The SLAC professor did not.

Guess where kid did not apply?

The SLAC professor was probably conserving her time for the students who contribute to her salary and for whose learning she is responsible.

The idea that faculty have a duty to respond to unsolicited junk mail is nuts. The idea that mentoring high school students would be cost effective for anyone who is doing PhD level humanities or social science research is also nuts. (I have no lab experience. Though I think the value added of a high school student to a lab would be negative, perhaps there are some low level repetitive-but-not-critical tasks that a young student could be made responsible for.)

One reason Lumiere and the other pay-to-play research experience services cost so much is that they have to pay (very junior PhD and postdoc level) people to mentor them.

No mentoring or research was asked for. Just questions about studying there to decide whether to apply ED. You can disagree on whether the SLAC professor was kind of a jerk, but it is a very bad look for SLACs trying to sell themselves on intimate interaction with students. And it is against the prof's self-interest when the department is only producing a few majors a year...and basically has almost no students "for whose learning she is responsible."

You have no idea how many junk emails a particular professor gets per week. If you're on DCUM you know that many many applicants apply for niche subjects with the plan to switch to econ freshman year.

SLACs have whole departments tasked with responding to queries from high school students. It's not the role of teaching faculty to do so.

You apparently don't know any professors in niche humanities majors at SLACs -- or seem to have much familiarity with SLACs at all.

You also have a very interesting take, namely, that a professor at a dying humanities department with 2-3 majors a year should not make an "email's worth of effort" to secure enrollment of a potential major the following year. If you are the "OP business prof," might I suggest you get to know your colleagues in marketing better?

As for the "role of teaching faculty" (a redundant phrase in discussing SLACs), it is, to be sure, not part of their job description. But that means, in the long run, they are in danger of not having jobs.

I was not the OP.

For SLACs, niche departments are service departments. Anthropology and comparative literature professors often teach, for the most part, non-majors who are fulfilling distribution requirements. Some may lament the lack of serious students committed to their discipline; others may think such students take more time and energy than the average.

A big rebound in, for example, the number of art history or German majors is highly unlikely, even if professors in those departments start responding to emails from random high school students.

That’s really the point: this thread is about contacting professors. I gave an example where a high school student contacting one, before committing to, say, ED is not only appropriate but wise (for an actual humanities kid who will not change majors). If a SLAC professor thinks “having such students take(s) more time and energy” than it’s worth, and does not deign to respond to an email, then that’s something the kid really needs to know — all the more so because it is a SLAC. If a professor is the opposite and is psyched to have any kid expressing real, demonstrated interest in an e-mail (unusual, as you are apparently unaware), that’s great information to have as well. I guess you disagree.

Your point that a humanities rebound is not likely is certainly a profound one. But if a professor can increase their majors by 50% every year or so (even from 2 to 3) by answering a few emails, it is highly advisable that they do so, lest they more rapidly lose yet another tenure track “line” in their department or, worse, have their department permanently “consolidated.”

The 16 yr old high schooler doesn’t have “real demonstrated interest” in some boring college research. They are simply trying to check what is perceived as a prestigious box for their college application so they can get into an “elite” school and feel worthy.

If you actually read these posts, the example you are referring to has nothing to do with research and mentoring. Rather, DC was probably applying ED (in only a few weeks) to a SLAC niche humanities department, and wrote a prof. to get a better sense of what it is like majoring in the department (majors yearly could be counted on one hand) before pulling the ED application trigger -- and got no response. Suffice to say, no application was submitted. I am so glad the letter was written before committing, because a similar email was warmly received by a prof at a huge research flagship. Of course an application was submitted there.

There you have it folks, a good reason for a high school kid to contact a professor -- contrary to the thread title.

A high school kid contacting a prof to ask for mentoring and research, on the other hand, is indeed a horrible thing. There is a difference.

That’s still not the role of a professor. What if everyone wrote professors asking about the major?

The kid got valuable information: go to a niche department where a prof is going to go beyond the call of duty (and there are many), or go to one (a SLAC no less; you detractors seem clueless about what profs have to do at SLACs) where one thinks, "This is not my role." Valuable information for the kid to have. Are you seriously arguing kid should not have obtained this valuable info? Er, OK.

So, your decision rule is: only go to a place where a professor answered a random, unsolicited email from a non-matriculated student? While it does say that one particular professor at that university seems dedicated, it does not predict -- at all -- the behavior of professors who reserve their time and energy for matriculated students, or the experience of those students as majors in the department.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am horrified by this and would never allow it as a parent. But you are a business professor: they want something from you.

On the other hand, sometimes professors in severely undersubscribed areas are really the ones who should be wanting something from the student. After all, some humanities departments are dying on the vine.

For that reason, I did allow/encourage DC to write two very brief emails: one to a professor in a niche humanities major at a top 10 SLAC, and one to a professor in the same field at a very large but prestigious oos state flagship.

To my great surprise, the large school professor answered; he was lovely and informative. The SLAC professor did not.

Guess where kid did not apply?

The SLAC professor was probably conserving her time for the students who contribute to her salary and for whose learning she is responsible.

The idea that faculty have a duty to respond to unsolicited junk mail is nuts. The idea that mentoring high school students would be cost effective for anyone who is doing PhD level humanities or social science research is also nuts. (I have no lab experience. Though I think the value added of a high school student to a lab would be negative, perhaps there are some low level repetitive-but-not-critical tasks that a young student could be made responsible for.)

One reason Lumiere and the other pay-to-play research experience services cost so much is that they have to pay (very junior PhD and postdoc level) people to mentor them.

No mentoring or research was asked for. Just questions about studying there to decide whether to apply ED. You can disagree on whether the SLAC professor was kind of a jerk, but it is a very bad look for SLACs trying to sell themselves on intimate interaction with students. And it is against the prof's self-interest when the department is only producing a few majors a year...and basically has almost no students "for whose learning she is responsible."

You have no idea how many junk emails a particular professor gets per week. If you're on DCUM you know that many many applicants apply for niche subjects with the plan to switch to econ freshman year.

SLACs have whole departments tasked with responding to queries from high school students. It's not the role of teaching faculty to do so.

You apparently don't know any professors in niche humanities majors at SLACs -- or seem to have much familiarity with SLACs at all.

You also have a very interesting take, namely, that a professor at a dying humanities department with 2-3 majors a year should not make an "email's worth of effort" to secure enrollment of a potential major the following year. If you are the "OP business prof," might I suggest you get to know your colleagues in marketing better?

As for the "role of teaching faculty" (a redundant phrase in discussing SLACs), it is, to be sure, not part of their job description. But that means, in the long run, they are in danger of not having jobs.

I was not the OP.

For SLACs, niche departments are service departments. Anthropology and comparative literature professors often teach, for the most part, non-majors who are fulfilling distribution requirements. Some may lament the lack of serious students committed to their discipline; others may think such students take more time and energy than the average.

A big rebound in, for example, the number of art history or German majors is highly unlikely, even if professors in those departments start responding to emails from random high school students.

That’s really the point: this thread is about contacting professors. I gave an example where a high school student contacting one, before committing to, say, ED is not only appropriate but wise (for an actual humanities kid who will not change majors). If a SLAC professor thinks “having such students take(s) more time and energy” than it’s worth, and does not deign to respond to an email, then that’s something the kid really needs to know — all the more so because it is a SLAC. If a professor is the opposite and is psyched to have any kid expressing real, demonstrated interest in an e-mail (unusual, as you are apparently unaware), that’s great information to have as well. I guess you disagree.

Your point that a humanities rebound is not likely is certainly a profound one. But if a professor can increase their majors by 50% every year or so (even from 2 to 3) by answering a few emails, it is highly advisable that they do so, lest they more rapidly lose yet another tenure track “line” in their department or, worse, have their department permanently “consolidated.”

The 16 yr old high schooler doesn’t have “real demonstrated interest” in some boring college research. They are simply trying to check what is perceived as a prestigious box for their college application so they can get into an “elite” school and feel worthy.

If you actually read these posts, the example you are referring to has nothing to do with research and mentoring. Rather, DC was probably applying ED (in only a few weeks) to a SLAC niche humanities department, and wrote a prof. to get a better sense of what it is like majoring in the department (majors yearly could be counted on one hand) before pulling the ED application trigger -- and got no response. Suffice to say, no application was submitted. I am so glad the letter was written before committing, because a similar email was warmly received by a prof at a huge research flagship. Of course an application was submitted there.

There you have it folks, a good reason for a high school kid to contact a professor -- contrary to the thread title.

A high school kid contacting a prof to ask for mentoring and research, on the other hand, is indeed a horrible thing. There is a difference.

That’s still not the role of a professor. What if everyone wrote professors asking about the major?

The kid got valuable information: go to a niche department where a prof is going to go beyond the call of duty (and there are many), or go to one (a SLAC no less; you detractors seem clueless about what profs have to do at SLACs) where one thinks, "This is not my role." Valuable information for the kid to have. Are you seriously arguing kid should not have obtained this valuable info? Er, OK.

Whoosh.

[Anonymous]

Professor, tell your AO to get rid of TO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am horrified by this and would never allow it as a parent. But you are a business professor: they want something from you.

On the other hand, sometimes professors in severely undersubscribed areas are really the ones who should be wanting something from the student. After all, some humanities departments are dying on the vine.

For that reason, I did allow/encourage DC to write two very brief emails: one to a professor in a niche humanities major at a top 10 SLAC, and one to a professor in the same field at a very large but prestigious oos state flagship.

To my great surprise, the large school professor answered; he was lovely and informative. The SLAC professor did not.

Guess where kid did not apply?

The SLAC professor was probably conserving her time for the students who contribute to her salary and for whose learning she is responsible.

The idea that faculty have a duty to respond to unsolicited junk mail is nuts. The idea that mentoring high school students would be cost effective for anyone who is doing PhD level humanities or social science research is also nuts. (I have no lab experience. Though I think the value added of a high school student to a lab would be negative, perhaps there are some low level repetitive-but-not-critical tasks that a young student could be made responsible for.)

One reason Lumiere and the other pay-to-play research experience services cost so much is that they have to pay (very junior PhD and postdoc level) people to mentor them.

No mentoring or research was asked for. Just questions about studying there to decide whether to apply ED. You can disagree on whether the SLAC professor was kind of a jerk, but it is a very bad look for SLACs trying to sell themselves on intimate interaction with students. And it is against the prof's self-interest when the department is only producing a few majors a year...and basically has almost no students "for whose learning she is responsible."

You have no idea how many junk emails a particular professor gets per week. If you're on DCUM you know that many many applicants apply for niche subjects with the plan to switch to econ freshman year.

SLACs have whole departments tasked with responding to queries from high school students. It's not the role of teaching faculty to do so.

You apparently don't know any professors in niche humanities majors at SLACs -- or seem to have much familiarity with SLACs at all.

You also have a very interesting take, namely, that a professor at a dying humanities department with 2-3 majors a year should not make an "email's worth of effort" to secure enrollment of a potential major the following year. If you are the "OP business prof," might I suggest you get to know your colleagues in marketing better?

As for the "role of teaching faculty" (a redundant phrase in discussing SLACs), it is, to be sure, not part of their job description. But that means, in the long run, they are in danger of not having jobs.

I was not the OP.

For SLACs, niche departments are service departments. Anthropology and comparative literature professors often teach, for the most part, non-majors who are fulfilling distribution requirements. Some may lament the lack of serious students committed to their discipline; others may think such students take more time and energy than the average.

A big rebound in, for example, the number of art history or German majors is highly unlikely, even if professors in those departments start responding to emails from random high school students.

That’s really the point: this thread is about contacting professors. I gave an example where a high school student contacting one, before committing to, say, ED is not only appropriate but wise (for an actual humanities kid who will not change majors). If a SLAC professor thinks “having such students take(s) more time and energy” than it’s worth, and does not deign to respond to an email, then that’s something the kid really needs to know — all the more so because it is a SLAC. If a professor is the opposite and is psyched to have any kid expressing real, demonstrated interest in an e-mail (unusual, as you are apparently unaware), that’s great information to have as well. I guess you disagree.

Your point that a humanities rebound is not likely is certainly a profound one. But if a professor can increase their majors by 50% every year or so (even from 2 to 3) by answering a few emails, it is highly advisable that they do so, lest they more rapidly lose yet another tenure track “line” in their department or, worse, have their department permanently “consolidated.”

The 16 yr old high schooler doesn’t have “real demonstrated interest” in some boring college research. They are simply trying to check what is perceived as a prestigious box for their college application so they can get into an “elite” school and feel worthy.

If you actually read these posts, the example you are referring to has nothing to do with research and mentoring. Rather, DC was probably applying ED (in only a few weeks) to a SLAC niche humanities department, and wrote a prof. to get a better sense of what it is like majoring in the department (majors yearly could be counted on one hand) before pulling the ED application trigger -- and got no response. Suffice to say, no application was submitted. I am so glad the letter was written before committing, because a similar email was warmly received by a prof at a huge research flagship. Of course an application was submitted there.

There you have it folks, a good reason for a high school kid to contact a professor -- contrary to the thread title.

A high school kid contacting a prof to ask for mentoring and research, on the other hand, is indeed a horrible thing. There is a difference.

That’s still not the role of a professor. What if everyone wrote professors asking about the major?

The kid got valuable information: go to a niche department where a prof is going to go beyond the call of duty (and there are many), or go to one (a SLAC no less; you detractors seem clueless about what profs have to do at SLACs) where one thinks, "This is not my role." Valuable information for the kid to have. Are you seriously arguing kid should not have obtained this valuable info? Er, OK.

So, your decision rule is: only go to a place where a professor answered a random, unsolicited email from a non-matriculated student? While it does say that one particular professor at that university seems dedicated, it does not predict -- at all -- the behavior of professors who reserve their time and energy for matriculated students, or the experience of those students as majors in the department.

Don’t see how you derive a “decision rule” from an anecdote, although your thinking does evince a tendency to dismiss subtleties and get to simplified strawmen so you can deem yourself “right.”

Your assumption that there is no expected correlation whatsoever between one professor’s unresponsiveness and the likely experience of the few majors in the department is almost certainly incorrect on at least two grounds: they may be one of only two or three tenure track profs, i.e. the prof cannot be avoided, and 2) it is basic psychology that this type of person, ceteris paribus, is less likely to go the extra mile than a professor who has already demonstrated a willingness to go the extra mile for a mere prospective applicant. If you really would like to give “equal odds” on that, as you have explicitly stated, I could only wish to bet against you on all sorts of things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am horrified by this and would never allow it as a parent. But you are a business professor: they want something from you.

On the other hand, sometimes professors in severely undersubscribed areas are really the ones who should be wanting something from the student. After all, some humanities departments are dying on the vine.

For that reason, I did allow/encourage DC to write two very brief emails: one to a professor in a niche humanities major at a top 10 SLAC, and one to a professor in the same field at a very large but prestigious oos state flagship.

To my great surprise, the large school professor answered; he was lovely and informative. The SLAC professor did not.

Guess where kid did not apply?

The SLAC professor was probably conserving her time for the students who contribute to her salary and for whose learning she is responsible.

The idea that faculty have a duty to respond to unsolicited junk mail is nuts. The idea that mentoring high school students would be cost effective for anyone who is doing PhD level humanities or social science research is also nuts. (I have no lab experience. Though I think the value added of a high school student to a lab would be negative, perhaps there are some low level repetitive-but-not-critical tasks that a young student could be made responsible for.)

One reason Lumiere and the other pay-to-play research experience services cost so much is that they have to pay (very junior PhD and postdoc level) people to mentor them.

No mentoring or research was asked for. Just questions about studying there to decide whether to apply ED. You can disagree on whether the SLAC professor was kind of a jerk, but it is a very bad look for SLACs trying to sell themselves on intimate interaction with students. And it is against the prof's self-interest when the department is only producing a few majors a year...and basically has almost no students "for whose learning she is responsible."

You have no idea how many junk emails a particular professor gets per week. If you're on DCUM you know that many many applicants apply for niche subjects with the plan to switch to econ freshman year.

SLACs have whole departments tasked with responding to queries from high school students. It's not the role of teaching faculty to do so.

You apparently don't know any professors in niche humanities majors at SLACs -- or seem to have much familiarity with SLACs at all.

You also have a very interesting take, namely, that a professor at a dying humanities department with 2-3 majors a year should not make an "email's worth of effort" to secure enrollment of a potential major the following year. If you are the "OP business prof," might I suggest you get to know your colleagues in marketing better?

As for the "role of teaching faculty" (a redundant phrase in discussing SLACs), it is, to be sure, not part of their job description. But that means, in the long run, they are in danger of not having jobs.

I was not the OP.

For SLACs, niche departments are service departments. Anthropology and comparative literature professors often teach, for the most part, non-majors who are fulfilling distribution requirements. Some may lament the lack of serious students committed to their discipline; others may think such students take more time and energy than the average.

A big rebound in, for example, the number of art history or German majors is highly unlikely, even if professors in those departments start responding to emails from random high school students.

That’s really the point: this thread is about contacting professors. I gave an example where a high school student contacting one, before committing to, say, ED is not only appropriate but wise (for an actual humanities kid who will not change majors). If a SLAC professor thinks “having such students take(s) more time and energy” than it’s worth, and does not deign to respond to an email, then that’s something the kid really needs to know — all the more so because it is a SLAC. If a professor is the opposite and is psyched to have any kid expressing real, demonstrated interest in an e-mail (unusual, as you are apparently unaware), that’s great information to have as well. I guess you disagree.

Your point that a humanities rebound is not likely is certainly a profound one. But if a professor can increase their majors by 50% every year or so (even from 2 to 3) by answering a few emails, it is highly advisable that they do so, lest they more rapidly lose yet another tenure track “line” in their department or, worse, have their department permanently “consolidated.”

The 16 yr old high schooler doesn’t have “real demonstrated interest” in some boring college research. They are simply trying to check what is perceived as a prestigious box for their college application so they can get into an “elite” school and feel worthy.

If you actually read these posts, the example you are referring to has nothing to do with research and mentoring. Rather, DC was probably applying ED (in only a few weeks) to a SLAC niche humanities department, and wrote a prof. to get a better sense of what it is like majoring in the department (majors yearly could be counted on one hand) before pulling the ED application trigger -- and got no response. Suffice to say, no application was submitted. I am so glad the letter was written before committing, because a similar email was warmly received by a prof at a huge research flagship. Of course an application was submitted there.

There you have it folks, a good reason for a high school kid to contact a professor -- contrary to the thread title.

A high school kid contacting a prof to ask for mentoring and research, on the other hand, is indeed a horrible thing. There is a difference.

That’s still not the role of a professor. What if everyone wrote professors asking about the major?

The kid got valuable information: go to a niche department where a prof is going to go beyond the call of duty (and there are many), or go to one (a SLAC no less; you detractors seem clueless about what profs have to do at SLACs) where one thinks, "This is not my role." Valuable information for the kid to have. Are you seriously arguing kid should not have obtained this valuable info? Er, OK.

So, your decision rule is: only go to a place where a professor answered a random, unsolicited email from a non-matriculated student? While it does say that one particular professor at that university seems dedicated, it does not predict -- at all -- the behavior of professors who reserve their time and energy for matriculated students, or the experience of those students as majors in the department.

Don’t see how you derive a “decision rule” from an anecdote, although your thinking does evince a tendency to dismiss subtleties and get to simplified strawmen so you can deem yourself “right.”

Your assumption that there is no expected correlation whatsoever between one professor’s unresponsiveness and the likely experience of the few majors in the department is almost certainly incorrect on at least two grounds: they may be one of only two or three tenure track profs, i.e. the prof cannot be avoided, and 2) it is basic psychology that this type of person, ceteris paribus, is less likely to go the extra mile than a professor who has already demonstrated a willingness to go the extra mile for a mere prospective applicant. If you really would like to give “equal odds” on that, as you have explicitly stated, I could only wish to bet against you on all sorts of things.

But maybe the unwillingness to go the extra mile for a random prospective student is due to that professor’s earnest commitment to their actual, in-person students.

Life is filled with tugs on our attention, distractions from our most important work. I’m not sure responding to every high school students’ question — especially outside the usual processes that exist for such questions — is their most important work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As business professor, I get tons of annoying emails from students wanting "research internships" or "mentorship". Some are graduate students, some are undergrads, and some are in high school. Some are in my county, some are in my state. Some are in India or Bangladesh.

"Dear Professor X, I am a junior at XYZ high school and am greatly impressed by your paper "" [published before this kid was born]. I would like to study under you."

One elementary school girl from across the country asked for a free sweatshirt. Obviously her teacher told her to do this. One private high school student bragged that he founded and ran a charitable investment fund. The assets under management were less than one year of tuition. Some college counselors must be telling them to get lines on their resumes. One stranger sent his resume and asked for a letter of recommendation.

This is all an annoying waste of time. I mostly teach graduate students, never lower-level undergrads. High schools don't even offer courses in my subject. Who is telling students to do this?

NP here.

Your culprit is CCIR - Cambridge Centre for International Research. I am sitting on a webinar targetted at HS teacher sponsors of a STEM club and part of the programming is from CCIR. They are specifically advising high school students to cold email professors looking for summer research assistant positions in order to make themselves stand out in college applications. SMH

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As business professor, I get tons of annoying emails from students wanting "research internships" or "mentorship". Some are graduate students, some are undergrads, and some are in high school. Some are in my county, some are in my state. Some are in India or Bangladesh.

"Dear Professor X, I am a junior at XYZ high school and am greatly impressed by your paper "" [published before this kid was born]. I would like to study under you."

One elementary school girl from across the country asked for a free sweatshirt. Obviously her teacher told her to do this. One private high school student bragged that he founded and ran a charitable investment fund. The assets under management were less than one year of tuition. Some college counselors must be telling them to get lines on their resumes. One stranger sent his resume and asked for a letter of recommendation.

This is all an annoying waste of time. I mostly teach graduate students, never lower-level undergrads. High schools don't even offer courses in my subject. Who is telling students to do this?

NP here.

Your culprit is CCIR - Cambridge Centre for International Research. I am sitting on a webinar targetted at HS teacher sponsors of a STEM club and part of the programming is from CCIR. They are specifically advising high school students to cold email professors looking for summer research assistant positions in order to make themselves stand out in college applications. SMH

PLEASE put a comment in the chat that the cold-email route is likely to lead to nothing but disappointed / frustrated students (not to mention annoyed professors). The strategy is rarely, if ever, successful and it's not kind to unhooked kids to push it!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I am horrified by this and would never allow it as a parent. But you are a business professor: they want something from you.

On the other hand, sometimes professors in severely undersubscribed areas are really the ones who should be wanting something from the student. After all, some humanities departments are dying on the vine.

For that reason, I did allow/encourage DC to write two very brief emails: one to a professor in a niche humanities major at a top 10 SLAC, and one to a professor in the same field at a very large but prestigious oos state flagship.

To my great surprise, the large school professor answered; he was lovely and informative. The SLAC professor did not.

Guess where kid did not apply?

The SLAC professor was probably conserving her time for the students who contribute to her salary and for whose learning she is responsible.

The idea that faculty have a duty to respond to unsolicited junk mail is nuts. The idea that mentoring high school students would be cost effective for anyone who is doing PhD level humanities or social science research is also nuts. (I have no lab experience. Though I think the value added of a high school student to a lab would be negative, perhaps there are some low level repetitive-but-not-critical tasks that a young student could be made responsible for.)

One reason Lumiere and the other pay-to-play research experience services cost so much is that they have to pay (very junior PhD and postdoc level) people to mentor them.

No mentoring or research was asked for. Just questions about studying there to decide whether to apply ED. You can disagree on whether the SLAC professor was kind of a jerk, but it is a very bad look for SLACs trying to sell themselves on intimate interaction with students. And it is against the prof's self-interest when the department is only producing a few majors a year...and basically has almost no students "for whose learning she is responsible."

You have no idea how many junk emails a particular professor gets per week. If you're on DCUM you know that many many applicants apply for niche subjects with the plan to switch to econ freshman year.

SLACs have whole departments tasked with responding to queries from high school students. It's not the role of teaching faculty to do so.

You apparently don't know any professors in niche humanities majors at SLACs -- or seem to have much familiarity with SLACs at all.

You also have a very interesting take, namely, that a professor at a dying humanities department with 2-3 majors a year should not make an "email's worth of effort" to secure enrollment of a potential major the following year. If you are the "OP business prof," might I suggest you get to know your colleagues in marketing better?

As for the "role of teaching faculty" (a redundant phrase in discussing SLACs), it is, to be sure, not part of their job description. But that means, in the long run, they are in danger of not having jobs.

I was not the OP.

For SLACs, niche departments are service departments. Anthropology and comparative literature professors often teach, for the most part, non-majors who are fulfilling distribution requirements. Some may lament the lack of serious students committed to their discipline; others may think such students take more time and energy than the average.

A big rebound in, for example, the number of art history or German majors is highly unlikely, even if professors in those departments start responding to emails from random high school students.

That’s really the point: this thread is about contacting professors. I gave an example where a high school student contacting one, before committing to, say, ED is not only appropriate but wise (for an actual humanities kid who will not change majors). If a SLAC professor thinks “having such students take(s) more time and energy” than it’s worth, and does not deign to respond to an email, then that’s something the kid really needs to know — all the more so because it is a SLAC. If a professor is the opposite and is psyched to have any kid expressing real, demonstrated interest in an e-mail (unusual, as you are apparently unaware), that’s great information to have as well. I guess you disagree.

Your point that a humanities rebound is not likely is certainly a profound one. But if a professor can increase their majors by 50% every year or so (even from 2 to 3) by answering a few emails, it is highly advisable that they do so, lest they more rapidly lose yet another tenure track “line” in their department or, worse, have their department permanently “consolidated.”

But it’s not teal interest; it’s demonstrated interest for the purposes of playing the admissions game.

Exactly. Lots of schemers in the admissions game. You say your kid is authentic but how would that be apparent in an email? Why is it the professor's job to judge student's sincerity?

As PP mentioned, if a HS student is genuinely interested in a specific area of research/study, why not spend time reading the relevant literature and familiarizing him/herself with important current work in their filed. Why not read a few journals with a high impact factor? Emailing scholars seems more about making "connections" than learning.

Saying you understand the literature is unimpressive to admissions. So is an unmentored literature review

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think it’s kinda obnoxious for HS kids to think they should get a job doing research.

The professor has a slew of graduate students at his fingertips to help with research. Why would someone think he would ask a kid in HS to help with research?Tell me why. Let me real here.

Go get a job at the mall and leave this professor alone.

And I think you haven’t bothered to read the thread. The kids are being told they need to do research. They would probably be happier spending one their last free summers lifeguarding than do research.

Blame the HSs, the AOs, the consultants and the parents.

Don't blame the AO's. I speak to AO's all of the time (athletic recruiting). I have never been asked about a kids research even at the very top schools. They ask about a lot of stuff but research never comes up.

Athletic recruits are hooked. A 4.0, good test scores, and "standard strong" ECs are more than enough. Just because athletes do not benefit much from research does not mean no one does.

Also, have your talked to Caltech or MIT AOs?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think it’s kinda obnoxious for HS kids to think they should get a job doing research.

The professor has a slew of graduate students at his fingertips to help with research. Why would someone think he would ask a kid in HS to help with research?Tell me why. Let me real here.

Go get a job at the mall and leave this professor alone.

And I think you haven’t bothered to read the thread. The kids are being told they need to do research. They would probably be happier spending one their last free summers lifeguarding than do research.

Blame the HSs, the AOs, the consultants and the parents.

Don't blame the AO's. I speak to AO's all of the time (athletic recruiting). I have never been asked about a kids research even at the very top schools. They ask about a lot of stuff but research never comes up.

Athletic recruits are hooked. A 4.0, good test scores, and "standard strong" ECs are more than enough. Just because athletes do not benefit much from research does not mean no one does.

Also, have your talked to Caltech or MIT AOs?

Have to agree. Recruits are in a different bucket altogether. No need to ask about research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s kinda obnoxious for HS kids to think they should get a job doing research.

The professor has a slew of graduate students at his fingertips to help with research. Why would someone think he would ask a kid in HS to help with research?Tell me why. Let me real here.

Go get a job at the mall and leave this professor alone.

And I think you haven’t bothered to read the thread. The kids are being told they need to do research. They would probably be happier spending one their last free summers lifeguarding than do research.

Blame the HSs, the AOs, the consultants and the parents.

Don't blame the AO's. I speak to AO's all of the time (athletic recruiting). I have never been asked about a kids research even at the very top schools. They ask about a lot of stuff but research never comes up.

Athletic recruits are hooked. A 4.0, good test scores, and "standard strong" ECs are more than enough. Just because athletes do not benefit much from research does not mean no one does.

Also, have your talked to Caltech or MIT AOs?

I do blame the AOs. This is in their control. All their false concern for kids’ mental/emotional well-being is just cr@p.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It might help to consider how the professor can justify time- and resource-expenditure on a high-schooler in response to institutional incentives.

My kid did a free summer STEM program at our local research university that gave him legitimate access (no cold-calling!) to a few of the profs there because those profs had agreed to sponsor a certain number of HS kids in their labs for the summer. It was a thing they did and got credit for doing internally: they put those kids' names on their CVs and the kids' photos on the lab's website and later bragged about the kids' college admission successes. At the end of the summer, my kid had a good enough working relation with one of the grad students in the lab where he'd worked over the summer that it was natural to extend the arrangement through the school year.

But here's the key: these profs were given an institutional incentive to welcome those high-schoolers (rising seniors) into their labs.

With no such institutional incentive, it's just cruel to expect high-schoolers to cold-call professors seeking research experience. That's like expecting undergrads to recruit a future dissertation committee by asking random profs to do them a personal favor. The institutional incentives to work with grad students and undergrads can be extended to high-schoolers, but it takes some advance work that high schools and universities ought to be doing together.

So who has the power here, if not the professors? Dean's? Chancellors?