Professor Mentor Outreach
While a high GPA, rigorous course load, and solid SAT or ACT scores are essential for an applicant to be considered by top colleges, the next thing admissions officers look for in a student’s profile is how you have chosen to spend your free time. Summer vacation is a two- to three-month patch of free time, and colleges will absolutely check to see if students made the most of that time.
While you should definitely consider applying to summer internships, many of these high school positions can be extremely competitive.* If you don’t manage to be admitted into one of the internships you applied for, you’ll want to have a backup plan; this is where professor mentor outreach can be useful.
We should start by noting that securing mentorship with a professor by cold-emailing them is not necessarily easy—professors are busy people, and they are not always available throughout the summer or open to mentoring high school students. Because of this, you want to start thinking about this process early.
Step 1:
Identify 2-3 schools that are nearby. If you have family living in another state who you could potentially spend the summer with, consider searching for schools near them as well. You should confirm with your family that you could stay there for a minimum of six weeks, as most internships are roughly that length.
Once you know which schools you are interested in, begin looking through the faculty listed under your area of interest, or the major you plan to attend college with. You can also go through the research centers of the university to get a sense of the work currently being done by various faculty members at the university.
The process of identifying a viable professor is long, and if it isn’t, you might be rushing it. You want to check for two essentials:
Is a recent publication of theirs, or at least an abstract of it, available for you to read online?
Are the research topics the professor is interested in also interesting to you?
You can identify if the professor is currently conducting research (or is open to it) by looking through their most recent publications. Usually, they will have their Google Scholar or even their CV linked on their faculty page. If they don’t, you can try to look up their name on Google Scholar, but be careful to check that the work you find on there aligns with the research they mention on their faculty page—especially if they have a very common name!
If you cannot understand their research at all or don’t think you would gain anything from working with them, keep searching. Remember, you may be dedicating up to 40 hours a week to their lab—you should find something you are passionate about!
Step 2:
Once you find at least three professors, you should start drafting your email.
Here is a general outline for the email:
After appropriately addressing the professors (if they have their Ph.D., you should always address them as Dr. Last Name), open with a compliment. Explain that you found something they have published or something interesting they worked on to add context to your email.
Next, provide an elevator-pitch-style introduction to yourself. Explain what grade you are in, where you go to school, and your relevant interests or experiences.
Pivot to your request, and explain why you are emailing them. Tell them if you would be available for both remote and in-person work, and describe the skills you can contribute if anything is not identified above.
Mention that you are attaching your resume [and do it!], then thank them for their time and sign off with your full name.
Avoid sending too many emails at once to the same department. You can send one, wait a week for a response, and then send another. This is why it is useful to start this process early. You can also send multiple out at once if you’re sending them to several professors from different universities.
Final Notes
We mentioned early in this post that this should be a backup plan for your summer internship applications, but in many cases, there’s no reason this can’t be Plan A. If you’re genuinely interested in your field, the work these professors are doing should excite you. If a professor’s current research matches up perfectly with your future goals, you should absolutely reach out and make your interest known.
