When picking a graduate school, many students spend hours scrutinizing the location, the size, and the prestige of the school they’re interested in attending. When picking a supervisor however, many students do not invest the same amount of time and effort into their choice and often end up working in lab environments they dislike.
“[Graduate school] is really supervisor-dependent,” Simon Sehayek, a physics PhD student from the Wiseman Lab at McGill, explained. “It’s about finding [a professor] who is right for you. Different people have different styles. You have to make sure your personalities are compatible.”
When searching for graduate school supervisors, one of the main things a student needs to consider is compatibility with a professor’s managing style. Students must also reflect on what they want and need from their supervisor.
“There has to be a very deep introspective analysis of yourself—your own personality—before you make a decision,” Professor Richard Roy from the Department of Biology said. “And it’s much more based on you [….] It’s ‘What do I want,’ and ‘How would I feel in an environment,’ and ‘What makes me feel good about going to work every day?’”
It is important to take some time and really consider what is wanted out of grad school, then, after all this deep thinking, comes the time to begin searching.
Step one: Try to narrow down the vast number of possible options
“I knew I wanted to do biophysics [but] there aren’t many biophysicists currently at McGill, so I had a choice between four profs,” Sehayek said.
Be it a city, a university, a specific subject, or a biological model organism, choose something to help lessen the overwhelming options. Once the list is shorter and more manageable, begin to check out websites, journal articles or anything to get a feel for the nature of the research and whether it is appealing.
Some general things to consider during this step include whether the lab publishes often. Check databases such as Google Scholar or PubMed to see when they last published. Look for papers where the professor is the last author. This is an indication that the particular professor’s lab did most, or all of the work as opposed to a collaboration with another lab.
Another thing to consider is the kind of journals a supervisor is publishing in. Impact factor—a score which reflects the citation frequency of the journal—is an easy way to quickly assess the relative importance of the journal within its specific field. Impact factor should be used with caution as citation rates can differ vastly between fields, and thus, cannot be used to compare across disciplines.
Step two: Email interesting professors
It is best to secure a supervisor before applying to the graduate program at the university. Often, the supervisor has a lot of pull as to whether a student is accepted into the program, even if the student has less than stellar grades. Matei Petrescu, a PhD student in the Department of Physics from the Gervais Lab, attributes his acceptance to graduate school to the relationship he developed with his future supervisor during summer internships.
He had the power to get me [into the graduate program],” Petrescu said. “If I’d just applied with no supervisor, chances were I wouldn’t have made it [….] I’m really sure about that.”
Many undergraduates may not realize the important fact that grades do not have to be a deciding factor. Good grades are not necessarily an indication of graduate school success.
If they make the [graduate school grade] requirement, then it’s okay,” Roy said. “Even if they are below the requirement, I’ll go up to bat for somebody. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a 3.8 or a 4 GPA, as long as you really want to do science, you’ll be fine [….] I think the ability to be resourceful and problem solving is probably much more important.”
Professors are generally very busy people, so send one carefully written email.
“Keep the email professional, reasonably short […] but hit the main highlights of your résumé,” Katie Stewart, a biochemistry PhD candidate from the Bouchard lab, said. “Start off with a preamble, not ‘Are you looking to hire?’ But ‘I’m interested in your lab, and these are the reasons I am interested; this is my background, and this is my CGPA.’”
Stewart also suggests attaching a transcript and a résumé to the email.
You want to make it easy for [the professor] to decide that they want you as quickly as possible,” she said. “I find that having everything all together really helps with that.”
Step three: Interview potential supervisors (and their lab members)
Speaking to a professor can be a bit daunting, but remember that this is not only to determine whether the student is a good fit for the professor and the lab, but also to determine whether the professor and the lab are a good fit for the student. Like any interview, preparation is key.
“Most profs have websites, so read the website [and] also check the date that the website was last updated, because often you are going to find that the website is like three or four years out of date,” Stewart said. “If that’s the case then you want to […] look for their more recent articles. You don’t have to necessarily understand everything about the article […] but you should try to come up with one question. It doesn’t even have to be a reasonably intelligent question; it should be something that demonstrates that you’re interested.”
The goal of this meeting is to try to assess the compatibility of the student with the professor, research and other lab members. The latter is not to be underestimated; co-worker relationships are important in graduate school as Tiago Salvador, a PhD candidate in math from the Oberman Lab, points out.
“I think it’s important to keep a social life,” Salvador explained. “It was my case when I moved here, I didn’t know anyone so it was definitely important to get along with my officemates and people in general in the math department. Sometimes you’re going to get stuck in something and you don’t necessarily want to talk to your supervisor right away [….] And it’s great if you can just bounce [ideas] off a friend”
These co-worker relationships are not only important for troubleshooting, but also for emotional support during the inevitable research lows.
“It’s not going to be your supervisor necessarily that’s always supporting you—it’s going to be the lab that gets you through those [tough] parts,” Stewart said. “You have to like the supervisor, you have to like your project, but most [importantly], you have to like the people in the lab. That’s the thing that’s going to get you through all of those lows, which come more frequently than what you’d expect.”
Step four: Make a decision
This is the hardest step because unlike most relationships, where people typically have a lot of time to determine their compatibilities, choosing a supervisor often happens with very little facetime. Simon Bernard, a physics PhD student from the Sankey Lab, initially met his supervisor during an undergraduate class.
“I was lucky in the sense that I decided to stay at the same university [where I completed my undergraduate degree],” Bernard said. “If you go overseas, sometimes it’s just one visit which lasts an afternoon and that’s a coin toss.”
Indeed, it seems the best option (if available) is to work or volunteer for the supervisor in advance to get an understanding of their managing style and the lab environment. Unfortunately, that is not always an option. To compensate for this, some departments have a rotational program which allows students to get to know supervisors and the research before fully committing. However, in Canada, these programs are less prevalent than standard programs. For example, McGill only offers two rotational programs in science-related fields. Where does that leave the rest of the students who are unable to work for their professor in advance or whose department of choice does not offer a rotational program. Often, most information is gathered by talking to the current or past graduate students one-on-one and reading between the lines with a keen ear for keywords or red flags.
“Make sure you actually talk to the future lab mates,” Stewart said. “And you should talk to them without the supervisor present. If the supervisor doesn’t want you to do that, it’s not a good situation [….] Don’t go to that lab.”
A chart is included below as a guideline to indicate some of the most common supervision styles and the types of graduate students that may or may not be compatible with these styles.
Other tips and advice
- If possible, try to work or volunteer in one or more labs prior to making a final decision to help determine a compatible managing style
- Do not just accept the first graduate school opportunity to arise
- Ask to connect with a past student; they are more free to be candid and forthright in their advice
- Talk to neighbouring labs about the lab of interest to get the big picture of the lab environment
- If a lab or department does not offer to cover travel expenses for the interview, the lab may be strapped for cash (which can affect graduate studies)
- During the interview, pay attention to whether the body language of current lab members matches their verbal communication
- For students with connections in a department, ask around for information about the supervisor candidates
- Ask permission to further contact current students by email (for questions thought up after the interview)
- Look to number of lab members as a cue for management style; big labs could indicate professors are more absent or “hands-off”
The student-professor dynamic is one of the most important relationships throughout graduate schooling and even the best relationships can be complicated at times and take some work. Thus, it is important to research the level of compatibility beforehand as best as possible.
“The most obvious mistake [prospective graduate students make] is they don’t match the supervisor properly with their own personalities,” Roy said. “It takes research before you can do the research. You have to do the research in order to figure out which options fit best with what you want […] the best scenarios are where those things match.”
| Managing Style | Students may not be bothered if they… | Students may be bothered if they… |
| Absent or “hands off” (availability) |
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| Micromanager (presence in the lab) |
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| Unclear communicator |
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| Emotionally unavailable |
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