Meeting with Prospective PhD advisor — what should I ask?

Advice

Hi everyone. I wasn’t planning on applying for a PhD but sent some emails out to prospective supervisors and they all responded.

One asked me to send a research brief before discussing next steps, and has now agreed to meet after I sent the research brief over. Is there anything I should know before going in? Anything specific I should be asking?

A lot of the advice I’m seeing online is for people who have already been admitted and are now looking for supervisors, or for STEM programs. For context, this research would be in Human Geography.

Another thing I am stuck on is that I have just graduated from my undergraduate degree. I didn’t make this too explicit in my initial email, but it was apparent on the resume that I sent over. Is this something I should bring up at our meeting? It is not a requirement for me to have a master’s before starting a PhD at this university, but the website does say that it is very rare that someone does do that. I’m leaning towards being transparent instead of assuming that she is aware, but I’m not sure.

Posted Oct 28, 2025, 4:51 PM UTC

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