Writing to Professors

Writing to professors in Graduate School is something most applicants do at one point or another. Some students do that before applying to graduate school, asking professors to assess their chances of getting in. Some others write after getting admission, to secure an RA position. I personally think the way most people approach this is ineffective.

Here are some common pitfalls to avoid:
Uninteresting subject lines
Usually most people will write subject lines like "Prospective Graduate Student", "Research Assistantship".
- Most professors will probably have some filters for these, or very frequently will ignore these. Professors get a lot of spam.
- Some subject fields that might work say something about you in the field itself:
"Experienced Engineer from AMD for RA position"
- Funny subject lines could also work
"Do you need yet another Research Assistant?"

Long emails
No one has time to read long stories. Keep your content really brief. I like bullet points for this. For example:

GRE - 1470
TOEFL - 297/300
Overall GPA - 3.8/4.0
Experience -
Research Interests -

Dear Sir emails
My MS advisor frequently complained that she got a lot of email from international students who didn't even take the time to realize that she should be addressed with "Dear Madam".

So the most useful thing you can do is to read the content on a professor's webpage before writing to them. Read at least one paper or some abstracts. If you are truly interested in their work, write an email and use their name in the salutation, and something to show you know what they work on.
"Dear Professor Smith, I was really impressed with your work on branch prediction."

If you find yourself complaining about the lack of responses , you should see it from their point of view. I think if you do your homework before writing, take some interest in writing a customied email, the likelihood of getting a response is much higher. No professor will respond to questions about your chances of making it in. So ask about whether he/she is accepting students this year. If you are already studying at the university ask for course advice.