Seeking supervisability: the inclusivity implications of doctoral supervisors’ engagement with prospective applicants prior to formal admissions

ABSTRACT

In doctoral admissions research, a neglected stage is the informal phase which precedes the submission of a formal application, and which involves the circulation of various communications about admissions; we term this stage ‘pre-application doctoral communications’ (PADC). Due to the informality of PADC, there are inclusivity concerns about the potential for prospective applicants to be screened out of even applying for doctoral education. Supervisors are major actors in the PADC stage. This paper illuminates supervisors’ hidden, informal practices within PADC. It redeploys Julie Posselt’s work on doctoral admissions committees to conceptualise supervisors’ decision-making processes in PADC. The paper draws on an in-depth institutional case study of a research-intensive UK-based university. This paper focuses specifically on the supervisor participants, where 19 supervisors participated in a six-week solicited diary process, followed by focus group discussions with 11 supervisors. Findings show that supervisors are caught between their principles and values and squeeze conditions which impede inclusivity efforts. The paper argues that supervisors’ actions and reactions are produced by and across social, institutional, and personal factors. The paper concludes that formalising PADC may not be ideal or even possible, yet there is scope for improving systems for managing PADC and awareness of inclusivity issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Doctoral admissions
• doctoral recruitment
• supervisors
• inclusivity
• graduate admissions
• decision making

Introduction

Gaining admission to a doctoral programme represents a major step for anyone hoping to enter academia or another profession where a doctoral qualification is a mark of esteem. As such, doctoral admissions processes involve gatekeeping not just for research degrees but also for entry to the academic profession (Posselt 2016). However, doctoral admissions protocol varies hugely between countries, disciplines and institutions (Mellors-Bourne et al. 2014), which means that the process may appear mysterious and opaque to potential applicants (Kim and Spencer-Oatey 2021). An important but underexplored part of doctoral admissions is the pre-application stage, which occurs before the formal application is submitted. This stage is vital within the wider admissions process, and it is a stage where many potential applicants may be discouraged from submitting a formal application (Sabet, Daneshfar, and Zhang 2021). Pre-application doctoral communications (PADC), a term we have coined (Burford et al. 2023; Burford et al. 2024), covers any communications pertaining to an application for doctoral study, including information-based inquiries from potential applicants to administrators or programme leaders, discussion between academics about potential supervisees, and potential applicants contacting supervisors. PADC is underexplored in the wider research on doctoral admissions, arguably because it is an informal process. A key player in PADC is the potential supervisor (Burford et al. 2023). The expectation to contact a potential supervisor before submitting an application varies, as doctoral admissions processes are contextually variable (Jung, Li, and Horta 2023), but is nevertheless very common. Irrespective of the expectations of a particular programme, there is a wealth of guidance taking the form of YouTube videos and blogs which instructs applicants to contact potential supervisors (Kier-Byfield, Burford, and Henderson 2023).

This paper is, to our knowledge, the first time that the pre-application stage of doctoral admissions has been explored in depth, over time and from the supervisor perspective. Given inclusivity concerns about doctoral education and the pipeline to the academic profession (Duke and Denicolo 2017), it is vital to understand what supervisors are doing in relation to PADC, and why. Researching this phenomenon is not just necessary to fill a gap in doctoral admissions research; there is also the potential to open up avenues for strategic action for transformation. Moreover, following Posselt (2016), this paper argues that PADC must be understood in relation to wider debates about doctoral education, including increased international representation in doctoral programmes (especially in Global North contexts) (Nerad 2010) and tightened funding for doctoral scholarships (Pásztor and Wakeling 2018) which is compounded by increased demand for doctoral education, leading to supervisor capacity issues (Sarrico 2022).

This article is underpinned by an empirical study, which took the form of a single-institution case study (Ornelas and Solorzano 2004), exploring PADC practices across a number of stakeholders in a research-intensive UK-based university (Burford et al. 2023). The study included doctoral programme directors, doctoral programme officers (administrative/professional services staff), supervisors, minoritised doctoral students and a review of institutional/departmental webpages. The study, which included departments from across all the different faculties, aimed to understand institutional processes for PADC resultant inclusivity implications. This paper focuses specifically on supervisors’ engagement with PADC: the study used a six-week solicited diary to track 19 supervisors’ actions in relation to PADC, followed by three focus group discussions (FGDs), to understand supervisors’ actions and reflections.

This paper explores two key questions pertaining to supervisors’ engagement with PADC: (i) what does engaging with PADC involve for supervisors? (ii) what are the inclusivity implications of supervisors’ engagement with PADC? The paper now moves on to present literature on doctoral admissions in relation to PADC and the role of the supervisor in admissions and particularly PADC. Following this, a conceptual framework for analysing decision making in doctoral admissions, based on the work of Julie Posselt (2016), is presented, and then the empirical study is introduced. The article then presents findings, using the framework to structure the findings and the ensuing discussion and conclusion.

Situating PADC and the role of the supervisor within doctoral admissions research

Doctoral admissions and PADC

The international field of enquiry on doctoral admissions is comprised of different areas of focus. One notable interest in the field is to discern which criteria are most important in order to gain acceptance into doctoral programmes. Studies have investigated, for instance, the importance of references for admissions success (Young 2005). Personal statements for doctoral programmes have also been researched, in relation to how they are read, assessed and understood (Chiu 2019; Hollman et al. 2022). This body of research reflects the skills that are expected for doctoral study (Mantai and Marrone 2022) and relates them to admissions processes. Studies have shown the complexity of doctoral admissions, in terms of how many stakeholders are involved at different levels of institutions (Mellors-Bourne et al. 2014). Doctoral admissions research also includes a subset of literature on inclusivity, often in relation to the exclusionary nature of admissions criteria and the problematic nature of admissions criteria as accurate predictors of success (Ghose, Ali, and Keo-Meier 2018; Miller et al. 2019; Roberts et al. 2021).

Within the field of doctoral admissions research, the pre-application stage is a specific but often only implicitly discussed stage of the admissions process. PADC is implicitly raised in relation to, for instance, how an applicant’s previous knowledge of an institution/faculty member might influence an admissions decision (Lachmann et al. 2020; Mountford et al. 2007). Potvin et al.’s (2017) study of diversity in Physics doctoral admissions uses the more generalised phrasing ‘proximity or familiarity to departments’ (p. 5). These studies suggest the influence of pre-application contact without necessarily defining the type, depth or range of that contact. Another way in which PADC arises in the literature is where studies contain reference to the practice of students contacting potential supervisors before beginning the formal application process. For example, in Littleford et al.’s (2018) study of US Psychology admissions, ‘contacting faculty’ was seen as an important variable having an impact on admission – though not a variable of ‘primary importance’ (p. 79). PADC has only been discussed explicitly in a few studies. For instance, Milkman et al.’s (2015) study, also based in the US, specifically focused on the emails that are sent to academics for endorsement before applicants submit formal paperwork. The authors describe the pre-application stage as part of the ‘informal “pathway”’ (p. 1678) to entry into doctoral education. Kim and Spencer-Oatey’s (2021) investigation into an online discussion forum for Korean students applying to study in the UK showed that the pre-application stage is a source of confusion in which ‘applicants were unsure whether they should contact a potential supervisor prior to application or just apply directly’ (p. 925). Given its implicit and rarely explicit presence in the literature on doctoral admissions, arguably there is a need for further research on PADC.

PADC and the figure of the supervisor

In the empirical literature on doctoral admissions, the figure of the supervisor is often absent. As mentioned in the previous section, much of the literature focuses on admissions criteria and institutional processes, rather than on the people who assess and monitor those criteria. In the literature where PADC is mentioned, the figure of the supervisor is likewise somewhat obscured. For instance, in Lachmann et al.’s (2020) study of doctoral admissions for Life Sciences in Germany, students who were in contact with a supervisor before applying were analysed as a group, and were considered as having participated in some way in ‘informal admission’ processes (p. 24), but the figure of the supervisor was not explored. The notion of informal admission is illuminated further by studies such as Angervall and Gustafsson’s (2016) work on PhD and early career pathways in Education research in Sweden. They differentiated three different career paths, the salient one for this paper being ‘the invited’ group who ‘talked about how their tutors, professors and networks had invited and encouraged them to apply for the research education program’ (p. 676). Again, the figure of the supervisor is not explored in its own right. These studies suggest the influence of pre-application contact, but do not focus on supervisors and the reasons why they support certain applicants to gain admission. Studies exist which explore responses to PADC emails targeting potential supervisors (Milkman, Akinola, and Chugh 2015; Sabet, Daneshfar, and Zhang 2021), but generally the supervisor is constructed as an abstract force or as unavailable. In research where experiences of applicants are explored, such as Sabet et al.’s (2021) study of emails to potential supervisors in Australia and Kim and Spencer-Oatey’s (2021) aforementioned study, supervisors are constructed as busy, hard to reach and easily annoyed. Occasionally, supervisors appear as advocates for inclusivity in doctoral admissions. For instance, in Posselt’s (2016) study of doctoral admissions committees in the US, the figure of the supervisor appears in a case where an applicant was perceived as unconventional and risky, but a senior supervisor had advocated for the applicant’s admission. Overall, supervisors are positioned as highly influential in the pre-application process, but there is a need for more research into the subjectivities and realities of the supervisors and their involvement in PADC, and how supervisors’ engagement with PADC intersects with wider debates about doctoral education.

Conceptual framework

To unpack the role of the supervisor in PADC, we deploy the work of Julie Posselt (2016) on doctoral admissions committees in the US, Inside Graduate Admissions. The book departs from the assertion that ‘doctoral admissions is a process cloaked in secrecy’ (p. 6) and unpacks the micro-level decision-making processes that occur during doctoral admissions. Our project was underpinned by the tradition of critical and feminist scholarship that elucidates the ways in which inequalities in the academy are perpetuated – or challenged – through micro-level interactions (e.g. Ahmed 2012; Hyers et al. 2012; Morley 1999). Posselt’s (2016) work on gatekeeping in doctoral admissions was aligned with our theoretical underpinnings. Posselt recognises that academics protect disciplinary traditions during doctoral admissions, but also tensions play out relating to the sector, particularly efficiency drives intersecting with diversity initiatives. Inside Graduate Admissions focuses on the role of academics on admissions committees, not their role as prospective supervisors during the PADC stage. This article therefore redeploys Posselt’s conceptual toolbox for PADC. This section distils key concepts from the book and sets them out as an analytical framework (see Figure 1) which is then applied in later sections of the article.

Figure 1. Conceptual framework for decision making in doctoral admissions.

Source: Authors, developed from Posselt (2016).

Components of admission

The first strand drawn on here pertains to what we term components of admission: the materials submitted for admission and the information contained within the materials. Posselt’s study intricately traces the different artefacts that admissions committees scrutinise. Admission materials include academic records, personal statements, writing samples, and letters of recommendation. These contain factual information such as grades and scores on entrance examinations, names of previous institution/s attended, evidence of research experience and the proposed topic. The materials also convey what we term implicit information, such as familiarity with norms in academia. To understand the supervisor’s role in PADC, therefore, we need to explore which materials and factual/implicit information supervisors access in PADC.

Determinants of admissibility

Components of admission become determinants of admissibility once they fall into the hands of reviewers, who then engage in ‘layers of inferences made from seemingly minor details in the application’ (Posselt 2016, 9). Posselt argues that reviewers seek signals of merit in the materials they are given. Signals of merit may include: ‘fit’ with the department relating to educational background (p. 49); ‘pedigree’ based on the rank/reputation of institutions attended (p. 99); and ‘spark’ (p. 121) shown in the proposal. These signals of merit are taken as predictors of success; for instance, the potential for ‘independent scholarship and innovation’ (p. 56). Drawing on Goffman via Lamont’s work, Posselt terms this process of interpreting admissions materials evaluative scripts, or ‘decision pathways or stories that reviewers tell to justify their judgements’ (pp. 48–9). An example of an evaluative script is where grades are interpreted as ‘academic ability or effort’, which are taken to constitute ‘signals of future success’ and therefore justify admission (p. 49). Posselt reveals how these ‘common mental pathways’ (p. 13) help academics to pass quickly through an ambiguous interpretative terrain, especially in the context of reviewing overload. These scripts are all the more necessary – and problematic – in navigating admissions decision making because of the ineffectual nature of admissions components as predictors of success; Posselt argues that admission materials do not ‘work very well as a crystal ball in predicting the probability of a given student’s success’ (p. 8; see also Squire 2020). Issues with evaluative scripts include the ‘interpretive challenge’ of knowing, for example, ‘how well a student’s past [research] experience signals current skills or future performance’ (Posselt 2016, 126). This article explores the evaluative scripts and related signals of merit and predictors of success that supervisors deploy during PADC.

Contextual factors

Several contextual factors appear in Posselt’s work which are layered onto evaluative scripts to mediate and influence admissions decisions. We define contextual factors as factors related to the context in which admissions take place, which may be related to developments in the sector, or to changing conditions within the institution or department. These factors were salient in the department admissions committees that Posselt was researching, due to the relevance of departmental and institutional priorities that feed into committee work. Department politics emerged, in terms of priority research directions; committees saw admissions ‘as an opportunity to…create the futures of their departments and disciplines’ (p. 8). Institutional diversity agendas also played a role in relation to available funding. The popularity and prestige of a doctoral programme influenced decisions, where risk aversion was mobilised to protect the elite reputation of a programme. Disciplinary differences emerged in the ways in which different admissions materials were focused on and evaluated. Finally, the rise in international student numbers in the programmes being researched was accompanied by enhanced ambiguity in admissions. International students were seen to pose problems for common evaluative scripts, due to reviewers’ unfamiliarity with qualifications and institutions, and suspicions of international applicants gaming the admissions system. In this article, we explore the contextual factors that influence supervisors in reacting to PADC.

Personal factors

Other factors appear which we term personal factors. This group of factors refers to the fact that, as Posselt (2016, 11) argues, admissions ‘is as much a reflection of who is doing the evaluating as who is being evaluated’. The role of personal experience emerged as playing a major role in admissions decisions. Posselt notes that a reviewer’s positive familiarity with an applicant’s previous institution can lead to a ‘willingness to trust’ (p. 50). On the other hand, reviewers could also be ‘spooked’ by past experiences (p. 53), where the ‘recollection of one or two students who had enrolled and struggled were hard to shake from [committee members’] memories’ and led to ‘group-based stereotyping’ (p. 163). Among others, having personal principles featured as a personal factor, which emerged as counterscripts. Personal principles included a ‘personal commitment’ to increasing diversity out of a ‘sense of duty’ (p. 62), through ‘ally behaviours’ spanning different disadvantaged groups (p. 111) and/or of using one’s own experiences of social mobility to apply counterscript criteria such as ‘how far [applicants] had come and how hard they had worked’ (p. 108). In this article, we identify personal factors that impact upon a supervisor’s response in PADC.

Admissions decisions

Posselt’s study focused on admissions committees, and as such the ultimate aim of these committees was to decide upon which applicants would be offered admission. At the same time, within the decision-making process there were also sub-stages, notably the process of shortlisting, where committees relied heavily on grades and test scores, and the process of selecting from the shortlist, where applications were scrutinised more fully. In this article, we explore supervisors’ decisions and actions in relation to PADC.

These five aspects of admission decision making that we have distilled from Posselt’s work are displayed in Figure 1.

The study

The study that underpins this article (Burford et al. 2023) was a multi-method institutional case study (Ornelas and Solorzano 2004) of PADC at a research-intensive university in the UK. The study included document analysis of relevant department/institutional webpages, interviews with directors of doctoral programmes, doctoral programme administrators and minoritised doctoral students, and – as addressed in this paper – solicited diaries and FGDs with doctoral supervisors to understand their PADC actions and reflections. In addition, a study of YouTube advice videos was conducted (Kier-Byfield, Burford, and Henderson 2023). Ethical approval was granted by the relevant faculty ethics committee (HSSREC 110/21–22). Study participants’ names and recognisable characteristics, including departmental affiliation, have been anonymised (in this article, this applies to supervisors as participants). Participants for the diary study were recruited using open calls for participants through the Doctoral College and through directors of doctoral programmes, followed by purposive and snowball sampling (Thomas 2017) to ensure that there was a range of departments in the sample. 19 supervisors kept a weekly diary over six weeks in relation to their contact with or about prospective applicants (see Table 1). A considerable proportion of participants were from the Faculty of Social Sciences due to the investigators’ networks.

Table 1. Supervisor participant information.

Faculty	Pseudonym (self-selected, or, if not stated, provided by research team)	Ethnicity (self-described & then classified to avoid identification)	Gender (self-described)
Arts	Danielle	Mixed	Woman
	Gloria	Asian	Woman
Sciences	Alexina	Mixed	Woman
	Dippy	White	Man
Social Sciences	Agatha	Mixed	Woman
	Elise	White	Woman
	Julie	White	Woman
	Kit	White	Man
	Liz	Mixed	Woman
	Louis	White	Man
	Lucie	White	Woman
	Malik	Mixed	Man
	Marina	Black African	Woman
	Mary	White	Not stated
	Paula	White	Woman
	Roberta	Mixed	Woman
	Sarah	White	Woman
	Stephanie	Mixed	Woman
	Sunny	White	Woman

Source: authors

Solicited diaries were employed with supervisors to understand their PADC-related actions and reflective processes. Solicited diaries were used as they are suited to charting micro-level processes of academics over time (Henderson 2021; Hyers et al. 2012). Four online forms were developed (using Qualtrics), via a rigorous multi-stage piloting process.

1. Pre-diary form: to gather demographic data, supervisors’ previous supervision experience, capacity and priorities for recruiting new students, personal and/or official PADC practices.

2. Form 1: completed each week for six weeks to capture the nature of first contact with or about prospective applicants, actions taken, reflections on these actions.

3. Form 2: completed each week to track participants’ ongoing actions with doctoral applicants after the first contact made during the study period.

4. Post-diary form: gathered participants’ experiences of keeping a diary.

From the above forms, this paper focuses on data gathered through the pre-diary form and forms 1 and 2. In total, 63 prospective applicants contacted the 19 supervisors during the six-week period. Following on from the diary study, participants were invited to participate in FGDs; 11 participants volunteered, and three FGDs were conducted. To protect supervisors’ identities, FGD participants are not connected with their diary pseudonyms and their identity characteristics are withheld; in the remainder of the article FGD participants are referred to by their FGD number and participant number (e.g. ‘FGD1.P2’). The FGDs focused on participants’ general views and experiences of PADC, including an activity where two sample emails were provided for discussion, one brief and impersonal (‘Email 1’) and one detailed and personalised (‘Email 2’) (see Burford, Henderson, Akkad, Dangeni, et al. (2022) for the email text); finally, supervisors were invited to discuss inclusivity concerns and recommendations for best practice in relation to PADC.

The quantifiable diary data were descriptively analysed to ascertain e.g. frequency of PADC for different supervisors (see Figure 2). The free-text fields of the diary and the FGD transcripts were combined and analysed according to the aspects delineated in the conceptual framework (see Figure 1). A comprehensive explication of supervisors’ engagement with PADC was developed, where synergies and differences were sought in relation to Posselt’s (2016) analysis of doctoral admissions committees. Interpreting the data using the conceptual framework enabled us to develop a structured analysis which in turn revealed PADC-specific concepts such as ‘supervisability’ and ‘fundability’ (see following section) and also provided the terrain for reading across supervisors’ accounts for inclusivity implications. We present findings from the diary and the FGDs together in the findings section, using the diary data to exemplify supervisors’ in-the-moment reactions and actions, and using the FGDs to demonstrate how supervisors explained their reactions and actions.

Figure 2. Number of potential applicants per supervisor during six-week diary study period.

Source: Authors.

Exploring supervisors’ engagement with PADC

Components of PADC

The diary study included 65 initial approaches for 63 prospective applicants (henceforth referred to as ‘applicants’); in two cases, the applicant contacted the prospective supervisor (henceforth referred to as ‘supervisor’) and the same applicant was also forwarded to the supervisor by a colleague. 50 (79.6%) of these initial approaches were by email, and 14 (21.5%) were forwarded to the supervisor by a colleague; one approach was by phone. Materials submitted as part of initial approaches from applicants included the initial email, CVs and project proposals. In cases where the applicant was already known to the supervisor, for instance as a master’s student, supervisors brought this prior knowledge to their assessment of PADC – this is ‘proximity or familiarity to department’ in action (Potvin, Chari, and Hodapp 2017, 5). Where supervisors followed up with applicants, further materials included discussions via videoconference, and revisions of the proposal based on feedback from the supervisor.

In terms of factual information gleaned from PADC, supervisors referred to: geographical origins/residence; minority social group status; educational history, in terms of the country, institution, and language of instruction; disciplinary background; professional experience; experience of activism; language qualifications; intention to transfer from another doctoral programme; mode of study, with full-time mode being a visa requirement for international students; and prior contact with a university recruitment agent. Information on the proposed topic was often included, including methodological orientation, and information on previous topics of interest (e.g. master’s dissertation). Some emails included an applicant’s willingness to shift topic. Applicants included information on funding: self-funded; scholarship applicant/recipient; bank loan.

Many kinds of implicit information were collected from PADC. Given there is no formal expectation of which materials are sent with a PADC approach email, the extent to which applicants had provided materials and/or a comprehensive email became a type of information in its own right. For instance, a supervisor referred to applicants ‘not necessarily attaching the information I want to see, like CV and a research proposal’ (FGD1.P3). Supervisors interpreted the perceived quality of the email; for instance, Kit’s diary referred to an email as being ‘very well written and polished’; supervisors also evaluated the level of English demonstrated in PADC. Relevance of content was important to supervisors, as shown in a diary entry where Elise referred to ‘another quite long email’: ‘in the email there was also some really “random” information’. A major type of implicit information was whether the applicant had understood both the specific expertise of the supervisor, and its importance for doctoral study. A supervisor said, ‘we call them nice emails, when…they’ve had a look at who we are’ (FGD3.P1); Malik mentioned that he considered it to be a positive sign if ‘the applicant makes a reference to my published work’. Supervisors evaluated the quality of research proposals, assessing them as ‘well crafted’ (FGD1.P2) or ‘not strong enough’ (Danielle). Supervisors were looking to see evidence of progression from master-level study. Finally, supervisors deduced personality characteristics, such as being ‘pushy’ (FGD1.P3), having ‘interest or passion’ (FGD2.P3), demonstrating ‘a kind of effort’ (FGD2.P3) manifested in the ‘due diligence’ (FGD1.P3) or ‘homework’ (FGD3.P4) applicants appeared to have undertaken in preparing for PADC.

Determinants of supervisability

There was evidence of supervisors seeking signals of merit and interpreting these as predictors of success, as in Posselt’s (2016) study. However, there were distinctive differences, in that supervisors knew they would take responsibility for their progress. As such, supervisors were specifically seeking signals of supervisability (in addition to admissibility). Broadly speaking, we identified two evaluative scripts for supervisability, relating to personal and interpersonal attributes and doctoral attributes. The scripts do not unfold in isolation from each other, but rather are intertwined in complex decision-making processes.

Personal and interpersonal attributes matter to supervisors when they are imagining working with a prospective applicant. Supervisors have in their minds the question of the applicant’s motivation for doctoral study: does the applicant just want ‘to have “Dr” before [their] name’? (FGD2.P3). Supervisors are also looking for evidence of ‘whether this person’s going to be resilient and robust and they’re going to be able to cope with [the PhD]’ (FGD1.P2). Finally, supervisors are trying to establish whether there is potential for the supervision relationship to work. FGD3.P1 stated that ‘[i]t’s a little trial run of the supervisory relationship’: ‘the whole PhD process is the communication between the supervisor and the student…and you need to be confident that they can apply that feedback and can constructively use it to develop their ideas’.

The doctoral attributes script is oriented towards imagining the process of working with the prospective applicant. Supervisors seek evidence of preparedness for doctoral study, based on relevant disciplinary and/or professional experience as well as training and skills. Supervisors were trying to assess whether prospective applicants understand ‘what studying at doctorate level entails’ (FGD2.P4) and ‘if the email looks robust enough, which means [it] predicts the ability to do a PhD’ (FGD3.P2). Applicants’ performance on internal master’s programmes was interpreted as a signal of potential – or lack thereof: ‘then you’re more likely to be able to know whether they’re … capable of doing a PhD’ (FGD3.P4). Signals could be gleaned even from the email address; supervisors discussed that the use of a personal email address could signal that an applicant ‘probably [is] less professional’ (FGD3.P3) or instead that they are a ‘returner to education’ (FGD3.P1). Supervisors were trying to gauge English language levels, imagining the level of ‘strain’ involved in providing feedback on drafts (FGD1.P1). Some supervisors seek originality as the hallmark of doctoral-level work and a strong proposal: ‘we get the proposal and we can see that it’s really not going to make a PhD’ (FGD3.P1); other supervisors were simply seeking ‘a kernel’ of an idea (FGD1.P2). Topic flexibility emerged as a concern; as Kit stated in his diary, supervisors were ‘looking for a student who is willing to move to some degree’ but not ‘to be so flexible as to move to anything’; too high a degree of flexibility ‘raises questions…about seriousness/commitment/understanding of what a knowledge project like a PhD is all about’. Finally, supervisors evaluate applicants for an understanding of the nature of doctoral supervision, particularly in relation to the role of the supervisor as a guide with expert knowledge. Supervisors expected applicants to have ‘thought about how the content of their work and their intellectual journey would fit with [the supervisor’s]’ (FGD1.P3).

Contextual factors

As discussed, contextual factors are sectorial, institutional and departmental factors that influence the ways in which PADC are received and the decisions that are taken. In Posselt’s study, institutional and disciplinary agendas appeared strongly; in our study, perhaps due to the highly individualised nature of supervisors’ involvement in PADC, these concerns did not emerge to the same extent. Department factors featured strongly; similarly to Posselt, issues pertaining to international students also featured; issues of funding were frequently discussed.

Our study revealed the extent to which departments were trying to set official processes for PADC, and the extent to which supervisors were aware of or obeying the systems. One supervisor (FGD1.P1) was based in a department where tracking the conversion of PADC to applicant was being monitored as part of their Athena SWAN plan (gender equality accountability process in the UK), and all PADC was to be sent to the programme director for processing. Elise realised during the diary study that ‘I have also noticed that I [am] ignor[ing] the process that we are supposed to follow of sending the email to the programme officer to reply to’. Capacity was a major topic of discussion, with many supervisors only having space for one or two new students. FGD2.P4 stated ‘I tend to receive lots of inquiries and I do tend to turn a lot of them down and simply on grounds of capacity really’.

As with Posselt’s study, supervisors’ processing of PADC was influenced by the rise in international students, where PADC from international students disrupted supervisors’ evaluative scripts. In Posselt’s (2016) study, there was discussion of applications from international students’ unfamiliar institutions; FGD1.P3 discussed that, ‘I actually often don’t always know enough about the quality [of the institution] … so I just give them the benefit of the doubt’. In two of the FGDs, supervisors discussed a preoccupation with whether the writer was ‘genuine’. FGD2.P3 referred to this being the ‘biggest dilemma’, where a ‘highly polished email’ does not indicate quality because ‘you could always hire someone else to write for you’. Supervisors waited for the ‘third or fourth email correspondence…because [by then] nobody’s helping them anymore’ (FGD3.P1). Discussing Email 2, FGD1.P3 reflected tendencies that emerged in Posselt’s study for academics to be surprised (and suspicious) if they received applications from international students from non-Anglophone countries with high quality English: ‘I’d think, “Huh…let me look at their CV, I wonder if they’ve actually studied already in an Anglophone context”. So I’d have all these assumptions and biases kicking around in my head’.

Finally, the funding landscape in UK doctoral education emerged as a highly influential contextual factor, where supervisors were evaluating PADC for fundability in cases where prospective applicants were targeting highly competitive scholarship schemes. FGD1.P2 stated, ‘It’s the scholarship which is the hurdle’. Fundability was based on whether prospective applicants could meet the ‘linear and narrow criteria’ of scholarship competitions (FGD1.P3). Supervisors were prepared to provide significant support but were seeking ‘somebody that wants to put the effort in to make a proposal that would get the scholarship’ (FGD1.P2). The other side of the funding coin was where prospective applicants who had already obtained a government scholarship from their country of origin were subjected to higher levels of suspicion due to common conceptions about the motivations and genuineness of these applicants. FGD1.P2 explained the tendency of some of these scholarships to send government employees for doctoral study when they ‘don’t necessarily want to do the PhD’. Taking this further, FGD2.P3 referred to prospective applicants where ‘somebody has got the funding and they get proposals written by some other people’. When assessing PADC, the mention of different funding information contributed to shaping supervisors’ evaluative scripts.

Personal factors

Personal factors often overlapped with contextual factors in our study, but we identified personal factors specifically where supervisors discussed themselves as individuals. Three major types of personal factor emerged: supervisor popularity, personal experience and personal principles.

A distinctive factor arose in relation to supervisor popularity, which was akin to the contextual factor programme popularity, but specifically related to certain supervisors receiving high volume of PADC. Even across the six-week diary study, there was a marked difference in the volume of new approaches supervisors received (see Figure 2). For those who received many approaches, managing this strand of work became stressful. For instance, Kit noted in his diary ‘[m]y overriding feeling is that I am being neglectful’; Elise stated ‘I am getting really behind with these emails…I feel quite guilty about this’. Supervisor popularity was also attributed to research area; FGD2.P3 discussed working on an ‘unusual area of study’ which ‘means you get a lot of applications’.

Arguably, the role of personal experience was even more influential in our study than Posselt’s, due to the need for supervisors to anticipate a long, close working relationship with prospective applicants. Supervisors mobilised their personal experiences of supervision – often negative – to make inferences about applicant profiles. FGD3.P4 discussed wariness about English language, ‘having had various experiences of supervising students whose written academic English is not just not up to it at all’, which ‘creates all that work for you as a supervisor’. Supervisors discussed how their focus on fundability had shifted due to unsuccessful scholarship applications. FGD1.P2 stated they had ‘become much more instrumental over the years’, having ‘root[ed] for’ applicants and ‘then bang comes “no” for every flaming scholarship under the sun’. In addition, supervisors also articulated personal experiences of PADC, again often negative, which influenced how they then engaged with other PADC. FGD1.P3 recounted that they had ‘given maybe six or seven rounds of feedback on the proposal’; the applicant was not accepted for the scholarship and therefore could not enrol. The applicant wrote to the supervisor ‘with the expectation that I was going to write a book with them based on the proposal because I’d given positive feedback’. The supervisor said, ‘I think I’d be more wary somehow in the way I would respond in future’. FGD3.P2 recounted having invested substantial time and effort in a proposal, only to find that the applicant enrolled elsewhere. As a result, FGD3.P2 had formed a new strategy: ‘I have taken the habit over the last years not to work on their project that much anymore before they apply because it will be used elsewhere…and then it will just be wasted time’.

Finally, as with Posselt’s study, we saw personal principles being applied during PADC. In Posselt’s study, these principles were applied in making cases for particular applicants in the admissions committee meetings; in our study the principles were applied to engaging with PADC. One personal principle that supervisors articulated was a sense of duty to respond to PADC. Sunny stated in her diary that she ‘always like[s] to follow up in case [she is] wrong with first impressions’. Louis emphasised that he personalises all responses: ‘Never any template for anything. This is not a toothpaste factory!’. Supervisors expressed a responsibility for contextually-aware evaluation of PADC. FGD1.P2 noted that ‘you take into account what access to resources of people have to put [PADC] together’; FGD3.P2 stated ‘I try to assess the obstacles they’ve had to overcome in order to reach the point [of application]’. FGD2.P3 was more explicit, framing this personal principle as ‘grounds for positive discrimination’. Supervisors expressed principles of active encouragement of under-represented groups. FGD1.P2 stated ‘I still have this rather naïve idea that I want to enable women from the Global South to get PhDs’. Malik noted that ‘In my area of research there is a gender imparity…Hence I try to give extra space to female applicants’. In most cases, personal principles were activated in favour of swaying evaluative scrips to be more inclusive, but one limiting personal principle was that of political orientation, for instance where government scholarships were mentioned and supervisors had ethical concerns about the government issuing the scholarship: FGD1.P1 stated ‘the government is a major…headache’.

PADC decisions and actions

The diary study revealed a number of courses of action during the PADC stage. Firstly, supervisors delayed replying to emails for a week or more, citing reasons of other work (e.g. being away on a study visit) or consulting with other colleagues for their opinion on an applicant. Secondly, supervisors commonly forwarded approaches to other colleagues, whether as part of an official process or as a personal practice. When supervisors responded, they declined interest, encouraged applicants to move ahead to submit a formal application, or initiated next steps. Initiating next steps involved requesting a proposal, giving feedback, and suggesting a videoconference call. In some cases, this resulted in a feedback loop of several communications, while in others the applicant did not respond. Where supervisors declined interest, they often provided suggestions of other supervisors, feedback on the topic and/or useful information on admissions. While no supervisors reported deleting emails without replying, a common practice was matching the quality of the email with the type of reply. In discussing how they would reply to Email 1, FGD1.P3 referred to a practice of sending a ‘much more rebuffing type email’. Some supervisors recounted that they replied to applicants citing reasons of capacity, when in fact the principal reason for declining interest was a negative evaluation of the topic or email. In her diary, for one applicant, Elise reported ‘I forwarded it to [a colleague] and also replied to the student to say I have no space (it was more a case of the topic doesn’t fit but I couldn’t be bothered to explain this in case there were queries)’. Reinforcing this, FGD3.P1 referred to sending replies that were polite but ‘slightly trying to say, “don’t come back to me”’.

Discussion and conclusion

While the study has revealed myriad variations within PADC, some key particularities of supervisors’ engagement with PADC have emerged (see Figure 3). Firstly, due to PADC’s informality, there are inconsistencies in form and content between what prospective applicants submit to supervisors. As such, what is sent and how it is presented become influential in supervisors’ evaluative judgements, including how prospective applicants interact with supervisors during any follow-up communications. Secondly, there is a focus on supervisability, where supervisors are evaluating PADC for signs of the potential for a successful working relationship and doctorate. Thirdly, supervisors’ evaluative scripts and decisions about PADC are shaped by what we might term squeeze conditions, which are a combination of restricted capacity and lack of scholarships. The squeeze conditions interrupt supervisors’ evaluative scripts: restricted capacity and PADC overload lead to highly selective evaluative judgements; the lack of funded places means that supervisors are evaluating PADC for fundability as well as supervisability and admissibility. Fourthly, supervisors’ evaluative scripts are laced with risk aversion based on personal experience, which further contributes to selectivity. At the same time, supervisors’ personal principles of fairness and inclusivity are activated by PADC, but these principles are in direct competition with the squeeze conditions, resulting in a dilemma for supervisors in how to manage PADC. Finally, because PADC is an ephemeral process, there is a range of actions open to supervisors, including engaging in a feedback loop, where evaluative scripts may play out over multiple rounds of communication.

Figure 3. Conceptual framework for supervisors’ engagement with PADC.

Source: Authors, developed from Posselt (2016).

As discussed above, in the literature on doctoral admissions where PADC is alluded to, the figure of the supervisor is constructed in particular ways. Firstly, the supervisor is often subsumed within the abstract notion of e.g. ‘contacting faculty’ (Littleford et al. 2018). Secondly, the supervisor is portrayed as an elusive, busy, irritable force in the background of research that focuses on other actors in the admissions process, predominantly prospective applicants (Kim and Spencer-Oatey 2021). Thirdly, supervisors are at times presented as advocates for inclusivity in doctoral admissions (Posselt 2016). This article sought to unpack supervisors’ engagement with PADC and to place the figure of the supervisor under the analytical spotlight. Our exploration of supervisors’ actions and thought processes in relation to PADC has produced a nuanced, complex picture of the pre-admissions supervisor. We see supervisors who are experiencing PADC overload in conjunction with squeeze conditions, resulting in affective undertones of guilt, frustration and overwhelm. We see supervisors who are trying to make sense of an informal yet highly consequential process, operating in an uncertain terrain and making innumerable inferences based on imperfect information. We also see supervisors who are excited by the prospect of working with a new doctoral student, but who are also afraid of the consequences of ‘getting it wrong’ and taking on a student where there could be significant struggles on an interpersonal or academic level, and where – due to the nature of doctoral education – the bulk of the responsibility for the student traditionally falls on the supervisor (Harrison and Grant 2015). We see supervisors who are struggling between their principles and values and the squeeze conditions that turn the tables against inclusivity. In this article, supervisors are not and cannot be presented in a glowing light. At the same time, it is vital to understand that supervisors’ actions and reactions are produced by a range of social, institutional and personal factors that shape how supervisors engage with PADC. Supervisors in our study were also going to great lengths to facilitate access to doctoral education for a range of prospective applicants, including from minoritised groups, and were personally invested in the success of these applications. It is essential to recognise the multi-faceted complexity of supervisors’ role in and engagement with PADC.

This article has revealed insights about inclusivity in doctoral education, specifically in relation to how PADC shapes prospective applicants’ access to formal admissions. While much work on doctoral admissions focuses on formal admissions, our project has revealed inequalities that operate before the formal admissions process has begun, with the potential for promising applicants to be turned away before making an application. The study emphasises the importance of the first approach; as FGD2.P4 stated, ‘a lot of exclusion may happen based on just how [applicants] articulate their first inquiry’. Prospective applicants who do not present the first approach in the manner that supervisors appreciate may miss out on the possibility of further interaction with the supervisor. Knowing how to present the first approach may be associated with familiarity with the national higher education system, or access to personal connections who are familiar with doctoral education, or access to resources to pay for assistance with the application process (Burford et al. 2023); free online content is also provided to guide the process (Kier-Byfield, Burford, and Henderson 2023). However, familiarity and/or assistance may not be enough, due to varying expectations about PADC between different national contexts, institutions, departments and supervisors. PADC is thus rife with potential exclusions. Moreover, due to PADC overload and squeeze conditions, supervisors are engaging with PADC in a risk-averse manner; even those with strong inclusion principles are filtering out applicants where there are any negative signals of supervisability, admissibility and – where relevant – fundability. Supervisors arrive at each PADC instance with accumulated risk aversion that is based on personal experience, which, as Posselt (2016) notes, results in ‘group-based stereotyping’ (p. 163) in relation to, for instance, non-Anglophone applicants or international applicants with government scholarships. Just as in Posselt’s and others’ studies (Milkman, Akinola, and Chugh 2015), the information presented in PADC is flawed in its reliability as a predictor of success, and moreover a negative signal is just as likely to signify lack of assistance with the approach email as it signals potential issues with academic writing, for example. At the same time, the huge responsibility that supervisors bear for their doctoral students in the traditional model of doctoral education means that supervisors are scrutinising PADC for any positive and negative signals they can find, even in full or partial cognisance of the flaws of this approach.

Given the clear inclusivity consequences, a solution would arguably be to formalise PADC. Indeed, there were examples of this within our study, where departments had introduced processes to monitor PADC, such as instituting a requirement to forward all PADC approaches to the programme director or asking supervisors to use a template email. However, attempts to regularise PADC were shown to flounder, with some supervisors refusing to use template emails or ignoring department systems. Having researched supervisors’ engagement with PADC in detail in this institutional case study, we have concluded that formalising PADC may not be the optimal approach. Instead, we take the stance that doctoral programmes can – and should – take steps to improve the impact of supervisors’ engagement with PADC upon inclusivity in doctoral education, including through incorporating PADC guidance in supervisor inductions and training sessions. Our full recommendations are available in the project report (Burford et al. 2023) and briefing for supervisors Burford, Henderson, Akkad, Dangeni, et al. (2022). The recommendations take the parallel route of aiming to reduce supervisors’ guilt, frustration and overwhelm from PADC overload through reducing the work involved in managing PADC, and simultaneously sensitising supervisors to inclusivity concerns. In this sense, we concur with Posselt (2016) about ‘the need … for faculty to approach their gatekeeping with a different state of mind’ (p. 176).

Our study has produced nuanced findings about the hitherto neglected phenomenon of PADC. When combined, the data collected from the supervisor diaries and FGDs produced an illuminating picture of supervisors’ engagement with PADC. Simultaneously, there is potential for further research. Our project was an institutional case study, but it would be valuable to explore supervisors’ engagement with PADC across universities across the UK, including different types of university and different regions. There is also the potential to explore supervisors’ engagement with PADC through a comparative lens across different country contexts; although different doctoral education systems implement different admissions processes, informal discussions with colleagues in different countries have confirmed that pre-application supervisor contact does occur even in contexts where the supervisor is allocated later in the doctoral process. We noted above that most of the supervisor participants were from Social Sciences departments; a larger-scale investigation could usefully target a disciplinary comparison. Finally, due to the short funding period, we were obliged to conduct the diary study in a relatively quiet period for PADC in the UK. A valuable future study could track supervisors’ engagement with PADC over a full admissions cycle, including which applicants reach enrolment.

To conclude, we found that supervisors’ engagement with PADC occurs in a hidden space, operating along informal lines and according to personal preferences and principles. Supervisors make ‘countless little value judgements’ (Posselt 2016, 70) using criteria they have developed themselves, and of which they may only be partially conscious. Seeking evidence of supervisability, supervisors use the nuances of the information provided by prospective applicants to try to imagine working with an applicant in the long-term, close working relationship that doctoral education entails, where supervisors take responsibility for a student’s progress. As such, the stakes are high for supervisors, and selectivity is enhanced by squeeze conditions relating to capacity and funding. Our study clearly demonstrates that PADC is a terrain where exclusionary decisions are taken, even by supervisors who operate with a high level of ethical reflexivity, which may discourage prospective applicants from minoritised groups from applying for a doctoral programme. We argue that PADC is an enduring practice which proceeds even in direct contravention of attempts to formalise the pre-application process. To challenge common portrayals of supervisors in the doctoral admissions literature, this article has presented the systemic challenges that supervisors face in relation to PADC; we encourage future researchers and institutional actors seeking to enhance inclusivity in doctoral admissions, to take into account these challenges, as well as the potential for transformation to occur through sensitisation and structured reflection.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable support for this project from the University of Warwick Research England Enhancing Research Culture Fund, and to express our gratitude to the Warwick Doctoral College and all the study participants for their contribution to the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Warwick Research England Enhancing Research Culture Fund.

Notes on contributors

Emily F. Henderson

Dr Emily F. Henderson is Reader in Gender and International Higher Education, Department of Education Studies, and Director of the Doctoral Education and Academia Research Centre (DEAR), University of Warwick, UK. Dr Henderson specialises in researching doctoral education and the academic profession, with current projects focusing on doctoral admissions, reasonable adjustments and mitigating circumstances for doctoral education, and the role of academics in higher education outreach in India.

Ahmad Akkad

Dr Ahmad Akkad is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Education Department at the University of Oxford, and Fellow at Blackfriars College at Oxford. He is currently leading a strand of research on international mobility and development in the MENA region.  His interdisciplinary research interests include global mobility and knowledge exchange, the interplay between higher education, conflict and reconstruction in conflict settings, and the academic profession.

Sophia Kier-Byfield

Dr Sophia Kier-Byfield is a postdoctoral researcher based within the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling, University of South Wales. Previously, she was Research Fellow at the Department of Education Studies, University of Warwick. Sophia’s research interests include inequalities in higher education, feminist pedagogies, and the power of storytelling for marginalised communities.

James Burford

Dr James Burford is Associate Professor in Global Education and International Development at the Department of Education Studies, and Deputy Director of Doctoral Education and Academia Research Centre (DEAR), University of Warwick. His current projects focus on doctoral admissions, reasonable adjustments and mitigating circumstances in doctoral education and distance doctoral education in the wake of COVID-19.

Dangeni

Dr Dangeni is a Professional Development Adviser in the Learning and Teaching Development Service at Newcastle University. Her research and teaching focus broadly on the teaching and learning provision in the wider context of the internationalisation of higher education. She is particularly interested in research and practices around international students’ access, engagement and success in postgraduate taught (PGT) and postgraduate research (PGR) settings.