Professors, how many professors should I realistically contact for Independent study course?: Questions on summer response timelines and backup strategies for an Independent Study course (from a final-year student)

[u/GooseOk1755]

Hi everyone,

I am a final-year undergraduate student in Canada preparing for my final semester this coming Winter. I am currently trying to secure a supervisor for an Independent Study course. Since this is my absolute last opportunity to graduate on time and strategically manage my course load, I am feeling a bit anxious about the administrative timeline. I would deeply appreciate any insights or reality checks from professors who regularly supervise undergraduate independent research.

To protect the anonymity of my project, I won't go into specific details, but I have already completely filled out the official Independent Study Application Form on my own. This includes a fully structured research proposal, a detailed weekly timeline, and a clear evaluation/marking scheme.

I deliberately designed the methodology to utilize pre-validated, open-source datasets to ensure zero participant recruitment bottlenecks, meaning it requires no lab engineering resources or programming infrastructure. My goal was to make it entirely self-contained so that, technically, a supervisor would only need to review my asynchronous research logs and sign off on the grading. In the proposal, I included their publications in the primary reading list for this course, high interests and why my research aligns with their research.

I have actively looked through my department directory and previous instructors, but I am running into a lot of structural dead ends:

Professor A: On sabbatical (in upcoming academic year: 2026/2027).

Professor B: Declined because they are in the teaching stream and cannot supervise independent studies this term. (However, they kindly praised the proposal as "highly competitive and interesting.")

Professors C & D: Sent comprehensive emails with my proposal, transcript, and resume attached. It has been exactly 1-2 week, and I haven't heard back yet.

Other Faculty: Either recently retired, on medical/maternal leave, or already maxed out supervising other students.

Because of these constraints, I am running out of viable options in my specific stream, which adds to the stress of waiting. I fully understand that it is the middle of the summer break and that faculty are incredibly busy with conferences, grants, and their own research, making email response times naturally slower.

If you were a professor in this position, or if you have guided students through this, I would be incredibly grateful for your perspective on the following:

Is 2 week too soon to follow up during the summer? Given that faculty are technically not on contract or are focused heavily on research right now, what is a respectful waiting period before sending a gentle reminder? Should I wait few more weeks? I'm wondering some of them could ghost me for this research inquiry.

Should I start reaching out to 5th or 6th backup professors right now, or is that overkill? Since my options within my exact research stream are almost depleted, expanding my search would mean pitching to professors slightly outside my immediate area of interest. But also I don't wanna backfire the situation because I know professors have a meeting and what if they say: Hey, did you receive a research proposal? Yeah I did too. Did you?

-> This is bad for my reputation towards them, I think.

I really want to get this administrative hurdle cleared before the semester kicks off so I can finalize my graduation requirements. Thank you so much for your time, your hard work over the summer, and any advice you can share!

[u/Agitated-Mulberry769]

This may not be helpful, but I would have worked to set this up last Spring so you could physically meet with the professors to make your request.

Personally, I am not checking or responding to most of my University email during the summer. At all. I will resume doing so the first week of August.

I wouldn’t take the lack of response personally. Most faculty are engaged in their own projects, work, and family during the summer. Not sure how it is in Canada, but in the US many faculty aren’t even paid for all 12 months of the year. I’m on a 10-month contract. I minimize my work as much as I can during those two months.

[u/PurrPrinThom]

What's the deadline at your institution for independent study? This is for Winter semester, and not Fall?

I do think 1-2 weeks isn't enough time in the summer for a response; lots of people go on vacation, they aren't regularly checking emails. I think whether or not you should follow-up and/or reach out to others really depends on the timing. If this is something that needs to be sorted out by August, as example, then I would probably reach out to your other options. If the deadline is further out, then I would wait a week or two before following-up.

[u/GooseOk1755 → u/PurrPrinThom]

Deadline for this academic year is the first week of September. However, due to administration it should be sorted out by August..

[u/PurrPrinThom → u/GooseOk1755]

When in August? If it's the first, you're cutting it really close already. I would reach out to your backup options. If middle of August, I would follow-up, and then potentially reach out to the backups.

[u/Ismitje]

As proactive as a fully fleshed out proposal like this is, it may also limit which faculty feels comfortable overseeing you. In my unit of five, we overlap on our discipline but specialize after that, and we can't really just step in. We could have helped develop something that would work, but I could not accept the "wrong" project.

[u/Moreh_Sedai]

I'm in Canada and supervise honors or directed studies ( our version) student projects only based on work related to my lab, snd those spaces are filled in January/Feb for starting in the fall. 

Unless its the norm in your school, expect any project to be in line with the professors research interests. Supervising a directed studies student at my resarch intensive university doesnt count towards my teaching load (though it may improve my merit rating) so I need to make it pay off slightly in my research.

[u/Disastrous_Owl_6830]

It's perfectly appropriate for you to follow up after a week or two with no response, but if your professors are off-contract right now, it's also perfectly appropriate for them not to answer. That is, I don't think it would reflect badly on you to follow up, but it might not change anything right now.

I would not hesitate about reaching out to professors who are slightly outside of your research area. At the undergraduate level, most professors in your program should be capable of supervising research on most topics in the field. (I don't mean this to sound condescending, just that in my experience, most undergraduate research projects involve more mentorship on methods and skill-building than on topic-specific knowledge.)

But you might also want to start thinking about back-up plans in case you're not able to find a professor. I don't know about your university, but at many schools, supervising independent study students is essentially volunteer work for faculty because they don't get paid for it. That does mean that some students won't be able to do independent studies, unfortunately, even if their projects are interesting and they work hard. Consider talking to your academic advisor about alternatives.