Must Read Before You Contact Me

I receive numerous emails every year from candidates who are interested in applying to our PhD program at CUHK. There are rumors that suggest contacting professors before formally submitting the application could increase the likelihood of being admitted. While this may work in some cases, it doesn’t apply to our school. In certain instances, the letters are written poorly, which can reduce the chances of being accepted. To avoid confusion and bridge the information gap, I have compiled some facts and common “mistakes” below. All applicants are encouraged to read them, although they may only be relevant to the PhD in Communication program at CUHK.

• An admission committee manages admission to our PhD program. The committee members are responsible for evaluating your application materials and selecting candidates for further interviews. The interviews will most likely be conducted via Zoom. You don’t need to contact any professors before applying. Once you are formally admitted, you will be able to select your supervisor. It is not necessary to contact professors in advance, as the selection process is carefully designed to ensure fairness and impartiality.

• Our school does not accept undergraduate students or taught master’s (usually 1 year) students directly into our PhD program. If you don’t have an MPhil degree (or other research master’s degrees), you can only apply to our MPhil program.

• It’s important to note your professor’s title when addressing them. If you’re unsure of their title, it’s appropriate to address them as “professor.” For a more formal approach, use “Dr. XXX.” Avoid using “Mr. Liang” or “Associate Professor Liang,” as these may come across as impolite despite being accurate. For instance, I once received an email addressed to “Dear Associate Professor/Dr. LIANG, Hai,” which included a slash and comma before my first name. Such a greeting is not recommended.

• I have dozens of publications, and I never expected someone else to read all of them. So, I picked my favorite ones and listed them online: https://drhailiang.com/publications/. If you want to show that our research interests overlap, it would be much better if the articles mentioned in your letter were from the list. I received letters mentioning my co-authored articles (like I am the third or fourth author) or articles that I think are less important, which may lead me to think the applicants didn’t read my articles or have very bad taste.

• Be concrete about your research interests and ideas. It is not meaningful to say you’re interested in computational social science or social media analytics. It would help if you could show me more concrete examples of what you will research, e.g., theories, phenomena, and methods (it is equally terrible to say “using NLP/SNS”). I expected a concrete research design (don’t send me your proposal because we’re required not to comment on your proposals). Nevertheless, this is not the worst. I received some letters that mentioned the areas that I had never known.

• Communication, as a discipline, is closely connected to industries such as advertising, public relations, and journalism. However, having work experience in these industries is not essential or adequate for being a good communication researcher. Simply stating that you were a TV anchor or newspaper reporter is not meaningful unless you can demonstrate how it directly relates to your research.

• Applications for 2026-27 entry are now open. You can find more admission information, including the application timeline, requirements, procedures, FAQ, and Checklist, on our website: https://rpg.com.cuhk.edu.hk/. Applicants do NOT need to confirm with a supervisor before admission. In order to maintain a fair admission procedure, our teachers will not comment on the performance of any individual applicant. The School will be arranging online group consultation sessions from 20 to 24 October 2025 via Zoom. Our research faculty will introduce the programmes, financial support, and admission requirements, and answer questions from participants during the consultation. Interested applicants can register at https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13715524 and upload a two-page resume in English by 5 October 2025. Should you have any further questions after the consultation, please send them to com_pg@cuhk.edu.hk.

• Updating…

My Mentoring Style

Casual Inference

• The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality by Nick Huntington-Klein
• Causal Inference for The Brave and True by Matheus Facure Alves
• Causal ML’s documentation by Uber Technologies, Inc.
• EconML User Guide by Microsoft Research

Data Science

• Big Data and Social Science: Data Science Methods and Tools for Research and Practice by Ian Foster, Rayid Ghani, Ron S. Jarmin, Frauke Kreuter, and Julia Lane
• Python Data Science Handbook by Jake VanderPlas
• Data Visualization: A practical introduction by Kieran Healy

Machine Learning

• Interpretable Machine Learning by Christoph Molnar
• Deep Learning by Subir Varma and Sanjiv Das

NLP & Images

• Modern Approaches in Natural Language Processing by Carolin Becker et al.
• Foundations of Computer Vision by Antonio Torralba, Phillip Isola, and William Freeman

Bayesian Statistics

• Bayes Rules! An Introduction to Applied Bayesian Modeling by Alicia A. Johnson, Miles Q. Ott, and Mine Dogucu
• Doing Bayesian Data Analysis in brms and the tidyverse by A Solomon Kurz
• Easy Bayes with rstanarm and brms by Michael Clark

Legacy tools: