AI is killing cold emails: professor gets 75 PhD inquiries months before Fall 2027 admissions

random_walker · x · 2026-09-14

Princeton professor Arvind Narayanan says AI is killing cold outreach: months before the Fall 2027 PhD admissions cycle he has already received 75 inquiries, expected to grow exponentially — one of 10-15 categories of unsolicited email he gets. NYU's Jay Van Bavel notes faculty now ignore all outreach, harming real applicants. A new spam wave comes from a company called iLands that runs unmonitored agents.

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