I have been accepted as a doctoral student (aerospace engineering, US). The email I received suggested that I get in touch with the faculty of my interest to discuss funding and research. I did try contacting two of the professors but have not heard back.
Do you have any suggestion on how to reach out to professors for funding? The university is my top choice and I have two more professors whose research really connects with what I want to do.
Easy.
Include a greeting of choice and then something along the lines of "My name is X and I am a recently admitted student to the X PhD program." Next, make sure you show in a material way how you are interested in their work. Ask a couple questions about their recent publications or briefly indicate to them your research interests (be as specific as possible) and how you think you could be a good fit for their program. Ask for a meeting to better understand what they are currently working on. Then you could ask if they are planning to take on another graduate student in the autumn. If they don't have funding to do so, they will usually tell you right away. Often it is still worth meeting them, since they might end up on your committee.
The thing here is to show concrete understanding of their work and that you are a possible match, but keep it short. Leave the rest for a subsequent in person or zoom meeting. Presumably, if this is the structure of the program (admit first, then find a lab), they are expecting this type of email. Keep in mind that it is spring break right now for many institutions and you are unlikely to get a response during spring break week.
Potential graduate advisors get many, many emails from prospective graduate students, so it is not surprising you may not have heard back after contacting them just once.
I would suggest following up with an additional email after two weeks. Don't feel bad about following up as the worst they can say is "no, I'm not taking any students" and then at least you have an answer and you won't keep bugging them!
I would also suggest trying to contact them in a method other than email as emails can get buried in a busy inbox. Some of the best advice I got when applying to grad school (in my field you typically have to reach out and connect with potential advisors and ask about funding before applying, so I did this part first) was to send actual SNAIL MAIL letters to professors. I was told by several of these professors that I ended up connecting with that that made me stand out. You could also try calling and leaving a voicemail if they have a phone number listed on their university landing page.
