Is it normal for a Professor to make unsolicited contact with potential Masters students via LinkedIn? My friend recently moved to Canada and she holds a BSc from an overseas university. Her school wasn't world-famous but wasn't bad either. For the past year she'd been studying English and preparing for the GRE to get ready for admission into a North American university.

Apparently there is this professor in the US who'd found her on LinkedIn and is interested in having her as one of his grad students. He has been very encouraging, even keeping in touch via Skype while my friend was on vacation. He's told her that if she gets a good score on the GRE he will be able to admit her. He has also made promises of grants.

My friend is married but she is young and quite attractive. While she had a decent GPA her university wasn't all that amazing. Also her command of English isn't very good. All of this is making me suspicious about the intentions of this professor.

I have worked with some very nice professors but none of them took time on a regular basis to voluntarily stay in touch with a prospective student. I could understand why one might look for bright and amazing students on LinkedIn, but the fact of the matter is my friend did not have her full academic records published on her profile (just a few examples of her projects and volunteer work, but no grades or GPA).

Do you find this scenario normal? I am having a hard time giving this professor the benefit of the doubt.
The Linkedin channel is unusual, but not suspicious per se. Does your friend have common connections with that professor? If that is the case, she might have popped up in the "people you may know" list that he gets. Or he did a keyword search. The one relevant thing with Linkedin is that he saw a — presumably flattering — picture of her.


  He's told her that if she gets a good score on the GRE he will be able to admit her. 


On that point again, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's a wording issue and what was really meant was that with a good GRE score, admission in the local program is likely. 


  He has also made promises of grants.


This is rather standard for grad students to have their tuition and stipend covered by a grant.


  keeping in touch via Skype


This, this. I have a hard time finding sound reasons for a professor to invest time and effort into communicating with a potential grad student, who did not even apply, by videoconferencing. This being said, Skype offers free international calls so it might be just for this reason.

So, there are sketchy aspects to that story, but nothing decisive. If the position is really of interest to her then maybe she should try investigating further. For example contacting the local graduate program admin and ask about the admission process, ask the alleged funding body for grant criteria, etc. in order to have multiple channels of communications. If she sees mismatches in the prof's story and theirs, that could give an additional warning.