VAZ

I think she only has affiliated appointment in history (not even joint or associated).

@jacob478 If you are referring to historiographical discourse, it's okay to do name, work or quote dropping, as long as you give credit to the person originating the idea. In that case, you can be vague, e.g. "My research is enlightened by Bourdieu's concepts of 'habitus' and social space.", but you should use your own language. If you have to paraphrase a scholarly reading of Bourdieu, be explicit who is that scholar, and even better, in which work it appeared. SoP is not like publishing a journal article, so you don't need to follow any specific citation style. That said, as a rule of thumb, always be aware of what are yours and what are not, and please use your common sense and give fair credits. Never plagiarise! If you want to be more scrupulous, go cite in the footnotes. Why cannot SoP have footnotes? Don't worry about the word limit thing. Unless you are way over / short, the committee won't flag you. In fact, once you submit the document, it will turn to PDF and nobody will be bored enough to count words line by line. Follow the 10% rule (regarding the word limit, not the similarity index!).

You are fine. Focus on the more important stuff, i.e. SoP, WS and (asking whom to writer) the letters.

This does not really sound like academic history in the present day. Archaeology or public history might be more relevant.

In Canada, Toronto, McGill and UBC (Asian history in particular) are the first tier history departments taught in English, followed by Alberta, Queens and York, which could be 1.5 tier. Calgary, Dalhousie, SFU, Victoria and Western History (British and Canadian history only) belong to the second tier, and McMaster's is somewhere below that. M is weak in Humanities in general compared to its Engineering and Life Science programs.

You do the research, ask around, and make your own ranking.

Have you checked this very useful spreadsheet, which many history admits have contributed to in the past years? It almost shows the package information of every single school you may apply to. As you can see, a mediocre stipend is about 25K. Below 20K is rare, and 30K+ only exists among the very top private schools (perhaps there are more this year as stipend usually goes up).

I know exactly where you are talking about. Just be aware that you are also required to labor as TA or RA in each semester during your graduate school years if you don't get a first-year fellowship. It may take a big chunk of your research time. This the case in most of the big state schools. $18500 is not a lot of money if you compare with the amounts private universities usually offer. Another thing to take into account is that the stipend has not been raised much in recent years.

I saw your Result Post yesterday afternoon, which made me super nervous. Congrats! Let's meet on the Recruitment Day. BTW, I thought JHU was not taking any medievalist this year...Spiegel is planning to retire, and El-Leithy is only an Assistant Prof.... just curious, who did you put as your POI?

How often (or how rare) is it to receive a package of 30000+ dollars yearly stipend nowadays? I'm kind of shocked by seeing this much money on my admission letter.

First of all, chronologically, the admission decision must come way before the March/April Recruitment Day (it is not an "Open House Day" or an "Interview Day," but exclusively for the admitted students who have committed or are close to commit). Are you formally invited by the department to attend the Recruitment Day, or your POI just mentioned it in passing and welcomed you to take advantage of it? If the latter, it really depends on the tones. If your POI said it with a grin, (s)he probably hinted that you have been shortlisted and he is confident in your acceptance. If he was half frowning and half pondering, he was simply thinking ahead and finding out a possibility for you to meet him/her and visit the school free of charge, once you are admitted.

By the end of this week, it seems that only five schools have sent out their PhD admission decisions, namely, USC, UNC, UMN, MSU and UVA. So, don't worry! Most ACs are still looking through the applications and trying to figure out which students they want to select. I am expecting to hear from two of the schools I am applying to next week. Good luck, guys! It's getting real!!

Thanks! It's Minnesota. I guess I am the fourth person on this forum according to RESULTS....and I don't think I am getting any university-level fellowship (i.e. the state school early admission). So, @khigh don't fret; you may hear good news very soon. ?

Just wondering: if I get an email of unofficial acceptance from POI or DGS, what is the chance of receiving the official offer in the following weeks? Will they change minds? In other words, should I now celebrate? Thanks!

I'm just wondering how the admission process works, in general. The DGS and the AC read all the applications first and then send them to your POI and other relevant faculty members (2-3?) for a thorough review? On paper or through email? Do faculty members rank the candidates or leave specific comments (say, I extremely want this student to come; great but does not fit; acceptable; not acceptable)? Then the AC will meet and pick out the top ones based on the feedbacks from the professors? Or, all the faculty members in a geographical field have a meeting together, discuss all pertinent applicants and pick the best ones for the field, and then the AC will make a final cut of the nominees from all of the groups? If the university is currently in its "January term" or something similar and most professors are traveling, how is this process carried out? Are sabbatical faculty assigned to read a certain number of apps and got involved in the admission decision? I know it varies by schools and does not have a single answer , but I am both curious and anxious, and I am trying to figure out "where they are now."

Two renowned scholars/POIs that perfectly fit your interest immediately came to my mind: Thomas Robisheaux (Duke) and Thomas Max Safley (Penn). Have you tried to talk to them?

If you get into your U, you may have an interesting discussion on sport history with the medievalist Michael Lower, who even teaches a course in global history of modern soccer as his side interest.

Specifically, what geographical region, time period, approach and theme do you want to specialize in, and why? It usually takes a few years to figure out how you have arrived where you are and what your intellectual path is? Moreover, do you have relevant language skills under your belt, especially reading knowledge and early paleography? How can you acquire them in a scholarly fashion? Do you have any field experience in the targeted region/countries? Are you familiar with the local archives and academics? In addition, have you done enough reading in your particular field and well understood the historiographical discourse? Before all these, do you want to really study in History, instead of Art History, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Politics and any kind of Area Studies? Last but the most important, are you committed to become a professional academic and produce valuable scholarship in your life, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death you do part?

@Imenol

Kira Thurman (2013), Assistant Professor at UMich with a cross-appointment in German Literature. She might be the only one who qualifies. Earlier than that, David Steigerwald (1987) at Ohio State and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (1984) at Harvard; David Eltis (1979) at Emory and Bruce Levine (1980) at UIUC, both emeritus, as well as Russell Jacoby (1974) at UCLA (untenured). And if MA counts, Stephanie McCurry (1983) at Columbia.

I don't think UT-Austin History should be a "mid-range PhD program" and put along with the other few you quoted.

I thought Reyerson was turning 73 or so. Is she still taking students? If you want to primarily work with Shank on early modern Dutch history, who was trained as an intellectual historian of (early) modern science in France, and to a less extent, Italy and Germany (I doubt he could read Dutch), you should probably add a natural philosophical aspect to your proposal or choose a related topic (e.g. Huygens, Gravesande, Boerhaave, Musschenbroek, and Spinoza).

I really wish there could be such things (ED, EA, REA) for graduate school admissions ....to show your loyalty and make life a little bit easier...

I have a last-minute question. Would you spell out in your SoP that this is your top choice school and you will commit if admitted?

@khigh James Tracy has retired. Who else do you have in mind as your potential supervisor?