GIS is very much digital history. Its such an awesome tool to know--and the findings can really change traditional historiography. I highly suggest learning it if you can--just have patience!
Does anyone know whats up with UCSB? Im getting nervous because I have to make a decision by the 1st for one of my schools I got into and I still haven't heard from them.
Czesc you love to complain but it seems you have it pretty good. Many people didn't get in at all and it seems you've been accepted to an excellent program and your wait listed at two more. I'd be grateful if I were you--getting into a program isn't a guarantee its a privilege and a compliment that the faculty would put their trust and confidence in you.
I used a Kaplan on demand program but what helped me the most was the flash cards the sent me. The verbal test is designed in such a way that you really have to know your vocab to do well. At least when I took it, it's changed since then and I haven't taken the new version so I can't speak to that. But memorizing the vocab words and being able to come up with the definition quickly is invaluable for the test!
You can try NHGiS, its free to sign up and you can pull demographic data and customize to what you want. I used it to grab data for ArcGIS, but there's no reason you couldn't just pull a csv for the data. You have to use their system to tell it what you want, so depending on what kind of data you want it should be relatively easy to pull. You can PM me if you have questions about how to use the site.
If your having trouble with the historiography section I think a really good resource is "They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing". It really helped me when I was writing the historiography section of my thesis because there isn't alot that is directly related to my topic. Nonetheless though, its a good way to think about historiography and how to structure it to make your argument clearer.