dr. t

It's ok, even if your profile hadn't said, I would have guessed polisci or econ from the way you extracted general conclusions from a highly limited case study and were willing to fight to the death to defend them

Two members of my committee would only give me my lists with 3 months to go. They were on sabbatical and wouldn't start before they got back. If I had the option to take 6 months, I absolutely would have. Some programs do want you to ignore everything and study for comps. Again, you should understand your own experiences are not universal.

And at stopping the former from turning into the latter!

If you can pass comps without a ~3 month period where you're focused on studying (I had to give up cycling and gained 25 lbs), your committee let you off easy, to say the least. It sounds to me like comps are more a formality in your program than they were in mine; you should be careful about universalizing your experience. And sure, we can all question the utility of comps, but in the end, you need to do what your committee expects. Otherwise, you don't pass, and then your publications (or whatever) don't matter.

Generalize your response. If giving a longer answer, do not stare down the original questioner, but continue to look around the room. Refuse to get caught up in a debate over minutiae. Distill the essence (rather than the specific form) of their critique, and make your responding observations based on that. Do not give them the opportunity to interrupt at the end of your response - be looking elsewhere, and call on another person (if you're able to control your own Q&A). If they keep interrupting anyway, suggest that they continue the conversation outside of the Q&A. Sometimes, there's nothing you can really do and the moderator has to step in. Sometimes they don't, because not all moderators do their jobs properly, particularly if it involves shutting down a senior scholar. Your first aggressive question can be a really unsettling experience, and everyone's default reaction is to go into defense mode. Practice the mental discipline to take a breath and process your response, and you'll be much better off.

My prelims were also a bit shaky. I had ~2.5 months to digest a 230 book reading list (with a 1-course TA load), which often meant grinding through 5-10 books in a day. Needless to say, while my exam committee found my synthetic work very interesting, they had severe concerns about my degree of precision with regard to the texts. It doesn't matter. I passed. I got what I needed out of the exam, which is a broad overview of the fields I need to work in, and when I need to talk about a specific subject, I know where to look. I have publications coming up. My prospectus is looking very strong. My summer research trips are planned and funded. They were traumatic, they're over, move on.

They're usually pretty late. I only got my notice for PhD acceptance the first week of April, back in the day.

No. Start with the recommended load, and if you find that manageable, then increase it. Trust me when I say you will find yourself with more than enough to do.

Are we going to have to do this thing again where we confuse the possibility of something happening as an argument for the probability that it will? Because it's getting really, really tiring.

Job reports, hiring tendencies, word of mouth, reputations of departments, prestige. In short, fluency in the field.

UK PhDs are on a significantly later cycle than US ones.

Ah, MA programs are different. There I would say the presence of visit funding is a good sign.

Have you filtered out MAs in cursu from this list? I know, for example, that Harvard only awards an AM in History as part of one's PhD progress, so do the numbers you give incorporate those, or are they MAs earned elsewhere at Harvard?

Very usual for PHD. It would be a very big warning flag otherwise.

You know, I once read a book on codicology from the 1990s which, among other things, lamented this "newfangled fad" of central heating. Apparently castles were ideal for parchment storage, and trying to regulate their temperature caused no end to the humidity balance issues.

When in doubt, write it out.

Is there someone in your department whom you trust - your adviser, for example? If so, tell them what you've said here, and see how they suggest you proceed. They'll have a much better sense of the topographies of power than we will.

"Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." This sounds like you putting in precisely the amount of effort you should. Some wouldn't even go that far.

I'd communicate with the university to see if they have any flexibility. If they simply won't work with you, you should do what you need to, but you should also consider that bridge burnt, dynamited, and carpet-bombed.

You can't quantify it, but if the hiring committee (who is almost by definition going to be people not in your exact field) recognizes a big name, it can't possibly hurt - unless they're mortal enemies.

Yes, exactly. What kind of job do you want? Which adviser has more of their students in that kind of job?

Not to sound like a broken record, but placements, placements, placements, placements.

Sounds like just a more encouraging term for "you're on the waitlist." There really aren't odds. Depending on year, school, and program, sometimes the waitlist means pretty much a guaranteed acceptance. Other times, it's a polite way of saying "try again next year!" There isn't a pattern you can deduce, because sometimes six schools will be fighting over the same wonderbread candidate and sometimes everyone is just clinging to their one acceptance.

This is the correct answer.