sankd

You will never take an in-class essay exam ever again. Well, probably not. You may end up with some cross-referenced undergrad-grad class (this happens some places), but that's pretty much it.

From now on, get used to grading them! Today I had a student grumping about their exam essay.

better this than offering admissions without funding. *cough*wisconsin*cough*

My professors have consistently told me to skim. Let's be realistic.I was going to do it anyway.

Also, yeah. Grad school is work. Right now, I'm taking 15 credits and TAing, which is better than next year when I will be teaching, taking classes, and reading for comps. I think the total amount of reading I have this semester is 45 or 50 books. About 250-300 pages of writing. Counting is kind-of pointless.

Last summer I backpacked through Europe and visited friends across the country. I drank and ate and had fun. Why? Because from now on, my summers are pretty much gone. Research trips abroad, preparing for class, reading for comps. I need to take credits during the summer so I keep getting paid, too.

Then there's the non-school elements of being a first year graduate student. You should be devoting some time, in my opinion, to being social. We're not hermits 24/7. That takes energy too. Making connections in the community and with your colleagues is really important for your development and well-being. I have been on both ends of it.

I wrote two wildly different seminar papers my first year. I decided to build on one of them to make into a MA thesis, especially since I knew I barely cracked into the sourcebase. I went to my advisor last semester, gave them the 35 pages I already finished and wrote up a plan for research. I should be done by April. Of course, if I don't get into any PhD program, I'm just going to take the summer to finish it while interning in DC. Plan B!

After much thinking, I have come to the decision that I will turn down the big name school and go with the lesser ranked program because the fit is much better. I asked myself - who do I REALLY want to work with, and why. I kept coming to the lesser ranked program. The fit is just incredibly perfect, and I get along great with the potential advisers. I really believe that I will write a strong dissertation if I go to this lesser ranked program. I will be losing out on some language learning opportunities, but hopefully I am successful in my bids for national fellowships that fund language study. I have not yet made the decision, but I think I will be making it official tomorrow morning. The only thing I hope and pray for is that I do not regret this decision five years down the line when it comes to applying for jobs. I keep coming back to the question, does name really matter?

Just taken off the waitlist at Michigan. As that was my only prospect I am pretty ECSTATIC about the decision.

They told me they'd give me a $10,000 fellowship and cover tuition for 3 hrs per semester. Another guy who is in the MA program here at GA Southern has been accepted into their PhD program and said he was told he'd be getting funding, they just haven't said the amount yet. I'm sending the paperwork in tomorrow.

I applied to the MA Latin American History programs at the University of Arizona and the University of New Mexico and haven't heard back yet. Has anyone heard anything?

Let's start talking about tulips and decline theory and make them feel weird!

It's pretty ridiculous to think your GPA would hold you back if your writing sample and SOP are spot on. I would actually encourage NOT over-explaining your academic history beyond mere rudimentary, professional ways (2 sentences or so). They want to know why you left, but overdoing the story can make a red flag where there isn't one.

If you're interested in 20th century american intellectual history, you should add Harvard, University of Michigan, Stanford, and Berkeley. IMHO, you have too many state schools on the list that might get crap funding when they do admit you, but I'm not claiming to be an expert. I have no idea about going to the UK to do a master's, but since you mentioned finances before it seems prohibitively expensive unless they give you funding. Do they, typically? If not, it DOES make sense to study US history in the US in a master's program that might give you a tuition waver to boot---just saying. Anyway, good luck. And WANT it, but don't want it too bad. Apply far and wide, forget about your GPA worries (which are so off-base it's incredible), and don't bomb the GRE.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry so much about the Quant. It's by far one of the last things anyone will look at on your application, and even a 'good score' isn't really that great percentage wise. I got a 730, which placed me just outside the top fifth. It still comes after LORs, SOP, transcript, writing sample, GRE Verbal, GRE Writing.

Our potential advisors are under no illusions that applicants/prospectives discuss these things. The fact that it is on an internet forum - and thus a permanent record - shouldn't change anything.

@sidiosquiere: Yes, I discussed CASA with him. He wants me to do it (he also wants to redo it himself) if/when it restarts, but not for a couple of years. I should qualify skill-wise after next year anyway. As for your choice of schools, I think you should go with Option A, but the distance from home thing is a big deal too. You don't want to go to a program where you may be personally glum because of non-academic reasons. We all talk about toughing it out, but under those circumstances most of our work tends to get worse.

Let me know what happens! See you (and the other ME people) in DC this fall.

Our potential advisors are under no illusions that applicants/prospectives discuss these things. The fact that it is on an internet forum - and thus a permanent record - shouldn't change anything.

@sidiosquiere: Yes, I discussed CASA with him. He wants me to do it (he also wants to redo it himself) if/when it restarts, but not for a couple of years. I should qualify skill-wise after next year anyway. As for your choice of schools, I think you should go with Option A, but the distance from home thing is a big deal too. You don't want to go to a program where you may be personally glum because of non-academic reasons. We all talk about toughing it out, but under those circumstances most of our work tends to get worse.

Let me know what happens! See you (and the other ME people) in DC this fall.

Oh yeah, I should have noted in my case that I came in knowing German and then took two years of Arabic (summer intensive + 2 semesters) during my MA. Changing fields is some work, I agree.

Short answer: No, yes, probably.

I changed from German history to Middle Eastern history during my MA, for instance.

Maryland rejections are out. They said I could find out why I was rejected, and while I am curious since it was such a great fit, I think I know already.

Now to decide where to go. Two choices > No choices, right?

My dreams of living in New York are over. Got rejected today too. I guess its the Midwest for me!

You will never take an in-class essay exam ever again. Well, probably not. You may end up with some cross-referenced undergrad-grad class (this happens some places), but that's pretty much it.

From now on, get used to grading them! Today I had a student grumping about their exam essay.

I will say from personal experience not having to TA your first year is really nice. You will have more time to devote to classwork and outside research. I would also strongly advise visiting the other school and meeting faculty and students and keep an open mind, you have till april 15, they don't mind if you take that time. I completely changed my choice of school after a campus visit (and I had visited the other school before also). Both schools are solidly ranked so I wouldn't worry too much, but it is hard to imagine passing up a school like michigan (thats just me being honest, but I am single and don't have the family concerns you have, etc.). Also Michigan has some of the best Breweries in the country... At the end of the day though, you have a wealth of riches to choose from, so be excited!

And yet it is just about the most popular of all history consumed by the general public. So if military history did something at some point to decrease its relevance in the academy, then academia has just as much to answer for as the discipline itself. But, I don't really mind. I'm going to be 32, give or take when I finish my program, and not likely in the running for any serious tenure track positions. The whole reason I wanted to get my PhD in history (I got my MA in international relations but my BA in history) was based on almost 6 years working for and consulting for DoD on IW/COIN/CT. Sociocultural studies have been done to death - DoD has made a big deal about bringing in social scientists (sociologists, anthropologists, etc), but the one thing they still lack is any kind of in depth historical perspective on anything that happened prior to Vietnam (or the Malayan Emergency in some cases). Furthermore, social scientists love case studies, so they can can create data sets and let the numbers give them the answers - anything more in depth than a 10 page case study takes too much time. I'm not looking to find the secret to winning in Afghanistan by studying the Civil War or the American Revolution - historians make that mistake much too often of assuming that every historical event has some direct correlation or lesson for current events. But I do want to study the way opposition/resistance movements have historically responded in areas where they were the political minority, because these were strategic questions that have been dealt with, within their own context, as far in the Civil War, the Revolution, and log before that. More important, though, what I want the PhD for is to develop those skills in historical analysis to eventually bring a missing skill-set back to the academic components of the military and government. If history as a discipline doesn't think that's a skill or niche worth pursuing, and is content to abandon strategic thinking to political scientists and sociologists and their data sets, then that is their loss (nothing against people in those fields). This in no way means disrespect for other fields of history that are more prevalent in academia today - I am fascinated by many fields of historical study, from ancient and medieval history to labor history and urban history. There are certainly goofy and bizarre areas of military history, just as there are in other fields of history. Studying whether Pickett shaked when he should have baked at Gettysburg is of great interest to re-enactors and tacticians, but there are many other areas of traditional military history that we desperately need to foster in academia, and I don't think students who want to study military history should be forced to study some aspect of the field they have no interest in or that isn't going to help them simply because it fits within the new academic trends.

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox now, and I hope I didn't insult anyone's academic interests or anything like that. I'm just glad that there are some programs that continue to foster military history programs even as they have fallen by the wayside elsewhere.

Accepted into my two safeties! Now I watch them fight it out with funding offers while I await rejections.

Not when I have archives not only in 3 different states, but 4 different countries.

"Just one school with funding, just one school with funding." That's been my mantra for the past two months. Now that we're probably going to be hearing back relatively soon from a number of schools, I'm getting so anxious it's not even funny.

I'd like it to begin for me now, please!!!