Vr4douche

@Josh and JPB (quotes haven't worked for me today) This applies to anyone really...but it is always best to contact potential supervisors before you apply. If you find a supervisor who is able and willing to supervise your project on religious history I doubt the department would object.

All I can say is that you have to do what is best for you not for the department. You earned the offer and with that offer comes time to decide. Use it.

I heard yesterday that I have been accepted to the PhD program at the University of Western Ontario with a substantial funding package. I do not know the nature of that funding...if it purely scholarship or involves a teaching assistantship...but I am excited none-the-less. I only submitted the application 2 weeks ago so I am surprised to have heard this soon. It is nice to know that whatever else happens I will be doing a PhD somewhere! Now it is a waiting game. I do not expect to hear from Toronto, Oxford or Cambridge for at least another month.

Ya, I tell people to expect a response from UofT sometime in 2016. I don't know why it takes them so long. If I remember right it took them until April when I applied for the MA program. I was probably waitlisted though they did not tell me. I took another offer that came in early February and which offered a scholarship and teaching assistantship. I was angry with UofT for taking so long.

I am a little biased as I am a Canadian but I would not worry too much about the cold. For the most part you can get away with normal shoes, jeans, a sweater and a winter vest. I only wear my Columbia winter jacket on the coldest of days and only if I have to be outside for a prolonged period. If just going from my car to office I don't bother. Personally I fear heat much more than cold. You can always wear more clothes when its cold but when its hot what do you do? Don't let relocation scare you...it should be exciting.

I have a B.A. and M.A. in medieval studies but I have shifted focus to Late-Antiquity. I have applied to Oxbridge divinity schools PhD/Dphil programs studying Late-Antique philosophy and intellectual history. I have professors excited to work with me so it looks good. I have also applied to University of Toronto's Center for Medieval Studies since I am a native Torontonian and did my BA at UofT. I am scheduled to present a paper at the upcoming Oxford Patristics Conference. I wanted to apply to several U.S. schools...St.Louis, Notre Dame, Western-Mich. etc. but I refuse to write the GRE test. It may simply be that as a Canadian I am not accustomed to standardized tests like SAT ACT etc. but I think it is a costly waste of time that serves no purpose. It is a shame. I looked forward to studying in the U.S....c'est la vie. I am contemplating abandoning medieval studies though. I have applied to several programs studying modern medieval military history. I fear that teaching jobs in medieval history will be hard to come by. It may just come down to funding etc....I've already been offered admission to a military history program with $30,000 in funding.

I wouldn't worry about it because most schools focus on recent performance and because you cannot do anything about it. Worry about things you can control! with that said, my cumulative undergrad GPA was 2.7 ish, my M.A. GPA was a little north of 3.7, and I received my first PhD acceptance today from a top Canadian school with substantial funding....so it is possible.

Smoking man

Whether you are excepted or rejected there is nothing you can do about it now. Try to stay calm, if you are rejected its not the end of the world. You can always apply again and improve your credentials in the mean time. This is especially true for those of you who are still in classes. Don't let the waiting distract you from your present studies! If you are rejected and do another year it might be a good idea to add another minor. My problem is that I did a specialist degree which was very focused on medieval history. Because of this I was very limited as to which grad programmes I could apply. My focus is on early medieval philosophy. Had I done a minor in philosophy I could have also applied for philosophy grad programmes.

I got a rejection from UofT Centre For Medieval Studies. I wasn't surprised. It seems they accept about 10-13 MA students per year. As one of the few medieval schools I'm sure there are hundreds of applicants from all over North America and Europe. Still waiting to hear fr UofT History, York U history and queens history. Not too hopefull for UofT because ai get no extra consideration as a UofT grad and last year there were 20 MA Spaces and 220 applicants. My early offer from McMaster really took a load off my chest!

Feb 14th I was accepted to McMaster History MA with funding and a TA position. My application status still says "application submitted".

UofT tends to take forever for everything.

I looked and I cannot find any status changes or notes saying I have been accepted. For me they simply sent me an acceptance E-mail and a button to click to accept the offer.

Ill check later on my status but I received my offer from McMaster Feb.14 by email an at the time there was no status change.

I was accepted to McMaster for MA in history with funding and a TA position last week. I am still waiting on Uoft-history and CMS, and York and Queens. I have the same question as crimsoc...I only have until march 1st to accept McMaster's offer but it's not my first choice. Should I accept the offer then bail out if I get into UofT?

I was accepted to McMaster for MA in history with funding and a TA position last week. I am still waiting on Uoft-history and CMS, and York and Queens.