gsc

If you've any questions about Queen's, feel free to ask/message me! I spent last year in Belfast and got a pretty good idea of their history department -- and also Belfast! It's a really lovely place.

Question - how do you know the one person who went straight through wasn't ready for it? I'd really like to go straight through myself (against all advice, but anyways) but I don't want people to think I should have waited before I applied.

Thanks for your reply! I had thought about using the statistics sequence as a language requirement for graduate school, but I had forgotten about the outside field requirements and I hadn't even considered the possibility of working as a TA for anthropology. I think there might be more flexibility than the department lets on, so I'll see what I can do; you've listed a lot of persuasive reasons to keep it, which were honestly exactly what I needed to hear. Thanks again!

I'm not from Illinois, but I live very close! This part of the country gets shafted weather-wise - expect cold winters with plenty of snow and ice. It's not undoable as long as you invest in good winter clothing, like a coat and boots and hats and gloves. My favorite company is Patagonia; their stuff really holds up and there's a lifetime warranty on everything you get, so you get a lot of life out of it. I'm not sure if you can order Patagonia internationally, but you probably can once you get to the US. The summers, though, are hot and humid, so what you're used to already! Macomb isn't very big and the Midwest as a whole is pretty tame, so I can't imagine safety being a huge issue. If you got bored of Macomb, you would have Peoria (75 miles away) and the Quad Cities (another 75 miles), and of course Chicago (4 hours). Unfortunately, you'd need a car for all of these things.

Right now, I've got two majors, history and anthropology; I'm on track to get a BA in history and a BS in anthropology and I'm hoping to apply for PhD programs in history next year. However, the anthropology department at my school has a million rules for how you can get said BS, without a lot of flexibility. You're required to have an outside minor or major, but it has to be off of their approved list; history's not on the list. You're required to take extra statistics/formal reasoning courses, but only off the approved list, and so on. It's not that I don't want the BS, but I feel like the rules the department has set out are unnecessarily constraining. I do want to take a statistics sequence, but I feel like a statistical methods course (not on the list) would be more useful than a biostats course (on the list), and I'd rather spend my time taking relevant coursework in the history department, rather than bending over backwards to get a minor in Native American studies or computer science or linguistics. And so on. So does it look bad if I drop from a BS to a BA? I mean, I know nobody can tell you switched tracks, but does it look bad if I go for a BA when there was a BS option? I've a meeting with an advisor next week to talk about how flexible the BS track is - some people tell me it's really rigid, but others tell me you can adjust the requirements, so I'm not entirely sure just yet. I really want to keep the BS if possible, but at this point, it's just getting to be a headache. I feel like a BS shows more rigor, and I had always intended to get one, but I don't plan to go into anthropology, now or ever, and the semester hours I spend on BS requirements (ha) are semester hours I'm not using in classes that I think would be directly relevant for my interests - like taking women in the 20th century US, for example, continuing to take French, or doing another semester of research for the history professor I've been working with. For what it's worth, I go to a Midwestern R1; my GPA in history is a 4.1 and a 3.98 in anthropology, and I'm hoping to study modern women's history. Sorry for the wall of text! Thanks so much. I really appreciate it!

Perhaps I've not thought this through enough, but your letters of rec have to speak to your potential as a historian and a researcher; I'd caution against leaning too strongly on what you have simply because the professors writing them are distinguished. Just because the writer has a Pulitzer Prize doesn't mean that they are "better" letters than those written by somebody without one.

On top of this, schools want to see that you can conceive of complex projects and ask incisive questions - that you can think like a historian, not an undergrad.

meg11, you might try Rutgers for gender/women's history; they've at least 20 professors in that subfield alone, if I recall correctly!

I think the important thing is figuring out what you want and need out of a computer, or out of anything, really. For me, I know Macs are expensive and possibly overpriced computers, but I also know I really like working on a Mac instead of a PC; so, the higher cost is worth it in my book. I'd rather get the Macbook Air I've had my eye on, and skimp on something else, like my cell phone or money for eating out. Maybe someone else doesn't think the Mac computer is worth it, but they'd rather get a better phone plan, or a bigger apartment, or something else. How important is that to you? A lot? A little? Or, I know I like to have my own space, so I'll live far away from campus if it means I can be by myself; someone else might rather be close to campus and deal with roommates. You sort of have to know yourself and know what's important, or not important, to you, and plan accordingly.

Just park in the city lots. Most people who use the commuter lots are either students living in the dorms, hospital employees, or people who live ridiculously far away. The only city lot I wouldn't park in is the IMU ramp; it gets pretty crowded and it's narrow, so if you don't hit another car, you'll probably hit a cement pillar.

I was going to say exactly this - no school is ever really "safe," but I would be really be hard pressed to think of Michigan as safe, at all. They get somewhere in the realm of 350-400 applicants a year, but only 10-15 ultimately end up attending; it's possible to get in, of course, but the odds aren't stacked in anyone's favor. Same as Minnesota - they might not have the same rankings, but they would be as competitive. Look around this board for a little bit and you'll realize that people who are dream applicants on paper, who have perfect GPAs and stellar writing samples and LORs, get rejected from half or over half or all of the schools they apply to. I understand not wanting to move to certain regions - I know I don't want to live in New York, for example! But I'm wondering if you could be missing out on some good programs just because they're not in your prime locales; you don't have to apply to them, obviously, but I would really look into all your options before you decide to write off whole regions entirely. Indiana, OSU, and especially Wisconsin are also strong programs; UT-Austin, UNC, and UVa are similarly well regarded. I have no idea if they would even have faculty in your area of interest, but it doesn't hurt to look and you might be surprised.

Try academia.edu! You can search by school and then department - usually lots of graduate students have CVs posted (generally, the ones with pictures of themselves also have CVs) that you can look at without having to sign up. I must have looked at hundreds when I was figuring out how to do mine!

I don't think Ames is quite as bad as everyone says - it's just not right for everyone. It's a quiet town that's a little on the rural side, but if that doesn't bother you, it's a nice place to be. And if Ames isn't enough, you're only 45 minutes north of Des Moines, which is a really nice city with lots of art/music festivals, awesome restaurants, and pretty good shopping. But if you want a high-octane lots-to-do-every-night lifestyle, you won't find it in Ames; it's just not a happening place.

Your GRE scores are good, but I would try to get that verbal score up over 160 if I could. The quant won't matter much, but a higher verbal might make you more competitive for funding; I know someone who missed out on a lot of money because his score was one point below the cut-off. How extensive are your teaching experiences? An undergrad TA who leads discussions is very different from an undergrad TA who just grades papers, and a history tutor who works through a university writing center or an advising center is very different from a freelancer. Likewise, conference experiences vary - are we talking undergraduate symposiums run by the department, or graduate conferences where you presented as an undergrad?

I agree with Monochrome Spring - best to call and ask. Having a BA won't make it impossible, but it's one part of your application that's less competitive than your peers, many of whom will have BS degrees.

Why not try applying to both? You could apply to some regional MA programs as well as some better programs - cast a wide net, and then if the better schools will take you, great! If not, you can go to a regional program, do super well, and get into a PhD program later on. But you're a long ways out from your undergrad, and since you did really well in your last masters' program, I think that would suggest that you can now handle graduate level work.