cooperstreet

few i bet, but i think gradcafe would represent a better-than-average candidate.

A bunch of these PHD programs in history don't list the maximum SOP length on the website; is there an average range I should stick to or should I send an email asking what the range is?

For example, I know that Gaddis has supervised at least two people who have done US-Middle East relations in the cold war. But I see your point. And really, theres' only two relevant archives in the Middle East: everything Israel has and Egypt's national archives. And the way that my research (and I think most diplomatic history is conducted) is by basically constructing your argument, framework, and literature field based on your knowledge of the US, and then supplementing that with foreign sources.

iamincontrolhere Were you at SHAFR? I probably met you.

No one. But aside from Temple, all of those schools have near/middle eastern studies centers, and very rubst ones too. Its very common--nearly universal-- for professors of US diplomatic history to have graduate students who don't specialize in the same region. Mark Bradley doesn't only mentor students interested in US-Vietnam relations.

yeah I guess it matters if the publication is good or not!

Hi all, I too am applying for a Phd in History with a focus on US relations in the cold war, specifically with the Middle East. I'm applying to: Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Georgetown, GWU, Temple, Cornell, Chicago, Michigan, UVA, Utexas, Emory and Vanderbilt. I may shave one or two of them off. I have good grades, gres, pubs, conferences, but never went to a big name school and kinda bombed a couple years of undergrad. We'll see.

How important is it?

Bukharan, Could you elaborate on which Georgetown program would be best? IIRC, there are a couple of MA degrees they offer relating to the Middle East (the MAAS) being the most intense.

NYU has a business option. Does anyone have any experience with one of these programs?

Burnt, thank you for your kind words. What did the placement test measure specifically? The case endings? al-kitaab grammar terms? I'll spend my summer brushing up on all my grammar then. I just looked at the review for the Haywood and Nahmad. Wow! looks awesome, thanks.

NYU. They do a placement test and im preparing all summer re-studying the al-kitaab books. IMO those books spend too much time on the case endings, especially when I or most students will never need to know all the intricacies of the system. So that is what I need to work on. I can read most newspaper articles with only looking up a handful of word. I'd guess I'm halfway between advanced and intermediate levels, but i think it would be better to excel in the intermediate level than struggle at the advanced level.

I'm attending a MA in Middle Eastern Studies program this Fall, but I have never taken a college course in Arabic. I have years of self study and did a short intensive program a year ago. I'm looking to transfer into the Advanced course. I have, however, taken community college courses in Hebrew. They weren't that intense or difficult. How difficult are graduate level language classes?

What other external funding options are there?

Alex, No. NYU accepts electronic transcripts, and only needs official ones after you have been accepted.

What are everyone's post MA in middle east studies career plans?

ans.diffident, NYU's MA program in Near Eastern Studies is one of the best in the country. It was started and designed by Timothy Mitchell. It's also a lot broader than Georgetown's program--NYU offers Hebrew, Farsi, Turkish, etc... Its also closely affiliated with NYU's Middle Eastern Studies Ph.d. program, which as far as I and many others are concerned, is the best in the country if you want to study Modern Middle East History (esp. Egypt). Of course, if you only want to do Arab Studies, Georgetown may be a better fit, and I think UChicago would be better if you were interested in the pre-modern ME. Regarding the Ph.d., Yes, getting an MA would improve your chances--but depending how much depends on where you are right now. How are your language skills? I'm going to NYU's program mainly to enhance my language and area studies knowledge, then apply to Ph.d. programs. (Those parts of my PHD app are lacking). I'm guessing you have a very good application, considering that you got full funding to NYU, which is rare (was it a FLAS?)

For NYU, I'm pretty sure that the 10 FLASs for 50 applicants are for those accepted plus the class already enrolled. They do not have a seperate FLAS pool for incoming and second year students. So if it is evenly divided between years, thats 5 incoming and 5 continuing students. Factor in that preferance is given to advanced language training, and continuing students, on average, will have more language training, i think its safe to say that very few incoming students will be awarded FLASs. I most likely will attend there this Fall over Georgetown. PM me if anyone else plans on attending. Its a shitload of money, but I should be able to land a good job afterwards, right? right?

It would look like I got 'owned' if sibil and I were talking about the same thing--but we are not. To me, sibil seems to be making a category error. While the lesson in historical linguistics was informative, I don't see what it has to do with the dicussion at hand. Recall vagabondage's comment that started this discussion: "I love Yemen and you will practice Arabic all the time in a place where the dialect is close to FusHa." Obviously, the implication in vagabondage's comment is that learning fusha in Yemen will be more advantageous than learning fusha in Morocco, because conversing with people in the Yemeni dialect will complement the learning of fusha moreso than conversing with people in a Moroccan dialect. This is the sense in which I said that the Yemeni dialect was closer to fusha than the Moroccan dialect. I thought that was clear because we were having a dicussion about learning Arabic, not about historical linguistics.

Sibil wrote: "There is no Arabic dialect currently spoken anywhere that is 'closer' to fusHa than the others." Sorry Sibil, but that simply isn't true. I studied MSA in Morocco. I couldn't understand a word of Moroccan Arabic. Its completely alien to me. However, I can understand both Egyptian and Levantine dialects with a little bit of effort. This is pretty common knowledge--I don't know where you are getting your information, but it doesn't seem to be a good source.

I'm waiting to hear about funding. And yes, that is a very good point about Georgetown. I imagine anyone coming out of that will be an absolute master in Arabic, but I'm also interested in Hebrew & Israel, an interest that NYU's program satisfies. Also, NYU allows part time enrollment--which may be necessary if I don't receive funding. Here's a thought I had: would I be more likely to receive a relatively lucrative job out of Georgetown than NYU because of its DC location?

Hm... I'm in a fortunate situation: I got into the MAAS program at Georgetown, and the MA in Near Eastern studies program at NYU. Anyone have any opinions on the relative merits/deficiencies of these two programs? I also got into Texas-Austin, but I don't think their program is as good as NYU's or Georgetown's. Thanks!

Yeah I only have about 1.5 years of Arabic, which I suspect was my downfall--I'm published in a top journal, and had great numbers.

Tickle, Do you know what period they will study and what their language training is?

Yeah, Stanford took 2 (tops). UCSB didn't take any. Sucks!