TMP

Unless School 2 is absolutely, absolutely your top choice that you would turn down School 1, I'd keep mum.

It's Crimson.

My reaction to any PhD program that I applied to with a strongly related MA in hand. Made me wonder if they double checked my CV before sending that letter of rejection... Yeah, I was a bit insulted.

I'm living in DC right now! PM me ,

Every school handles decisions differently for whatever reason it chooses. As you will learn in academia, everyone will run their own race, including receiving decisions.

And to be blunt, there were quite a few posts back in the fall that dealt with the very questions that you are bringing up now such as "how do I justify wanting to do a PhD in XZ when my thesis deals with YZ?" and those folks who listened to the advice of the experienced have not had such a problem. FWIW, US history is quite impossible to get in for PhD compared to European history simply because many people want to take the "easier" route to completing the PhD. (it's true, Americanists take at least a year or two less than other fields). To be very competitive, one needs to ask insightful, carefully thought out questions informed by secondary literature and personal experiences. European history is highly competitive but there's a bit more flexibility. Just because there doesn't seem to be as many Italian historians in the US, it doesn't mean it's not popular. Examine their work to see how they are surviving in the sea of French, German, Russian, and British historians.

I'm out of upvotes today for @OHSP! Your thoughts, @historygeek are on point and absolutely appropriate for an undergraduate. I thought I wanted to do US history but a little time off and a MA made me realize that I strongly preferred European history. Of course, once I realized that, I had to get pretty serious about language trainig (Hello German!) to show my commitment to studying European history.

YES. Office staff do have very long memories like professors. They don't always get treated well by the faculty and graduate students alike (i.e. ignoring them, don't see them as valuable, or worse, abuse them). Make their day by noticing them and the time they took (even if it's part of their job) to send you an e-mail welcoming you to the program. Especially if one is doing the assigning of TAs to courses, ordering the files for committee review for grants.... and, oh, they do talk to advisers about your behavior. #hardlessonslearned

For those if you who have received personal e-mails from professors/students, do reply as soon as you have your nerves together to type without "OMG!!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED TO HEAR FROM YOU!!! THIS IS MY DREAM SCHOOL!!!" Rather, just respond polite in this way "Thank you so much for your warm note. I am delighted to have this offer in hand and I look forward to staying in touch about the upcoming visitation weekend." As always, keep an open mind to the various options if you are so fortunate to have them to choose from. I also will say this, if you end up with just one program and it's a funding offer, your other option is always to decline and do something else or try again next year. I've seen it happen here although very heart-breaking on the applicant's part. Finally, ALL it takes is one funded acceptance for this cycle to end.

Given my decisions, I haven't regretted my decision at all to favor being in a program which I felt I could get more individualized attention to my professional well-being (and personally!). I've been really surprised how well I have ended up doing in my program and sometimes wondered if I would have had this much success had I gone to a program where I wouldn't have gotten as much individualized attention from the faculty (but a really wonderful intellectual atmosphere!). You'll know better after the campus visits. I've been told over the years that committees do appreciate a personalized letter of support from advisers-- just a much better feel for the person and his/her project than someone who simply reads your proposal every now and then and doesn't know you well otherwise. With Kevin Boyle's name on your letters, i wouldn't sweat it turning down Harvard.

Good grief @urbanhistorynerd, I wouldn't cross off all other schools you have been accepted to just because you got into Harvard. This period is a "courting" period which professors (and graduate students) try to woo you into accepting the offer. You'll never have this kind of attention again so please, please savour every moment and hold off making final decisions until after campus visits. I second @psstein. Campus visits are SO, SO, SO important. I've seen many decisions on this board over the years which campus visits unsettled people's pre-campus visit decisions like @ashiepoo72. (Although I was very set on going to OSU, when I visit Wisconsin, I loved Madison more than I expected and almost decided to go there instead.) You'll also get a much better feel for the city as a graduate student, not a tourist. Also, campus visits will allow you to meet other potential members of your cohort so you have a good sense of who you will be taking seminars and studying for the cmps with until you all become ABDs. In terms of your phone call, I would not go push for increase in the funding package until you have full information from Harvard. You need a leverage in hand. But you can ask about additional funding opportunities for research, language study, digital humanities, whatever. Ask how US history PhD students do with external grants. Also, you'll have Kevin Boyle who is simply outstanding as a teacher and as a writer of 20th c. US History.

Two words: Search function. This question gets asked multiple times every single year. Go back a few pages and you'll see threads about interviews with reports/impressions/advice within.

Not necessarily. Give them a few days to get themselves organized with the notifications. (Also, if it's a 4 PM meeting, people are allowed to "quit" their work for the day after that last meeting... )

If yesterday was a priority funding deadline, then it may be a GOOD while before you head anything. If there's no clear indication of when these people will hear of funding, then it 's worth asking Villanova how the priority funding deadline works in terms of timing vis-a-vis funding notifications. E-mail the DGS or grad administrator in the Department for more information.

Everyone, irrespective of stipends, RESEARCH the actual cost of living in the area. $27K at Columbia, $33K at Harvard... still a stretch for trying to live in New York and Cambridge/Boston (and even Palo Alto for Stanford!). Do use the funding spreadsheet as a guideline for what to expect. Also, please remember these stipends are intended for a single person without pets, a car, and dependents. it will be up to you how to make that stipend you've offered stretch.

@federalist51 The first round of acceptances were for nominations for University Fellowships, which guarantees first year fellowship (and in some cases a dissertation research/writing year too). Those students are guaranteed "in" (pending felony charges.... ). If one doesn't get an approval from the Graduate School for the University Fellowship, the department will do its best to find other funding so that this person can still have a first year free of TA-ing. If nothing works out, the perosn is still in, just with a TA-only package. The next round won't come until the Graduate School notifies the Department of the results, and then the Department determines how many on the TA list it can afford to fund. Rejections won't come until after this stage ocne the Department is 100% sure it's done with accepting students. There's really no "wait-list" per se other than that ranked TA list. Those of you who have been accepted, congrats! Don't fret *too* much about not getting the Graduate School's approval. We have done extremely well. As for cohort sizes, my guess is that we are allowed to nominate up to 17 now plus an unlimited number of "diversity" fellowships, which aren't any different from University, just a different name (Graduate Enrichment Fellowships). The end goal is to aim for around 15 entering students.

Just write a short thank you e-mail and that you look forward to hearing the decision. Keep it short and simple but delightful. There should already be mention of funding on the websites. If it's mentioned on the website, assume you will get funding (unless it's on a competitive basis). Programs with guaranteed funding package will mention it in their letters. Programs without guarantee funding packages-- it's worth responding and inquiring about funding possibilities. @historygeek, I don't know what exactly you mean. For PhD programs, sometimes decisions go out by fields, sometimes alphabetically. If the Graduate School is sending decisions, I'm sure it's alphabetically since it's all bureaucratic.

I'm in the mind of "do not give up until you actually get a decision." A lot can happen between now and April 15 (or even after). Unfortunately, rejections take a while to come around because the program needs to finalize their acceptance and waitlist lists before sending their list of rejectees to the Graduate School or department administrator who will then send those "form" letters. As I've stressed before, keep your eyes forward to a life as if this whole process has never happened.

Research the COST OF LIVING for each place. A $18K can go further in Bloomington, IN than Chicago, IL. A $25K can barely suppor you in NYC when it does alright in Durham, NC. Agreed 100% Focus on something else. Latter. You need an adviser who actually gives a damn about your PhD program and helping you succeed. Too many people fall through these cracks. Also, note that there are excellent public universities that do exceptionally well such as Michigan and Berkeley. You can't make that kind of distinction. You need to focus on the quality of your adviser's advising and career trajectory, the program's offerings, and post-PhD job placements. Maybe, maybe not. Don't assume anything in the PhD admissions until you have that final decision letter. Never a guarantee. I've visited places before applying and had good rapport but still got rejected. The very least you did was put a face on your application and made a networking connection.

I don't know what you're really asking but yes, once you accept a (funded!) offer, you are going to that PhD program (and if accepted at other places, decline their offer). Sure, anything can happen but they are really rare and I wouldn't worry about those things until they actually happen! I've never heard of an offer being revoked.

No. Take a look at the graduate students' profiles and you'll see a range of undergraduate institutions!

If you mean for "interview" weekend like at NYU, absolutely it happens all the time. Just read the letter carefully, it'll tell you if it's just a "campus visit" weekend and decisions will be made afterward.

I'll remind everyone-- in addition to keeping focus with hobbies and work-- be sure to explore other possibilities if graduate school does not work out. Find something you're excited about too. Searching for jobs does take time so it doesn't hurt to start now-- you can always turn down the job later if offered. I am speaking from experience: 2010: Graduated with my MA in hand, jobless and no PhD acceptances, sadly wondered why I got my MA at all, then spent whole summer in my parents' home looking for jobs, and finally decided to run away to Berlin to study German. 2011: Finished German classes. Devastated with only one unfunded PhD acceptance and never got out of bed before 1 PM every single day for 6 weeks or so. Spent the summer as a camp counselor and looked for jobs. Ended up with an internship at a museum (at least it was paid and I liked the people). My depression relapsed after 6-7 hiatus. 2012: Before decisions came, I proactively started inquiring about jobs at my internship place and felt a bit more positive. Then I received funded PhD acceptances. I expressed gratitude to my work colleagues for being willing to discuss job possibilities while I wasn't sure what was going to happen to me and they encouraged me to take the PhD. Even as I applied for fellowships to support my dissertation, I had to bounce back very quickly to keep things rolling with my progress and maintain my own mental health. As @Sigaba point out, dealing with the wait and the decisions is all part of building resiliency necessary to succeed in academia.

I agree with @Sigaba and your advisers. Keep a very open mind to other geographical periods. Are you only interested in the early modern period? Could you look into World History before 17th century? There is more demand out there for people to be able to teach World History. I can't see why you can't given the tremendous period of global exploration starting in the 1400s and make an argument about different kinds of encounters between Europeans and the "rest of the world."

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There are some mediocre Ivy PhDs who get too complacent with resources guaranteed to them (i.e. funding package) and they just don't produce good work as someone, say, from Kansas, who may be much more motivated to "prove" that s/he is worthy of national fellowships, Fulbright, etc. and additional university funds by making sure that his/her work is very compelling and cutting-edge and trying to publish in at least one or two journal articles. And a top notch adviser to go to boot.