TMP

if School X offers you 5 years of funding with 1 year of fellowship, but you really want to go to School Y with 4 years of funding, tell School Y that you're weighing decisions and that you've been offered this package from School X. That'll put some pressure on School Y to sweeten the deal. Trust me, there *is* money lying around in between couch cushions of the gigantic university bureaucracy.

Please, please, please refrain from getting in touch with POIs before hearing from other schools if you applied to more than one. All it really matters is ONEFUNDED acceptance, everything will be moot. I know it really hurts to be rejected and confused why, but you really need to heed @AP's and others' insights in what's happening in PhD programs this year given the pandemic's impact on the economy and undergraduate enrollment as well as foundations and non-profit institutions that provide external grants and fellowships for dissertation research. Departments are seriously making very, very difficult decisions in building a cohort that will enable seminars to run. Many schools have a minimum limit on enrollments in graduate seminars (In my program, it's 5 people!). So there is a lot of calculation at play in figuring out what kinds of seminars will be viable in the next 2 years. In addition, departments have to take into consideration the long-term prospects of who and whose research questions will be a commodity on the academic job market and elsewhere. This is a reason why Penn State has been so bold in being explicit what fields will be accepted for that particular year. 95% of the time, the rejection is not about you. It's about them and their needs to keep their PhD program viable and productive when the Powers to Be are looking for excuses to slash their ability to admit more students (though the Powers to Be will hypocritically allow PhD programs to survive at bare minimum because of the need for TAs). So, if you *need* to reach out to find out how to improve your applications, please wait until you have heard from all schools. Then you legitimately write, "Hello, I am writing to learn more about the ways I can improve my applications. This cycle did not work out for me and I'd like to try again next year." Also, maybe, in two months' time, you might feel differently about the whole process. Exercise patience as hard it is. It will serve you very well on the long run.

Bring this question up with your adviser and DGS who will have better insights on this than we do. They are not new to this fellowship review business-- they've been reviewers and know people who have reviewed fellowship applications for SSRC, ACLS, etc.

This part is actually in the department's control in terms of admissions. It's up to the department to recognize the problem of lack of diversity within and be much more attentive to underrepresented groups in the application pool. The only way to know, for sure, is to contact graduate students (particularly those who are obviously underrepresented) and ask about diversity within the department. They'll tell you.

Unless you've got a huge trust fund, do not go to these MA programs. They are overpriced in their tuition and the cost-of-living in NYC *and* London are ridiculous for graduate students. Yes, there are scholarships for Columbia/LSE but they are, from what I've seen on these threads, about 50% off. Still pricey. Not worth going into debt when there are plenty of MAs with better (but competitive) funding. What are your long term goals?

This. You'll be amazed how the lack of languages among many Americanists really, really irks non-Americanist graduate students. It's a political minefield.

Wrong forum. Go to the Psych one

I'm going to pull a @Sigabahere. Are you actually trying to tell everyone that your approach is the "right" approach when you have yet yourself been admitted into a PhD program? You're making others who have submitted their applications already extremely nervous that maybe they totally messed up. You also suggest that it would be a total disadvantage if they did not contact their POIs "early enough." This is a classist statement as low-income students and students from largely teaching colleges may not be aware of the importance of establishing contacts and networking early on. My department is very cognizant of this when evaluating applications. Your paragraph goes nowhere. It simply tells me how you feel and think about history. Cool but it's not helping me quickly decide which pile you fall on when my time is limited -- geographically or temporarily. If I had a pile for "history of emotions" or "intellectual history" then I'd throw your application right there. Have you graded undergraduate essays and think, "Just get to the point"? I have explicitly told my undergraduates to get to the main point of their essay by the end of the first paragraph. Because they followed this instruction, I was not as fatigued as I was before. Undergraduates have a strong tendency, leftover from their HS English classes, that the opening paragraph has to be dramatic to get the reader's attention. Not true. In history, you can get away with a few opening sentences about a very interesting idea or fact or story. I personally quite literally stopped reading after two sentences because I didn't get a clear sense of where you were going and you were not presenting your own ideas. If anything, the graduate school in history will break students of this habit learned in English classes.

Not to be a Debbie Downer but this is a very good indication of what this year's admissions will look like. This is from Harvard. My program at Ohio State will admit only 5 students.

Ask your history professors plus your adviser. They should have contacts to folks who are in graduate programs who can offer thought POVs.

No matter how you read the last part, it's entirely generic. the last part is just an indication that they're unarmed gatekeepers, not armed ones. Unless you truly have something to say, you don't need to do anything.

Assume that it's 5 PM in their time zone on the date apps are due. Don't ask the program-- actually look at the application system. Usually it's listed somewhere.

Being honest has been there but PhD programs, like @NoirFemmepointed out, haven't been designed to help PhD students develop credible skills. Working as a grader barely does anything than being assigned as a Graduate Administrative Assistant planning for a big conference at the end of the semester or managing an academic journal. The anxiety that graduate students have is with the Powers to Be being unwilling to share their graduate labor with the community that would gladly take smart, capable people as interns. My program has decided to circumvent that by simply offering a 3-credit "course" to allow grad students have time to do that instead of taking another readings course. I have had many conversations with a particular colleague whose program did not train her to be more cutting-edge like transnational or global history and she's been struggling. She went directly to PhD from undergrad and has been working to build up administrative skills -- on the side (and her advisers aren't too happy, from what she says). Should she have had to pick up extra jobs to make up for what her top-15 graduate program did not deliver? Nope. However, what this pandemic HAS done is make absolutely clear that PhD programs will not be able to place their PhD students at the same rate as they did before. There are jobs but the crash is real and the lines available are being driven by economics and social demands. For example, East Asian and Middle Eastern history positions have been relatively plentiful -- until this year. The new "hot" commodity is African-American/African/Black diaspora history and these fields now combine to about 30 positions or so. Every other field-- Modern Europe, Latin America, etc. have been relatively flat though they plummeted this year. South Asia and History of STEM are rising. The US History field is, what I have seen, largely defined by current student demands and race and ethnicity have been emphasized. Therefore, graduate students choosing fields need to understand that the market will change and be prepared to accept the market for what it is when they're ready to apply. I do agree with @NoirFemme's final point about those who are 100% committed to being professor should be the last ones to apply because what are those people doing to do if they don't get jobs as a professor upon graduating from a PhD program? They are not being open-minded enough and being flexible with the reality. At the same time, @Sigabais right about commitment to the historian's craft. To be successful academically -- and I mean with a solid CV -- one does need to be committed to research and writing an excellent dissertation that can be converted to a publishable book without significant distractions to slow down the progress (and costing the university/department more $). Unless you're an amazing multi-tasker and at time management to be able to take up side activities to build up your resume, do work for a few years before entering the PhD so you can, perhaps, easily transition back to the "working world" with those skills and more.

Honestly, anything that YOU want to do outside of academia. Your goal is to demonstrate that you have the required skills to complete the job that you are applying for. How the hiring managers/employers/recruiters view your degree is anyone's guess but know that unless they mention it, don't assume that it's your PhD degree that got you the interview.

I'll wade carefully here as an old-timer. When I started my PhD in 2012, I was already ambivalent about being a professor or entering academia. I wanted to get my PhD and work as a historian in a very large museum, which was viable then. I didn't know what academia was really about. I had never run a classroom. I was told that to be a TA meant running discussion sections and grading but I had no idea that there were positions that involved only grading. Due to declining student enrollments, my department dropped discussion sections and added more grading positions. Opportunities for teaching sessions before candidacy were quite limited. I didn't get to do it until after I passed my candidacy (partially due to fellowships in my first 2 years). I fell in love with teaching and interacting with students but stopped short at "quality over quantity" approach, unlike so many graduate students who focused on "more classes I teach, the better my CV will look for teaching jobs!" Throughout my time, I was truly bogged down by heavy coursework load (due to fellowship requirements), research (including writing funding applications and trip and budget planning), conference papers, a journal article, and mental health issues that nearly took over my life. I simply had no time to develop and hone skills that employers valued such as computer programming, organizing and executing events and conferences, etc., etc. However, I did immensely improve my written and oral communication with the incredible support of professors, mentors, and colleagues. I did get to travel the world (literally) which I would have not been able to do until... maybe retirement, much thanks to the fund-raising that I did. I never imagined that I would have an overall satisfactory experience compared to many horror stories that I had heard. The pandemic hit when I was interviewing for postdocs. When the campus shut down and hiring freeze went into effect everywhere, I realized that there would be no second wave of postdocs and visiting assistant professor positions that came between March-May. I took advantage of one semester of funding that remaining to postpone my dissertation defense. I realized that a December graduation meant that I wouldn't be able to secure an academic job to start in January. I started getting used to the idea that I would have to apply for non-academic jobs in this situation and I gradually became OK with that because I've been there before. Now, i am applying for a combination of academic and non-academic jobs to see what will bite. When it comes to non-academic jobs, my topic or historical content knowledge does not matter and it is important to separate myself from those and focus on the skills that I have to bring to those jobs. The PhD is simply another degree on your resume, nothing more, but you will have a section under "Work/Grant-Writing/Teachingetc. Experience" which you can tout the skills you have used to complete the degree. Do I regret going for my PhD? Nope. I was so hungry for an opportunity to dive deep and become an expert in specific historical fields. I went through a MA program (2008-2010) and studied a new language abroad for several months (2010-2011) just to be sure that the PhD was what I wanted, even though I decided in 2006. The key to survival, I think for me, was knowing that I had prior work experience and was developing valuable skills (especially fund-raising if you're great at it) which to highlight while applying for non-academic jobs. And perhaps the comfort of knowing that I may never need to work to become fluent in all of my reading languages again. And I'm a risk-adverse person. Really know yourself before you apply. Are you the type of person who can complete a big job which you've devoted hours and hours and breathed your life and walk away within weeks? Do you have the grit and resiliency to overcome obstacles that come your way? The PhD journey is much more suited to street-smart people than book-smart people. If you're the latter type, go for the MA which is less intense in the way of non-coursework stuff.

Don't. Stick to your original plans. Do not throw in more applications because "COVID!" and "Dread!" What about ABDs who are finishing this year? They are really struggling to make decisions about whether to try to extend their funding because of the overall economic crisis and disastrous job market (except for a field that is in very high demand right now). They're trying to decide whether to use COVID as an excuse to extend their time in graduate school, even if their dissertations will be largely finished by Spring 2021, or how to come to terms with the reality that they will very likely not have an academic job in Fall 2021 if they choose to graduate before then. The point is, everyone is going to be grappling with the same reality that comes with COVID and economic crisis. My unsolicited advice? There *is* more to life than the PhD. Don't devalue yourself. Know that you *are* worth the wait to get into programs of your dreams that aren't taking applications right now. If you don't get in this cycle, truly use the time to develop skills in administration, digital humanities (learn programming like ArcGIS or SPSS), project management, or/and community/outreach programming. Those are hard to develop during the PhD when you will be overwhelmed and busy with your own research, coursework, grant-writing, and obligations as a graduate teaching associate (which, frankly, most of the time is grading, a nearly useless skill in comparison to abovementioned to carry into non-teaching positions outside of academia). I've found myself speaking about my experiences prior to the PhD in half of the informational interviews and non-academic job applications I've been doing in the past a month or so. My $0.02.

Indeed... just because Germany was immediately demilitarized after it collaborated with the Ottomans during the Great War (including witnessing the genocide), Germany had other ways of maintaining ties with Turkey and that's where "soft" power comes in. Make sure you're asking questions that are interesting to you drawing from what you've been learning. No one needs to know more than a sentence or two about a book that was influential to you. I'd just want one line and if I was particularly interested, I'd look it up myself but in general, readers in your field will *know* about a lot of scholarship that has been published, even if only cursory. They are the ones who are going to make the case for your admissions to the general committee if they want you.

Without even seeing the structure of your SOP, it's hard to even suggest. If you had to give a 2 minute elevator speech, what would you say exactly?

Honestly, this is your personal choice. What is your ultimate goal?

Yes. The endowment is very complex. There are a lot of regulations and conditions tied to maintaining it. The real question is, how much liquidity is there for immediate use? What universities don't want to do is spend more than necessary. It is required by law that universities must use at least 5% of their endowment every year. Princeton increased its spending from 6% to 7%. While 1% doesn't sound a lot, one has to consider the expenditures that Princeton has, which go into billions of dollars and it will be years before Princeton can get their 1% back into the endowment in addition to natural growth. Part of the reason why endowments are so huge is because they've been built up over the past decades, not five years. Yet, the morbidity of this whole argument is that universities have been expanding their budgets in such a way that it makes touching endowments even more unbearable. Just because Harvard and Princeton has multi-billion dollar endowment doesn't mean that their operations don't cost that much. They do for a huge variety of reasons. My university's endowment may be substantial for a public R1 but its operation costs actually exceeds it, if I remember correctly. And that's friggin' scary.

@Manana, been there done that! NBD. Just say hello, remind them of who you are, offer any update on your progress since last year, and let them know you're interested in re-applying and ask how admissions will be handled. It's also worth emailing the DGS to inquire about re-using your transcripts and GRE scores so you don't have to shell out unnecessary amount of money for another set. Somewhat good news from Ohio State: It looks like we will have a very small cohort for Fall 2021 after all. but it will be amazingly selective so be in touch with your POIs there about applying. Any questions, feel free to be in touch with me too!

Do you *have* to apply now? Can you just wait? A lot of the schools you're interested in are very likely not to admit anyone for F'21.

News: UNC is not accepting students for fall 2021. Except a real trend here.

PM me for more on J'lem's neighborhoods if you haven't found a place yet. I've lived there several times and studied at Hebrew U.

I know it sounds really discouraging. But honestly, do you want to enter in a PhD program when departments are fighting for funds to help people finish their degrees once those people have exhausted their 4-5 year funding packages? Departments do want to be able to commit to their PhD students to the fullest extent, thus not abandoning those further along. To do that, they would prefer not to admit (w/ blessing of the Powers to Be) new students who they cannot provide the same amount of support for the next 5-8 years. They are also freaking out about graduate students who have recently passed their exams and now need to travel to archives. Those students are supposed to be able to travel to the archives but because of travel restrictions (mostly imposed by the universities), they can't go anywhere to get going on their research. Instead, those students are using up a semester (or two!) of their guaranteed funding packages and working as TAs and doing what they can with online archives. Essentially, they are losing out a semester or two of guaranteed funding to the pandemic and no one knows if they will be granted extensions later on to make up for that kind of loss. Current students come first, not any considerations for next year's cohort.