TMP

Just a FYI, from the grapevines, There *is* strong consideration by a number of PhD programs, including at private schools and Big 10, to suspend admissions for Fall 2021, and perhaps 2022, to focus on supporting the current graduate students and helping them finish. Final decisions won't be made just right now but I'll expect to see them roll around October. Take this as you want in the way of how much effort you want to put in into writing your application materials between now and late October when most decisions should be made in time for December deadlines.

At the same time, you can certainly frame your emails to ALL of them (individually!) along the lines of : Dear X, Blah, blah, blah. The department appears to be a strong fit to me. Professors Y and Z have research interests that complement mine. Do the graduate students in South Asian history typically work with all three of you in one way or another? How does this field function the way of offering seminars and preparing reading lists? etc. Then you can get a good sense ahead of time how organized the field is. Trust me, not all fields are organized, cohesive, and/or collegial.

Can you read classical/traditional Chinese handwriting on top of simplified? Are you familiar with how Western scholars understand China and have analyzed Chinese and non-Chinese materials coming out from Western, Chinese, and Taiwanese archives?

They do not need to be perfect. The scholars-- Boyle, Kruse, and Brick (as far as I'm aware of their work/grad students)- will be willing to work with you. The most important thing is that you can build a dissertation committee. Who else in the department would be able to work with you? When you write that fit paragraph, you need to be able to demonstrate how the department's offerings fit your intellectual needs. Take a look at recent graduate seminars being offered and identify which ones you'd take and who's teaching them. Those persons should be in your SOP. Also, when you do US history, please, please think transnationally and globally. You're looking at corporations that would have overseas interests as well. Remember, we are talking about the Cold War in which the US was keenly interested in getting the best and the brightest minds to come, study, and work in the US. @Sigaba can speak better to saying whether you're a "historian of capitalism" or "historian of education." The important thing is, what historiographies are you interested in engaging with? Do you want to use education as a lens to understand US capitalism? If so, then promote yourself as a historian of capitalism. If you want to explore how education was shaped by corporations/conservatism, then lean toward historian of education.

it is worth bringing up the issue of the GRE. You won't be the only one figuring out whether to study for it at all when your time could be better spent continuing to revise your SOP and writing sample. Right now, everyone is very tied up with the fall semester preparations (including the latest drama over international students) that graduate admissions may be sitting on the back burner. Truthfully, I think you may be best off asking the Graduate School administration about the GRE, it's the one that usually wants it, not the departments (at least not in History).

In my decade (yikes) of being a member of this forum, almost no one ever goes to an online program. So we don't have much in the way of resources. Google will be better off assisting you. But we're open to hearing why an online graduate program in history rather than traditional brick-and-mortar.

Ditto to @Sigaba's points about TA responsibilities. Since TAing for online classes actually involved MORE work than in-person, do your due diligence to keep track of your active hours so you are not going beyond the maximum time limit (generally 20 hr/week for 50%/.5 appointmnt)

I'm jealous that your university has gone online. Trust me, you do not want to be on campus with thousands of undergrads who will not let COVID19 stop them from socializing and partying. As a friend puts it, campuses are petri dishes. There is no harm in emailing grad students and faculty for a Zoom coffee chat You will also see who else is attending Zoom events in your department and try to build conversations from those points.

Yeah I'm jealous too. I feel like a klutz reading @Sigaba's post sometimes... ?

I think you have posted your situation before around here. (Yes, it's not often that we get Swedes here ). I do think your project is interesting enough and you don't need to narrow your focus further. What. you do need to articulate, however, are your goals. Why the MA? What do you wish to accomplish during the program? What is your next step?

Try not to conflate Personal Statement with Statement of Purpose as some schools use these labels interchangeably. It's important to read the instructions what they are asking for. Follow the instructions. It's fine to open up with a personal story but get to the point quickly-- what are the questions you want to explore? What historians/ideas out there are you interested in engaging with during your doctoral study? Why, specifically, is that department and school the best fit for you? That's it.

Depends. I wouldn't place my bets on getting automatic exemptions from language exams at your new PhD institution. Each adviser is different in their standards. My adviser made one of her former advisee re-do an exam because their language exam from their MA institution used an academic journal article and my adviser wanted them to translate a primary source from the time period of their research (from mid-20 century). My adviser wanted the same for my exam for one of my languages and also accepted a summer intensive course for another language.

I agree with @Sigaba here. @bakeseal, I also wonder why not look into immigration of Greeks and Italians? Hasia Diner's Hungering for America comes to mind and it has influenced other ethnic studies. Why not look into the Greek population? I don't expect learning modern Greek to be that much more difficult now that you have ancient Greek under your belt.

This. Also, if you have serious, legitimate reason like medical or family issues, ask a trusted letter writer to mention that. They will have a much more tactful way of explaining that the GPA is not a reflective of your potential performance as a history student. If the GPA was low due to, say, math or computer science courses, believe me, people will understand once they look at the transcript

@cladthecrab you won't know unless you apply right? As my adviser reminds me, "You definitely won't get in if you don't apply."

Your subject line is actually unclear. Remember, in English, "you" can be used as a singular or plural. The POI, a very busy department chair, may read the subject line and interpret it that you're interested in the program (i.e. working with you guys!). If the POI did in fact open the email and see that you have made explicit connections to his work and inquiring whether he is accepting students for fall 2021, and then forwards the email on, he may (a) be socially inept (not unusual), (b) think that the DGS can handle all of your questions until to the point where s/he can longer do so and forwards the email back to the POI, or (c) all of the above plausible reasons. I would politely respond to the DGS and say that you are excited about the program, ask whatever questions you have, and inquire whether this POI is taking students. Go from there and see what happens.

Hello, Thoughts numbers aside, have you done any primary source research? What are you doing for a capstone project for your MFA? Would you be able to take a graduate-level historiography course in the fall at your current institution? A historiography course will give you a better sense of what it means to practice the discipline of history that will be different from art history (You could transfer that credit but whether it'll help you opt out of the PhD program's historiography course is highly subjective)? Do you have French or German reading knowledge? Museums are also very difficult to come by-- getting a job in a museum is highly dependent on your network connections. You'd need to find a way to fit in an internship in your extremely busy PhD program to get your foot through the door if you haven't done one already. You'll want to look for a program that has a public history as a field so you can devote some time to reading relevant literature and learn how to communicate with a public audience while most of your coursework revolve around high-level academic conversations with more jargon. JHU and UNC wouldn't be the first place I'd think for women/gender history at all. Rutgers, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin definitely do come to mind. Madison is truly a lovely place to live (though very cold!) with a direct bus ride to Chicago O'Hare or MSP airports. @gsc can give you more pointers as her interests overlap with yours. Read books and articles on topics of your interest-- where are the scholars based? Where did they get their PhD from? That's how you develop a list of schools to apply to, not the USNWR, which is outdated. My $0.02.

I'd say this is still very early to tell. Universities are still re-working their 2021 fiscal year budgets, especially public universities. The deadline is coming up and states are still finalizing their own budgets for distribution to public universities. I expect that you will know for sure around early August after things shake out internally from the top administrators down to department leel (things move very slowly with plenty of black boxes in the way).

Honestly, we've had this kind of discussion in my program-- internships and other opportunities to hone our skills. We needed time! Our department did want to help, but the University (particularly the Graduate School) structure just makes being flexible with our funding impossible. They would have refuse to turn our TAships into paid internships with local organizations. Honestly, there's just very little time outside of the funding and program structure to develop new skills UNLESS, as @Sigaba, mentioned, you can take a class as an elective to count towards your PhD. I tried taking quant methods for historians class after I finished my exams but ended up blowing it off at the end because (a) It wasn't for me and (b) I had more compelling tasks to complete (cough, dissertation research and TAship, cough)

This. I was inducted in my final semester of undergrad. I thought it was something just to put on my CV, which my advisor told me to do for grad schools. Once I got more awards/fellowships, I took it off since it seemed that a lot of history majors who went into History PhD programs were inducted into PAT.

*** yes, for the first submission. If you do get a revise and resubmit, it'll be an actual letter which you summarize your changes in response to the readers' comments (and justification for the lack thereof).

What do you want to do when you're finished with the PhD? Wh

If you simply cannot find joy in the research that you are doing in this lab or working with this adviser, then I'd strongly reconsider your decision to remain in this trajectory. Are there other professors in the department you'd be more excited to work with? Would you be able to switch labs? Have you spoken with the DGS about where you are in the program and how the COVID-19 situation is affecting your morale? The DGS is supposed to be objective and act as a mediator between you and your adviser. I've involved the DGS a few times in very difficult conversations (My adviser is super diplomatic, which is great for most part, but when I need her to be a human being...) and things do turn out a bit better afterward. Your adviser has clearly set a high bar and the other students are rising to it so she may not feel the need to lower it for you. Her ego is guiding her advising and research productivity, not empathy.

I don't know if you're looking for the MA or the PhD, but do not under any circumstances pay for the PhD. You WILL be valued less by the faculty (and fellowship and search committees down the road) than those on funding packages. Universities are getting hit but your money is just as good as any college president choosing to give 10% of his salary, which is mere $80K out of $800K (plus plenty of benefits like housing). If you want to help, get on the train to pressure administrators to cut their own salary even deeper than 10%, grant more financial aid to undergraduate students, extend a semester's worth of funding to ALL graduate students, and not lay off contingent faculty (including adjuncts). Go on the Chronicle of Higher Education to get the latest news on COVID-19 on campus (those articles are free).

Not really. I never looked up candidates' social media. Most people don't have the time but some overly curious people will find you and if they don't like what they see, they'll mention it to the search committee.