TMP

Skype it. Or something with a webcam. You'll definitely get a better reaction and feel for your POIs if you can see their faces. It's a LOT more personal than talking on the phone, trust me. I thought I wouldn't miss my parents so much when I lived abroad last year as when I was a few years before- before we had webcams on our computers. Once we used the video last year, it was crazy. It's psychology. You can introduce yourself briefly but let them do all the talking.

Meet me on Visitation Day!!! PM me if you want to discuss OSU in details.

Um,guys, we've just over 200 pages now. YAY US! Are we officially the craziest bunch on TGC? Condolences and congratulations to those who received news today.

Stay in the present, Sandy, stay in the present. Enjoy your freedom before September... savor every innocent moment that you have....

I sit next to someone with a PhD in military history from one of the top programs in the field. He considers himself VERY lucky to even have a job in a research institution where his military history background is of great value. He's pretty sure that if it wasn't for this, he wouldn't have been able to find a job (and this was probably in 2000).

Depends on the deadline. I think when I threw together my MA app, it took me about a week to revise the SOP and order the necessary transcripts and LORs for new programs. You've already done the hardest part. Now it's just the annoying part of getting materials there.

Sounds like they want people to be committed already and so they can place TAs quickly. Then you can call the other schools. I'd give about March 15th. If nothing then, I would politely ask when decisions can be made as you have a deadline to accept/decline offer.

You should be able to apply for funding NOW. There's no reason why you can't wait until you've accepted their offer. I would find it quite suspicious if they're telling you that they won't tell you until you've accepted their offer to find out the funding. You need the best funding package and you have the right to know what you're getting yourself into financially before accepting an offer.

Good morning! Wishing you you all well! I've withdrawn my last pending application over the weekend. Went over well. Thanks, Academic Family, for teaching me proper manners.

To add to the discussion of art history in mainstream history: FWIW: I love art and my mom minored in art history and volunteered at the MET for a little while when I was little. So she and I love going to art museums and talk about paintings, etc. I will admit that I learned much of the history of Germany and the city of Berlin through art. Berlin has one of the best museum collections in the entire world so when I lived there, I visited all the museums and palaces. I made a point of actually reading the descriptions and studying the paintings deciphering what Germany and Berlin were like. It was much more fascinating (and fun!) than to sit down with a history book. I was also working on my German translations and all the texts were historical in nature so in all, it was quite fun to learn German history. One of the best and most impressive paintings is gaining the context of Berlin and the importance of its main street: Unter der Linden. This one showed a parade led by Frederick the Great's successor, Frederick II on Unter der Linden. It was quite a busy scene and the curator's description of the painting was quite telling. I can't find the digital copy of it but I do know that it's at the Altegalerie Museum. So when I went outside after seeing that painting and wakjed down Unter der Linden. I felt like I had a whole new understanding of what this street signified. It wasn't just a thoroughfare for Berlin and the location of the Brandenberg Tor, but as a site that just saw it all. I do think that art is a great way to illustrate the importance of certain places as different artists have their own interpretations. Another such example would be artists- painters, drawers and photographers- having their own interpretations of the Karl Marx Allee (formerly Stalinallee when Stalin was alive and in control of East Berlin). Just throwing out some thoughts. And no, I don't consider myself as a cultural historian. I like hard numbers and human interactions so I tend to work history within social sciences and see myself as a social historian.

I hear that swimming with dolphins or manateese is very therapeutic. Surely there must be a Groupon for that!

If you do your MA entirely in Hebrew, it's pretty much a slam dunk for your second go at the PhD, especially for, ahem, rather elitist Jewish history/studies programs.

YAY!!! Wait, it just occurred to me that she wanted to talk to you on a FRIDAY NIGHT?!!?!!?!? That's SUPER awesome! Hopefully she'll really pull through for you!

oserius, truly, I understand your anxiety. I know your position is quite unsettling. I've been there. It's not fair that you are where you are, right? Try to relax. You don't have to make any decisions right now, don't you? Put your energies towards something else (like keep up with your stand up comedy acts for us! ). Also, I know it's scary to think about not be able to go to school in the fall so you are willing to take whatever comes along. Again, I've been there. Except I didn't take the unfunded offer from a very low-ranked school (but great, great faculty) because I learned that there was literally zero chance of any additional funding support down the road, not even TAships. I listened to my colleagues and my poor bank account and, as much as I really wanted the opportunity to earn my PhD right away, I turned down the offer. People applauded me because they truly believed that I deserved way better than an unfunded acceptance, not simply because one shouldn't go into debt for a humanities PhD. It can be worth waiting another year to apply, even if one of your programs end up offering you a year of TAship. That's just one year out of 6 years of funding that you have to find. Do you really want to keep looking for funding every semester? You also need to keep in mind the costs of going on research trips for your dissertation and you really need funding from the get go. I would take the time and try to think through these scenarios and ask yourself, are you worth a fully-funded offer? Are you deserving enough? Or do you want to be a wash in the eyes of the department and end up teaching in some school where your main job is just to pass those students and your research won't matter to anyone? It really is VERY hard to sit on the sidelines and I've been doing that for 2 cycles. It was really trying to deal with being on the waitlist at Indiana twice and not knowing whether or not I'd be able to get off. While all those rejections were very discouraging, those waitlists at Indiana (and one year NYU) comforted me, knowing that I was damn good enough to be in a PhD program but just wasn't worthy enough of the money. Take those waitlists of yours as a sign that you're damn good enough for a highly competitive PhD program but you just need push a little more with your writing aspects of the application and hope that the year is a good year for your subfield. Even though I did do things that I enjoyed in my time waiting such as traveling, volunteering, and caring for horses, I still felt that void. Obviously it won't go away until you've been accepted but it will be there constantly and you just have to learn to live with it and know that you will avenge. I'm not sure if I'm helping here or not but I hope that sharing some of my thoughts for people like yourself and others trying to decide whether or not to turn down anything this year and try again next cycle for better offers.

Congrats to everyone today! I think I just want to give up waiting on funding decisions from Wisconsin for the day. It may be 2 PM there right now, but, meh. I'd like to weekend to start. (wonders if she should close the Gmail tab) I do expect an avalanche of decisions this week given that it's the end of February AND beginning of March! Good luck to all- get ready for another ride on the emotional roller coaster!

good luck!

Endowments generally were down 10-20%

Re: budget In a way, there's a reason why there was so much shock over Michigan history department's decision to suspend admissions for 2012. Michigan has an excellent endowment. Only 5%-10% of its total budget is from the state so the state money doesn't really affect the overall University budget. So much of the University of Michigan's money come from other sources. There are financial geniuses there who knew how to invest wisely so the University wouldn't collapse the way other state university systems did as badly. So when the news of the History department choosing to suspend admissions for 2012, it was shocking. Even one of my mentors who's in another department but is friendly with some of the History faculty, was very surprised. He did think the fact that the 2011 cohort was 34 students was unusually high and ridiculous. The DGS simply miscalculated or/and just couldn't handle the departmental politics and be able to say "No, you can't have more than 2 new students, pick 2 out of the 5 you want." Given Michigan's wealth, it was indeed surprising that they closed admissions altogether (with some exceptions where they DO share funding with other departments). In incredible contrast, (data to back it up on UW-M's site), Wisconsin over-enrolled in 2010 but were actually able to admit students in 2011. In 2010, they took in about 35 or so students but significantly cut to 17 for 2011. I imagine that this year is aiming for 20 total. My UW-M POI made these excellent points that the department was seriously committed to bringing in new PhDs, even if only to open the doors just a crack. Painful cuts for the department but they'd rather try to take in a few exceptional new students than to lose out an entire cohort of talented students. So you get my drift. Sometimes, we have to wonder, which scenario is really better for the program and students?

Okay, I need to chime in being a third time applicant. And I'll take Sparky's points so you can see how they apply to me: 1) Better SOP I had fairly decent SOP last year. The year before was definitely a walk of shame. I had so many influential experiences- personally and academically that shaped the way I approach history. I just couldn't figure out how to integrate them all. What I think what the SOP lacked was very, very specific departure points in my intellectual journey. One of my POIs who encouraged me to apply again for the third time gave me a very short list of questions that she ran in her head when she's reading SOPs for fellowship nominations and her own subfield. The way she phrased the questions were far better than what websites state what your SOP should cover. Her questions pushed me to think deeply about people who truly influenced me- historians, professors, mentors, etc- and why, and how their work/teaching changed the way I thought about history and explain specifically why. Her questions also sort of encourages a SOP that can zoom in and out, giving the reader a fuller sense of your overall understanding of your potential contributions. 2. More careful choice of program Probably better to write a reflective essay or SOP before looking up programs. Compare my lists: 2010 (I was trying to focus myself as an Americanist) Brandeis ® NYU (WL) Michigan ® Emory ® Indiana (WL) 2011 (When I picked up an European language) American University (US History) (A w/o $) Brandeis (History) ® Brown (European history) ® Indiana (European history) (WL) Maryland (European history) (R but POI claimed A w/o $) NYU (History) ® Northwestern (European history) ® Ohio State (History) ® 2012 (After I wrote my SOP, I realized that I really needed to be in programs that truly embrace transnational history) Indiana (European history) ® Maryland (Global Exchange/Transnational) (pending) OSU (History with 2 minors that I could do to create a transnational program of study) (A w/ $) Stanford (Transnational/Global field) ® Wisconsin (US but department is changing to transnational with several new hires and 3 searches this year emphasizing transnational/diaspora) (A w/ $) You have to be true to yourself in your SOP. You'll be a happier student when you find programs that fit YOU and where your research projects that can truly find a home. Hence why I'm having such a hard time deciding between Wisconsin with their restructuring and moving towards transnationalism and OSU which already has a broad, flexible curriculum and more historians for me to work with. 3. Improving Writing Sample Be critical. Read journal articles and note the form and language. Dive deeper in the primary sources if you can. Give it to anyone who has a PhD, even if they're not in your field. They'll know a good piece of work from bad. I had like 5-6 readers go through my writing sample (which was basically a journal article for revision/resubmission) 4. Luck Yes. This was definitely the prime year for OSU and Wisconsin to take in someone for my field. Doing the PhD admissions is a lot like playing the Russian roulette. You just have to get the numbers lined up right. In the fall when people are freaking out about applications, I usually remind that nobody knows for sure what the executive admissions committee wants. That committee has the responsibility of building a diverse cohort but to a certain extent. Ideally a cohort should have a balanced mix of fields but that's not the case because the committee has to look at the program overall as well. What does the program need? What kind of perspectives can new students bring in? I had a good friend who was told by Michigan that they loved her application but just didn't need another labor historian because they had taken a bunch the year before. For your field- early American- I think either 2010 or 2011 was a big year. So 2012 wasn't going to be quite favorable.You need to count on the program graduating a bunch of early Americanists that they need to replenish that stock for the next year's cohort. So when you talk to POIs, see if you can tease out recent PhDs- what field were most of them in? I would not get discouraged. Just keep playing the lottery if the PhD is what you truly want. There is now a backlog of repeated applicants because of all these budget cuts, making admissions so much more competitive. People DO get in eventually.

From what I've heard about SUNY schools (okay, Albany to be specific as I have a friend who did her PhD there) is that they tend to place people in the region for jobs. So it depends what you really want. If you're okay with the idea of staying in New York or in the Northeast area in any kind of teaching job, even CC, then SUNY is fine. But if you want more options, then you may want to consider re-applying as long as you use your time off wisely.

STF: I would look at 15 candidates are a possible yield. Remember, programs actually accept more students than they hope to have matriculated. I really am beginning to get curious about the numbers of applications as well. I feel like Northwestern's really inflated. There is absolutely NO way the application could have really soared. Wisconsin's had pretty good increase in the last 2-3 years from mid-200 applications to nearly 400 last year. Thanks, recession. I woul definitely agree that 2009 and 2010 were the most difficult years.

Asking about additional support is expected so you certainly will want to feel comfortable knowing that the department will back your research and preparation for the dissertation. if you don't have another competitive offer, then there's really nothing that she can do to sweeten your package.

I wouldn't give up OSU. I wouldn't let the number bother you. Wait until you actually get the decision.

go to the officer hours. Seriously. Professors generally don't love office hours because students don't visit them or if they do, they're usually complaining about the class. So your presence may be a godsend to them.

Oh, how about this when your family visits you (especially abroad): "Since you're studying history, tell us the history of the area as part of our tour." I felt like I didn't do Munich justice after giving a lovely overview of Berlin's 200 year old history as I was living there. That's not fair. Bavarian civilization existed longer than up in Berlin!