TMP

Ohhh.... anything, anything, anything from my family! And I do have mixed feelings about this: "Well, consider this as a mixed blessing." Form one of my professors/LOR writers. I think I wanted to scream at her because it struck me that she didn't work hard enough at her letters to get me accepted! Now I have to say that she's right as I am enjoying my gap year... If she hadn't written my LORs, I wouldn't have put so much emotional weight in this statement.

Unfortunately, from my experience watching these forums, Chicago and OSU do tend to drag the season out a bit, I believe. But of course they will let you know ASAP if you're rejected but if you still haven't heard anything, it MAY mean that you're waitlisted and they just want to go to their top choice admits first. Being waitlisted is fantastic but it does leave you hanging for quite a while!

I think it helps a lot if you went to a party fairly social school for undergrad that taught you all the important social skills that will last a life time. After my MA, I still haven't lost it!

Do NOT worry! I had two international roommates during my MA years. One was Korean and the other was Austrian. The Korean found everything quite challenging because the only time she could ever speak Korean was with her family and best friend. Everyone else, she had to speak in English. Luckily for her, she was in music so English wasn't a top priority but she really, really tried. Her speaking skills were much better than her writing (oh, how I cringed when I saw her little notes ). The Austrian was a different story. Her parents were from North America who had moved to Austria long before she was born. So for the first two years of her life, she heard nothing but German. Then she learned English. Her field was Classics/archaeology. This meant a lot of speaking and writing in English in the US (as opposed to all in German in Austria). Of all the girls living in the apartment, she complained the most and was most likely to say "Noooo I can't, I have SOOOO much homework!" In reality, her workload was tough but not overwhelming difficult to me or the other American roommate. It was the question of reading and writing in English at academic level. She spoke with very little accent. She admitted that it took her more than half of the semester to actually speak up in class because she had to process everything that was being said. Nonetheless, her professors, I believe, were very understanding and recognized this particular challenge. While she could participate in conversations with her American friends, it was academic conversations that she struggled with. She had to learn to sit quietly and listen, just listen. I think she had a lot going for her that this particular adjustment was only a minor annoyance. Undergraduate students do sometimes get annoyed with foreign TAs but I think it's much more in the math and science where concepts really have to be explained (you know, like behind all the numbers and symbols) and labs cannot go wrong (like mixing wrong chemical solutions that could set fire). In history, if students cannot understand something, they'll just look up the information themselves. You can always say to them, "Look if you cannot understand me, yeah, that means you actually need to do your readings!" So, don't worry about those undergraduates, especially if your American friends say that they can understand you quite well and you do write extrmeely well here on the forums that I have a hard time believing that you're from Turkey!!! But academic seminars will definitely be a challenge at the beginning but as long as you work with your professors, you WILL be okay. Trust me. My friend is surviving very well and she's in middle of her 2nd year. Congrats!

Yikes! I know a friend who had applied to Harvard for the PhD and the professor told her that her application was horrible and she shouldn't apply for PhD again. She didn't get anywhere that year so she re-applied, with a new list of schools. Got in somewhere and now she's the first to do her comps in her cohort. That ought to show him... that she can still succeed. Also, remember professors are really socially awkward people. So as long as you check in with someone else about this professor's reputation, his/her statements really mean nothing! But given the position you were in last year at the time he said it to you, I can only imagine how painful it was. YIKES!!!! I agree with another poster... I do sometimes wish I had more time and opportunity to explore another field and get serious about the languages. I have actually been suggested a few times during 2010 cycle to do Latin America because of my Spanish (not fluent at all...but can read it reasonably). But without some serious understanding of what's happening in Latin American history field, I just couldn't apply for Latin America. I suppose that if I was willing to take off 2 years to brush up my Spanish and do some serious readings, I could have pulled it off. But no, I think my Latin American history classes gave me some tools in which I could apply to U.S. history to provide a different lens. In any case, Latin America would be one of my secondary fields if I can.

Treasure chest

No different from what Emory sent out last year. Except that Emory was more apologetic...

beautful mind

StrangeLight took every single word out of my mouth. I would wait to see what other offers you have. If you have a better funded offer elsewhere, even if it's not in a top 10, go there if that top 10 two year funded offer can't do any better than what it has for you right now.

You're only making yourself nuts by having these kind of "deadlines." Let the unexpected come to you!

I came to my MA program almost kind of knowing what I wanted to do my thesis on- taking the framework that I created with my BA thesis and applying it to another scenario. My advisor wanted me to do my thesis locally but I gave her a disgusted look as if she was really kidding me. Then I was reading one of my professors' preface in his first book and his description of his time off in another city just... hit my head. I was inspired. Once I got there though to explore the archives, the findings took me to a different direction because I realized that this particular story had never been told. It's very good that you are exploring your thesis topic right now. Read as much as you can. I agree with the above comment about what archives are available to you. Can you get summer funding to visit archives outside of your university and area? You should really try to make a goal to get much of your research done by September so you can begin writing in September. Too many MA students take longer than expected (2 years in program)) to finish because they get hold up with the MA thesis topic, convinced that they'll never find that "unique" topic. You just need to get into the archives to really start building up what you'd like to write about. Let your curiosity and interpretations guide you.

I forgot to mention how I ended up doing that ridiculous task and having to force myself to go to sleep. I'm abroad so my Skype is always on (as opposed to when I'm in the US). This meant that one of my PAs was online... My friend reminded me, "She could be skyping with the new admits OR should be skyping with her family!" I certainly hoped for the latter.

For the third time applicant, I'm largely calm. But right now I'm being ridiculous. I just filed away like 50-100 e-mail messages in my Gmail to appropriate folders. And I have another 100-150 to go... Yes, this is ridiculous. Okay, I'm going to sleep.

Bow down

No worries. Everyone has their own perception of what's consider urban and rural. Even some kids at my "middle-of-nowhere" undergrad said it's actually more urban than their own towns where no traffic lights existed! Anyhow, easy access to Philly and NYC makes Princeton all more accessible.

Middle of nowhere? I take it as an insult. I grew up 30 minutes away from Princeton and I most definitely saw that particular area as more suburban than where my house really was (You had to think twice about driving 20 minutes to get a gallon of milk, that's just bordering between suburban and rural areas). Really, there are other places more "middle of nowhere" than P-ton.

Agreed with the above comments. Wait. Just wait. However, if you feel the urge to pick up the phone, just dial a friend or relative and vent to them.

Nope. I just liked the sound of it. Like Tickle Me Elmo, remember that awesome toy? And yes, I'm quite ticklish anyway.

I also wonder what do you mean by "senior" in the department if he isn't tenured. I would absolutely talk to the DGS, especially with this threat of having funding cut off.

Since first decisions will come around the time I'm going to Copenhagen to visit a friend, it will certainly involve having a really good time in the Danish way! But I won't get too drunk considering how $$$$ Copenhagen is... If nothing yet, then it will certainly happen in Munich when my family and I get together for a few days. Oh, yes, in an indoor biergarten! But the real party will happen in Paris at a later time... my mother's promise.

"Tickle me pink!" was a phrase that I heard from my 11th grade chemistry teacher. I've always been terrible at coming up with completely random usernames that doesn't involve my real names. Every time I try to think about other names besides Ticklemepink, I just... blank out. I just like it. My avator... well... for another forum is actually a picture of Charlie Brown at the stone fence where he usually says "good grief." I love it because I often say "good grief, what have I done?" especially when making stupid wise choices about graduate school and academia in general.

Why is 66 terrible?

Does being in Germany and learning German count? I bought a history book in German to build up my vocabulary. But first, I should finish reading German for Reading Knowledge to learn more grammar than my current language class can teach me over the next month. It's just so much fun to learn the language- reading about German history WHILE in Germany and talking to other Germans. I love seeing how German history unfolds through these readings and personal conversations. Also, I just received feedback on the article version of my MA thesis from a top-level journal in my subfield and while it's not being rejected completely, they do want me to make serious revisions before submitting it again for publication. *sigh* And all of my notes are in the United States... Well, that's my summer project! So it remains "under review." There have been so many CFPs this year completely relevant to my research that I occasionally e-mail my MA thesis adviser and whine about not being in a doctoral program that can pay for my fees/travel expenses for these conferences! (Including one in Amsterdam!) She wrote back, "Stop whining. It's a good thing! It means your research is current and relevant!" Thanks for the vote of confidence.

OMG I had (almost) the EXACT same thing! I reaffirmed my interest in 2 schools that I was waitlisted at. I also wrote to a third school, figuring well these professors are going to retire now and won't take any new students, and the professor was pretty much begging encouraging me to reapply. I was very shocked because I had been rejected straight out with no explanation or anything of that sort despite our extremely positive conversation the winter before. I was very surprised by all of the responses that I got. But I continue to be skeptical because it's all fair game and no one's been guaranteed in for the second/third time. I think it helped quite a bit that I was able to finally meet some of the professors, including one by complete random chance while visiting a city to see friends where he happened to be doing his sabbatical (which I only found out when I got there). Absolutely random... and it's one of my highlights of this particular admissions process! I think professors do give re-applicants a lot of credit because they know that applying is trying and very emotional draining and it's just not easy to go through it again. They admired my very positive attitude (well I wanted this!) and my forward-thinking about my plans for this "year off." So, here's to hoping that it all works out for me and everyone else on this thread.