TMP

Thanks. I e-mailed two NYU professors last night and one of them told the DGS. The DGS e-mailed me this morning telling me that everyone had responded and they're not taking anyone off the waitlist. But he did offer me the MA... My thought was, "DGS, read my CV." I don't need two MAs in same subject! (Also this department is notorious for not taking their own MA students which is why I did NOT apply there for the MA when I knew it was my ultimate goal to get a PhD there). Closing my books and then going on a long vacation from the academia! But as others have said I will be back given these contacts with NYU and Indiana allowing me to keep my faith in the admissions process.

No miracle for me at Indiana The DGS e-mailed me personally (as well as my PA there who followed up to my e-mail (basically begging to get off)) to tell me the news. They're all full for the fall. As I say, "DAMN YOU ECONOMY!" NYU... it would seriously be a miracle. But otherwise, the books are closed for the time being.

Congrats!!!!! Enjoy the fat stipend Sorry that I won't be seeing you in the fall but enjoy Boston/Cambridge!

*gasp* I just learned that someone's turning down NYU's Judaic Studies program. Her announcement on FB just... I felt like I slammed my brakes when I saw her final decision. I wrote congrats and that if I ever get off this waitlist, I will thank her forever and ever. I'm still hoping for some miracle as well (just as anyone!). I am not too terribly worried about next time given how much I've accomplished since submitting my applications in December. And as Riotbeard said on another thread, I will be VERY hungry and will do what I can to make myself quite irresistible that they just can't turn me down easily.

I am pretty much already on top of my readings as I just finished my MA thesis relevant to what I plan to study for the doctoral programs! I consulted my potential advisors' books and they were pretty recent. Now I am reading a novel, One Thousand White Women, about what would happen if President Grant had agreed to trade 1,000 women for 1,000 horses so the Cheyenne tribe could "assimilate" into the American society. I also am reading Sarah Palin's Going Rogue and took out two relevant books. I kinda forgot how much fun politicans' autobiographies can be to read... they have a set agenda but it's quite interesting to see their thought process through each major event and how they were raised. I have a few more novels that I hope... to... finish by the end of the summer (regardless of what I'm doing in the fall) including Tolstoy's War and Peace. Um, yeah, so you can see how I'm basically reading a lot of... non-field relevant books at the moment after 2-3 years of straight field-relevant reading!

*snickers* Agreed! Those Steelers fans are quite... insane. I have a friend who carries a Steelers locker room towel everywhere with her and takes pictures with that towel to prove that a Steelers fan was there! By the way, Steelers is pronounced "Stuhlers" there...

Ah, you turned down sunshine for cornfields?!

It really, really, really depends on the person! Just order club soda with a lime if you have to I would be in heaven if my future Ph.D. advisor would be anything like people have described here. I don't think it's lacking professionalism as rising_star pointed out. You're just a very junior colleague and they want to treat you as such. After all, you are going to be part of their field and you might as well start making connections and working on your social skills. It's just unfortunate (in a way) that my past advisors haven't been able to do this kind of thing as they were chairs of their departments (= mountains of paperwork to do). But with other professors, I really enjoyed their company when we met up for coffee or lunch. As part of the conversation, they teach me how to become a professional in our field. Think of these happy hours and get-togethers in bars as a teaching/learning moment to become a professional. That's part of the reason why all-important white-collared people go for happy hours. Also, professors are probably going to be more apt to share information about their jobs, the academia, field, and anything relevant to you that you might not otherwise learn just sitting in their office chatting.

Riotbeard, my list of schools is just that because of my sub-field. There are a good deal of professors in my sub-field but many of them are NOT in PhD granting universities. So I have quite limited choices of where I can apply in order to be able to work with just that person in that sub-field. It sucks big time because I would think with the topic of this sub-field being very widely taught and discussed there would be MORE professors in doctoral programs. Alas, that's not the case as many are at LACs and universities that only grants MAs. Even my own professors were a bit surprised. Also it was a matter of language issue at the time but that's taken care of now. So next time, if that happens, I will definitely be able to apply a bit more widely largely because I have this language now and can expand my search to certain professors working in this particular geographical area that I did not really apply for.

Haha. I'm not making peace with the whole Indiana/NYU thing. I've fought for this... I've dreamed about this for nearly four years when I decided that I wanted to get my PhD in history! Actually it would be quite nice if I do get off the waitlist because then I will actually have something to do until my graduation at the end of the month when I have 2 weeks of nothing to do! *crossing fingers* Thanks for the info though, VL. Now that the DGS mentioned his thoughts to you about the waitlist, I'm too afraid to e-mail him myself to see how I'm doing. I'll live for the next 48 hours. I had already told him that Indiana's my top choice (and still is!) so I don't think he needs to hear it again especially if we're ranked on the waitlist.

Those will sufficient for admissions and language placement exams.

Yeah, same here. HMMM.... Did the DGS tell you when he might let you know by? My profs here keep asking me that question and I've been saying that he never mentioned anything... like I should e-mail him and ask.

*cheers* One step closer to getting off the waitlist! Except VampireLincoln and I don't know who's up higher

hahahaha, OP, you haven't looked at the primary sources, haven't you? Bottom line: The translation exam is really simple. They'll give you a short text that you should reasonably be able to complete within 2 hours with an aid of a dictionary. If you can read at lit level comfortably, don't worry about it! But I would start practicing by reading Spanish-language newspapers to increase your comprehension and getting your hands on history books in Spanish to get the feel for common verbs and vocabulary used in academic Spanish.

I did it. Don't worry. The time flies! By then, you will have much better grounding on what academia's all about and can write SOPs to knock those academics' socks off when you use the "right" buzzwords...

Summers are a bit on the cooler side (thanks to the winds)... it really depends on how the apartment's located and whether it has lots of shade/trees around it to keep the building cool.

what cesada said. I'm on two waitlists. Both DGS were very frank on their e-mails. One felt optimistic if enough people turn down their offers, I may be able to get off the waitlist. The other DGS was very apologetic and "hoped there would be a movement" but didn't see it happening. I did inquire about my position for the second school and the DGS said he wasn't at liberty to tell me but my application was really very good. It's also a good time to let your LORs know what's up as they may be able to call up their friends "for a chat."

Risk having an undergraduate steal an Apple product when I step away for 5 minutes? Hell no.

I have to agree with StrangeLight on so, so, so many points. Even though my MA was in an interdisciplinary program, I was mostly focused on history. Even so... my interdisciplinary program was pretty reading heavy. If my UG profs ask me next time I visit my alma mater and ask what they could have done better to help me prepare for graduate school, my first response would be, "Weekly response papers!!!" Even though my senior seminar did it, it was just one class and I wish my profs had done more of it in their upper level courses. 5 response papers per semester isn't going to prepare me well to submit 2-3 response papers each week. That's what I hate the most about seminars. My friend hates response papers more than I do- she actually didn't post them online for a while. It wasn't until I smacked in her head to tell her to get over it and just do it when she did finally post them. (And she was a PhD student!) Also each program varies in terms of what's considered a "paper." Really question the grad students about their workload. I have another friend elsewhere and it seemed like her workload was bigger than mine. Not only that, if you have to take an undergrad course and "turn it" into a grad course, you will have to do an extra paper (usually 10-20 pages) on top of all other assignments for that course. Sometimes you can work out a deal with a professor so you don't have to do the "busy" work and just write one heck of a big research paper. On the money here. Be conservative in your first year. See what you can handle. One girl attempted to take 12 credits in her first semester even though people told her not to. It wasn't until mid-October that profs figured it out and told her to choose between 2 courses in order to reduce her courseload. She admitted that she felt MUCH better afterward. Another grad student did 12 credits during her second semester and confessed that she would never, ever do it again even though she didn't have any other responsibilities. As for me, I really lucked out. I took 2 seminars (3 credits each) and a language class (4 credits). The language class wasn't all that difficult so I was able to focus quite a bit on my seminar. I used the summer to really catch up on my language in order to prepare for 300 level lit level. Then in my third semester, I had 2 seminars (which I wasn't quite fond of), a thesis (3 credits), and an "independent" study of 1 credit in order to finish ALL of my MA coursework by December. That was... a killer semester because I put in so much time on my thesis, followed by my seminars, and lastly, my language reading sessions. Your languages will always take a backseat unless you're not doing anything else. That's what summers are for. You can catch up really fast in European languages, especially Romance and Germanic languages, in one summer. Even my adviser knew that languages are on the bottom of every grad student's list, even though we needed 8-12 language credits to graduate.

The other question seems to be missing here is.... which state would he prefer to teach in to begin with?

A word from the wise: Keep your mouth zipped about your goal of going into public history, especially if you're intending on going for the PhD. There are a good number of historians do not like the idea of working with someone who isn't interested in being part of the academia but rather work in the industry. Even though AHA acknowledges it and urges doctoral programs to be more open to placing its students in jobs outside of the academia, departments are still quite interested in being professor-producing machines. Only reveal it to very trusted people who will support you all the way. I mean it. I am literally fighting tooth and nail trying to get into PhD programs even though my CV screams of public history experiences.

Let me guess, you learned British English. Drop the S and put in C. It's making my cringe.

Congrats Goober! I'm trying to cross my fingers... I prayed that one of my waitlist schools would open up the Red Sea for me just as God did for Moses and his people... But since tourist already accepted the spot... I'm thinking, oh my god, how many free spots do they have left at Indiana?!

I go to a big name school with a superstar for an adviser for my MA. Sounds fabulous. But I'm actually having trouble smiling to people (academics AND non-academics) when they find out where I'm getting my MA from. It seems to make that they make a very quick assumption that I must be damn brilliant to have gotten into my program. It took... another few minutes for academics to ask, "So... who are you working with?" *facepalm* It's no lie. Academics are just as swayed by big-name schools as regular people. When I mentioned a possibility that's ranked in the 90's that has 2 well-known professors in my sub-fields, academics quickly think in their heads "Do I know someone there?" and then say aloud, "Who's there?" or if they have a really good buddy or this person is the "dean" of the subfield "Oh Superstar prof is there isn't he?!" You're just going to get completely random reactions wherever you wind up. You should read the acknowledgments in their books or look up conference presentations to get a sense of who they know and who they've worked with. If you can't get this Superstar prof's "Facebook friends" figured out, then I would look at both programs carefully, especially their job placement. A good number of lesser-known schools have solid job placement thanks to a couple of big-name faculty members who served on dissertation committees, even if they're not the chair, and this includes your Superstar prof and perhaps another well-connected prof.

Do you really, really, REALLY want to be paying loans for 10+ years?