TMP

My guess is that your top-choice program doesn't have the funds for "visiting weekends" as mentioned in these forums. You can politely inquire about a prospective student day to the DGS and see what s/he says.

Won't be weird. It happens often. Just let them know that you're planning to use the other archives, which explains for the other 4 days. Just make sure that your receipts total to the amount you were awarded from this research fellowship does not include expenses associating with the second trip. I really don't think they'll give you a hard time, especially you're from from far and are in the US only for so long.

It is worth asking the DGS and contacting graduate students to learn of other possibilities. Does the fellowship allow you to work on campus as a TA or in another position? Does the fellowship cover the entire tuition?

Stick to your gut. These kinds of decisions are similar to weighing marriage proposals. You just have to pick one partner to be with for the next 5-7 years. Have you talked with graduate students? They can help you for sure; ask the Director of Graduate Studies and your POIs to connect with international students in your program. These students can give you a real clarity on the process from accepting an offer to logistics of moving to the US to navigating the University's bureaucracy.

please use the search function "low GPA" to find answers such as this thread: This forum has been in existence for more than a decade now so nearly every question has been asked and answered... In short: No, your GPA is fine. Focus on your personal statement.

Just get a job with a salary you just need something to tide you over.. Happens all the time!

@Balleu, always err on the formal until they tell you so upfront or sign their emails by their first name. There will still be "old timers" around who'd prefer to be formal. Even if graduate students throw around the professor's first name and you haven't interacted with this person yet, just go with the formal when you do.

No. As long as you finish the degree (or will be by the time you enter grad school). People vary their courseloads all the time for different reasons including medical and family.

Wrong forum. Go to the Art History one.

it does sound like a MA before jumping into PhD will be the best route (or even just a year in France teaching English on Fulbright). I didn't have more than 3 courses in European history either when I applied to PhDs-- everyone knows that different departments have different requirements for the major. As long as you have French and can develop good questions to explore (which can be done through reading up the latest in historiography), you're on your way. Also ,why a PhD in early modern France? (trust me, this is a question you will encounter a zillion times until you pass your PhD exams)

You sign a contract when you accept the offer. You want everything in writing. Assurances is different from guaranteed. People use "assurances" here to say that their POIs/DGS have reassured them verbally/over e-mail that they will get X but will not be on the final contract. You want your final contract to reflect what you are actually going to get.

Just a FYI, having lived/done research in Australia, I've found that the cost of difference for Uggs brand at the end is utterly moot, which is really weird. I'd definitely pile up on cold weather stuff! I agree with @ashiepoo72. I'd find out how your MA credits work (it should be explained in the department handbook) and how they affect your time to comps. Unless you are a brilliant reader, the soonest you will be allow to take your exams is in your 4th semester (or 5th if you are not an Americanist). But it does depend how you spend your first summer. I came in with a MA and just didn't have to do a thesis but I still ended up taking my exams at the beginning of my 4th year (thanks, life). It's very, very difficult to finish a good dissertation under 3-4 years. The AHA President already stated that a good history dissertation should take 4 years, no less. Also, consider the university's overall budget health. State schools are under a lot of pressure (unless you'r at Michigan, which it sounds like it's not one of the options) and the department may face budget cuts during your time. Be sure to ask a lot of questions about the overall health of department and university budget and priorities.

But be aware that taking language courses not for credit will eat up more of your time. See if you can arrange some sort of "independent study" credit so you're not taking more courses than necessary, especially your first semester.

Truthfully, if those faculty members weren't interested in your questions, you would not have been accepted. They must have interest in it -- talk to them and see how they respond. Ask about courses, exams, and support for research funding. If they aren't excited to tell you, say adios to them. it IS a challenge to be an EM in a department full of modern historians and you're always going to be defending your methods. But you will NOT be the only one-- you will be engaged with other EMs dealing with similar challenges. I certainly don't think it's hopeless as, say being an ancient historian.

Bringing the focus back to the point of this thread.... ASK (THE GRADUATE STUDENTS) ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES and the Department's attitude toward mental health concerns During my last visitation day experience as a host back in 2016, when we discussed the inclusion of mental health services in student insurance/tuition, we could see quite a few faces sighing in relief. Clearly, it was on their minds but didn't know how to ask. While the discussion of mental health concerns has been more open, much more work needs to be done. The quality of mental health services to graduate students vary quite widely from institution to institution. Most of the focus has been on undergraduates but not enough on graduate students (or faculty too) and you'll want to make sure that the institutions that accepted you are well on their way to servin to the graduate student community or have already established support systems. Also, not all departments have caught up on the reality of depression/anxiety and the ways in which they truly affect students' well-being and progress to the PhD. You'll want to investigate how supportive the faculty is of students' well-being, particularly your POI and the older faculty whom you may be working with (they're of survivalist mentality-- one didn't talk about loneliness, depression, and anxiety that came with graduate school, you simply survived).

Don't worry about course registration yet! It'll take a while for the bureaucracy to get you set up after you've accepted the offer- probably not even until May or June. I'd take an offer that puts you in the least amount of debt while giving you the most support for coursework, language training, and MA research.

1) Language study support 2) Are there enough courses to support your needs? (This is critical if the program is looking to get smaller) What if there aren't enough courses? Will your adviser be willing to supervise independent study? 3) How good is the student health insurance? Does it cover dental and vision? (Trust me, you will need the vision even if you don't currently wear glasses ) 4) What is the teaching/grading load like? 5) How does stipend increases work in the university? Is it be progress in the PhD program or by class enrollment? 6) What kinds of jobs are graduates getting after they defend? Are they happy with their non-academic jobs? 7) What is the continuous enrollment policy, if there is one? (Essentially, it means that graduate students are required to pay tuition to stay enrolled as they work on their dissertations if they don't have tuition waivers.) ? How much time does the Graduate School give to students to graduate after completing their exams? 9) Can you tell me about the university's dissertation completion fellowship? What does a successful application package look like? (Asking this question will give you a sense of the department's highest standards) 10) If you are a NON-US citizen, ask international students about external funding opportunities. (Unless the faculty member has lots of experience of advising non-US citizens or was a non-US citizen during his/her PhD, you aren't going to get a good answer out of them. They're that clueless.)

Read the department handbook too. It should have a section on funding once the guaranteed package has been used up. Ask advanced graduate students how they're funding their PhD and how their situation compares to when they first entered 5-6 years ago. Ask this question to the DGS (preferably in front of everybody), the graduate coordinator, and your potential adviser. Also ask about summer funding for after first year -- how do students do their pre-dissertation research? I was bitter when I didn't get my first summer funded for research (just language study). Then I relaxed when I got funded for my second summer, which really, really helped a lot in the way of writing my prospectus and next round of grant proposals. It took the department a few years to acknowledge the importance of pre-dissertation research and move some funds towards first/second years to help them shape their prospectus/first round of dissertation research grant/fellowship proposals (of course, cutting cohort sizes helped a bit...). I've seen a number of graduate students who waited too long to start on their "pre-dissertation" research and get into trouble when they tried to apply for dissertation fellowships. Funding for pre-dissertation research truly makes a difference for future success with dissertation fellowships.

I agree with the above advice. I also had similar situation. Essentially, it depends how open your POI will be. if s/he is trying hard to recruit you, s/he will very likely bring up the search as one did for me (which I declined partly on the time table of that future search). The other program (the one I accepted) was mum about the ongoing search because she felt that the department as a whole was a very strong fit that the search wasn't really going to make-or-break my decision. So I never heard anything about it but only later through the graduate students.

@Historiker Take the PhD offer. Other than just the ranking, what is really the advantage of doing a MA at a 1-5 if it's not completely funded? As you can see from the boards (and perhaps my cynicism), getting into a PhD program itself is very difficult and it's not unusual to apply several times. Schools in the "top 20" are still very solid. It's what you make of the opportunities while in that the department and within that university. You e-mail the DGS and your POIs a sweet, short note that you will be declining the offer to attend elsewhere (or whatever other plans you have) and THANK them for their time in reading your materials and hope that your paths will cross in the future.

Everything matters. Going forward, strengthen your SOP and writing sample and have honest conversations with your professors if they can write a strong letters of support for next cycle. Unlike last fall, you have gained more knowledge and understanding of history and historiography to articulate your interests and questions more clearly.

If you had applied just as you were starting your MA last fall, your application then didn't change much and it was too soon to re-apply to PhD programs. You need to finish your one-year MA with a completed thesis (or at least a strong chapter for writing sample) and a set of in-depth letters. Your professors in your MA program likely wrote surface-level letters because they didn't really get to know your work as well as they could have. People in MA programs wait until their second (or third) year for best shot into PhD programs.

@gsc should be good resource here.... since there aren't overwhelming numbers of British historians in the US, you may be best served to seek a British historian and an Europeanist doing cultural history (perhaps French or German).

There is a very, very fine line between maintaining decorum and rocking the boat. I have seen working-class and/or very liberal students attempt to rock the boat. What will make a difference in the eyes of your colleagues and professors is whether you will be willing to engage in a civil discourse, understand the limits of historical research, and protect your time and energy as a graduate student. First, learn your department and institutional cultures including how drug use is discussed. This acclimation will take about a year. Then you can act accordingly to your beliefs (thought my recommendation is pass the exams first and then you will have a bit more leeway). If you are, however, the type not to be willing to trust the BTDTs on the basic level and follow their sensible advice on a variety of matters (including professionalization), then you will be very unhappy. I have seen one case which a graduate student who deeply believed in anarchy and that rules did not exist (in their world) end very, very, very badly.

(a) Then.... why did you apply to Harvard? (b) If it makes you feel better, it's really much better not to do BA and PhD in the same institution unless the degrees are from two entirely different departments. Many well-meaning professors know and understand the perils of being in one place for a long time: one doesn't get such a wide variety of perspectives to improve and bolster one's scholarship. While I'm sure it'll be nice to go back to the familiar, it's better that you go to Yale.