Neist

I wish I could chime in about the school I attend, but unfortunately, I attend a school that you've already listed. I would like to confirm that the University of Oklahoma does indeed offer funding. There isn't a ton of it through the department itself, but the library has quite a few funded GA-ships that many library students end up working.

Oh, you can totally relate to my pain being a history person. I'm technically a student in two departments, so I have to do the "upkeep" of a student of both, and I'm also in the process of determining some archives where I'd like to work in the future. A large part of this process is reviewing what research has already been produced and an incredible amount of correspondence to these archives determining whether or not funding is available to study their collections (among many other things). The archival search struggles for history students is serious business. I've found an archive that's pretty intriguing, though. Hope I can make it work.

You know what was never explained to me about graduate school? The sheer amount of emails one needs to write. I feel like I'm always writing emails.

This book is very dense and specifically targets humanities Ph.D.s, but... Educating Scholars: Doctoral Education in the Humanities is a good read. It's worth reading, I think.

Now that I've spent my first year in graduate school, I'd like to chime in and emphasize the importance of buying a good backpack. Buy a good bag. One that's comfortable, meets all your needs, and is at least passable as professional. I've struggled with packs this year, and I think I'm going to have to invest a couple of hundred dollars into something that fits my needs. Should have done this initially.

My first year has very similarly paralleled your first year, so I feel your pain! I, too, gather that people in my cohort are actively involved with, at the very least, other, more senior graduate students in the department. As to how I've handled it, well, I haven't! I've become more friendly with my faculty mentors and department staff. Further, I've tried to involve myself with the undergraduate majors in my department (there's not many of them, and I often feel as if they're neglected). I've started a university-wide reading group with books broadly discussing topics which interest me. In short, I've tried to become active in other places.

I don't think it's especially high, given a program accepts transfer credits at all. That said, I've heard of some programs only accepting a single year of credits (i.e., about 15 credit hours). And some programs don't accept any transfer credits. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but for example, Princeton history of science did not accept any transfer credits when I've talked to relatively recent graduates of the program. Harsh.

Digital humanities are still pretty trendy.

Sadness. No new students are coming into the program I'm in next semester. One of the problems of a relatively small program is that if your funded offers get rejected, there's not much else one can do.

I thought I'd clarify for the sake of future readers that while the acceptance rate is relatively high, the funded rate is much lower. I have a hard time believing that the acceptance rate for JHU, Yale, et al. rests solidly at 20-30%. I've known quite a few people who have applied to those programs, and most were not accepted. In contrast, the acceptance rate to Harvard seems, anecdotally, higher than 10-13%. For one, the program is probably the largest history of science program in the United States, so they can more readily take on students (although this is somewhat an assumption on my behalf). They currently list 49 graduate students on their website in the program. Assuming that it takes around 6-7 years for completion, that's an average of 7-8 students a year. That means that Harvard would have to receive roughly 60-70ish applicants per year? Sure, that's possible, but the history of science world isn't exactly a huge world. Heck, if Peterson's may be trusted (and I'm not sure that I'd say that it should be), Harvard has a 38% acceptance rate. If memory serves, any numbers reported on Petersons are published by Harvard, not collection independently. Just some two cents.

I haven't been able to follow this thread as well as I hoped I would have been able to, but I want to throw out a blanket congratulations to everyone in this thread. Congratulations! At the very least, the bulk of application season is more or less complete.

I'm not sure how it is perceived in Canada, but in the US, but as long as a program is accredited, there is little difference whether it's online or in person. In fact, all of the mandatory courses in my program have migrated online, and my program is one of the older programs in the US, circa 1929. If it's cheaper, and you've heard good things, I say go for it. Much of a library program is what you make of it, not what the program demands of you.

As a history person, I've rarely worked with groups in the past. However, much of my library school coursework requires team work, and well, it hasn't been as enjoyable as I would have liked it to be.

I think you'll be fine. And you can always get an MLIS later on if you feel it necessary. Where you get an MLIS doesn't really matter, and a lot of programs are online. I bet it's pretty easy to find a cheap MLIS program, although I can't say confidently as I have no looked extensively.

Same here! Graduate school feels a little bit like a vacation to me.

That sounds pretty hopeful, to me. That seems like the sort of verbiage they used with me, and I ended up getting in. I think I mentioned it, but I was waitlisted at the program I'm now at.

Pretty much, yup, that's what I said. I stated what classes I took and what extracurriculars I've been involved with. I discussed what rewards I received and what I hope to accomplish next year. Maybe the purpose of the statement is to force less organized students to codify their thoughts on the year and their future? I'm really organized, so it seems a bit arbitrary to me, but I'm sure it's useful to some. I think that the only reason I have one this early is that I was an undergraduate in this department. I know the people and what I want to accomplish. It was pretty easy for me to pick a committee.

Any good decision should probably be a difficult decision. Congrats on your decision.

Accommodations can vary widely depending on the person, program, and circumstances. It's hard to say for certain. However, the best place to conduct this discussion would be through the disability resource center at the campus you'll be attending. They'll probably have more informed advice as to handle the specific climate of the university than I can, unfortunately. I hope that helps, and I'm sorry I couldn't add more!

I can't comment regarding either program (way outside of my discipline), but BGSU is pretty close to both Chicago and Detroit (I think the latter is only about an hour and a half drive). I didn't think Bowling Green was especially off-putting, but it is a small town. I wouldn't necessarily discount it due to its location, assuming that you're comfortable commuting a little bit for trips towards a larger city. Of course, I could be completely mistaken. I only visited BGSU for a few days, and that was a year and a half ago now.

Anyone else has to write formal yearly status report letters? I'm in the process of synthesizing one. The entire process feels a little needlessly time consuming, but I guess people outside of my direct contact like to know how I'm progressing. I love that GIF, too. I use it pretty often.

Hopefully, they'll extend some funding offers! It's pure speculation on my behalf, but I imagine that a Ph.D. program comes with increased funding from the University. If that be the case, I'd assuming that some of the funding has to help support the increased study body of the program (because students will stick around longer). Also, this has been me all weekend. I'm not sure if I'm getting better at graduate school or better at focusing, but I think I got this semester down.

I agree completely with this statement. This is my first year, and I've quickly discovered that two classes can be a handful if they are especially heavy courses. Four classes might be doable, but I think it'd drive me borderline insane. I wouldn't even consider the courses if they didn't apply in some way to your MA (or they let you take a little extra time for you MA in light of your desire to complete the certificate).

I thought I'd chime and state that it's possible to be called in the summer, albeit with some rarity. As @TMP noted, most universities know their fiscal year budget by the end of June, hence, how many students they can support. However, I've known several instances of enrolled graduate students dropping out at the very last minute, freeing up a position. Said position is often difficult to fill as it's somewhat difficult to find a qualified student within such short notice. I readily admit that it's probably a rare circumstance, but it can happen. At any rate, I'd agree that you shouldn't withdraw. Should you get off the waitlist, you can always turn down the offer then. There's no need to speculate what you might be offered until it happens.

Maybe it's just my perception of graduate students thus far, but I feel as if you can get with a lot more quirkiness than you might feel able to as an undergrad. If you want to ride a skateboard to class, go for it, I say. For what it's worth, I don't think it's especially weird. A lot of people here are beginning to commute via skateboard. It's becoming incredibly common.