Sigaba

FWIW, at the time my insomnia was in overdrive and I was so stressed out that didn't understand what I was being told. I got a call from a department during which I was simultaneously asked to come in for an interview and told that I was being offered admission. So I went to a kick-the-tires meet-and-greet conversation radiating anxiety and tension. And not that I'm #OCD or anything (because I'm not), I didn't believe that I actually got in until I was there for a week or two. It wasn't until much later that I learned what kind of a lasting impression my anxiety and tension made upon a professor; an impression that is 180 degrees of my self perception in the Ivory Tower. This mindset has accompanied me to subsequent job interviews and job performance reviews. If there's a useful take away from my experiences, it's this. Relax. And also...bring enough cash and/or a credit card to pay for parking and park as close to your destination as possible. And also...relax. Poise, composure, and an appropriate level of self-confidence will help you more than angst-driven readings of tea leaves.

Also, allergies, which was the first and last question I asked a staff member of the department of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I remember you sharing your thoughts and your reasons for making your decision. IMO, it is especially important that you in particular make the trip. Because if you go to Duke, you're not going to a school in the United States, you're going to a school in North Carolina and all that entails.

Please exercise care when asking questions and interpreting answers about the training graduate students receive for the job market and placement. I specifically recommend not having preconceived notions of what information a department should have readily available or what training programs should be in place. Figure out ways to get your questions answered while also minimizing the risk of coming across like you're telling people how they should do their jobs and/or you're putting hatched chickens in front of the light at the end of the tunnel. It's not so much what you ask, but how.

Before the sidebar on the quality of Ivy-trained historians goes much further along the current trajectory (because we all have stories to tell, and none of us are bitter), I recommend that aspiring graduate students (if not current graduate students as well) focus on @telkanuru's point. Among the easiest and self-destructive paths one can walk as a grad student, as a worker bee, and, maybe, as a person, is questioning the qualifications and worthiness of others who get what you want. Yes, critical questions about processes and outcomes and bias and power must be asked. And, as T points out, the more difficult but most productive critical questions are (most) often the one asks when looking in the mirror.* (If you want to benchmark yourself against Ivies, take very deep dives into the many threads in the history forum. Why are there so few of them on this BB, year after year? Why do they ask fewer questions? Can one identify qualitative differences in their general comportment, critical thinking and writing skills relative to non-Ivies? If such differences exist, what can one do in the here and now to learn from those differences?) ______________________ * A personal note. While/shortly after preparing my application to Happyland University, I went through my transcript to figure out why my UG GPA was what it was. Time and again, I could identify specific decisions and broader patterns that resulted to me choosing not to work harder. When I was later told that I didn't get into Happyland University because of "politics," I knew that the person giving me the news was being polite; long before "politics" became a factor, I just didn't work hard enough. (Had I worked harder, I'd arguably would have known that the work I picked for the book review was not going to cut it...)

The sweet spot between the two recommendations is a field outside of the West that will make a more competitive applicant when it is time to look for a job. How about the corresponding time frame (early modern), the same focus, but in the Middle East?

If you read the post, @telkanuru is clearly talking about the perception of a job applicant with a degree from Kansas versus the perception of an applicant with a degree from Prinecton.

Rather than attempting to read the tea leaves of a process that is now beyond one's control, please consider the benefits of managing your stress by assuming that you're going to get into a program somewhere and somewhen; accepting the fact that all of you are already historians because you are focused on the study of change over time; understanding that the majority of what you learn as a historian will be self-taught (for better and for worse); realizing that nothing is stopping you from learning more about the craft while you wait for the results of a truly grueling process with moments of pain and even despair. Even if you don't know which continent or century or nation or event or dynamic will be at the center of your endeavors, there are still shelves and shelves of books, monographs, periodicals, and unpublished works that are waiting for you. The essential reads, the books that change everything, the works "one ignores at one's peril," the literary masterpieces, the methodological trainwrecks, the prize winners, the memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies of key academics--they are waiting for you. Believe it or not, in a couple of years, many of you will be dealing with stress and intellectual challenges and personal crises that will make you think of your present circumstances with wistful yearning. Now is a good time to start building up the skills and resources and resilience that will serve you well in those ghastly moments of terror that come when preparing for qualifying exams.

You should be all right as long as you can articulate reasons for the transition and those reasons remain more or less constant. However, if you're doing a Diane Chambers (a character in Cheers) you could develop a reputation for being a bit flakey. However, that reputation will go away once you demonstrate your commitment to your new area of specialization. Perhaps the best way to address the transition is to make the argument that your original focus and your new focus really aren't that different after all. (Although there are examples of historians screwing up such efforts so badly that they set off decades' long historiographical brawls that end up impacting the public perception of eggheads and the Ivory Tower so much so that an orange colored clod ends up winning the American presidency. No pressure on you, though.)

A professor of educational psychology explained to me that undergraduates are often like "abused children" and unfavorable evaluations that are outliers should be read in that light. I recommend that you follow @AP's guidance and that you bite your tongue when you have the urge to say anything in your defense. Not being defensive is hard. But being defensive sends a message with a greater negative impact than all but the most hostile evaluation. Conversely, taking criticism and guidance with a good attitude will work to your benefit almost every time.

And also, there's chatter in the comp/lit forum about a similar request going out in at least one other discipline. Ideally, someone with familiarity with the Harvard process will chime in to say if the request is SOP or if it reflects something else. An example of "something else" would be an action item generated from a study of the correlation between day one language proficiency and program completion.

Finances and socioeconomic background are not always one in backgrounds who have a blue blood education.) Because academics often try to replicate themselves, members of departmental admissions committees and graduate schools, may read applications with a keen eye for the sublte cues. As all of these factors are now beyond one's control, I would recommend that one not spend too much time reading tea leaves and cracked bones.

BTDT = been there, done that.

FWIW, hard-won experience has taught me that expressions of "If I were ..." thinking are not always well received by BTDTs. They can easily (if not mistakenly) infer that the person expressing the thought thinks that he/she knows better. My unsolicited recommendation is that one exercise the utmost care in how one phrases this line of thinking.

FWIW, using Google and searching for the following is producing good general information. YMMV. [school name] student health insurance

Using Google to search for each school's student health insurance policy may get you better information.

Start the process of figuring how to make the transition from the private sector to the Ivory Tower based upon the assumption that you're going to get multiple offers of admission. I think that the most significant challenges you're going to encounter are the differences in pace, process, and personalities. And also... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s1s5K52zEQ

https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/84192-protect-your-privacy-when-selecting-a-user-name/

I wonder if OP is talking about a type of decision that a fresh set of eyes won't see any clearer--Is this about empathy more than editing? @Adelaide9216 , let your informants be your guide. Look at your notes, listen/watch to your recordings (if any), remember what they emphasized (through repetition). Differentiate between descriptive statements and analytical comments. It may be more appropriate to prioritize the latter while using nice turns of the phrase to pepper the former. Consult previous articles in the same journal. How have others addressed the tough choices you currently face?

Get a sense of the preferences of the Powers That Be in your department. Especially the DGS, your advisor, and committee members. If they so much as hint that your focus should be on your work, focus on your work. For better and worse (mostly worse) many professors DGAF about undergraduates and have second thoughts about those who do.

I believe that you'd be making an avoidable if not unrecoverable error if you were to write on a work of anthropology.

One can work as hard as one wants or does not want to work to earn a masters degree. As many (if not most) professors are unlikely to put in the energy and effort to motivate masters students, it's incumbent upon students to figure out how hard they want to work and to develop the tactics and work habits that will get them where they want to go.

Background checks can be outsourced to third parties.

When you're editing, consider the advantages of (1) Budgeting your writing time with at least 33% of the time for editing/proofreading. (IIRC, the recommended split is 60% writing / 40% editing) (2) Doing one type of editing at a time. That is, one pass through a document for argument/consistency, another pass for clarity, another pass for citations/references, and a final pass to scrub for typos and other avoidable errors. (3) Walking away from a document for a day or longer. (4) Scrubbing for typos by reading a printed copy of the document backward, word by word. IRT the changing sensibilities towards error-free writing, typos, spelling mistakes, and split infinitives all do not matter--until they do. One cannot anticipate how readers will use avoidable errors against an applicant. One cannot spend forever chasing down that last gremlin. Make a decision that allows you to do the best you can under the circumstances and find ways to be at peace with your choice.

I recommend not including identifiable information in screenshots.