Sigaba

Don't neglect looking at what kinds of archives are available at the schools of interest and nearby. Analog > digital. Keep an eye on the faculty rosters of history departments that are close by. Some programs allow for committee members from neighboring institutions. You'll definitely want to read the fine print and learn the lay of the land before going down this path. Learn what you can about a department's culture and how you might fit in. Do you need community and collegiality? Do you want people to leave you alone most of the time? Will you mind if professors treat graduate students like "indentured servants"? Try to get a sense of how demanding the language requirements may be. Who will administer your proficiency exams? The Italian department? The history department? Or a professor who is going to rattle your cage because that's the way she learned to do things. Also, if you've not done so already, do what you can to find the masterwork(s) in your fields of interest and then diagram intellectual "family trees." You may find that Professors Big Deal, Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, and Been There Done That have all been influenced by Professor You've Never Heard Of and she's really the one who has what you need. The following recommendation may generate some controversy. Focus less on individuals with whom you'd like to study and more on how the portfolios of faculty members fit together. A lot can happen between the time you receive an enthusiastic reply to an email of inquiry. What's your back up plan if the professors you most want on your committee end up not being on your committee--just because?

Why history? What kind? For what purpose? (What do you think history provides that you can't find in English?) Regrettably, this approach is going to have limited effectiveness in the House of Klio. In this forum alone, there are 118 threads with the word "switch," In at least one of those threads, the language requirements of a doctoral program in history is discussed

What can you do about changing the balance between the passages above and below in bold and your self descriptive comments? IMO, there's a competitive advantage to being able to define one's interests as a historian and talk about how one's scholarship is going to impact relevant historiographical debates. Defining even more clearly your analytic focus may also work to your advantage. That is, how do you prioritize your fields of interest and analytical methods? (Imagine you've finished your honors thesis and its exceptionally good -- to which journals would you submit it for publication and to which ones would you not?) Which path will be the most efficient use of your time, especially since you still need to prepare for the GRE, and plan on writing a honors thesis while also applying to graduate school? Would you be better served by spending another 40 hours on the existing writing sample, or 100 hours on reworking the "less polished" piece? The choice may be crucial given the chance that committee members may not read your writing sample until after you start attending, if at all. Many, if not most, professional academic historians labor in obscurity and never enter the popular consciousness. Members of this cohort may take exception to those who want to climb into the ring with popular narratives. Other historians won't care. Some will be right there with you. Unless you're going to do very good research on admissions committees, you're not going to know who is who. Are there ways that you can rephrase your interests so that you both remain true to yourself but also provide a bit more cover? Similarly, the way you phrase your interests between teaching and researching leaves open the interpretation that you specifically want to teach undergraduates ("aspiring history students"). As worthy as this objective may be to some (IMO, it should be the primary mission of the profession), to those established academics who dislike teaching and don't care for undergraduates, you're providing an opening for them to argue that you're not really committed to Klio. Would you be willing to consider ways to rephrase your vision of yourself as a professor so that you make your priorities clearer? One last comment. Without knowing which programs you're considering, I recommend that you think about casting a wider net to include departments that have multiple faculty members with overlapping fields of interest. I strongly caution you about putting the majority of emphasis on people with whom you can work. Yes, chemistry is important. But relationships change over time. There are many threads on this BB about relationships going sideways at the drop of a blue book for this reason and that one, or for some other reason, and graduate students wondering what to do next.

Hi, @Adelaide9216 IMO, you need to figure out an answer to the questions "Why aren't you studying black women?" and "Why do you want to study sexual violence in marginalized communities?" "Why do you want to study rape in communities that aren't your own?" that are intellectually resonant and emotionally candid. I'm not talking about revealing your inner self. I'm talking about the kind of answer that will convince people that you've thought it out even if they disagree with you. You need to demonstrate that you're real and not what they're telling they think you are. I am talking about showing that you're willing to pick up what is put down by people whose respect, trust, and confidence you need to get to where you want to go. You are being given opportunities to earn the right to study something that is sacred and horrible and perhaps unknowable to those who haven't experienced it first hand. By phrasing it as you have, you are sending a message that you don't take the needs of the people you want to study as seriously as your own wants.

If the brief comment had been exceptionally favorable, would you have been as disappointed?

FWIW, there's an ongoing discussion on Twitter among SWs about navigating everyday life after leaving the trade. If you read carefully (or get lucky) you'll soon come across people who may have direct experience with the scenario you've described. IRT your assumption about the tolerance of scholars studying the trade, it is wishful thinking. Some will be paradoxically intolerant. Some won't want to deal with the imagined hassle that may follow.

In some quarters, what you want to do may be considered misconduct. I urge you to read carefully the rules of the road for your institution, your college (i.e. the graduate school), and your department/program. If you find nothing that prohibits your tactic, have a couple of conversations with the UGA and the DGS, the chair of your thesis committee, and to any professor with whom you're close. That's four conversations. When you have these conversations, make it clear that your thesis will represent a significant, if only incremental, expansion/revision of your previous work. At the least sign of resistance from your DGS or your chair, you can decide to press your argument or back down sullenly (my default tactic with my bosses these days) or figure out why they're reluctant to say yes. This last option is where you'll have an opportunity to learn. If you get a reluctant "well, go ahead," consider the possibility that you're being told "NO." (Professors, like bosses in the private sector--not bitter--will let you cut your own throat and watch you bleed out while they sip their morning coffee. Okay, maybe a little bitter.)

It is going to take you a while to heal from quals/comps. IMO, your own recovery should be your priority. I recommend that you have a conversation with yourself, @chiper91, IRT the extent to which you both can and want to support her transition to another school. If the best you can do is an offer along the lines of "let me know if I can help you pack for a couple of hours," you'll have done plenty.

A leftist world view does not require seeing the opposition as a monolith any more than a conservative perspective requires a theory of American government drawn exclusively from a selective reading of the Constitution. That the OP paints with a broad brush suggests a person who is not necessarily well informed about how historians view that method of political analysis. IRT what kind of work is done by academic institutions performing background checks on applicants, you're probably absolutely right. No history department has ever had a graduate student or professor go off the rails by prioritizing personal causes over scholarship. As those kinds of misadventures have never occurred, no one has ever applied a different level of scrutiny before investing time and money into a graduate student. And to your point, professional academic historians are too incurious and unskilled as researchers to type three or four words into a search engine and hit enter. Even if they were so inclined, the application process is completely about merit and nothing about politics of any kind. No academic is going to use any information beyond the application materials to advance his interests over anyone else's. And if they were to do so, they'd leave a trail of evidence that an aggrieved party could use to make a case for bias. And now that you mention it, no academic administrators have ever come to the Grad Cafe while a member ranted about how screwed up a program was. This BB has no administrators or academics as registered members. And http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/business/they-loved-your-gpa-then-they-saw-your-tweets.html was fake news. As was this http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/6/5/2021-offers-rescinded-memes/ . And this school is just joshing when it talks about that https://gradschool.princeton.edu/policies/rescinding-offer-admission When you're putting together your time table, keep in mind that having a M.A. in hand is no guarantee that a history department won't ask you to start from scratch by having you take more courses and prepare more research papers. Also keep in mind that your proposed "gap" may not serve your long term interests as well as going straight to a doctoral program. Even if you manage to adhere closely to a well-crafted reading schedule, the office work can take a toll all its own.

I disagree. A boss saying "I'll take over from here" after running down the options with a professor is one thing. Handing off a task that you've been hired to do because it's distasteful or because one might get a negative teaching evaluation is another. Also, I think that you're sending mixed messages about "absolute professionalism." Then you say "cover your ass" a couple of times. Then you mention "problems" with a student's "egregiously offensive" paper. What happens when a student with a contrarian point of view offers an argument that directly goes against your point of view and manages to check all the boxes for a very high mark?

A pitfall of this tactic is that your boss's solution may not be to your liking. From a professor's perspective, it may be "easier" to give the paper a low, but passing, grade and to move on rather than to address the larger issues at hand. The WTF moment that follows can be unpleasant and nudge one towards a different path. Or so I've heard.

In the here and now If either of the two schools in California are public institutions, I would expect that the applications will be marked as received late and not processed. Public institutions may be restricted by law and by policy what can be done with late applications. If either of the two schools are private institutions, you might consider making a phone call or two and asking when the materials were received. If the conversation turns to why they were late, I very strongly recommend that you avoid saying anything along the lines of "Will you let me slide?" or going into the nuts and bolts of what happened. Reasons are not excuses. Other applicants followed the instructions and submitted their materials with time to spare. By asking for a "pass" you are implying that their something about you that warrants a different set of rules. Instead, have a conversation in which you take responsibility for your choices ("I understand that I failed to submit my application materials on time..."), pivot (use "and", not "but"), and ask how the department typically handles similar situations. ("...and I am calling to ask how...") If you're asked questions, answer them exactly, avoid the temptation to make excuses. Regardless of the answer you receive, respond professionally, say thank you, wish the person a joyous holiday season (and mean it), and ring off. Don't turn this experience into an exercise in self-flagellation. There'll be many better opportunities to beat yourself up next fall when you're in a program. In the future Assume that tech gremlins will always conspire to lay waste to your plans. Budget more time to the submission process so that you can develop a plan B if things go off the rails.

This kind of statement is part of the reason why Republicans are successful at maintaining party unity when it comes to tax cuts. It's not "a transfer of wealth" if a corporation gets to keep its own money. A different (better) argument is needed.

Make sure that you're applying the same standards with the same level of rigor to all of your students' work.

Why? It is an instructor's job to handle difficult situations, not the students'. Needing, relying, or benefiting upon/from the "support" of students may be helpful in the moment but actually undermines the integrity of the subject and the instructor. The response should be the same as a paper that has editorial comments that the TA doesn't find egregious. The paper gets downgraded for not fitting the guidelines for acceptable work that were established in the first section meeting and consistently enforced throughout the term. IRT your specific situation, sooner rather than later, ask about the training you're going to receive before and during next year. Also, see if there are classes offered by the school of education that can help you get ready.

^This falls into broader issue of student's rights that you and I have been kicking back and forth for a while. MOO remains that when what "is right" collides with a student's rights, the former should prevail as often as not. If a professor asks a student not to read a letter, the student should agree and keep the spirit of the agreement, or find someone else to write it. If a student waives the right to read a letter under one convention but then splits the hair so she can see it, the integrity of the process for everyone is compromised. It's my view that the Ivory Tower is in bad decline because a critical mass of professors wants little to nothing to do with a critical mass of undergraduates. Educators bear the lion's share of responsibly for this state of affairs. And yes, I know that abuses of power take place in the Ivory Tower (not bitter, though). And I think that a significant measure of accountability falls on the shoulders of students seeking to leverage every procedural advantage they can out of a system designed in a different age. @TakeruK, I am not talking about semantics. I'm talking about LoRs that are frank, warts and all. IMO, the process is about programs picking those applicants who, warts and all, present the potential to be professionals that will advance a domain of knowledge. "100% positive" letters do the applicant, the letter writer, and ultimately, the profession an applicant wishes to learn a disservice. YMMV.

Your tweets speak for themselves. Are you sure you want them to speak for you? Going forward, I strongly recommend that you lead with the above. The GPA, the test scores, the achievements don't define you as a historian.

Fair enough. However, you don't want them to write you positive letters. You want them to write honest letters that describe accurately your potential, your strengths, and your weaknesses. If you're a strong candidate, the letters will have a positive impact -- that's something different.

You failed to comprehend my post. I pointed to the fact that there are over a million posts on this BB by members who have been here for varying duration. You failed to understand that. You instead decided to make it about post count. (Is this the first time you've used this argument.) You have not spent time reading the OP's other threads and the replies he has received. You have not spent time reading other member's posts on academic integrity, power in the work place, and other related topics in scores of threads on this BB. (Hint. The search button is your friend.) Instead, you come here and grandstand. And everyone should agree with you because you have not demonstrated you know what is going on with the OP.

How would you do that if you've waived confidentiality?

@TomJeff, you have been a member of this BB for less than 30 minutes. Unless you've spend several thousand hours lurking here and reading posts by members on similar topics, and can demonstrate having done so by pasting links to specific comments, your opinion is unlikely to carry much weight at this time.

Is moving closer to campus an option?

Were I in your position, I would invest time learning about the research you may end up doing as a graduate student in your new field. I would find works relevant to your interests (and ideally written by individuals with whom you want to work) and "reverse engineer" the citations and go from there. And/or I would find biographical/autobiographical works that discuss how certain individuals and groups performed research on relevant topics. I would then spend time seeing to what degree your previous research experience has helped you to develop skills that have a measure of cross-transferability. (I think I'm watching too much football. Analysts use "-ability" as a suffix.) However, I would not spend time in the interview making the case that Skill A is x% of Skill B.

IIRC, the traditional way with a personal touch would be a legible hand-written card or letter.