Sigaba

The other side of the coin is that individuals such as Loric and Pinkster12 intentionally behave in ways that motivate professors--especially younger ones--decide to have as little to do with students as possible.

Pinkster12,.I recommend that you put the shovel down. Members of admissions committees do come to this BB. There's no need for you to make so many CLMs before you've even started graduate school.

MOO, you should do the telkanuru but at a significantly higher level of intensity and at a faster pace than recommended in post number #2. That is, you should go through at least two to three journals and at least one book a day for an extended period of time. This exercise will give you an indication of the amount of work you'll need to process as a graduate student in history. I recommend that you pick at least three journals in your primary fields of interest (even if that interest is provisional) as well as a journal on a trajectory of historical scholarship that is at least a stone's throw away from any tertiary field of interest and then proceed to plow through at least a decade's worth of issues. In my view, this task should be done in a periodical library, if not the library stacks, and not using a computer. (Doing this work "by hand" will allow a different kind of intellectual and psychological immersion that is, IME, superior to doing such work via a computer.) To be clear, you don't need to read every article. I do recommend that you focus on those articles that are clearly important as well as all significant historiographical essays, and long and short book reviews of works you find interesting and/or are written by scholars of note. By delving into the periodicals in such a fashion, you will teach yourself how to read selectively as a historian. Concurrently, I recommend that you defer taking the guidance offered in post #13 until you've got more general reading on historiography under your belt. It is my view that before you go much farther along, you need to find answer to more basic questions like "What is history?" "How does history differ from IR?" and "What are the boundaries of modern history, contemporary history, and journalism?" (In regards to your question about contemporary history, I recommend to you D.C. Watt's essay on the historiography of the Yalta conference in Diplomatic History.) To be clear, what ever answers you find to these questions will likely be provisional. But these answers, as temporary as they may be, will help you ground yourself before you start grappling with issues like postcolonialsm. Also, by doing more general reading in historiography, you may well avoid a pitfall that ensnares most graduate students--the belief that the cutting edge of inquiry is always the leading edge of knowledge. This belief has, over the past fifty years or so, sparked some tremendously bitter brawls among historians that may not have been necessary. Meanwhile, I urge you to start finding historians and historical works that capture your imagination. These scholars and these works do not need to be in your fields of interest (although that will help down the line). What you're looking for is people--living and dead--whom you want to emulate professionally, intellectually, and, if possible, as human beings. The goal here is not to find people that you can parrot or works that you can ape, but rather to find pathways for intellectual and psychological connections to professional academic history and its practioners. Once you've found a reasonable comfort level with the above recommended tasks, then I suggest you follow the guidance in post #12 and post #2. That is, I recommend that you define the forest before looking at the trees, rocks, and streams therein. To some of the experienced graduate students here, this approach may seem back assward. However, I think you specifically would benefit from taking a big step back from an interdisciplinary approach until you teach yourself how to grapple with the past as a historian, not as a multidisciplinarian. My $0.02/YMMV.

At some schools (for example, Cal) graduate students do much--if not most--of the teaching and admissions committees are generally aware of this fact and don't hold it against applicants. Also, if X is committed to teaching and knows you and your work, she might actually write you a better LOR than the professor.

Why not ask X?

Yes! Your mentor has told you that he's gong to go to bat for you in the LOR. Now it is time for you to go to bat for yourself and give your best effort to putting together the strongest applications you can under the circumstances. Let go of your fear, do your best, and then go from there.

Don't feed the troll.

FWIW, I don't find levoyous's controversial IRT humility. I read them as attempts to share information. By my reading, the reference to "Ivy League history departments" was intended to demonstrate that the information is coming from departments that take the process as seriously as any other. Moreover, I read the comment about being an "accomplished graduate student" as a qualifier indicating that applicants coming from a graduate program may be held to a different standard than ones applying right out of college. My $0.02./YMMV.

IMO, leyvous's comments make sense if one takes into account how busy professors can be with their own work ("publish or perish"). It would be very ... pragmatic ... to reason that one could gauge an aspiring graduate student's potential from the LORs and the SOP and ... inconvenient ... to plunge into a lengthy writing assignment that might require a level of intellectual engagement that, from a professor's stand point, might be better devoted to more immediate tasks. (IME, a professor who was one of The Powers That Be in my department did not read my primary writing sample--I sent in two--until my second year in the program.)

Are there reasons you're not applying to American studies programs?

JK-- Find a way to write the above passage more efficiently. For example, one sentence that summarizes the challenges you've overcome, and another sentence (or three) on how the experiences inform your conduct as a person and as an aspiring academic. Please give thought to minimizing the discussion of what you've accomplished physically so that you can spend more time talking about your intellectual development. If you are going to keep the portion about participating in the Olympics, I think you should be clearer IRT your dancing. That is, were you an Olympian--as in on your national team--or did you participate in the opening/closing ceremonies? Also, give some thought to discussing how your perception of "things" (sorry, I need more coffee) as a Canadian national will contribute to the diversity of campus life at Stanford.

Hey, D-- What criteria are driving your selection matrix? (If you have a spreadsheet going, a screen shot would be awesome.) When you say "transnational perspective," what do you mean? (Are there existing scholarly works that you envision as blue prints for a dissertation?) Have you identified a (very) big picture historiographical issue that you see your dissertation, if not your career interests, addressing? Why not initiate a conversation with Professor Crew? (He's on leave this semester but what about the next one?) #helpushelpyou

I'm bumping this thread so the current application class can add themselves to this resource.

MOO, you're not being unreasonable. You're simply at a point where you have to think about what constitutes "a large personal expenditure" versus an investment in your professional development. IMO, your advisor has done you a favor, albeit a potentially expensive one. Explore the options suggested in this thread, then pay what you need to pay, and shift your focus on making the most out of a fantastic opportunity to learn more about your craft, to develop skills, to meet new people.

My point of view, "reasonable" or not , is that being a squeaky wheel about a "split" schedule is a potential misuse of a graduate student's modest fund of political capital. MOO, that's a resource best used when it is time to act as an advocate for the students a T.A. is tasked to support. Moreover, I believe that there's a difference between what one prefers as an individual and what one needs as a graduate student. IME, professors can tell when graduate students privilege the former, and I've seen graduate students get burned because they preferred not to embrace the suck. YMMV.

Given the time of year and the amount of anxiety many members of this BB are displaying, I'm bumping this thread so that some may find a diversion from their cares.

Are you discussing your plans with David Crew?

P12-- Regardless of where you end up or who pays, it sounds like you need to brush up on your algebra and you need to learn statistics. If you want to do something with your nervous energy, you can grab some books and start hitting them.

Okay, what about taking your statistics class at a JC in Ohio between now and the time you get to Pitt?

P12-- Now is the time to start asking yourself how badly do you want to earn a MSW. Before you get too far along the path of what you cannot do, I recommend that you spend more time on the path of what you can do. For example, take sko127's guidance and contact Pitt to see if you can test out of the requirement. If not, find out if you can satisfy the stat requirement at a JC/CC in your area or via distance learning, determine the costs of either option, and then redo your budget to see how you can make ends meet.

FYI, without math there would be no statistics. Without statistics there would not have been the multiple breakthroughs in historiography during the 1960s that invigorate the House of Klio to this day.

P12-- I think you should keep in mind that you have already gotten into grad school and saying you haven't is a bit disrespectful to the faculty members at Pitt who stood up for you during the admissions process.

Were I in your position, I would not mention the chronic illness, not only for the reason you mentioned, but also for the additional concern that one or more of the Powers That Be could have a negative reaction to the disclosure and hold your disclosure against you. The nicest professors in the world can also be hard asses from time to time. I would not mention the friend at all. Not only do you risk coming across as a name dropper, you also don't know how the Powers That Be really feel about her. (If she's really the cat's pajamas and your close friend, she will find a way to throw in a good word on your behalf anyways. ) My $0.02.

With respect, where does it say in the OP that kateausten must be on campus the whole time between the morning and evening classes?

Congratulations on getting your applications in. Please do keep in mind that you will be going through the process of applying for something again -- a fellowship, an internship, a renewal of a fellowship/internship, advancement from one phase to another, a job. Moreover, you will have opportunities to support undergraduates, fellow graduates, and, if you're asked, professors to make it through similar processes. Consequently, I urge you and others going through this application season to do a no-holds-barred "lessons learned" exercise in which you give yourself a candid appraisal of what you did right, what you did that was, ah, less than right, and what you'd do differently. Keep in mind that as a graduate student, you are going to be teaching yourself most of the time. Now is a good opportunity to develop further the habit of not letting any opportunity to learn go by the wayside. Also, you might consider the advantages of getting your clothes and kit together for your interview and, if possible, start putting aside some cash to cover incidentials that will arise when you're going to and from an interview.