Sigaba

splackk-- See if you can use your existing phone number with Google Voice Lite. Also, do try to contact the schools along the lines of your OP. They may agree to contact you via email instead of your cell phone. A third option might be to coordinate with your home institution to see if they'd be willing to accept any calls and take a message so you could follow up later. HTH

MOO, I would not send such an email. I would wait until I was actually attending a program and was doing coursework with the POI (as well as other professors) before initiating this type of communication. That is, give yourself time to do your "due diligence" so you can look before you leap.

I recommend that you: join the Small Wars Council and start reading there, start taking German as soon as possible, go here and start browsing, downloading, and reading, go there and start browsing, downloading, and reading. make sure you know the difference between SOF and SF as well as how the term "SF" is used in different countries, make sure you understand the boundaries and areas of overlap of grand strategy, strategy, operations, and tactics, make sure you understand the boundaries and areas overlap between the military revolution debate and the revolution in military affairs debate, find out as much as you can on what you need to qualify for a security clearance and do all you can to meet all of the criteria, apply for a summer internship that will allow you to work at a school (if not also for a professor) that offers expertise in your area of interest, and define what you want to study, how you want to study it, and what you want to do as a career. At the very least, this last task will help you narrow down which languages and additional skills--e.g. quantitative methods--you need to develop. If you're thinking about anthropology, consult ISBN-10: 0759112134 ISBN-10: 0822342375 Also, the following books may be worth your while. ISBN-10: 0691018545 ISBN-10: 0813320542 ISBN-10: 0029331552 ISBN-10: 0226703193 ISBN-10: 0521479584 ISBN-10: 0521170834 ISBN-10: 052180079X ISBN-10: 0691027641 ISBN-10: 0199247625 ISBN-10: 0199236631 ISBN-10: 0521566274 Finally, I suggest that as you develop relationships with academics that you clearly understand the boundaries among disciplines, and where those academics stand on key issues that have policy implications. As is too early in your development to know where you stand on those issues, it is in your best interest to understand the 'big picture' and where the players position themselves. HTH

diplodocus-- Congratulations on submitting all of your applications! Please do put aside your anxiety so that you can appreciate how hard you've worked to get where you are at this moment. Later, please consider the merits of making a "lessons learned" list sooner rather than later. This list might prove useful when you prepare different types of applications (e.g. fellowships and grants) down the line. You might also find it useful to get debriefed on all of your applications and sharing that information in a post.

nasteel-- I think I addressed your concern in post #14 when I mentioned guiding a student towards managing expectations. Again, it is an admission committee's job, not a graduate student's, to make the determination of who gets in and who doesn't. FWIW, one of the "unremarkable students" whom two of you would have told not to bother to try is now a dual hatted TT assistant professor at a UC campus.

Given Cal's commitment to diversity in the post Prop 209 age, I'd count on someone--either a professor or a member of Cal's graduate division--reading the personal statement. http://grad.berkeley.edu/policies/guides/c1-1-equity-adviser/ My two cents.

Another aspect of adhering to word limits and deadlines is establishing the authority to hold others accountable to the specifications of a task down the line when you're on the receiving end. For example, if you're working as a teaching assistant and your students have due a two page essay on Wednesday morning, how will you feel about getting a stack of four page essays on Thursday when you have a paper of your own due the following Tuesday?

A concern among some historians is the degree to which the craft is overly specialized. Yes, there are big picture issues that can serve as a Big Tent, but early on in one's career, the focus is more on the individual trees than the broader forest. Even two graduate students who have the same DA may have little to talk discuss.

MOO, I'd be in CYA mode and treat the deadline as COB using the time zones of the programs to which I was applying. My $0.02.

On the plus side, we get to check out library books and to discover the magical nose goblins previous readers have used as book marks.

A question: Does this professor work in an English department or a History department? (What may be okay in one discipline may not be in another.)

I'd send a note via post (that is, not an email) thanking the POIs for their expressed interest. I would point out that their interest built my confidence during the application process. I'd make these two points an aspect, maybe even a secondary point, to a slightly longer note in which I continued the ongoing conversation between myself and the POI.

If you take the second course taught by the professor mentioned in the OP, you will have the opportunity to develop rapport with an academic in your intended field of study. IMO, the $900 will be worthwhile if you develop positive rapport. By positive rapport, I mean by conceptualizing the work you do as an investment in your own education, not merely as an expense. My $0.02.

holdon-- Consider the following option. Make an bullet-point outline of both your SoP and your writing sample where each has 7±2 points. Make sure that the overlap between the two documents reflects the fact that your intended course of study differs from the topic of your writing sample. For example, you might want to use your SoP to elaborate your general approach to history and historiography that you mention in passing in your writing sample. Or you might want to increase the distance between the SoP and the writing sample by allowing fewer points of overlap. However you approach this suggestion--and that includes ignoring it--do take TMP's guidance to heart. Do not shortchange yourself on the writing.

marks-- Congratulations on your admission!

For me, the three primary reasons why I keep my laptop handy are (a) I've got a boatload of research materials (about 25 GB) on my HDD that have been indexed with Google Desktop Search, ( I've done a fair amount of work in the private sector and experienced (second hand, of course) what can happen when one doesn't have one's own lap top handy, and © other people can have the cooties. Insofar as what constitutes a lot of stuff, you should see some of the EDC packing lists of those equipped for the SHTF moment.

Were I in a position where elements of my application were going to be late, I'd make sure that I had verifiable confirmation from the program to which I was applying that I'd not be penalized for the tardiness. That is, I'd not place my candidacy at the mercy of scuttlebutt on the internet. My $0.02.

I'd go to your UG's website, look up the courses in their current iteration, and see if the syllabi were available on line. You might find that some classes are pretty much the same or you might find information that activates your long term memory. I'd also consult your old notes. Rather than emailing professors, you might contact their departments. Professors do not place the orders for course materials to campus bookstores -- departmental administrators do. More generally, I suggest that you and everyone else to make a practice of holding on to every piece of paper one gets, distributes, or produces (either a hard copy or a digital copy). Make the assumption that you're going to set the world on fire with your scholarship and that one day you yourself will be a subject of study. (Or, at the very least that you'll need to patch together hastily a syllabus of your own.)

IMO, an educator has the perogative to not write a LOR, but the following is, IMO, unethical. Guiding a student towards managing expectations is one thing. Attempting to convince a student to not try at all is quite another. YMMV.

Have you ever considered having an additional AC adapter in your EDC at all times? This option means you will never look in your bag and realize you forgot to pack your primary AC adapter and that you'll still be GTG if the day becomes longer than anticipated.

Perhaps the apparent difference of views centers around perspectives about the relationship between faith in a process and the political dimensions of that same process. As an applicant, I had a profound amount of faith in Klio, the Ivory Tower, and the notion of academic pedigree. Therefore, I did not worry about politics. Instead, I focused on what I could control -- specifically, the development of my skills as an aspiring historian and my willingness to compete. (That is, I could control how approached history but I could not control the politics of how the Powers That Be viewed my areas of interest.) Because of this faith, I did not worry about the content of LoRs because I believed they'd provide a disinterested account of my strengths and weaknesses and of my potential. Likewise, I did not worry too much about the SoPs, the writing samples, or the grades. If something worked, it was because I had worked hard at it and figured out a sustainable solution. If something did not work, it was because I failed to think things through adequately. When I previously balked at the emphasis you and nasteel placed on politics, my concern centered around the increasingly cynical connotations of politics in relation to the study of history in America today, and how 'rank and file' Americans view its practitioners. I remain equally concerned with how the notion of selection being a political process impacts the confidence of undergraduates attempting to gain admission to the programs of their choices. Yes, politics do play a part in who makes the big envelope and who gets the brief note. Not everyone is going to get admitted to Happyland University with a fully funded fellowship. The final decisions can boil down to who among Powers That Be who growl the loudest. Yet, MOO and IME, there are profound competitive advantages in having the confidence of a "true believer." I would like many members of this BB who are history majors to have more faith--especially in themselves--than many seem to possess. Bluntly, several of you are ten feet tall and just don't realize it. IMO, many of you would be able to press yourselves harder (but with different types of stress) if you had more faith and less concern about politics. My $0.02. YMMV.

@bear123-- If you're attending a UC school, there may be options that allow you to take an incomplete and then repeat the course later to take the IP off your transcript. You might also look into the option of taking certain classes at other schools during the summer (either for grades or on a P/NP basis) and then transferring the credits later. If you're at a UC campus, especially Berkeley, I recommend that you CYA at all times regarding the answers you get from administrators. At the very least, ask every question three times. One can stand in a line 1 and get answer A, stand in another line, get answer B, and then go back to line 1 and learn, yeah, it was B all along. (Or so I've heard.)

bear123-- IMO, the NP will not adversely impact your candidacy. Yes, it is too early to freak out about graduate school, but it is not too early to use the search function. This question has been asked in a variety of ways many times. By starting a new thread without searching, you not only deprive yourself of the guidance offered in previous threads, you encourage a sensibility in which everyone thinks their questions are more important than similar ones previously posed. In turn, this sensibility undermines the overall effectiveness of this BB. My $0.02.