Sigaba

The GRE was the one component of the application process that really FREAKED ME OUT. Consequently, I was more than happy to use the unconfirmed rumor as a legitimate reason not to take another bite of the apple.

If you're so inclined, details, details, please!

Were I in your position, I'd be polite and I'd be persistent with the POC, I'd communicate on the phone, I'd take a lot of notes, and I'd send a fair amount of email that acknowledged and confirmed the person's assistance at suitable intervals. Were I especially worried about the reception or if the reception went from cool to cold, I would take a lateral (or downward) step in the line of communication. (For example, if the POC has a team mate with different responsibilities or an assistant.) In my experience, Google Fu can work wonders when it comes to getting phone numbers/contact information for those who work in the Ivory Tower. Meanwhile, I'd double and triple check my "paperwork" with ETS. I would develop several back up plans with emailing the scores being one of the last options. (If you're wondering about the expense of ordering an additional score report, compare the cost with the value of one's peace of mind.) HTH

FWIW, the scuttlebutt I heard when preparing for the GRE is that some programs may look sideways at scores that improve after multiple attempts. That is, an admissions committee may wonder if the improvement meant that the first result reflected a bad day or if the subsequent results merely reflected deep pockets.

nasteel-- I appreciate you taking the time to elaborate your viewpoint and to continue this discussion. Maybe because I have the impulse to be a control freak and/or maybe because of the mindset I had when applying to graduate school, I didn't spend much time thinking about things beyond my control.

@jbeld. The M.A. option may become viable if the "few years off" stretch into a seven or more years. (As you go on in life, the years can fly by. Or so I've heard. ) Once you've had the opportunity to learn more about yourself and to experience the ups and downs of the private sector, the re-adjustment to the Ivory Tower may require a try out period for you to shake the rust off and before you commit to graduate school for a longer haul. But please do note that the operative word here is "viable," not "necessary."

MOO, your undergraduate career (if you're where I think you are) and anticipated work experience will position you to be very competitive when you apply to graduate history programs. Insofar as you getting a M.A. in history first, were I in your shoes, I would not. Instead, during your "years off," (if you can keep your focus) you could do a fair amount of directed reading in the historiography of your fields of interest, and work on your language skills.

I've had two space pens--but not with the rainbow finish--and I managed to lose them both. As a lefty, I had an issue with the first bit of ink coming out as a small glob that would then smear. It seems to me that the conspiracy against Southpaws extends to infinity. (Did that sound bitter?)

LizzieB-- Before throwing my two cents, I extend to you my thanks and my respect for your candid reply. Here's what I think is going on. I think you and your POI have significantly different interpretations of the conversation about your first year. That is, you left her office and turned the page while she is viewing the present through the lens of your first year. Consequently, when you had your hiccup earlier this month, it activated many of the concerns she developed during the previous year. Moreover, the fact that she called Enterprise indicates to me that either the disconnect between the interpretations is profound and/or she has issues with trust and accountability that go beyond her relationship with you. If you do decide to have a face-to-face conversation with her, I think you should first do some soul searching. Center your self-exploration around questions like: "Am I reading her right?", "How do I really know that I'm on track?", "What is the evidence that we 'get along great'?" And so on. When you develop questions to ask yourself, push yourself to the limit of what you can endure intellectually and emotionally while maintaining a sense of perspective. That is, as subjectively unpleasant as the questions and answers may be, this situation it is not a matter of life or death. IME, these types of introspective questions can produce brutal answers. These answers can very different than our initial interpretations. Professors can be very subtle in how they articulate their approval and disapproval of graduate students. Likewise, they can offer guidance that takes months, even years, to sink in. For a variety of reasons, very few professors are going to take you into their office, offer you a seat, and proceed to bounce you off the walls to send a clear message, especially if you're screwing up. From your previous posts in this thread, I understand that you're a very sensitive person. I acknowledge that this situation is causing you a profound amount of anxiety. I urge you to recognize those feelings and then to put them aside. Keep in mind that many, if not most, graduate students crash and burn. (Some, more than once.) The key is to learn from these experiences and to go on from there. Consequently, I ask you to view this situation as a set of intellectual challenges, not as an indictment of who you are as a graduate student or a person. How you respond to these challenges will speak to your skills as a student and your character. (Hint: a sense of humor can balm many a salted wound.) HTH.

Mr. Tea-- I appreciate and respect your point of view. However, I do have a concern. Specifically, what happens if applicant goes this route and the POI reads the querying email but does not reply and then the applicant contacts the POIs department and gets the answer he/she could have gotten all along? From the POI's point of view, the silence could mean "no harm, no foul," or "+1 for showing initiative," or "PNG/FTFSI" or something else. But how would the applicant know to interpret the silence? Would the resulting uncertainty--on top of all the other anxieties that come during an application season--be worth the risk?

cquin-- Please do give the draft of that email a few days to cool before you hit send. Do not light a fire to your rear as you're attempting to advance onward and upward. One never knows when one may have to take a step back to move forward. Remember the lesson that Anna Freud taught to her father on his eightieth birthday.

DL79-- I think you may be over-generalizing.. First, there are some colleges that do not require letters of recommendation. For example, the Forty Acres--an excellent university by almost any measurement--recommends but does not require LoRs. Second, some aspiring collegians travel paths that make required LoRs a mere formality that will not make or break an application. (This is to say that some high school seniors pick the schools they want to attend and their applications get rubber stamped.) Third, some of the larger state schools--like Cal and UCLA--GSI's do the lion's share of the teaching. In such an environment, undergraduates may not necessarily receive the mentoring on how to develop the relationships one needs to get LoRs. (A first year graduate student can be put in a position where she is asked to write a LoR for the first time.) Fourth, many departments do not structure majors in a way that facilitates a one-on-one relationship between a student and an instructor. For these reasons and others, it is not inconceivable that many undergraduates do not know how to ask for LoRs or to build the relationships that will lead to very good LoRs. As far as your comments about "professionalism," I think you're guidance would carry more weight if it were tempered with irony, if not actual humility or if you're footprints in cyberspace were less revealing. After all, as a "professional" you know that the private sector is focused on risk management, that a part of risk management includes HR departments doing background checks on current and prospective employees, and that everything is fair game in this economy, and...well.

Good catch. My focus was on the statistic that almost three out of ten respondents who, having viewed an applicants social network sites, discovered material that led to a rejection. As for the 88%/12% flip flop, I may give the POC at Kaplan a call after the holiday weekend.

profoundquiet-- MOO, the quickest way to go is to break bread with her and have a conversation in which you synchronize your respect views of the project, the work flow, and how the team should operate. At all times, you should defer, defer, and defer some more. That is, throw in your two cents when asked but once she makes a decision, focus all of your effort to supporting that decision in ways that are consistent with her vision. Remember, it is her project. It is her ass on the line. Meanwhile, take a second and third look at how your views towards women may be shaping the dynamic. Men and women are acculturated differently. What may be harmless trash talking between a couple of guys might be inappropriate discussion in mixed company. (And dynamic cuts both ways--without meaning to, women can say things that are devastating.) The key is figuring out in good faith what works, what doesn't, and then going from there. (Oh, please oh please oh please let this project have something to do with reversing hair loss. Wait, did that sound bitter?)

Then what about this and what about that (especially page 2)?

MOO, the future of American history will revolve around (1) the study of gender and sexual identities and how those identities drive issues of race and class, and (2) the integration of African-American history into the core of American political history. Those of us who do not specialize in these fields need to find ways to support those who do (this includes unrelenting--but informed--criticism) or to get out of the way. IMO, obituaries for American military history are premature and reflect a lack of familiarity with the field. (In this post, "military history" includes the whole shebang--sea, air, land, space, and cyberspace--across the spectrum of warfare: bang, boom, EMP, mushroom.) This lack of familiarity is due to two miscalculations by military historians. Iirony is a wonderful thing. Because of these two miscalculations, fewer and fewer jobs will go to academic military historians in the Ivory Tower for the foreseeable future. (Or, as I was told, "You MIGHT have been able to get a job had you been born ten years earlier. Maybe." But hey, I'm not bitter.) However, some of the most important--and relevant--debates of the last ninety or so years have centered around the study of war. As an example, the strategic, operational, and tactical concepts of GWOT (the Global War on Terror) are an outgrowth of the debate over a "revolution in military affairs" which, in turn, grew from the historiographical debate over "the military revolution." As air power plays a central role in GWOT, conversations on how assets should be deployed touch on long standing historiographical debates over the role of decisive battle and the definition of modern warfare. In turn, these conversations lead to different discussions. These conversations cover such things as the definition of "modern," and take one to almost every continent from the fifteenth century onwards. These debates do not receive much notice in the Ivory Tower. Hence the continuation of the widespread--but mistaken--belief that military history is mostly about guns and trumpets and that the primary audience is the rank and file. However, the field generates a fair amount of heat in those circles where people make grand strategy, and the armed services craft their TTPs--and everything in between.

IIRC, working as an official/referee for Cal's intramural sports leagues can be a good way to get some exercise (depending upon the sport) and to earn some money.

Are you going to show some respect for the contributions of other members of this BB by using the search button? (For example, there was a very good discussion of life in Fort Collins last week.) Or are you just going to cut and paste the same basic question into every thread remotely related to your areas of interest?

Maybe you could borrow a tactic from the historians' took kit. Rather than dropping names, mention how your work is "informed" by a sensibility or a "trajectory." Alternatively, you could just integrate that sensibility into your personal statement. For example, if I were to write that scholars need to look at the U.S. Navy during World War I from the bottom up, or that I wanted to write about everyday life in the American army between 1919 and 1939, I would be shooting off flares that say I've been influenced by German social historians such as Ian Kershaw. (The key words are "everyday life" and "from the bottom up.") HTH.

In regards to the OP, as the project seems to straddle many fields of history, might it be possible to make a list of those fields and then tailor your SoPs to how some of those fields fit with a specific program? You could make a broader argument that the airport represents an example of how apparently disconnected fields of history can be drawn together.

I don't believe you. Fuzzylogician has given you very helpful feedback. Rather than saying "thank you," you persist in your attempts to argue. Because some of us have some of the things you lack -- the knowledge of how to navigate the ups and downs of the first year of graduate study, research skills, and, most of all, situational awareness. By your conduct, you are letting us decide if you're worth the time and effort to help or if ignoring you entirely or taking steps to help you self-select yourself out of graduate school are better alternatives. Bluntly, I don't believe you. Just so there is no doubt, I'll repeat this point: I do not believe you when you say you "like helpful criticism." You've gotten a lot of helpful criticism. You've utterly and completely failed to show that you've taken any of it to heart. Instead, you continue to hijack threads with posts that center around your favorite topic--yourself. You are using the controversy you're generating as an excuse to not improve yourself as a student or as a person. Again, I think your own interests would be best served by reading more and posting less on this BB, by trying to find people in your department who are willing to help you, and by spending more time in the library. You might also call (650) 725-2387 if not also (650) 723-3785 so you can get the support that you need.

Are the two categories mutually exclusive? (MOO, he's provided comments about his personal life that support both conclusions.) IMO, the bottom line is that having identified a major gap in his skill set (the ability to research), he's spent all this time proving his critics right rather than focusing on the aforementioned gap. The shame of it all is that he could have learned a lot reading posts offered by Eigen, ktel, OH YEAH, and fuzzylogician. Instead, it is more likely that he'll remain determined to not fix what is clearly broken. Hopefully, someone at Stanford will take pity on the guy and give him what he clearly needs--a metaphorical (if not actual) trip to a wood shed and then some mentoring.

Yes. A discussion of making it through the summer months can be found

Just because you say you have integrity doesn't make it so.