Ragu

North Carolina, particularly the Research Triangle where Duke and UNC are both located, is a wonderful place to live. @Karou I would check out the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill thread in the city guide section if you're interested in learning more about the area from afar.

@Nicator, @fortsibut, @elx I submitted a 2 page single spaced SOP to Cornell last cycle and was admitted to the program.

Best of luck to you next year.

Research Triangle Park in Durham has a ton of BT/Biomed companies but I'm not as familiar with LA so you could be right that the area around USC has more

Durham is a really pleasant place to live. Low cost of living for a college town. The food in Durham is phenomenal. Lots of cultural events like arts/theater/bars. Chapel Hill and Raleigh are also nearby with lots to offer. Cary, North Carolina (nearby) has a large Indian population if that is important to you.

Hi all. Has anyone been accepted by Harvard American Studies yet? Also, those who’ve heard anything (either accepted, waitlisted, or rejected) it would be great to know how were you notified? Thanks!

It’s absolutely my plan to use my PhD like Philippa Gregory haha ?

Northwestern doesn’t require the GRE

Any insights about Nina Silber as an advisor?

Looks like Princeton may be gearing up for another Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre...granted there were a few Valentine’s Day acceptances last year too lol

@TheHessianHistorian Also wondering if you could talk a bit about your work as a professional genealogist and marketing/grant-writing professional?

Wondering if anyone has any insights about going from history to publishing?

I can’t upvote anymore today but I agree with this.

I agree with this. The style of writing and type of thinking required in the legal writing I’ve had to do at work is pretty different from academic writing though. So someone who is burnt out with academic writing might enjoy certain types of legal research/writing.

Yea I think that is the case generally and anecdotally the people I know who’ve had federal clerkships easily got jobs in firms after.

I also just want to add that the most prestigious/competitive thing to do out of law school is to clerk for a big name judge not work for a firm. With that the caliber of your law school does start to matter more. If you’re trying to eventually make it onto the Supreme Court then yes most likely just the people at the very best law schools have a shot.

@astroid88 I’m basing my opinion on my experience at a flagship state school not in DC or NY where my classmates had excellent results on the job market whether in big law, public interest (which is highly competitive), government etc. I’ve also seen similar success from people who attended the flagship state school in the state where I now practice. The school where I now live is ranked around 50, I believe, in the US News law school rankings. I know several people who work for Skadden Arps and other top law firms from there. This is of course not to say that getting a fancy law job is guaranteed wherever you go to law school. The job market in law like in most prestigious fields is very competitive

Let the record reflect: what is quoted above is not true

Good luck to you if you decide to pursue a law career. I just want to note some disagreements I have with the selected parts of your post. Some law schools may reply quickly with admission results but not most. Any Tier 1 law school is fine for breaking into big law. Your point about law schools being regional is fairly accurate. This means that people from low ranked law schools get big law jobs in their region. However, many many people leave their law school’s region to pursue great job opportunities who do not go to Harvard, Yale, or Stanford.

Duke has a great JD/MA in History as well.

That's a fair point. I would not recommend going into debt for law school unless you're 110% sure that is what you want to do. There are more full / partial scholarships to law school than many people realize (no stipend though). Law can be a versatile career after establishing yourself for a few years, but debt does vastly limit your options. "One of the draws for me with academia is that while there's certainly opportunity cost and some lost wages in those years you sink into the degree, you at least make a relatively liveable income (even if it doesn't allow for a lavish lifestyle) and walk away without another $100k+ in debt." I 100% agree with this.

@fortsibut I do not disagree that most law jobs are grueling but I think a lot of academic jobs are equally grueling. You also have to to make sacrifices in terms of ambition to gain the type of flexibility i'm describing in law jobs. It's definitely easy to get caught up in the ambition rat race as a lawyer and I think a lot of the personality types who are drawn to law tend towards the extra-ambitious. But I've seen lawyers at BigLaw firms who prioritize their families within reason do just as well as the lawyers who are at their desk 24/7. There are definitely options for making a decent living with a flexible work schedule in law, even BigLaw, but more so if you are willing to leave that arena (especially when you are an established lawyer). Also, a lot of the BigLaw firms I know of with daycares provide perks like that because they do not expect you to ever leave the office.

Working as an attorney is actually fairly flexible. For the most part, firms do not care where, when, or how you bring in billing as long as you do. I know a lot of people with families who work from home, work non-traditional hours, or part time in various capacities. A lot of big law firms also offer in-firm daycare. This is not to say that working as a lawyer is not stressful or that it doesn't require a huge amount of work...but the way you get the huge amount of work done is flexible. Edit: Building off of @ExponentialDecay's point: working as a lawyer doesn't sound too different from working as a professor in terms of flexibility. I think the thing to think about more is the type of work you want to be doing. Also, to be thinking about not just the literal time that you have in your day away from work but also the emotional energy you have left over for your family after spending a large portion of your day working.

I think someone locked the google doc by accident this morning. Hopefully it will get fixed soon.

@Account6567 got it. Thanks for the clarification. Good luck to you with your other applications.