catilina

I've been a "stay at home mom" for 10 years. I've already been enrolled in a Ph.D. program in a different field, but quit after two years. I am old. My letters of recommendation are from two professors in another field who taught me 15 years ago, and one from the professor who taught a graduate seminar I took last fall at a local, low-ranked university. I have three graduate degrees, including a law degree from a good law school, but still haven't managed to accomplish anything professionally. There is only so good you can make your statement of purpose if you haven't ever done any significant work in the field. I do have very good objective data(though not without some problems), a few publications and some notable honors, but they are almost ancient history at this point. I loved the positives thread. Seeing everyone's qualifications in print made me truly understand how stiff the competition is and I think it will help me deal better with rejection.

APH1224: It is exactly the kind of feelings you are having now that I think you will have a different perspective on when you are my age. I graduated from college in the middle of a recession as well. (1990). Even though I had a phi beta kappa degree from a top university, it was in the humanities and I was not able to find any sort of "real" job. I had no financial resources, family connections, etc., and did have to actually temp in New York City for a year. I spent the year stressing and feeling depressed about the direction my life was taking. I wish now I had realized that it was just a blip in time, that it wasn't going to have any effect on my total career trajectory and that it would have been possible to enjoy the freedom. I think if I'd just had a different attitude, I would look back on that time as fun. Also, I've lived through several economic cycles as an adult now, and it always seems like a long term, permanent downward trend, and it always gets better. We'll probably be back in boom times in a few years. But sadly, graduate admissions odds never seem to get better. There's a chronic oversupply regardless of the economy.

As an old(er) person, I would like to give everyone some advice. 1. Some people have expressed anxiety about what to do for a year if they don't get into graduate school right out of undergrad. Trust me that, at that point in your life, a year or two off, where you aren't doing something directly resume building is no big deal. The important thing is to find something to do that you will someday look back on as a positive experience--something that you won't be able to do years down the road when you have a career, family etc. Some of this will be perception--i.e. you could say "that year when I was temping in New York and couldn't find any other job was so stressful and I wasted so much time when I could have been one year closer to my Ph.D.," or you could say "that year when I was temping in New York was so much fun because I met so many people, and went out every night and could travel whenever I wanted." Just make up your mind to create some good memories of that year and not stress out about your resume. 2. On rejection. I've noticed that very successful people are often very good at dealing with rejection. They can be persistent, they can focus on improving their chances, they don't spend a lot of mental effort taking it personally or getting depressed. In any highly career competitive field, rejection is going to be a reality no matter how talented you are. Learning to cope and soldier on is an important skill. (I'm not very good at this, and it is a lesson I wish I had learned a lot earlier.)

I look at the Literature boards, and someone there posted that a UPenn professor said that they were only going to make 5 admission offers this year because too many people accepted last year and they are overcommitted on funding. Also said that they received 680 applications for those 5 slots. How can there even be 680 people in a given year who want to get an English PhD? I can only hope this is either not true, or an anomaly specific to the UPenn English department.

I've been checking the results board every day, and so far it has only been people in the sciences receiving interview requests. Today there was a history posting--someone received an email from a potential advisor at UNC Chapel Hill. Not an admission decision, but the applications are being read.

While I appreciate it, I cannot understand why any school would make its application free. It means giving up revenue and getting lots of applications from people who aren't that serious about the school.

I don't think the test is "arbitrary." You can definitely control your score by how much you study. It just isn't a particularly useful measure of how you will do as a graduate student. If the test is only "recommended" I would send a good score and leave out a bad one. Whether a 550 is bad or not depends on how extensive your background in English is. If you have done a lot of English as an undergraduate, I think your application demonstrates your preparedness and the score is fine. If you majored in something else, and are trying to switch fields or something like that, it would hurt you not to have a good score--it would just raise red flags about your ability to jump into graduate level work.

I doubt seriously it would keep you out of any program if they otherwise wanted you. That said, it is not a positive addition to your application and you should only report the score to the schools that require the test. I am frustrated by that test because I think the self-contained interpretation questions--where you are given a passage and tested on how well you understand it--are a good measure of the kind of skills you need in graduate school. (I have a Master's in English.) The surface identification questions, which form the bulk of the test, are useless and have nothing to do with graduate school at all. It could be a good, useful test if they just changed that emphasis. You have to study for the test in a certain way. Basically an outline with the key authors from each time period, their main works, and key words or terms associated with them. I spent two whole days cramming this kind of information into about a 20 page outline, and ended up making a 730. I got the information from Literature for Dummies books, wikipedia and spark notes online. I also made sure I knew everything in the Princeton Review outline. I think it was exactly the right thing to do--I felt good during the test, knew at least 160 questions for sure and there wasn't a single one I couldn't narrow down to two choices. I feel like if I'd given myself more time to do the outline, I could have gotten a perfect score. Of course, in the end it was a complete waste of time, as I've decided to apply to grad programs in a different field. I wish I could give my score to someone who could use it.

Sorry to be a little snarky, but does this original poster really believe that presenting at conferences outside of his intended field will somehow hurt his chances of getting into a Ph.D. program? Really? I put this in the "fishing for compliments" category.

I think it will definitely hurt you. As a college junior, I think you would be expected to have a laser-like focus on history and not deviate from that in any way. The academic achievement of presenting at a conference out of your field will be vastly overshadowed by the crack in your dedication to the study of history.

I think I'm older than everyone in the "am I too old" post. I'm in my early forties. Clearly no one is ever too old to get a graduate degree just for personal fulfillment, which is what I was initially planning to do. However, once I started really looking into it, talking to people in academia, etc. I was assured time and time again that my age would not prevent me from having a real academic career. So now I've decided to try for that. It seems to be much less of an issue for people that I would have predicted.

And to the original poster, I wouldn't worry at all about having gone to Kennesaw State. You have a good reason for going there, and you did well. What more can people ask of you? Your objective data are good and you seem to have a well demonstrated commitment to history. Plus, you are applying to a good mix of programs. I think you'll do fine.

Of course, there are people who are focused on a particular area that might make "fit" a major issue--Soviet history, medieval, to use the examples cited above. I'm just annoyed that it is a disadvantage to have more diverse interests. I have tailored my statement of purpose to the particular topic I have been working on most recently, but I see other directions I could go in happily. I stand by my statement that the rankings determine whether/where you get a job. I have been in a Ph.D. program before, and I've seen it all play out. Go to the departments you are interested and see where the faculty members got their PhDs from. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but for the most part, the good faculty positions are filled by people who come out of top programs. Some of it depends on what kind of job you'd be happy with, of course. As I said, I have paid attention to "fit" in determining which of the top schools I applied to. I even eliminated a couple of schools I was initially interested because I just couldn't find a good match among the faculty. Within a certain range, I would definitely go to a lower ranked school if there was someone in particular I was excited about working with. But if I had an offer from a top 10 that didn't have a particular faculty member who stood out, and a top 30 who had someone great, I would go to the top 10 and let my interests evolve in a different direction. And as for professor responses, it's not that I think they are "lying." I just think people want to be polite. I wouldn't expect to have someone say "I scanned your e-mail and off the top of my head, I think your research proposal is boring or stupid." Of course they are going to say some positive. That doesn't tell you if they think your proposal stands out from the crowd.

Hmm. I don't know whether I feel better that the schools get copies of the essays. I don't really remember what I wrote, or even what the topics were. I felt good about it at the time, I think? But they must not have been any good. As every other piece of objective data in my application is stellar, I just have to believe that no one will care about that score--that it will be seen as a fluke. I hope.

I have a law degree. Admissions are highly based on numbers. If you compare your gpa and LSAT scores to the school's averages, you have a good idea whether you will get in or not. So much easier and reassuring. It can be very frustrating when people refuse to believe that Ph.D. program admissions are different, and that you might actually be well qualified and not get in. (Not that anyone has been following my other posts, but yes I have been both to law school and a previous Ph.D. program.) Since the topic is "venting," I would like to vent about the application process: 1. I am annoyed when people suggest that it is somehow frivolous to decide where to apply based on a program's ranking rather than "fit." The program's ranking is what determines what kind of job you will get. It isn't just about prestige--it has immense practical importance. 2. The concept of "fit" is kind of annoying in general given that you haven't even started the program, haven't taken any classes, etc. Interests evolve. I'd love to compare people's dissertation topics with their original statements of purpose. I bet you would find a lot of people in a completely different place. I don't think having narrowed your interests down to one particular topic before you even take one graduate class means that you will be a better graduate student in the end. 2. I've also seen a few posts lately about applying close to the deadlines, and whether that would hurt your chances too much. I understand not considering an application if it is past the deadline. But if you make the deadline, why should it matter whether you got it in that day or three weeks before? I actually don't think departments make distinctions like that, but it would be totally unfair if they did. That is in effect a kind of rolling admissions, and should be stated in their admissions procedures--something like, "applications will be accepted until ____, but we view early submission of the application favorably," or something like that. (Of course, I speak as someone who submitted my first application today, on the deadline exactly.)

I find this emphasis on "fit" baffling and annoying. I have been in a Ph.D. program before--different field (English) and more than fifteen years ago, but I felt like my research interests were formed in the seminars I took. I don't even remember what I wrote in my statement of purpose, but I can guarantee it had nothing to do with where I ended up. Also, I don't recall any pressure to have one particular "advisor" in mind the second I walked through the door--that came later in the process, as it should. Also there isn't always a good way to get a feel for "fit" from departmental websites, etc. And there is certainly no way to understand departmental politics. I guess if you are truly committed to one particular course of study and are 100% sure you want to see it all the way through, then "fit" would become a major issue. But I think it is okay to have a range of interests and want to take some classes before you narrow into one particular area of specialization--it doesn't mean you are a worse candidate. This all definitely looks like a "crapshoot" to me. I contacted some professors, and got very polite responses back from all--some generic, some that expressed specific interest in my research topic--but who knows if they mean it or not? I'm also somewhat annoyed at the idea that it is somehow frivolous to base the decision on where to apply on the program's ranking as opposed to "fit." The fact is that the higher ranked program you go to, the better the job you will get in the end. The idea that having an advisor who is a good fit for the research interests you have before you even start the program is more important than the program's ranking is utterly ludicrous. I don't want to generate controversy, but that is a fact. Actually, I couldn't care less about the prestige factor or snob appeal of a particular school. (Too old? Just past all of that.) But, I'm concentrating on the rankings as the best way to try to end up with an actual academic career. Of course I paid some attention to fit within that framework, but for the most part, kept my applications to top 15 programs. If I don't get in, I'll improve my application and try again next year.

What is with that test? I scored 800 on the verbal section of the GRE and 4.0 (41% percentile) on the Analytical Writing. Bit of a disconnect there. I think being a good writer hurts you. Have you seen the sample "good" essays in the Princeton Review book? I do not write like that.

I have a question: on what basis are these predictions being made? I have the objective qualifications for anywhere (800 verbal GRE, 3.9 gpa from a top 20 undergraduate school, a law degree, published articles, etc.), but the acceptance rates at the top schools seem so low. Also, I'm much older than your typical applicant and I think that must work against me. I don't see any way to accurately assess my chances. I'm just going to assume I won't get in anywhere and if I do, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

I went to graduate school in English years ago. Top 20 program. Of the 15 or so people who started with me, I think I was the only one who didn't finish? Only about half got jobs, none of those were particularly good jobs.

I am applying to 5 top 10 programs and two regional programs that are not the best fits in terms of faculty interests. I predict rejection from all 7.

You absolutely have to share the law school transcript. I think the fact that you left after one semester will help mitigate the effects of the low gpa. It just wasn't for you, you were struggling with the decision to stay, it wasn't for you, etc. I would consider addressing the topic head on, not in the statement of purpose but in a separate letter. Otherwise maybe it looks like you left because you couldn't handle the work? You have good credentials otherwise, and it looks like you are going about the application process in the right way. Also, you've applied to a lot of schools, including some lower ranked ones. So, if you don't get in anywhere, I'd say it's because of the law school issue and you would want to figure out a way to do some other graduate work to prove it was an anomaly.

There has to be some kind of standard reference point in the application process--a point at which you know you are comparing apples to apples. I disagree with some posters about the relative importance of the GRE. My guess is that schools use it to identify a core group of students who are qualified, and then look at all those applications more closely. So a high score wouldn't get you in necessarily, but it would get your application looked at carefully. I think that if you have GRE scores below the average for a particular program there would have to be something really extraordinary about the other parts of your application. By the way, Northwestern's History department says on its website that it places enormous importance on the verbal GRE score and that it is highly correlated with success in their program. (I didn't see that anywhere else though.) Also, the GRE verbal section is much easier than the LSAT in my opinion.

Also, I went back and looked at the sample "good" essays in the Princeton Review book and I thought they sucked. I don't write like that.

I think the problem was the length of my essays. I spent a lot of time "crafting" my responses, which I now realize was exactly the wrong thing to do. I assumed that I would easily ace an "analytical writing" section and didn't even bother to look at what was actually required. Stupid stupid stupid. And I don't want to take the GRE over again, because my verbal score can only go down, and I'm unlikely to raise my quantitative score by any significant amount. I hate that the GRE, which I expected to a big plus for me, is now a potential minus, and might even mean my application doesn't even get looked at at some schools.

When you order additional score reports you can specify that they send only the general test scores. My problem is that I sent the scores to the schools when I took the test, so they already have them. I'm concerned it will make it look like I'm uncommitted to History.