BCHistory

I will be 24, as well.

Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, by Eugene Genovese and Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North, by John McGreevy

I am a bit concerned that I put student political organization memberships in my CV. In college, I was the Executive Director of my campus's College Republicans group, and I also helped found an Intercollegiate Studies Institute chapter. I put them on my CV, but now I am afraid that admissions committee members may hold these against me. I know of the philosophical and political leanings of many humanities faculty. Will this hurt my admissions chances? I don't want programs to be wary of me and dismiss me because of my college opinions. But I also didn't want to leave them out of my CV because I did dedicate much time and effort to these groups, and to purge them from my apps would not only gut my CV but would also make me feel incredibly dishonest (to myself).

If it helps, you're definitely not the only one. I was doing it non-stop for several weeks. I think I'm going to take a month off from visiting the status websites, and I'll check again around mid-January.

Too much. Waaaayyyy too much. But if I get just one fully funded acceptance, it will all be worth it.

I applied to Notre Dame's history department. And even though I'm from the Deep South, the weather in South Bend hasn't deterred me one bit!

I attended law school for one semester (last year) and had mediocre results (2.93). With one exception, all of my professors advising me on my applications told me not to even mention it in the SOP, unless I could somehow tie it in to my plan of graduate studies. Otherwise, they said I should drop the topic entirely and not worry about it, since my undergrad GPA was high.

Question: How do all of yours not have words like "the," "of," "a," etc., as the largest? When I did mine, those were, by far, the most used words.

I don't know of any programs (at least the ones to which I applied) that have interviews. I noticed on a few departments' websites that faculty may call applicants if there are discrepancies or concerns with the applications, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

You're allowed to do this in grad school?? This was definitely a no-no when I was in law school.

Do you happen to be a fan of Beer Fest?

And thank you to those who have posted so far for the great finds!

I was just going to mention this. I can see why some lower-ranked schools might not provide their acceptance rates, but I would guess that the percentage of people who are accepted at Yale who go on to enroll would be extremely high.

Don't check anymore. I must: my status might change. April 15th, please!

I saw another thread on here about a week ago where members were discussing the very difficult task of finding departments' admissions statistics for the previous year. I thought I would start a thread where we could post our findings, whether they come from the departments themselves or from the graduate schools. I've been doing some investigative work, digging through some departmental websites, and I have found a bit of information. I'll start this off with the History Department of the University of South Carolina: "For the 2009-2010 academic year, there were 180 applicants for our graduate programs; 21 enrolled (ten in the Ph.D. program and 11 in the M.A. in Public History program). This class has an average GRE score of 1220 on two of the three components of the exam and an average undergraduate GPA of 3.50." Source: http://bulletin.sc.e...72&returnto=654 Anybody who has information for other schools, please feel free to post. It's been pretty difficult to find for most departments, but maybe we can pool together information for all of the various departments to which we've applied and come up with a decent list.

Has anyone else noticed a long delay from Emory's online system in acknowledging retrieval of documents? I had my GRE scores sent when I took the test back in June, and they have still not shown up on the school's site. All other schools have received my GRE scores and all transcripts, the latter of which have also not shown up online at Emory. That leads me to believe that it is just a delay in the system. Is anybody else experiencing something similar?

Amen to that!!!

I just used regular, letter-sized envelopes. I would recommend weighing the envelope and all necessary materials to be sent before attaching stamps so you avoid giving your referee an envelope with insufficient postage.

Atlanta: Impossible without a car. MARTA, the train and bus system, is absolutely horrendous. Very few stops (which are spread extremely far apart), often scary train rides, and as one poster previously mentioned, the ability to only go north, south, east, and west with nothing in between. Not to mention, the system shuts down very, very early. And even though you'll need a car, it will be almost as bad as using the MARTA: endless traffic jams, accidents, and generally insane drivers on all interstates going through and around the city. [source: I was an Atlanta undergrad.]

I sent thank you cards to my referees. If I was in their position, I think I would be slightly uncomfortable receiving a gift of value. Sometimes a thoughtful thank you is more than enough.

I have heard the same thing, but I think it is really program-specific. In the humanities, I think it's better to have at least a few professors whose research interests overlap with your own. Professors may leave or retire, and since we'll need exam and dissertation committees, it is good to have a few professors you can turn to. A professor told me at the beginning of the application process this fall that I should optimally seek out at least two TENURED faculty members and name them in my statement. She also informed me that it is shocking how many applicants do not make even the slightest effort to contact faculty and that they will mostly be roundly rejected for admission. I expressed my concern about how the state of the economy will hurt admissions chances, and while she partially agreed, she told me that admissions committees see right through those applicants who did no research on the programs and who never contacted professors before applying. So for humanities, I would say contact several professors. But for other fields, especially those that are more apprentice-based, one might be the best route.

When I began researching programs (especially when I made my final list of schools), in each department I contacted a couple professors with whom I would be interested in working. I heard back from all, and most were interested in my work and said to contact them when I applied so that they could look out for my application. When I submitted them in October, I emailed the professors again to let them know I had applied, and I received positive responses from all of them. What I want to know now is whether or not I should contact them one more time before they begin reading applications this month and next? I don't want to be annoying, but at the same time, I've made these wonderful contacts at the programs, and I would hate for them to go to waste. Is there any non-awkward way of maintaining this correspondence with the professors? Should I email them articles they may find interesting, ask them about their current work, etc...?

Wow! Incredible.

I left law school after my first semester last year, so I had a good seven months until I found my present job to basically just work on my apps full time. I wanted to get them in well before the deadlines just in case any admissions committees started reading apps early. But now the wait is driving me crazy, and I am praying that I can wake up tomorrow, and it will be February 1st.

For the most part, I worked in silence. But I occasionally needed some music to help me focus, so I turned to the soothing sounds of acoustic Grateful Dead.