smg

Just accepted my offer at WUSTL.  I'm stoked. 

Just accepted my offer at WUSTL.  I'm stoked. 

Just accepted my offer at WUSTL.  I'm stoked. 

Just accepted my offer at WUSTL.  I'm stoked. 

I've accepted UMass
 
I haven't actually heard what my financial offer is from my other acceptance (they're deciding tomorrow) but my partner and I sat down and crunched some numbers and realized that even if they beat the financial offer I got from UMass, which is pretty damn good for a public school, they'd have to beat it by a significant amount to make the prospect of living there better than living in Amherst. And there's a slew of other quality-of-life issues we'd have to mitigate as well.
 
Plus my mom already bought like $500 worth of UMass swag, so I think I would literally break her heart if I didn't go. 

Just accepted my offer at Virginia Tech.  Of course, when I went back to read the acceptance email I sent I found a typo...it's too late for them to rescind the offer now, right?

University Of Victoria History, Masters (F15) Rejected via Website on 25 Feb 2015 O 9 Mar 2015
Hit a moose. Rejected the next day. Lost my hopes and dreams...and my car.  
Oh, Canada.... :')

This is crude generalization but in Canada graduate students are more likely to be unionized and politicized as result. I think this a good thing.  

I guess it might vary from program to program.  I know that for most of the PhD programs I applied to, graduate work from other institutions could not be transferred in.  The primary reason for pursuing a MA in these cases would be for the purpose of scholarly development, either to try and make up for a less than stellar undergraduate record or to gain more research experience and publications/conference presentations.  In both cases, the purpose of getting the MA was to become more marketable to PhD programs.  Many people consider it "worth it" if getting the MA (and the research conducted in the process) helped them get into a good PhD program, having had the understanding from the beginning that none of the course credit would transfer.

Is it worth it? For me, hell no.  For you, I don't have a clue.  I don't think anyone should pay for a graduate degree in the social sciences.  It's bad enough going into penury for a BA.  If you can afford it without going into debt I'm sure it wouldn't be a bad choice.  I'm sure folks are more ready for a PhD program after MAPSS than before. But there are other cheaper ways to prep for a PhD program.  

3 out of 4! Not too shabby! 

I know the chances of a good academic gig coming at the end of all this is pretty slim.  Worst case scenario I spent the next 5+ years reading interesting books and doing cool research.  Best case scenario the same plus middle class employment with some sweet perks.  I'm cynical about the academic job market but I'm also cynical about there being meaningful work that pays a living wage at all shit I'm cynical about finding meaningless wage slavery that pays a living wage.  We're fucked! I might as well get a PhD before the whole edifice comes crashing down. 

Mmmcheese I don't think their there is an abstract rule you can follow.  If I was in your position I would touch base with the faculty you want to work with and get a taste of what they are all about.  Your theoretical/topical and ethnographical/regional interests are likely to mutate and morph as you begin your research so at this point in the game I'd suggest making a decision that takes the personality and feeling of the department as seriously, or maybe even more seriously than the previously mentioned factors.  Who would you go out for a beer or a cup of coffee with? 

Do you really not see the problem with coming into a thread directed at women applying to graduate school in philosophy and then insinuating that perhaps there are just fewer smart women than smart men?

Doesn't change the fact that you felt the need to hijack a thread that very clearly wasn't for you (and that, in particular, very clearly wasn't the place for "challenging" posters' experiences with sexism and climate issues).

Says the white man who hijacks the thread entitled "Women applicants?" (a thread for FEMALE APPLICANTS to express their own private concerns!)
 
(If you are still too thick: You say it's ridiculous to suggest that "the power-hungry white man is asserting his dominance" and "making women and minorities feel unwelcome." Maybe you should reflect on what draws you, a white man, to assert YOUR dominance -- or try to! -- by coming into the only thread currently active in the philosophy forum for female applicants to discuss their concerns and trying to make US feel uncomfortable about expressing those concerns. Is our position really so absurd, in the end? And might it be possible that, as women in philosophy, we might have epistemic authority on what the issues keeping women out of philosophy might be? And might it be a little presumptuous for you, a white man in philosophy, to claim to know better than us what the climate is really like?)
 
TL;DR: STFU.

I know the chances of a good academic gig coming at the end of all this is pretty slim.  Worst case scenario I spent the next 5+ years reading interesting books and doing cool research.  Best case scenario the same plus middle class employment with some sweet perks.  I'm cynical about the academic job market but I'm also cynical about there being meaningful work that pays a living wage at all shit I'm cynical about finding meaningless wage slavery that pays a living wage.  We're fucked! I might as well get a PhD before the whole edifice comes crashing down. 

Having a hot topic for US based research helps too.  I happen to have stumbled onto one which seems to help.  There are trends in the discipline it's worth paying attention them when your trying to sell your project to prospective schools. 

Having a hot topic for US based research helps too.  I happen to have stumbled onto one which seems to help.  There are trends in the discipline it's worth paying attention them when your trying to sell your project to prospective schools. 

So here's my problem:
 
History is a manner of thinking, and the purpose of teaching people who will not become historians history is to train them to think historically. Thinking historically, at least as we conceive it today, is the process of understanding events on the small scale and then, if possible, weaving them together to form broader conclusions. This process requires specialists, but it does not preclude generalists. Generalist history, however, requires a substantial amount of effort to pull off correctly.
 
Being a generalist or writing to a lay audience are not valid excuses for sloppy work. Attempting to approach a subject on a larger scale puts more of a burden on the scholar, not less, because without the solid foundation in microhistory, you can't separate reality from your preconceived biases. If you find a generalist work that you agree with or think is useful which is not so grounded, all that tells you is that the work accords with your own preconceptions. It tells you nothing about the validity of those preconceptions.
 
Popular "historians" such as Diamond do not think historically. They do not write historically. However great their appeal, they are not useful to historians nor should they be encouraged because they are teaching a false approach to history. Diamond in particular promotes an entirely uncritical vision of Western exceptionalism which does much more damage than good.
 
Not all publicity is good publicity.

My advice, if you are still an undergrad, is to not spend money on an MA at this point, and give yourself some time to decompress from school and, while maintaining ties with those who know your work, just do something else. It might not terribly strengthen your academic application a ton but if it helps you grow and adapt as a human, you (might) be glad for it later on. 
 
This is a v. personal opinion, but I (really) don't think it makes sense for people to go straight into a phd program from undergrad barring circumstances like being undocumented or other obstacles to obtaining livable employment (that don't stop you from being a good graduate student), or if you already took time off during/before doing a BA. 

Its a cash grab that gives you Chicago name-recognition, Chicago LORs and a new writing sample on your PhD apps next go around. 

It could be worse...its not like your doing 25 to life at Angola. 

all my results are in! I don't think I realize how much tension I had been carrying around until after getting that last email. for y'all stuck in limbo--- hang tight.

This post is spot on.  I know that I have a good project and am fortunate to have been picked up by a good program this time around.  However, I have received similar feedback to what you describe here.  The bias in anthropology against "Americanists" is a thing.  I was turned down by one program that had expressed a great deal of interest in my project and told me they believed it was very "important" while cautioning me that it is difficult to find funding for projects in the United States (this conversation occurred before I applied).  My POI at that school works as an Americanist now but went through graduate school and did original fieldwork in Asia.  The faculty at the program that accepted me told me how good they think my project is while also acknowledging the difficulties of attaining "legitimacy" as an Americanist anthropologist in the United States.  I'm fortunate to have been given a chance but I was told that I will really need to distinguish myself because the bias will raise its head against me again when I'm looking for a job and for grant money in years to come.