victoriana

On behalf of NCAtlanticist and all of my fellow North Carolinians, I expect, I cannot resist saying that I found this comment to be pretty condescending. Yes, please, do enlighten us ignorant, Make America Great Again hat-touting Southerners as to "the culture of the profession" so that we may make no further faux pas. Free advice from someone with more experience in academia is a wonderful thing, but snobbery is not. On another note entirely, I would be happy to chat with anyone who has been admitted to Vanderbilt.

As a junior who also knew that I wanted to apply directly to PhD programs the following fall, I was able to persuade my advisor to let me enroll in the two semester research seminar/thesis writing sequence in my junior year so I would have the thesis to use as a writing sample. This worked out for me, so I definitely think you should go ahead and start the honors seminar in the spring if it is offered in the spring semester at your university. As far as revising and preparing a writing sample from an honors thesis... I was fortunate to have a bit more time for this than most applicants applying directly from undergrad. However, I will second what Neist said about working closely with your advisor to do multiple revisions. I also asked members of my thesis committee to read over some revisions and make suggestions on certain points. They will already know your thesis, so this probably should not feel like too much of an imposition on their time. Or, you could ask your letter of recommendation writers. One other thing to keep in mind, and that you probably already know, is that many (though by no means all) PhD programs will ask for a writing sample of 20-25 pages rather than accepting your entire thesis. I don't know how lengthy an honors thesis typically is at your instituition, but for me that meant I submitted a few well-polished chapters from my thesis rather than the entire thing. It could be very useful to go ahead and look at the application instructions for each program where you intend to apply, and note how many pages they will accept for a writing sample. This could help as you are planning thesis chapters and thinking about organization, etc.

Yes, I second this!

Committed to Vanderbilt last Friday! It was a difficult decision, but I knew after visiting that it was without question the best program/place for me.

I'm not sure yet if I will be attending Vandy or another school, but I'm going to visit at the end of March. I can't wait, and have heard that the campus is beautiful! Glad to hear that you had a good experience there.

Wow, congratulations!!! ? I also struggled to act semi-normally in front of my tenth-grade English class after I heard good news from Vanderbilt.

As far as improving your French reading comprehension skills, Duolingo has a great "Immersion" section where you can read French articles of varying levels of difficulty and practice translating them. The site has really helped my speaking/listening skills as well, but the articles are great for learning vocabulary and practicing the skills you will most likely need for language exams and research. The articles are also generally fairly interesting--more so than most French textbooks, anyway!

I sent a very brief email to graduate admissions to the effect that I was writing to inquire about the status of my application, but appreciated that the committee may still be making their decisions, in which case I would be grateful for any information as to when applicants might hear some concrete news. Probably I jumped the gun a little in emailing so early, though in this case it worked out ok. I'm not sure if the message which the DGS apparently sent out to at least a few other applicants about an hour later was related to my having emailed or just a coincidence. Either way, I am glad we are not completely in the dark anymore!

Hi nightfarmer and anyone else who is still anxiously waiting to hear back from Indiana University, I just received an email from the DGS in response to the inquiry I sent earlier. Apparently the department is very much still working on admissions and funding, and probably will be for "several weeks." Happily for me, the DGS wrote that he expects IU will be able to offer me admission and multi-year financial aid(!), but to judge from his email, most of their decisions and especially funding details are not yet finalized. In short, in this case no news may in fact be very good news and, on the other hand, we can anticipate up to a few more weeks of waiting.

I definitely will. Thanks for the telepathic karma!

I just bit the bullet and sent them an email inquiring about the status of my application!

Yes, could not be more appropriate! ?

I am currently working up the courage to email my POI there. At this point, I just want to know one way or another.

Is it likely that IU have sent out all of their acceptance notifications at this point? I only see a few rejections and 3 acceptances, and have not yet received either, so my mind has been racing!

I am also waiting anxiously to hear from Indiana...they did send out a lot of notifications on February 12th last year, but it seems we may be waiting until next week at least for news. There is an entire thread about mistakes people have made in the "Waiting it out" section of the forum, so you are far from alone.

Quick Netflix binges (1 regular-length season or less): Firefly, Sherlock, North & South, Marco Polo, Jane the Virgin, The Office (UK), Occupied (Norway) If you don't mind consecrating a few weeks of your life to these shows: Supernatural (the ultimate time-suck for me), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Destinations, Breaking Bad (obvious, I guess), Lost, the X-Files, Twin Peaks. Not on Netflix, but now On Demand: I recently saw Crimson Peak, and really liked it.

Does anyone have any ideas or more concrete info about when Indiana University might notify about their decisions? I swear I dreamed about repeatedly refreshing my inbox last night.

As surreal as it feels to type this, I'm one of the OSU admits. I checked their website right after CvC1780 posted that prediction, and I'm beyond ecstatic! I come from a little-known undergrad institution, so I did not have high hopes of being admitted into any PhD programs, but have actually been nominated for a university fellowship. Maybe this will be reassuring to people who (like me) have been underestimating their chances because they went to a less prestigious school. Good luck to everyone else who is still waiting!

And so it begins! Looking forward to talking/collectively fretting with all of you this year. I am thinking of applying to a mix of MA and PhD programs.

Maelia, where did you go in the Peace Corps? I love to hear people's Peace Corps stories-- so fascinating and what a great thing to do for your gap year. One of the things you mentioned also struck a chord: My adviser who does British history seems to spend half his time in the UK and has encouraged me to try to get across the Atlantic, and this does seem kind of important for someone interested in British history. What kind of programs are out there to fund gap year research? I don't much about Fulbright other than that it is very competitive(?) Teaching in the UK (as someone who will hopefully graduate with a license to teach in the US) and developing my research interests while there is something I hadn't even considered and an entirely different possibility to look into. I have generally seen on this forum that most people don't recommend doing MA history programs in the UK for US students. Do you guys second this?

I initially started at my current uni with the intention of becoming a teacher (9-12) and would not mind teaching for a few years as a "Plan B" if I don't get into any PhD programs next year. I come from a family of secondary teachers and always looked forward to teaching until I caught the research "bug" working on my honors thesis and started looking into grad school, talking to my professors, etc. I have heard conflicting arguments about whether it's best to take time off before grad school, but I see your point, TMP. Many professors and grad students seem to have taken time out of the "ivory tower" to do interesting things. Where do you stand on whether or not I should look at MA programs? One of my (pretty broad, at this point) interests is in how the cultures of Britain's various imperial "acquisitions", particularly India, influenced the mainland culture. For example, Orientalism and Victorian material culture. U of Texas at Austin seems to have quite a few people who focus on the British Empire, so Sigaba was spot-on. Thanks to both of you for your advice.

Thanks, Sigaba, for your advice and especially for recommending University of Texas at Austin. Looks like they are really strong in British and imperial history, so I will definitely give them a closer look.

Hi all, I'm a newcomer to this forum-- hope you guys don't mind me jumping right in and posting a little monologue about my grad school anxieties! I only began seriously considering grad school in history this semester, ever since I started working on my Honors undergrad thesis and realized that this (Modern British and in particular Victorian social & cultural history) is what I want to do and that grad school should be my next move. The problem is that it did take me most of my undergrad career-- I'm a junior now-- to reach this conclusion. In addition to my history major, I'm also all but finished with a second major in English and a secondary education minor. I will have to student teach next year, and so that's why I'm writing my "Senior" honors thesis in my junior year. Given that my interests have been all over the place, I'm not sure that my undergrad career in history will be strong enough to be competitive for a PhD program come next fall. I would be willing (though reluctant) to pursue my M.A before going on to a PhD program due to the lack of funding, but first I would like to get a clearer sense of whether I stand a chance of getting into a decent, funded PhD program. Here's what I'm looking at so far: I'm a junior History and English major with a secondary education minor at a state university of middling but quickly growing reputation. I have a 3.91 GPA, a 4.0 GPA in history, and I'm active in our Phi Alpha Theta chapter. The research for my honors thesis is coming along very well, and I plan to present at a couple of undergrad conferences and at my school's regional graduate conference. However, I don't have a long list of conferences or major research projects to add to my CV. I also have taken really diverse courses rather than focusing on my specific interests in British, cultural, and gender history. I have a couple of advisers in the history department who I think would write really positive recommendations, so that is not among my most pressing worries... I have not taken the GRE, but generally do well on standardized tests. I have had the opportunity to study abroad in the UK yet, either. My biggest concern is whether admissions committees will look unfavorably at my double major and in particular my concentration in secondary education. Does these varied interests make me look too wishy-washy to be taken seriously as a history doctoral candidate? Since my interests lie mainly in cultural and social history, I think I can make something of a good case for my English major, but there's no doubt that my credit hours have been spread more thinly than those of students who may be more competitive for having focused mainly on history and languages. Speaking of languages, I have fairly good speaking skills in French and a somewhat better reading knowledge. While I know languages are not quite as essential for British and US specialists, do you all have any more recommendations about language study or anything else I can do to make myself more competitive for next year? Although, again, I am not confident that I am competitive enough to apply seriously to PhD programs before doing a MA, I have been looking mainly at Indiana University--Bloomington (my #1 choice so far based on POIs and its strengths in British and cultural history), John Hopkins, UNC Chapel Hill, Duke, and University of Chicago. As far as MA programs, I have considered doing the terminal MA at my current school and applying to Phd programs in two years, but the lack of funding for most all MAs I have looked at is not reassuring. What do you guys think: should I shoot for PhD programs while still applying to a few MAs, or do I have a lot more to do in order to become competitive? Any program recommendations? Any hope for me??