geigwm6
-
Posts
45 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by geigwm6
-
-
I am interested in southern history too:
My list so far is: University of Georgia, College of William and Mary, and Wake Forest University and maybe LSU.
UVA, UNC, Duke, Rice, Florida, Vanderbilt, WUSTL are all great too, but I think they are too large of reaches for me--I will probably apply to two of those.
-
Is it baseball and the civil war? Because there is an unholy amount of literature on that field.
Not exactly, it has to do with this, but isn't baseball during the civil war or anything. Everything I have seen or researched deals with the history of baseball or the influence or presence of baseball throughout the civil war. What I am interested in is more focused than that.
-
How exactly would you go about pitching an idea like that to an advisor without a paper or anything? I have some ideas concerning sports that I like, but I wrote my thesis paper on something very different. Both my sports ideas and my thesis are on the American Civil War though. I would just be afraid of not being taken seriously, if I don't have a significant paper to back me up.
-
Sociology folks are doing a lot of sports stuff now as well as econ (mostly doing statistical and business side stuff obviously) and obviously people in the phys ed and kinesiology departments are working on some historical stuff. The problem is that I am interested in doing the social history of sports as a field (but not writing my dissertation on a sports related topic) but most of the people working on sports history are either working at schools where I would never, ever consider doing a PhD for various reasons and/or writing stuff about sports that is just straight up terrible. Elliot Gorn at Brown is the exception (although I don't think he does much sports history any more).
I guess my two biggest problems are that I don't have enough of a desire to do it as a field to make it a primary factor in picking a school and I think that a lot of what is being written in sports history isn't very good.
I agree. I also have a secret interest in doing sports history. The problem I have briefly observed is I am very much afraid, skeptical of committing myself to a graduate program about sports.
-
I feel a little lost. I recently talked to the Graduate Director at a University and it kind of knocked the wind out of my sails. He pretty much told me that my topic was way too generic and that anything with the Civil War is pretty much overdone (my topic I thought I wanted to do was the Eastern Band of Cherokees and W. H. Thomas during the Civil War). I know I want to do the American South, but now I am really lost.
My application will be a mixed bag. I think my writing sample will be well done. I will have great LOR's, very good GRE's, and I have a 3.1/3.5 (cumulative/history) from a top 30 school with pretty rigorous grading. I will use the Italian language (pretty worthless) and I am going to try to submit my paper for publication.
My top choices are W&M and UGA MA program.
-
The vast majority of schools will also confer a MA/MS on the way to a PhD if you fulfill the additional requirements for the master's. However, if you're doing the PhD, what's the point in wasting that time for the master's?
The requirements for MA's are generally more liberal than that for the PhD. I want to get my PhD, but I feel like I'm not an outstanding applicant, not all of us have perfect scores, grades, and writing skills at this point. Some schools, like UGA and LSU, allow you to be automatically admitted into the PhD program after your first year if you fulfill some requirements.
-
I've asked about the nature of funding. I'd rather not waste their time and the application fee.
I don't care if its crass really, everyone has responded with details and been fine about it.
-
Georgetown has a MA in Political Science.
-
If the person that wrote the LOR is stupid enough to tell someone about it, then they deserve to get caught. I have no sympathy to people who cheat.
-
I agree with that. There is no excuse for a sub-500 score.
-
I'm thankful.
-
Georgetown's History program isn't the best renowned, but the Middle East History is great.
-
What are the benefits of joining say the Southern Historical Association?
Thanks!
-
I would caution against thinking in terms of "reaches/matches/safeties." While that might be reasonable when you're applying to undergraduate institutions, you're only applying to one department now. An admissions committee will be less concerned with metrics like GPA and test scores than with your ability to articulate historical questions that they find interesting and to carry out a successful research program in the context of their department. I'm pretty sure that most of the schools that rejected me did so because either A) I did not sufficiently demonstrate that I wanted to do work that fit with the interests of their faculty or
they had other applicants that they believed would be more successful than I. While there are certainly exceptions, I would thus suggest that your primary focus should be on finding "matches." Rankings are not, I think, the #1 thing to look at when making that decision (i.e., "I'm a middlin' kinda student, so I'll look at middlin' kinda schools"). If the faculty at Yale or Stanford think you have interesting things to say and the ability to follow through, they'll consider you--if not, they won't. The problem from our perspective is that these places get *so many* applications that they really get to pick and choose (based in part on those metrics but even more, I suspect, on faculty recommendations and the clarity of SOPs). So be sure to apply to schools outside of the Top Ten as well; there will likely be fewer applicants, so you may be more competitive *if you are otherwise a good fit*.
Conversely, "safeties" are a really bad idea. Let's say that you apply to University of Nowhere-anyone's-ever-heard-of, ranked #500 by USNWR. It's a sure thing, right? Wrong! First of all, U of N probably has very little money. Either they'll only admit a very small cohort of students who are a perfect match for their faculty's interests (probably not your priority if you're looking for a safety), or else they'll just admit everyone and their mother and give them $20/year to live on. Second of all, how much is a degree from U of N going to be worth when you graduate? No one wants to hire from a place they've never heard of--not when there are so many other options out there. To review: safety = really bad idea. (This does not mean that you shouldn't apply to places ranked below #X on USNWR; there are plenty of schools that don't rank very highly overall but are nevertheless tops in a particular subfield--for example, Georgetown for the Middle East and Notre Dame for medieval history.)
UNCW has some great faculty in American Indians (I like Indians in the South, Civil War Causation, and Southern Filibusters). Furthermore it is only a MA program. Do you think I should even apply to better schools even if my GPA is only 3.2/3.6 at a rigorous school? All the other parts of my application will hopefully be good, it just depresses me to think that a few nasty grades will screw me over for graduate school.
-
That is a lot of loans. I'd just wait. Get a job, earn some money, do some reading, etc.
-
Well, I don't know what my thesis will be or anything. I am interested in the American South from Revolution to Civil War. I like American Indians, Southern Adventurers in the Caribbean, and Civil War causation. I am becoming more and more disenchanted with my thesis topic though, it is on American Indians in the Civil War, but while I have slaved over it, it really hasn't gotten too far :\
Of course I am prepping for the GRE, but from what little I have done thus far I am pretty confident I will get a good score.
-
Tulane is pretty strong in Southern History. That is the only one I'm iffy about. My top two are LSU and William and Mary. I would be ecstatic to get into one of them.
-
That is probably a solid idea. I'm thinking:
PhD- Vanderbilt and UVA
MA- William and Mary, LSU, Tulane, George Washington, NCSU, UNCG, UNCW
That seems to cover reaches/matches/safeties
-
I have been wondering--I realized I am shooting for all M.A. programs--albeit M.A. programs with the possibility of funding. Is this a good idea? I'm not a super qualified applicant. I'm working hard on my SOP and my writing sample so they will be good and I generally test well so I would imagine I will have good GREs and I'm not worried about my recommendations. My grades are a bit low--at a rigorous institution--but some of my professors have told me to apply to only PhD programs. In addition to my lackluster grades, I am not exactly sure what I want to study (Southern History from the 18th-19th century probably). Thanks!
-
Who said anything about all cases? I just threw in some examples.
On the Administrative side, I've had professors and adcoms be forthright on financial issues, such as funding (or in this case lack there of it in abundance)
-
GWU is a really nice school, and 5 years of funding in Foggy Bottom is great.
-
What schools are you all looking at?
Does anyone else have suggestions for schools good in Southern history?
-
If you are looking at Chapel Hill, I am relatively certain that they do not admit Terminal MA students.... you must be admitted directly into the PhD program, which as already stated is insanely competitive. I am not sure about Duke, but I believe they may admit a few MA students a year, but most likely unfunded.
If you are spurned by the PhD programs at UNC and Duke, there are several good MA programs in North Carolina that might serve you well. Besides NC State, UNC-Greensboro is no more than 45 min. away from Chapel Hill and they have a MA/PhD program. My only caveat to applying to UNC-G is that although I have heard great things about them, the PhD program is still relatively new, which means its difficult to get a sense for what kind of jobs their PhDs get after graduation.
A little farther away from the Triangle area (roughly 2 hrs.), UNC-Charlotte also has an excellent MA program, and if I'm not mistaken you can pursue your MA part time there. I don't know much about Wake Forest, but I hear their MA program is also very good, and Winston-Salem is only about an hour from the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area.
I wish you the best of luck
Wake Forest doesn't have an MA program anymore.
-
Does anyone have any advice/opinions concerning Baton Rouge (more specifically LSU) in terms of safety/culture/friendliness?
Thank you!
Writing Sample Question
in History
Posted
I don't see why you wouldn't polish your paper, regardless of whether it was graded. I'm doing an independent study for credit to continue polishing up my paper, see if your professor will do that with you.