hopkinsgirl

...er, literate? but big congrats on duke, great campus/great faculty, and the weather isnt bad to boot! hope your other applications are successful as well

prospective

...and the cuts aren't over yet, from what i hear. i'd advise anyone seriously considering UC schools to be very, very wary

oh i've enjoyed hopkins (our dep't is great) but in general (partic our european historians) are more focused on cultural history. you definitely should look into LSE because they have a number of programs i think you'd be interested in. i definitely agree with whoever said that it's tough to get into a history program if you're focused on post-soviet (90s) europe... historians are just now beginning to tangle with the 80s

i mean, your best bet on this question is to ask one of the professors in your university's history dep't that focuses on economic history... the people on this board are pretty damn knowledgeable, but frankly your profs will know the full scoop with the departments that are best for you to apply to (e.g. let's say you want to work with a particular prof at harvard; your prof at your current institution will know if that person is imminently retiring and may well leave in the middle of your ph.d program). it seems from your post that you're probably a junior in college right now... if youre coming straight out of undergrad, the profs at places you're applying to want to see that you have taken a pretty fair number of classes in the area you want to specialize in (versus people who apply some time after college and have had time to do more research and possibly publish a bit, so you should probably establish pretty soon your particular interest. rockeater's advice is really good -- one of the things admissions committees are impressed by is how specific a statement of intent is in terms of what the applicant intends to research and how much he/she already know about it. also be forewarned that if you do not already have a solid reading and writing ability in applicable foreign languages (if you choose a foreign area of concentration), you're going to have a hard time getting into a ph.d program, where they expect you to be able to hit the ground running in foreign language research if you need it. harvard, for example, expects its applicants to have reading ability in two languages other than english (which is no mean feat esp. if you want to do anything asia-related). plus, the list of grad schools you have right now is nuts -- 20 is too many -- but again, once you actually have a sense of what you want to research, you'll know where the best places to apply are. sorry if this sounds harsh. which university are you at right now?

i don't know, i think a lot of schools do usually send out acceptances beginning around the first week of february and going through the month (though some do continue into march). take a look at last yr's results board

...all seen this?: http://historygossip.blogspot.com/ veeeeeery interesting.. my mother (who does medieval at university of toronto) showed it to me over xmas break. im sure some of you have seen it, but its pretty neat

grapes

oh cool! it'll be so strange next year to theoretically meet some of the people from this message board in person once we're all at our new schools

I don't think they've sent out decisions yet but I'm an undergrad history major there and I'll keep my ear to the ground for you! Who did you apply to work with? It's a great school

I only applied to five places, but they're all great for what I want to do (postwar Japanese women's labor history) - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and UChicago... But seriously, this waiting game combined with the Hopkins workload is making me age before my time haha

yeah... but i mean, i'm graduating from college this year. on the one hand, i think it can be hard to come it at a young age to a grad program, but my parents are both academics so i think i have a pretty good idea of what the deal entails (more so than a lot of other students my age i think)

gravlax

yeah, is it possible the poster who got 'rejected' from harvard is faking? i also fiddled around with the website for a while but no decision comes up for me.... people need to stop playing with my emotions!

fire

modern japanese women's labor history. applied to five schools, mostly ivies, cant wait to hear back!

I'll be 20