HistoryGypsy

I've watched more and more people get rejected by NYU, and I've still heard nary a peep from them. I feel like I'm the new Katniss sadistically trapped in The Doctoral Games (but without two cute guys fighting over me . . . I just have a dog trying to fight my computer for my attention).

I had an idea tonight: Why don't PhD programs model their admissions process on The Voice? The profs who are willing to take on students could sit in chairs with their backs toward the applicants, who could then have 90 seconds to impress them with why they should be accepted (GRE and GPA would have to meet a minimum in order to qualify beforehand). If they want someone, all they have to do is press the button and turn in their chair! Easy, simple, and no more three months of ever-increasing stomach acid for those of us waiting to hear from programs. No more checking admissions websites and email thirty times per day. No more slow death from not knowing. Maybe I should pitch my idea to NBC as a new reality show idea. We could call it, The Final Degree.

I would analyze your future career plans and think about how competitive of a field you are hoping to enter once you have your PhD. That can give you a better picture of how beneficial the ranking will/won't be in the long run. Also, it's really good to look up statistics for how many of their graduates are finding employment after coming out of their program. Sometimes being highly ranked does not translate to graduates actually getting jobs. For example, Brown is Ivy League, but their American Studies program has a much lower rate of employment after degree than schools like Purdue and Penn State do. So for me, Brown would actually not have been the best fit (had they accepted me). As far as the funding, use that as a lower criteria in your decision-making. After all, it's just temporary -- you need enough to live on, and then once you graduate, you can get a much better paying job. Congrats on Tufts, by the way -- it's a good school!

I wish that programs would quit beating around the bush so much and spell out directly the kinds of students they want. Yes, there are some cases where a student may intrigue and surprise them, but the truth is, any established program knows what they want and they know which POIs are going to be able to take on students. It just seems unethical the way that they hide that information in order to get more people to apply, so that they can wrack up more application fees and make their acceptance seem more selective. If you flat out know that Prof A isn't taking on any students this year, it takes less than five minutes to put one sentence stating that on his webpage.

I was in that boat when I retook it back in August of last year. I had taken the old one back in 2005 or 2006 before applying to masters programs, so my scores were too old. I found Kahn Academy helpful for preparing for the Quant section, since I haven't used most of that math since I was a college freshmen (decidedly NOT my field). After twelve years, the brain gets, shall we say, a little rusty on the math! I didn't spend too much time prepping for that part, since I knew it ultimately wouldn't matter for my field, but I did want, at least, not to have a humiliatingly low quant score. I do have my dignity . . . well, that is, I did have some until I started applying for a PhD . . . For the verbal, I prepped using Magoosh's free materials, a great website called Number2.com (actually, I think I used that one to help me remember math as well), and several nice free apps that I found for my iPad. I also reread some older (19th century) novels for fun, since the language in there tends to be higher level and is a more engaging way to refresh oneself. What with teaching overseas for the past four years, I had gone a while without using many of the GRE-level vocab words, but luckily those are pretty easy to get back up to par with. I made a few sloppy mistakes because of the math section rattling my confidence, but on the whole my score was perfectly acceptable. For the essay section, I just went to the GRE website and looked through their pool of prompts. Rather than practicing writing them, which seemed a little pointless, I instead just practiced phrasing well-argued answers out loud to myself. I did that for probably an hour per night for about a week before the test, and it was plenty of prep. Oh, and one other thing that was helpful: I located a few good websites about logical fallacies so that I could brush up on identifying common fallacies quickly. On the whole, I agree with maelia8 that my time spent prepping for the math was pretty much a waste. They don't give enough time for most of us non-math minds to work out the problems, so I found myself guessing random answers quite a bit on the math sections. I actually got frustrated enough that I ended up crying, which was a little embarrassing (I just HATE to be completely inept at something). After the test, I soothed my wounded soul with a very well-deserved Wendy's frosty.

Interesting one from someone who got rejected from Georgetown: "My fiancee had been sleeping on the couch when we got our 4 acceptances. He slept in a bed this week and I got 2 rejections!! What are the odds?? I am rethinking our marriage >:("

I have an unusual situation: a few of my students have applied to some of the same schools that I did. In fact, I even wrote LORs for them! So if I end up accepting an offer to one of those schools, I'm planning to go up to the student who has also applied there and tell him/her, "It is your destiny to be forever within my power, little peon-who-aspires-to-be-a-minion. Mwa ha ha!" Or something of that general nature.

Amen! I did my MA in espionage history, but because of one book (Albion's Seed) in a colonial America course that I opted to take just to make myself a little better rounded for teaching, I now find myself switching fields so that I can study folkways!

Telling them how in a rude way is a bad idea and telling them how the minute you get accepted is another bad idea, but giving constructive feedback after you've built relationships is often appreciated. The good professors care about doing their jobs well and usually also care about students. They don't WANT this process to suck out our souls (though it's fun to joke that they do). I've offered feedback to professors before on how to improve something and they've thanked me and sometimes even tried it (and then thanked me more). If you come at something with a complaint, then people don't respond positively, but if you come with suggestions for doing it better (and those suggestions make the process better for both sides), then people will often listen. Bottom line: Nothing ever improves until someone works up the nerve to point out that it could use improvement.

I was told I've been nominated for a fellowship or assistantship, but that they won't know whether I've gotten it until around mid-March.

I've been preparing for my PhD program by reading Daniel Boorstin's The Americans trilogy. And then, for fun, as much of Terry Pratchett as I can possibly cram in!

I love that one! I should make it my new catchphrase.

    I'm pretty sure that one is a fake. Liberty doesn't have that program!

Yeah, I thought Brandeis looked great, even with the prof I desperately dreamed of working with retiring (David Hackett Fischer). They were so friendly and helpful during the applications process that it makes the current months of silence on their end all the more frustrating.

I've done the exact same thing as you, VulpesZerda, in terms of romanticizing the program that accepted me early. I even started an apartment spreadsheet of my living options there, and asked my advisor for some reading suggestions to get me ready for the program. I keep fighting the urge to just click 'accept' on their offer, since no one else has gotten back to me yet -- I keep fighting off this thought of "Well, even if they do accept me eventually, I clearly wouldn't be high on their list of choices, so I'm probably better off with the people who wanted me right away." I really think that people who get into PhD programs ought to start making a concentrated effort to "pay it forward" for others in the applications process by actively encouraging universities to work on better/more efficacious/kinder methods for selecting students. If students who are actually in the programs start communicating more with professors about how atrocious the process is at present and offering better suggestions at the same time, maybe we could make it better for people in the future. And that, honestly, would be win-win for the universities, too.

Now that's just EVIL! I refuse to believe that the sender did not maniacally giggle while pushing 'send'.

Does anyone know anything about Brandeis's funding? (Or, for that matter, when on earth they finally get around to making decisions?)

I had the same thing happen, more or less. I just sent a politely eager email to the program director asking if I had really been accepted and, if so, what were the details of the acceptance. He was very prompt in answering in the affirmative.

So, any further word from NYU or Brown? Or Purdue? I don't care so much about Brown because the fit wasn't great, but NYU was a flawless fit. I feel that this whole process is about to give me ulcers!

pass out

I hate it when the application portal loads slower than usual. For a brief moment, my heart leaps up in anticipation of seeing something different, and then "Under Review" smacks me over the head with the metaphysical two-by-four of dashed hopes.

Oh yes. Every time I run into a coworker (which happens a LOT over the course of a typical day then you're a teacher), every email from my mother, even on Facebook . . . and this has made me love my dog all the more. She never asks if I've heard back from any more schools.

"Let's see, if we let 'em hang just a few weeks longer, I'll bet we can lower their self-confidence enough to accept WAY lower funding. And then we can all get Keurigs with the money we've saved!"

I have decided that the two cruelest words in the English language are "under review."