MollyTheMick

I think you're totally right gambaosaka...a rejection is a rejection. But they might as well be nice about it, IMO.

It's Stanford's loss. You guys are clearly amazing.

The literature and philosophy boards are fairly active like us, but that's pretty much it. It's obviously because we're way more awesome

I just finished making 25 cake pops for my son's class, and for the first time in in weeks I didn't think about grad school admisions for an entire hour and a half!

I received this really helpful advice from a POI who has been a dream to me during this process. I thought I'd share an excerpt here:

"Remember, too, when you get offers - or don’t - that universities are looking both to the quality of the student’s thinking and writing, and to the need to match up the student with appropriate supervision. It’s common enough that the ‘match’ isn’t right no matter what the quality, and for a student to embark upon something as long and difficult as a doctorate without the right supervision is a disaster waiting to happen. I say that because from your perspective, too, the match needs to be right - ie you need to be confident that you’re going to receive the kind of guidance you need. So it’s the university assessing things from its side, and the applicant should be doing precisely the same. In other words, a two-way process."

Thanks, ashiepoo! Your positivity is contagious   I think I just had too many reach schools this go around (Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley, Stanford, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, UVA, UMD, and Boston College). 0-4 so far, probably more unofficially based on the results page.
 
Not that my stats are bad, but it seems like they are nothing compared to everyone with master's degrees! I thought being on a "nontraditional" track would be appealing to adcoms (I did Teach For America after college and I'm still teaching now). So my fingers will stay crossed until the end of March! Good vibes, everybody.

Molly--are you still waiting on some programs? Don't give up hope just yet! It ain't over til it's over!

And if you don't get in this year, keep in mind that many of the most successful applicants on this site have gone through several application cycles (check out the Dealing with rejection thread...TMP and RevolutionBlues told their inspiring stories there). You can take an extra year to bolster your application

This might be an appropriate place to share my own experiences with this issue. Several years ago, as a starry-eyed undergrad at a small state school, I applied to three programs and was rejected from all of them. Fortunately, I was able to get some good feedback and was able to polish up my applications for submission to seven programs ranging from top tier down to fourth tier. Again, I received rejections across the board, bringing my two-year total to ten. This was the most difficult year because the first time around I didn't really know what I was doing, wasn't fully committed to the process, and hadn't spent as much time as I should have on the applications, but this second year I had worked hard to rethink my interests, hone my application to a fine point, and had even met with a professor, all for naught. In retrospect, this series of rejections was very painful, but I decided to make one last-ditch effort at applying to graduate schools. So, I stopped working, travelled to meet with professors, took courses, read and researched, asked everyone I knew to read over my statement of purpose, and then almost destroyed my long-term relationship to go develop my language skills. The payoff for this herculean effort was, out of nine applications, five outright rejections, three unfunded offers, and a single funded MA offer at a state school below the top fifty. Once again, the litany of rejections was a damaging blow, but that one glorious funded acceptance, even if just for a MA, fueled my hopes. By this point, I had received fifteen rejections in three years and three unfunded offers (which were basically rejections), versus one solid offer. Two years later, as my MA was drawing to a close, while taking a full course load, doing language training, teaching, retaking the GRE, contacting POIs, and writing a thesis, I scrambled to pull together another  series of applications, again for nine schools. In breaking with my previous experiences, however, in addition to four rejections, I received five PhD offers, four of them from top-ten schools. However, to get there I had to endure nineteen rejection letters.
 
In short: 1) if getting a PhD in history is really, REALLY what you want to do, then don't let the rejections discourage you. 
2) A rejected application is not a judgment on or rejection of you; it is merely a statement that at that particular point the department's short-term needs and yours are misaligned.
3) The process can obviously be painful and maddening, so keep track of those who care about you and don't be afraid to lean on them.
4) When dealing with bad news, I recommend a good drunk, preferably cursing out the offending department to your friends over shots, and then waking up early in the morning to start studying again.
5) If you find yourself striking out this year and want to try again, be sure to contact the department's that you applied to asking for information on the decision, i.e. shortcomings and areas for improvement. Not all will answer, and you don't want to seem incredulous, but an earnest and humble request will often yield solid responses on what you can do to improve your application.