wacyeah

Im reading it in Japanese and yea it was lots of reference on WWII (the skinning scene of the army officer was too gruesome for me though). After I finish it, I'll probably gonna look for "Kafka on the Shore." Did you have fav moments in The Wind-up...? also, don't you think that Kumiko's plot is kinda similar to Gone Girl? (coz Gillian Flynn actually referred to the book in her novel too)

what about U. Wisconsin at Madison or UCSC? They also have good public history programs

DCguy, I can't help but to ask this even though it's out of this topic: I saw your location as Salisbury but are you from the eastern shore of MD? coz I attended Washington College and I miss MD sooooo much now lol

For academic book, I'm reading Dr. Yuma Totani's "The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of WWII" coz she's gonna be my primary advisor. For entertainment purpose, I'd been reading Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle in Japanese (as I'm Japanese) but I'm now stuck at vol. 3 (the original ver. is divided into 3 books), and I still have to finish reading Lisa Genova's Still Alice. I'm kinda interested in Child-44 as well as I saw the movie trailer the other day but is it any good?

Congrats everyone as well!

as ashiepoo said, it really varies with programs but usually the percentage of MA students are higher than the body of Ph.D. student (same goes for the acceptance rate as well). When I entered my MA program back in the Fall 2012 semester, there were about 14-15 incoming freshman (MA) for the age range of 22-50 (I was the youngest in the program lol). As for the entire MA student body (my grad for MA, didn't have Ph.D. program), there were about 40ish students I think, and the people who were Class of 2014 for History MA were about 30 students total. I hope this makes sense to you.

I'll definitely check that out if i go there!

oh, that's a bummer! maybe you should visit someday again then! and thanks for congrats! Your topic seems really intriguing as well. Even though, I'm a Japanese, I don't know much about the relation of Japanese and Islamic culture in Japan lol. If you have any questions with Japanese language/ culture, I can definitely help you out!

You should visit Nagoya if you have time coz it's a nice city! And yes, my focus revolves around us-jp relations, especially collective memory of the a-bombings and the Pacific War. What's your focus?

Hey! Im from Nagoya! for me, taking a F-1 visa is not gonna take a lot of time (like few days but gotta gathering documents is gonna take about two weeks) and i gotta travel to Tokyo as there's no US embassy in Nagoya.

yes I'm from Japan but i finished my B.A. and M.A. in US (i've been living in the states for 8 years (about more than a quarter of my entire life) so im now more comfy living here than in Japan lol)

im now figuring out my travel plan (my parents are also gonna help me move lol), visa preparation, health clearance, transportation of my car Hawaii etc, Im hopin that I can figure this out by the end of May

As I indicated, I'm almost certain (with still a tiny bit of chance for making a change to Claremont) that I will attend U. Hawaii Manoa so, if there's anyone who actually decided to attend there, hit me up!

Congrats ashiepoo as well! My undergrad thesis advisor, who is a Colonial period historian, went to UC Davis for his Ph.D. and he told me he loved it so much so I really think that you'll enjoy it too!

Congrats LeventeL as well!!!

im actually considering with the following priorities: Match between me and the profs. as well as me and fellow ph.d. cohorts, availability of resources, funding (tuition), TA-ship w/ stipend, job placement history, and location. I'm also trying to envision what type of a historian am I going to become when I graduate.

To Stillalivetui, Gambaosaka, and Prof. Plum, thank you very much for all the comments! To answer some of the questions, I got this generic email from UCSC today talking about the number of student capacity, yata yata... so I called the department (grad. admin coordinator of hist. dept.) asking kindly "what kind of factor resulted in this decision." I actually told her initially that I was already admitted to different institutions so that I would not be regarded as someone who called the dept. out of anger/frustration/complaints, and I added that I simply wanted to know just out of curiosity. Then, she pulled out my file and flat out told me I was denied as of weak LORs and weak analytical skills on SOP. For the profs. I requested my LORs, the first was my MA thesis advisor and had one class (and I have a very good relation both in and outside of class); I took two classes with another prof. and he was my secondary advisor of my MA thesis; then, I was a TA (discussion session leader and grading assistant) for the last professor. All profs knew my work/character very well and they all had good rapport with me. As for my SOP, I asked my bosses at the library I'm currently interning to read/comment. They both are certified archivists (one has MLIS and MA in history i believe, and another has a Ph.D. in archeology and her husband is a prof. (European Lit. I believe) at UCLA. When I showed mine to them after my editing, they both told me it was a very solid SOP (and the husband said the same thing according to one of the archivists). In fact, I don't think I had a really devastating issue, aka "weak," issue as I got into two reputable institutions, including Claremont, which is ranked much higher than UCSC (I usually don't believe in the US News Grad ranking, but I just wanted to throw that out now as a reference). I actually got denied from UCSC last year too (for Fall 2014 admission) saying that I was not a good fit. Technically, that's not entirely accurate as well as my focus is on collective memory/public history of the Pacific War, especially on atomic bombings and post-war nuclear culture in both US and Japan, and that the institution has two profs on modern Japanese history, and two profs. on public history, and even a research center for the memory of the Pacific War. Or maybe the decision has something to do with me coming out from Cal. State Univ and had applied to UCs (as I've heard before that there's an internal rivalry/dislike between CSUs and UCs). All I can say is that I honestly felt like the response not only insulted me but the people I got full support from. Luckily, I already got admitted to other institutions so I don't have to this take this nonsense seriously lol.

Got rej from UCSC. They told me that I had weak analytical skills on SOP and weak LORs. I felt like I was greatly insulted as I know how great the profs. who wrote my LORs and how they are attentive to me. I'm glad I got into UH and Claremont as they NEVER told me that. Now starts the decision between the two schools.

Congrats anthrohis!!!

Congrats Chiqui as well! I'm now super torn apart in between UH Manoa and Claremont Grad coz they both are my top choices!!! I'm tryin to see if i can arrange a trip to HI to visit the campus but the flights are super-packed now.... Anyways, I RSVPed to the Open House for Claremont so Im lookin forward to meet anyone who's admitted to the program!

Yes, i will work with Dr. Totani, Dr. Reiss, and Dr. Henricksen. Thanks for the message and we'll keep in touch!

Hi! I'm glad that I at least found someone who was admitted (coz I haven't seen many UH applicants here on this forum)! My focus is on Pacific War memory, mostly memory of atomic bombings and post-war nuclear culture in Japan and U.S. What's your focus? I'm admitted but I'm still waiting on the funding result (I got on to the waiting list for TA-ship). I'm now torn apart in between UH and Claremont Grad Univ coz both were my top choices!

I saw on acceptance page that there's an intl student who's admitted to UH Manoa. Anyone want to claim that? If you see this message, please PM me coz Im also the admitted student and I wanna get in touch with my future colleague!

well i guess this is way too straightforward but the best way to tackle lang. req. is to learn the one that's directly related to your focus and helps your research (I think even for the Americanists, having another lang. skills will do you no harm and it will open up the potential for transnational perspective). For me, the funny thing is even though my native tongue is Japanese and English is my 2nd lang, I can't use English as my foreign lang and use my native lang as my primary foreign lang (coz my focus is on Pacific War memory). I took French a bit in my high school period and the first semester of my freshman undergrad year but I don't think that's relevant to my work so Im thinkin about learning German so, it's gonna be my 4th lang lol

for those who applied to UCSC, i think the result's gonna come in next week coz the UCSC Portal said that Higher than normal volume is expected the week of March 15th, 2015. There may be times when the system becomes slow and pages take a while to load. If this occurs, please wait for pages to load or sign out and try again later also, for those who applied to Claremont Grad Univ, the dept's starting to send out notifications (you can ask the dept over phone too if you want)