Fianna

One really great piece of advice one of my faculty mentors gave me (and which was wholeheartedly agreed with by everyone else on my committee) was not to go to a place that didn't fund you and to be really skeptical of an offer that doesn't fund you at the rate they are funding other candidates. Even if it's a "better" program, even if you're one of the lucky few that can afford to pay. What they offer is a measure of how they value your work. If they admit you to round out a cohort, but don't give you support, you probably aren't going to get support in other areas (mentorship, conference and research support, etc.). I've been constantly reminded to look at this process as part of my professionalization and to think of the PhD work as a job, and part of the funding offer is usually teaching, which is a really big deal in the job market. Great research alone is not going to get you a TT offer. They expect you to have done some teaching before that, because the state of the market is such that institutions can afford to be really picky and they don't have to do all that much training anymore. If you can't come in ready to teach a class, they're going to have 100 other vita of candidates who can.

I just saw that. Nothing yet. My husband got in to their political science program (found out yesterday) so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Anyone want to claim Kansas? What subfield/what POI?

We're in the same boat since we have so much overlap. I'm hoping we get a bunch of notifications at the end of this week. I'm sort of assuming both Duke and UNC are off the board for me, since I haven't heard anything from either. I'm waiting for Indiana to announce something. I just want to know!

Congrats on those two awesome admits, Annalistasaxo!

Congrats Gambaosaka1! I'm still waiting to hear from them - it's a great school! Who do you want to work with there?

Congrats mvlchicago!

Congrats telkanuru!!!!!!!!

Congrats ashipoo. You're rocking it this cycle. Looks like this week is going to be a big one. Good luck, everyone!

That's close to what we have. My two major field committee faculty each worked with me to develop a list of 50-odd books in the field, and each will give me two questions. I get to pick one question from each, write on it (2 hours, no materials) and cross my fingers. I'm talking out the field readings with one of the professors now, so I'll have an idea of the type of question and the scope. He's prone to being very broad. The example he gave me was, for a 20th century exam he gave, "Was the Progressive era progressive?" Out of curiosity, how many of the current MA students are doing comp exams?

I'm really enjoying it. His preface and intro are really great at laying out his project. It's reading a little dated, but that's expected. I really should be further in to it, but I've been in comps reading hell all weekend. Good luck on yours - mine are the 4th and 6th, so we can commiserate together that week. What subjects are you taking? We do two major field questions, so mine are Native American and long (very, very long) 19th century with a focus on race and law.

We have pets - one dog and 4 cats. Fortunately, both of us were offered good stipends at Illinois. Combined, they equal a pretty good income in C-U. The pets, especially the large dog, probably mean we are going to have to look at buying, not renting. There's no way we could cram all of us, plus them in to grad housing, and I'm worried about finding a place that will rent with a large dog. I'm half looking forward to the moving process as a chance to sort through all the junk we've accumulated in the 14 years we've lived in our house... and I'm half terrified of the prospect of sorting through all the junk we've accumulated in the 14 years of living in our house.

This weekend I'm reading Hobsbawm's Empire and Industry for my seminar and also reading/organizing for my comps exams. Late at night, when I'm too information saturated to read anything that heavy, I've been reading the new annotated Laura Ingalls Wilder autobiography.

Seconding Race and Reunion. I also really like Brenda Childs Holding Our World Together. IU's Center for History and Memory has a really great book list to start mining: http://www.indiana.edu/~cshm/books.htmlThey also publish a journal on the topic, which might have some articles by people working in your period.

AHA also has a good list, too. https://secure.historians.org/projects/cge/PhD/Questions.cfm#faculty What I'm trying to think of now are general "moving" questions. The last time I moved was 14 years ago, in to this house. I'm kinda frantic with the idea of packing up for a real cross-country move.

Since my husband and I are both applying, we spent over 2k in December, between GRE scores, transcripts and application fees. All to sit here for 3 weeks to refresh our email constantly. It's become a running joke at dinner.

Illinois did not interview me. Timing can sometimes be awesome. I went to campus yesterday and when my DGS saw me in the hall she congratulated me and also asked "did you know that the woman giving the job talk today just defended at Illinois?" So I got to talk to someone actually in the program. And I also now know for sure that grads are getting considered for jobs. Her talk was great, too.

Anyone else want to claim an Illinois admit? What field? Who supported your application? Are you going in March?

Congrats Chiqui!! It's such a relief, isn't it?

I'm glad you asked that, because I was wondering the same thing. My husband already got a rejection from one of the schools I applied to, and I was thinking about emailing them to withdraw my app, especially now that we both have an acceptance at a school we'd both be happy at. I think I'm going to let it ride and decline immediately if I get an acceptance email/call so that I free up the slot for someone who'd otherwise be waitlisted. It's a shame, cause it's a great program for me, but we considered the possibility of the distance thing, and decided that it was only an option if we didn't have any overlap at all.

Through 1865 is where I'm living now. I'm looking to move firmly back to colonial for my PhD. I find the clash of empires period fascinating lately. Although that's been heavily influenced by some fantastic empire scholars at UNLV that I've been working with on my minor field requirements the last two semesters.

Thanks. I'm currently at UNLV working on my MA in American history with a focus on the legal development of race. My thesis topic is on testamentary manumission in Virginia. I applied to programs which are strong in Atlantic World, race and legal history because I want to do more comparative/transnational work in the future. To add in to the earlier topic, I'm also a "non-traditional" applicant. My BA was in History, but I have a MS in Management Information Systems. No kids (I bow to all of you who are doing this with little ones! Trying to work, go to school and have anything that resembles a social life is hard enough when you only have adults to accommodate). To make this whole process even more interesting (read: stressful as hell), my husband is also applying to PhD programs in Political Science. I'm doubly relieved because he's already gotten a yes from Illinois, so no matter what, we have at least one overlapping admission.

Hey all - just created my account to claim the Illinois admit. My first of the cycle! It was an email with offer letter attachment from the DGS about an hour ago. The letter says that this year they had a large and strong applicant pool, and it also mentioned the name of the faculty member who supported my application. Funding offer was also included, along with an invitation to a prospective student's weekend March 15-17.