twentysix

-Presenting an original work of history on the Dakota War at the WSSA in Portland.
-Finishing out my B.A. and B.S..
-Attending an intensive language program for Nahuatl at Yale.
-Traveling to the Peace Garden and Thunder Bay.
-Moving to San Diego.
-Putting 40-50 hours of work into my Spanish skills which need to be improved.
-Buying a new car.
-Platinuming 2 ps4 games.
-Reading a few more of James Lockheart's books.

New Haven is pretty much New York. I mean, Connecticut really isn't a state so much as it is something one has to endure as one travels between NYC and Boston.

This is my basic gist on the situation based on experiences mostly at varying schools in the ivy+ realm (re: is my school top 10? What about my subfield? Will I get a job? etc.):

If you are attending an Ivy League+ School (so inclusive of Stanford, Duke, UChicago, WashU and Johns Hopkins), or a pretty well-reputed public/private school, (Wisconsin-Madison, Berkeley, NYU, UMich, Northwestern, etc.) you're probably fine, regardless of what your subfield is, so long as you're putting in the work that you need to do.

If you're not attending those schools, nor a school that is legendary for its subfields (so like Arizona for Reformation under Heiko Oberman, or UCLA for colonial Latin America over the past couple decades), you're probably "behind" so to speak of the pack leaders who are mostly at the programs listed above. Does this mean you won't be hired? No, because these things aren't set in stone. It just means you probably have an uphill battle in regards to demonstrating why you are just as qualified as a student coming out of UChicago for NELC, or UMich for the Ancient World, or Yale for religious studies. 

I don't mean to single this thread out, since a number of people have been asking "Well what does it mean to be here" or "Should I take the top tier masters or the second tier phd." I think, ultimately, a lot of these questions depend on your specific needs as an individual. I've had faculty at Chicago who started at colleges whose names I cannot even remember. The bottom line is I'd spend the time you are worrying about the name of the degree and develop your thesis, or build your networks and so on.

Also important is just because a school's name or pedigree is amazing does not mean it will be the right fit for you. If you fail out of a top 10 program, you'll be in less a position to get your dream job than if you did a steady, well-written dissertation at a lesser known school. This doesn't mean you were a worse student or any less able–maybe you hate the East Coast!

It's probably easier for me to say this on the other side of the chasm, but I've seen friends drive themselves insane over rankings for both undergrad and grad programs when I think it wasn't necessary. Compiling datasets that you want (placement records for a specific field from each program over 10 years) is basically impossible since not all schools are releasing their info publicly, and to start worrying about everything based on a non-set is time-consuming. Just stick to your guns and know what you're bringing to the table, and I think you'll find you'll be getting the offers you need to make your programs work.

Now, from what I know about the (historical) perceived reputation of Mexican History programs: Mexican historians placed in good positions often come out from U Chicago, Yale, Berkeley, UCSD, UCLA, and Arizona. Of those, Chicago and Yale strike me more as places to do modern Mexico (especially Chicago). UCLA has a long tradition of doing excellent colonial Mexican history (especially related to the study of  indigenous sources, think  Kevin Terraciano, Restall, and James Lockhart). Berkeley had a monopoly on colonial Mexican religion for a while. Van Young at UCSD had a crop of very successful graduate students. I always associated Arizona with cultural history. 
 
Another way of thinking about it is who has landed the best colonial Mexican history job openings in the past few years. From the top of my head, Berkeley graduates landed the jobs at Northwestern and Princeton (Paul Ramirez and Vera Candiani), while a UCLA graduate landed the job at UCSD (Dana Velasco). 
 
If I were to do research on pre-Columbian or early colonial Mexico, UCLA would be the top target. Penn State is another possibility (because of Restall), but their placement is nowhere near as good as UCLA's.

This study was posted in another thread: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005
 
It basically says that institutional prestige is an absurdly large factor in hiring decisions, and that if you're not in a top 20 program, your chances of employment drop catastrophically.   For history, those 20 (determined my network centrality) are, in order:   Harvard University; Yale University; UC Berkeley; Princeton University; Stanford University; University of Chicago; Columbia University; Brandeis University; Johns Hopkins University; University of Pennsylvania; University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of Michigan; UCLA; Northwestern University; Cornell University; Brown University; UC Davis; University of Rochester; New York University; UC San Diego   There may be some play in the numbers based on subfield, but it doesn't look like much

But summer flas is pretty small, like $3,500.

FLAS is only for students of the program awarded funding and their funding must be in your region of the world. Not all schools with flas offer flas for all language types. Summer flas on the other hand can come from another university and can be used outside the US.

Thanks, I'm pretty sure I've made my decision.

I believe UCLAs IDP has what you are looking for.
 
They offered me full funding through a fellowship. So that is a program you could look into.
 
You can take on a primary focus of History, but you will need courses from another discipline like Anthropology or Sociology to pair with the history courses.

Also my target schools did not offer terminal MAs in history, only the MA/PhD route. I didn't feel I was a good enough applicant for a PhD at this time. In my experience only lower tiered schools are going to fund a terminal History MA.
 
Schools like North Dakota State and Northern Iowa etc.
 
Most of the top tier schools do not offer an MA and if they do it is not funded.
 
I am doing an LAS MA then applying to a PhD in History (Latin America)

If for nothing else, Toronto offers poutine!

I know my former adviser attended the programs years ago. He found it useful to what he thought he was going to be researching, but ultimately researched something more contemporary. He seemed to be positive about it.

I received my official SHORE nomination today and I accepted that.
 
So if I do accept admission at UCSD I am guaranteed a 2br for the fall.

Just came back from UC San Diego. I got to meet the office manager (Brittany), and she basically went over the logistics of the program and talked a little bit about the funding with me. Also, your first year is coursework only and your second year you are doing your research for your thesis and writing. It's really flexible. I also met a graduate student, with whom I went to a class (undergraduate) that the program director is teaching. I got to meet him. He's nice, I didn't have too many questions for him, so it was a little awkward. Overall, I really liked it and I actually like the campus ( it reminds me of my undergrad school). I think Im going to accept their offer 

I ended up accepting UT Austin. 

This is unrelated, but I'm visiting UC San Diego today

Hi, ***, congratulations! We had a little talk in another thread.
 
It seems that most of us have got all the results. I got many letters of rejection but was admitted by the LAS program of University of Florida!

Yeah, I'm sure he/she doesn't care at all. People on grad cafe are way too high strung about little mistakes.

Professors may read gradcafe. You are being ridiculous though, completely ridiculous. What you experienced was karma, not a vindictive graduate committee.

If for nothing else, Toronto offers poutine!

So many people write "an historian" including people with impressive PhDs...

I still despise it.

"an historian" makes me want to punch people. The h-deletion only occurs if you use the "an" in the first place; the h-deletion wouldn't naturally occur anywhere else, so it's "a." 
 
That linguistics minor comes in handy makes me super anal-retentive.

I don't know if formal training is a necessity to be a historian (I absolutely despise "an historian"). In my opinion anyone who follows the general procedures of properly and ethically using sources can be a historian. Of course anyone who has received any level of degree in History will (read "should") be capable of doing this. But I think that non-degree holders are capable of producing quality work and that makes them historians as well.
 
That being said, lots of people produce work that is absolute shit and are in no way shape or form historians despite having written a book.

If you can't tell that a meme about a baby in Africa having AIDS is "outwardly" offensive and derogatory....

It was a "3rd World Success Kid" meme.
 
Sorry about that, I have taken it down! I have a rather sardonic sense of humor, but didn't intend to be outwardly [or passive-aggressively] offensive or derogatory when I put it up.