history_geek

I wanted to come here and just say thank you to everyone that helped me find material and understand sections of the GRE. I posted a score in the 71st percentile, a 20 point jump. Thank you to all of you!
 
For those of you looking for a bit of advice, take a breath! The GRE is annoying and a bear, if you did not study. However, I'm assuming most of us here are studying and getting a grasp for the actual test. When you get into that room, take a seat and just breath. You have been studying for weeks, some of us even months. You know exactly what is going to be on it and how to approach every problem that will be on it.
 
As the test starts, remember to pace yourself. Do not spend 3 or 4 minutes on any question, mark it and move on to the next question, if you have time at the end then go back and do that question again. I made the mistake of doing a logarithmic problem for 4 minutes and ended up rushing the last 3 questions of the first math section. The next section, I paced myself and realized that I had almost 7 minutes to go back and look over the work. Pacing yourself and breathing makes the test easier and less stressful.
 
Pace is not the only thing to keep in mind. Make sure to take your 10 minute break! I saw several people push through the break and they were losing concentration by the 4 hour mark. The GRE is not a sprint! On your break, go the bathroom, get  some water (pop/soda has sugar and will make you tired and so will energy drinks once the chemicals wear off), and bring a small snack (a granola bar or a piece of fruit). Replenishing your body for the final push is going to help you a lot, but do not eat or drink a lot. You have to sit for another hour and a half without a break and going to the bathroom will force you to rush, regardless of your pacing.
 
Remember to breath and realize that you can take the GRE again if you do not like your score. Best of luck to all of you taking the GRE in the coming months!

I wanted to come here and just say thank you to everyone that helped me find material and understand sections of the GRE. I posted a score in the 71st percentile, a 20 point jump. Thank you to all of you!
 
For those of you looking for a bit of advice, take a breath! The GRE is annoying and a bear, if you did not study. However, I'm assuming most of us here are studying and getting a grasp for the actual test. When you get into that room, take a seat and just breath. You have been studying for weeks, some of us even months. You know exactly what is going to be on it and how to approach every problem that will be on it.
 
As the test starts, remember to pace yourself. Do not spend 3 or 4 minutes on any question, mark it and move on to the next question, if you have time at the end then go back and do that question again. I made the mistake of doing a logarithmic problem for 4 minutes and ended up rushing the last 3 questions of the first math section. The next section, I paced myself and realized that I had almost 7 minutes to go back and look over the work. Pacing yourself and breathing makes the test easier and less stressful.
 
Pace is not the only thing to keep in mind. Make sure to take your 10 minute break! I saw several people push through the break and they were losing concentration by the 4 hour mark. The GRE is not a sprint! On your break, go the bathroom, get  some water (pop/soda has sugar and will make you tired and so will energy drinks once the chemicals wear off), and bring a small snack (a granola bar or a piece of fruit). Replenishing your body for the final push is going to help you a lot, but do not eat or drink a lot. You have to sit for another hour and a half without a break and going to the bathroom will force you to rush, regardless of your pacing.
 
Remember to breath and realize that you can take the GRE again if you do not like your score. Best of luck to all of you taking the GRE in the coming months!

I wanted to come here and just say thank you to everyone that helped me find material and understand sections of the GRE. I posted a score in the 71st percentile, a 20 point jump. Thank you to all of you!
 
For those of you looking for a bit of advice, take a breath! The GRE is annoying and a bear, if you did not study. However, I'm assuming most of us here are studying and getting a grasp for the actual test. When you get into that room, take a seat and just breath. You have been studying for weeks, some of us even months. You know exactly what is going to be on it and how to approach every problem that will be on it.
 
As the test starts, remember to pace yourself. Do not spend 3 or 4 minutes on any question, mark it and move on to the next question, if you have time at the end then go back and do that question again. I made the mistake of doing a logarithmic problem for 4 minutes and ended up rushing the last 3 questions of the first math section. The next section, I paced myself and realized that I had almost 7 minutes to go back and look over the work. Pacing yourself and breathing makes the test easier and less stressful.
 
Pace is not the only thing to keep in mind. Make sure to take your 10 minute break! I saw several people push through the break and they were losing concentration by the 4 hour mark. The GRE is not a sprint! On your break, go the bathroom, get  some water (pop/soda has sugar and will make you tired and so will energy drinks once the chemicals wear off), and bring a small snack (a granola bar or a piece of fruit). Replenishing your body for the final push is going to help you a lot, but do not eat or drink a lot. You have to sit for another hour and a half without a break and going to the bathroom will force you to rush, regardless of your pacing.
 
Remember to breath and realize that you can take the GRE again if you do not like your score. Best of luck to all of you taking the GRE in the coming months!

In addition to the great advice above, be very very careful with conjunctions and other important words that change the "direction" of the meaning. In practice tests, I lost a lot of points because I missed a "but" or a "yet" etc. Take your time

1. Eliminate non paired words.
2. compare completed sentences not words. Read full sentence with each word. Read those which seems equivlent side by side. If it feels right, it is right.
that s why it s sentence equivalence not word equivalence.

The best way I've found is studying synonyms. I took the GRE word lists and I split them into synonym categories. That way, as I memorized them, I memorized the synonyms together for unusual words.
 
Another strategy is study the positive/negative connotation of the words.

I can only go by your post, but it sounds like you should take a step back and really ask yourself what it is you want to study. And you need to be brutally honest. 
 
Medieval and modern history are two completely different beasts with very, very different content. As a medievalist, you will be trained in skills that will have limited to no translation into twentieth century history - you'll need to learn Latin, Old Irish, Old English, paleographic skills. In a PhD program, you'll be doing research with and for professors who will be introducing you into the world of academia, making connections with other scholars and schools, becoming familiar with a very narrow subset of journals, methods, literature, etc. This is great if you want to stay in medieval studies, but they'll be no help to you if you want to ultimately study modern events. Furthermore, it does bring into question your commitment; a PhD is a six year commitment to one subject, and if your ultimate goal is not to work with that topic, you need to reconsider if its right for you, or the decision will be made for you by admissions committees. 
 
Granted, there are ways you could connect the two, but it does require significant thought as to the connection. Off the top of my head, if you're interested in something like how medieval Ireland and Celtic culture were brought up and used in Irish national movements in the 19th and 20th centuries, there's a possible crossover. Even there, though, you would primarily be a modern historian. Frankly from your first post, it sounds like you have more skills working with modern history and a greater interest in that time.
 
I'm not trying to discourage you from contacting said professor or having varied interests, but to suggest you should really, truly, be ready to commit to one study and stop flirting with one on the side. 

It seems like you might be telling them a lot of things that they could see elsewhere on your application. Is there a CV included in the application? If so, try not to replicate information, because the space in your SOP is precious. It seems like all but the first sentence of your second paragraph could be somewhere else in your application, but this depends a lot on what you get to include.  You are giving a lot of information, but not really saying much about yourself or your interests. Why do you like the subjects you are interested in? You mention a specific course piqued your interest, but what about it?  You say "Both professors and their scholarly work, fit my interests and eventual goal for my doctoral work.", but you never actually described your interests or goals, you just listed what you had worked on or are working on. You should be more explicit about your interests, goals, and how this makes you a good fit.  More of an introduction would be good. Personally, I used a (brief) introduction as a place to talk about my goals. Your SOP starts rather abruptly. p.s. Are you really applying for Fall 2015 (i.e. to start in Fall 2015)? The application season is over at this point...

Ok, not little

All too often people post here asking what their chances are at this and that school. I completetly understand their desire to know the answer. However, I also understand why some other people get somewhat annoyed by this question. Indeed, it is very hard to tell what somebody's chances are at certain schools, even if you know their stats and other details like a number of publications they have. That is why I decided to write this post. I will explain how, in my opinion, one can estimate one's chances and choose programs correctly. I hope that other people experienced in application process will correct me if I am wrong and add their advice. And may be, if moderators consider this post useful, they will be able to make it always stay on top of this board - if it is possible on this forum.

First of all, if you want to know whether your stats (GRE, GPA, TOEFL score) are good enough for you to be accepted to certain schools - there is one easy way to find the answer. Most schools post stats of students they have accepted, like on this page here. So try to find this info on websites of schools you are planning to apply to and if you can't find it, ask graduate secretaries/coordanators if such a page exists and if not, where you can find those stats. Remember that if your stats are low but not abysmal, that does not mean that your chances are low. It does not (always) go like - lower the grades, lower the chances (unless they are above some bare minimum) and vice versa. Because...

Second of all, even with the best stats, numerous publications, brilliant letters of reference, etc. you may not be accepted to a school if you have not chosen a program wisely. Because the most important thing in this game is fit. If a program thinks they are a bad fit for you, they will not admit you, however wonderful your application is. So you should apply only to schools that fit well your research interests and experience. How can you find schools with a good fit? First, of course, you schould know what your research interests are. If you know that, visit as many websites of programs in your field as you can find - and read about them, very carefully. Where can you find a list of programs? Well, browse the internet. When I was applying last year, I came across a biiiiiig list of programs in my field (it was not a ranking, just a list) and I spent a lot of time just going through all these program's websites. If you don't find such a list, just find some rankings. Not in order to find out what programs are the best in your field (many people don't believe in rankings anyway) but just to see what programs are out there. So, you read about the programs on their websites. From the way these programs are described you should get an idea if you would be interested in studying there or not. When I was choosing programs to apply to, I first used the list that I had found to make a shorter list of programs with a very general fit. Then, as I knew that I would not be able to attent a program without funding, I looked through this new shorter list looking for programs that were offering funding. As you can imagine, the list became even shorter after that Then I started to read about faculty in the programs from the last list, looking for professors who could potentially become my advisors. Then I contacted these professors, telling them about my research project, asking about their opinion. When some replied and I saw that they liked my ideas, I asked them if they would be taking graduate students next year. In the end I had only 5 programs left and I applied to all of them.

About contacting professors. As far as I understand, you can do that in all fields, except - for some mysterious reason! - English. (Here I ask other experienced forumers to correct me if I am wrong.)
BUT: If a professor is interested or even very very interested, that in no way guarantees that you will be accepted to this program because there are many other factors at play during the application process (most important of them being funding and faculty politics). But of course having a professor in a program who has expressed interest in working with you is a very good sign. It is definetely better than having no such professor. If you find a profesoor who is willing to take you as a graduate student but you are unsure about your stats, you can ask them about that. But of course don't ask it in the first letter to them!!! Only when you see that they are interested (and friendly).

Finally, I want to say, that all I have told above is based on my experience and it helped me - I was accepted to a school with a great fit (which is supported by the fact that they decided to give me a nice fellowship). May be there are other ways to choose programs and estimate your chances with them. May be in other fields (I am in social sciences) rules are different. I hope that others will correct me or pitch in some ideas based on their own experience with application process.

Good luck!