American in Beijing

LOL, this cracked me up! I fortunately have not had any of the above things happen to me. Although I did almost delete an e-mail from a professor asking for a phone interview. The subject was: "Phone call?" and the sender was some ambiguous screen name that I did not recognize. Thank God my ultrasensitive spam blocker did not put it in spam!

That's so crazy! I didn't realize there were so many back deals going on. Although I guess if I were this student, I would feel quite flattered (after, of course, being annoyed that I had to just take which school ended up winning out). Her application was worth a back door business deal!

Wow, compared to some of the responses here my situation was not horribly bad, but at the time I didn't know how to carry on. One of my classmates passed away at the end of October. Although I didn't know him personally, my program put me in charge of organizing some things for his parents and helping with the memorial ceremony. Reading and/or translating his essays, blogs, and the letters of his family/friends left me almost as devastated as if he'd been a close friend. It also resulted in me effectively missing a week's worth of class and the final exam, all of which I had to make up. The day after the memorial service my parents came to visit for a week. Needless to say, between taking them around a foreign city where they didn't speak the language and making up my homework so I wouldn't flunk out of my program, I didn't have much time to work on my apps. When I finally got around to working on my writing sample, my parents would whine: "Do you really HAVE to do that?" . . . Needless to say, I don't exactly come from an academic family. After my parents had finally left, I thought to myself: ok, crunch time! You can do this! You still have two weeks! All you have to do is edit some things. That's doable, right? The next day my host mom kicked me out of my house, because she needed the room for her sick mother-in-law. She gave me 2 days to move out. I was so exhausted and stressed, I just cried for three days. In between crying, I went to class, studied for my final exam, and found a place to live. This essentially left me with 1 week to do at least half of my application work. In the end, it all worked out. The school with the earliest deadline, the one where I had the least time to prepare, has given me a positive response. Before, I contemplated writing to them to explain my horrible situation, but in the end I realized that in life there are probably going to be lots of times like this where unexpected and even tragic things happen. Can I always use them for an excuse to not get my work done well? Basically, shit happens. But, as many others have pointed out: "When life gets you down you know what you gotta do? . . . Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming! What do we do? We swim! Swim!" I love Finding Nemo.

Thanks for this info! It actually makes a lot of sense and makes me feel a whole lot better about not being contacted, even by the school I was accepted to. I swear, we should put this and other valuable advice in a "So, you want to apply to grad school?" handbook or something.

Lol, it wouldn't. Hence why it would only ever happen in our wildest fantasies. Personally, I think a Google Buzz/Twitter account would be easier for them and just as effective (preferably Buzz, because I'm pretty sure Twitter's blocked here). A post could be something like: "Sent out first round admissions offers. For those of you who are obsessively following forums like thegradcafe.com and see that people have already been accepted, please do not panic and/or flood our office with e-mails. This doesn't mean you won't be accepted or waitlisted. These people are just brilliant." or: "Off to start the adcom meeting . . . 400 applications to sort through . . . oh goodie."

Me too! I hated middle school, but something about "Bye bye bye" makes me forget the stress!

I'm in the same boat. It's going to be really hard to make my decision without seeing the schools. I guess we'll both be on Skype a lot in the next couple of months, !

That's what's confusing me, to be honest: whether prestige is more important than quality of instruction. You could argue either way. And besides, who knows if it will be the same in 7 years? A lot can change by then. If I enter a program that "may" be in decline, but is still prestigious, will it have lost that prestige by the time I graduate and need to be able to count on that degree to find a job? Congrats to the Harvard admit, btw!

Harvard, Columbia and UCSD. UCSD was supposed to inform last week, according to one of the professors there . . . so I'm a bit concerned. And according to this forum, Harvard's early next week (although someone got rejected today . . . so they must have a short list . . . should I e-mail and ask if I'm on it? Do adcoms meet one weekends?). And Columbia doesn't seem to start informing until later in the month . . . so I haven't even started stressing about that one.

I'm looking to study the early Chinese Soviets (Jiangxi, Hailufeng, etc.). There's not exactly much of a field for that in the States (surprising, I know, ), so I've been settling for professors who study rural China, Republican-era political history, or media history. I feel that UCSD has a very strong program for modern China. From what I've learned talking to professors, students, and alumni, it's a closely-knit program that stresses the fundamentals of East Asian history. The students seem very supported there and the atmosphere is very communal, both of which appeal to me. The students have a high publication rate (and, if my former professor and a current UCSD grad student are any indication, publish excellent work). They also claim to be one of the few programs that has a 100% job acceptance rate upon completion of the degree. What people have told me and what I've observed so far have left me with a good impression of the program overall. However, if you know of any skeletons in their closet, please feel free to share!

East Asian history? To be honest, it depends on your discipline and depends on the professors. I've unfortunately been told that Bekeley's East Asian history department is not as good as it once was . . . but I have no personal knowledge of it as I've never been there. And "not as good as it once was" could still mean a lot better than most schools. I don't know anything about UCLA or UCI, so I wouldn't be able to tell you if they honestly had better programs. However, I'm slowly becoming convinced that UCSD's modern Chinese history program beats out Berkeley's . . . but I would say for UCLA and UCI it might depend on your specialty. Do your research, talk with professors, talk with students, and in the end . . . follow your gut. That's my plan so far, !

<br /><br /><br /> Germany also had colonies in Asia! A few islands here, a few islands there, and a port in China. German colonialism is actually quite interesting and I would highly recommend reading up on it. This is coming from a former German (and Austrian!!!) buff. Not many English-speaking academics study it (especially German colonialism in Asia), and it might make you stand out from the crowd a bit. Even if it's not something you eventually end up seriously pursuing, showing that you're interested in a topic for which you already have a major language requirement would be impressive, in my opinion.

<br /><br /><br /> :( Great, another weekend of suspense. I wonder why they're deciding so late this year. Is it a funding issue, do people think?

I spent a year studying abroad at a German university, and the Swiss system you are describing is very similar (with the exception that in Germany the grading system is the exact opposite: 6 is low and 1 is high . .. so when I first glanced at your "GPA" I was wondering how you could apply if you'd flunked out of history, lol). I also had a lot of friends in my undergrad who were international students, so I'm familiar how much of a pain it can be to apply from a system that is radically different from the American one. About GRE scores: don't worry about it. In reality, admissions committees don't really take them into consideration for international applicants. I know international applicants who have scored in the 400s on the verbal section of the GRE and still gotten into top humanities programs at Ivy League schools. Do the best you can, though, because scoring like a native speaker would obviously enhance your application a lot. About research: The German style of research and the American style of research and writing are in reality a bit different, as I unfortunately had the pleasure of finding out when I started university there. A great German writer is almost the opposite of a great American writer, and vice versa. The American style is direct, simple, and often tries to entertain. Germans are, from my experience, a lot more concerned about aesthetics and less concerned about the direct line of an argument. However, Germans will also put a lot more detail into their argument than Americans do, although this can in many cases be considered excessive by American standards. In short, the styles are different. I think it's a fantastic idea that you're doing a year of study abroad in the US. Use the time to become familiar with the American style so you can write a fantastic American-style writing sample. About recs: I would strongly advise against using a letter of recommendation from a German professor unless this professor is either very famous or very familiar with the American higher education system/way of writing recommendations. As people have mentioned on this board, European recommendations are not as effusive as American ones. A good German recommendation can be as simple as: "This student is very good" (a friend of mine actually had a German teacher write this one-sentence recommendation . . . which she obviously could not use). In America, that won't fly. Yeah, professors will be familiar with the fact that European letters don't have the American flare to them. They probably won't put it against you that your letters from European professors don't extol your virtues as if you were a student-god. However, it more than likely will not be in your favor either. It will more than likely just be a neutral point on your application. As an international student, you're probably going to have a whole lot of "neutrals" on your application. Your undergrad institution has no reputation for excellence (neutral). Your grading system is different (neutral). Your GRE scores aren't as good as native speakers (neutral). You need to stock up on all the positives you can get! I would highly recommend using your time abroad to ingratiate yourself with a few American professors. This will show the admit committee that you can survive in an American institution, and give them stellar recommendations that they'll actually remember.

I'm with a lot of others here on the location question. Unless you are REALLY not a countryside person or a city person, I would put location last. But make sure you're first very informed about the nature of the location before you decide on a school. I went to undergrad in a "rural area" (well, at least that's what people who grew up in cities and didn't know what REAL rural looks like called it). I'm VERY familiar with the "I hate this place, because you can't walk to a mall/bar" kind of mentality. I have friends who at least claimed to be completely miserable, because my school didn't have a happening club right down the street. These were mostly, however, the same people who didn't even bother to come visit the school before accepting, and who also had lived their entire lives in a city. They weren't expecting it, and the shock of the disappointment made them miserable. Before you make any decision, make sure you are 100% informed about any factor that you personally consider to be a big deal. So why do I still advocate that you ignore location in your final decisions? Well, because in many cases your preferences can change. Also, in my experience, as long as you know what to expect, you can deal with non-ideal situations. If your dream school is located in the big city and you're one of those people who, like me, does not like big city life, tell yourself this: no school is perfect. I may hate the location of this school, but everything else is great for me. Isn't a PhD worth sacrificing my lungs and getting a little dirty every time you leave the apartment? In reality, for the first 2-3 years, I'm not going to ever have time to leave the library. Does it really matter if this library is located in New York or rural Idaho?

Wow! That's so inspiring! Good job and way to show these programs what a mistake they had made earlier! I'm sure because of this "trial by fire" you're going to end up being more hard-working and successful than they are, !

You read my mind! I'm a domestic applicant and I'm still confused on this one. My only acceptance so far is to a school I'd had a semi-informal meet-and-greet with all the way back in November. Any thoughts by those who have been accepted by more schools than I have (i.e. more than one, haha).

I took a year off, so I'll be 23 when I start and turning 24 towards the end of the first semester. I've been told that very few people in my field finish in fewer than 6 years (one program told me they'd never had anyone finish in fewer than 6), so I'll be at least 30 when I graduate *gulp*. In response to everyone's questions about parenthood, I've been feeling very confused about that myself. East Asian history PhDs are notoriously long (one of my professors needed 12 years to complete his, though I highly doubt my case will be that extreme . . . I hope), and I'm worried that if I have a child during grad school it's not going to help that I have a baby in tow when I'm scrambling for a job with massive amounts of debt from undergrad all coming back the second I graduate. But then again, is having a kid while I'm vying for tenure the best idea either? Neither is having a kid after tenure, when I'm in my late 30s early 40s when I have health issues to consider. Perhaps no time's the best time to have a kid when you're an impoverished academic. Unless, of course, you marry for money. I feel like a PhD in Chinese history might make me stand out in the competition to be Mr. Bazillionaire's doting trophy wife . . .

LOL, a good friend of mine is actually talking of applying there. He's a wine buff. But I would hardly imagine a PhD is necessary for something like that . . . maybe that's the place where they train the future wine-making professors!!! Most Useful: History (I may be a bit biased, ) Least Useful: Anything involving dinosaurs . . . I can understand why the field would be interesting, but it lacks any apparent relevance to modern life.

So I've just gotten my first acceptance (yay me!) and I'm looking at this fellowship stipulation trying to figure out what it actually means. Can a current grad (or anyone who knows more about how the tax system works) explain to me how it works? Let's just say that I get $14,000 a year (not my actual funding amount) to go to school in California. I'm single, rent an apartment, and am still in a massive amount of debt from my undergrad education (most of which is through loans run by the state of MA). How would I calculate how much money I'll have after taxes?

That happened to me too, actually! Fortunately, in my case, the ones that were mysteriously "missing" were the lower (and actually quite embarrassing) scores. It was like a get out of jail free card! Except that I had already self-reported to Berkeley before I realized the error . . .

As of right now, Harvard . . . but not entirely because Harvard's Harvard. The advisor I really really want to work with is there. I love her research and from what I've heard of her teaching style I'm going to love that too. Now all I can do is pray that she loves me too! Columbia and UCSD are tied for second . . . although I'm trying not to make final decisions until I hear my results.

I obviously feel the same way. On the one hand, this website makes me feel better as it gives me a place to work out my anxiety. On the other hand, it's also inspired new fears, such as "why are other people getting interviews/acceptance letters already to top schools and I'm not?" And "Why didn't I apply to Yale? I don't want to go there, but at least if I had applied I would have either received an admission/rejection and know around where I stand!" I guess this is something we're all just going to have to get through. And think of it this way: at least grad schools were kind enough to give us the shortest month of the year for "hell month"!

<br /><br /><br /> Omg, this is like looking into a mirror. Ditto to the question . . . I need to defer big time.

I'm a budding East Asianist, with a focus on Modern China. Lol, I guess I'm a bit more understudied regional than transnational. Yay for all of those who try to break the mold! Especially the Africanist. You rock! Hai you xue zhongguo lishi de ma?