datini

I think one reason the waiting is so wearing is that one puts in long stretches of enormous work, hope, and fear when doing applications, and then suddenly there is a void: we're still spinning on the app work, but it is done. Even though we all likely have plenty of other things to do, there seems (for me at any rate) to be something missing. I'd just gotten used to working on my apps project for quite a few months, plus years of anticipation. And now there is nothing to be done and nothing one can control.

To mvlchicago: You've made an unfortunate generalization about history MA's: they are not necessarily people who needed to go to an MA program "to find out what they are doing." Someone on the results board said about their rejection from Berkeley: whatever, they're all communists there anyway. If this was a joke---and the tone was not joking but insolent---it is a stupid joke. If it is serious, Berkeley was smart to reject you. You've embarassed everyone else by such a vile, ignorant comment. About MIT HASTS: are there other applicants to HASTS who have been interviewed or contacted for interviews besides the person who posted above?

ZacharyObama's glib and snide comment on the Reed MALS program is unfair and uninformed. Reed undergraduates are in a poor position to judge MALS, in part because they take no MALS classes but mostly because they are too young and generally very self-involved. The common opinion among undergrads about MALS is worthhless. Reed MALS includes very intelligent people, people with complex experiences in life, and people with very strong academic backgrounds. MALS courses are watered-down versions of undergrad courses; the assertion that they are is plain wrong. They generally are courses the instructor wants to experiment with; they are always interdisciplinary, and the standards are not a whit different from those prevailing throughout Reed. MALS also take (not "audit") upper-division undergraduate courses; these can be up to half the program of study, so MALS education is as good as Reed undergrad studies and in some ways tougher. MALS degrees are not, it is true, teaching or research degrees. Many MALS at Reed and elsewhere seek uninstrumentalized learning, in the oldest and most profound sense of a liberal education. But it is also the case that many MALS students proceed to disciplinary PhD and MA programs at very good research universities throughout the country. Finally, the commenter says that MALS is expensive. To the contrary, MALS is cheap. You pay for your credits only, taken at slow or fast paces. At this date that is 9 full Reed credits at $4000. each. So the entire course of study, at $36,000, is less than an undergrad year at Reed, less than most if not all terminal MA programs at private schools, and about the same as 2-3 years of a terminal MA program at a public university.

I did not choose, plan, or execute my MA program with any thought whatsoever of skipping OhD program requurements. And I too think that building a cohort is one of the great benefits---and pleasures---of a PhD program. I would not want to miss that. My concern relates to how quickly one can get to doing a research program, esp. if as a result of MA work one enters with a good idea of a project one wants to undertake. The second reply traises another questions: do US hiring cte.s view dissertation-only EU PhDs, even from the best universities, as a lesser credential?

This fall I will apply to PhD in history programs. I have a very solid MA in history. Do PhD programs offer any adjustments in the amount of coursework required of admitted applicants holding the MA? As more and more history MAs apply, more and more must be getting in since they can be more attractive candidates than history BAs; and if that is the case the PhD programs will have more and more students who have already taken common requirements at a grad leve, such as a theory & methods course. Also if concessions are granted these MA-to-PhD students can move more quickly into research, which helps the faculty teach at a higher level and helps them have better research assistants, and it helps get students more quickly to completion of their degree. But I sense that PhD program do not see it this way. Also, I have heard that some will lessen the amount of required coursework but strictly on an ad hoc basis. And I sense, further, that if they are willing to do this they most certainly do not like to ta;lk about it openly. Does anyone have or know of experiences in this matter?