DGrayson
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Posts posted by DGrayson
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6 minutes ago, TheHessianHistorian said:
The logical part of my brain: "Well, they still have to verify applicants' degrees and scores, and decide whom to nominate for fellowships, and it's in their interest to offer admission to their top picks first and then see how many more admission slots are open after the top picks make their decisions, etc."
The emotional part of my brain: "These sadists are literally trying to give me an aneurysm."
Did anyone else have a problem with the application materials section? My advisor upload his letter three times and the website still says that it's missing it.
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38 minutes ago, CBC said:
Anyone heard back from Yale, or has a rough idea when their decisions will start rolling in?
I’m thinking tomorrow. Yale’s responses have been pretty consistent for at least the last two years.
- CBC and worldpeasplease
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31 minutes ago, BuckinghamRabbit said:
@lordtiandao Let's assume they haven't sent everything out yet... Only four people posted acceptances to Chicago and I can't imagine that only four out of fifteen (or however many Chicago is taking this year) would report to Grad Cafe.
I’m thinking the same thing about Berkeley.
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Went to check results and saw this. Thought you all would get a kick out of it.
- Dobby'sSocks, youngsheldon, NotAlice and 8 others
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1 hour ago, khigh said:
Aaaand, I’m done. You could have taken this to PM like others have to vent their frustrations on me. I thought I could find support here, but I guess not. Very few of you actually know what this is like, so I was wrong in assuming that any of you know what it’s like to get rejected from everywhere.
Thank you to those that have offered support. Your PMs have helped immensely and the same within this thread. At least I could feel happy for a day before having to deal with all this. We will see what next cycle brings.
Hey khigh! Not sure if you're going to still be reading this but I figured I'd post about my experience in the hopes it helps.
Two years ago I applied for Ph.Ds for the first time, though it was in a different discipline. I didn't have a high enough GRE Quant score (it's all about numbers there), and after a particularly long and drawn out applications cycle I didn't get into anywhere accept for 1 masters program I applied to as a fluke. A year into that program and I realized that the other discipline wasn't really for me and decided to go back to history, something I always loved but was advised against because of the job market (as I'm sure we all have). Yet again I was rejected from every single Ph.D program I applied to, getting into yet another masters program. Please understand when I say I know EXACTLY how you feel getting rejected from every place you've applied to. I had that same feeling again when Penn sent out interview requests a few weeks ago and I didn't get one.
I tell you this, and post it here instead of doing a PM, in the hopes that others who are in a similar position to where I was to know that many others also know what this feels like. That being said, I humbly offer the following pieces of advice:
1) Get off Gradcafe: I'm saying this for your sake. You need to get away from this environment and the constant reminder. At this point it may have become a habit, checking your email every 15 minutes and Gradcafe every half hour, but no matter how good your intentions are, seeing other people getting into programs just twists that knife. You can certainly come back! The advice on this thread really is useful and it's great meeting people who understand what going through a cycle is like, but you need time for you right now.2) Treat yourself: Go see a baseball game (do they have baseball games now? Idk), get a nice dinner, watch RuPaul's Drag Race, do something you've always wanted to do, surround yourself with friends and family. Even the smallest of things can make a big difference.
3) Let some time pass, maybe a week or maybe two, but give yourself time. Then start reaching back out to POIs and see where you went wrong.
I think that at this point of the application season tensions are running a bit high, and it's easy to forget that we're all going through this together. Hopefully this helps! -
17 minutes ago, Guest345 said:
I see your point and thought to say something similar a few days before I held back and now hold a point of view similar to @OHSP and @grubyczarnykot that this is a hallmark of the applicants' thread since not everyone gets in and often do use the Applicants thread of their major to vent+ plan.
There are always people who share a lot more and the conversation seems to end up orbiting around their specific processing. I want to believe that even though there might seem to be only a few people posting there are many others who lurk+watch who may actually see a lot of their thoughts mirrored in the conversations happening.Who might take lessons and guidance from the dialogue. I think that's useful.I too see both sides. On the one hand, I come to this thread looking for information about moves from adcoms that hadn’t made its way over to the results board yet (Chicago for example). While on the other hand, having a place to vent and seek advice from others regarding what to do if not accepted is also very useful, as long as the advice is kept general enough to apply to a multitude of people, which it mostly has here. I’m certainly guilty of posting a non admissions related meme or two...
I also kind of see this issue as harmless at this point, becase while there has been some movement for schools, the majority usually make their decisions starting this coming week.
I think we can do a few different things if people want to make a board specifically for results.
1) create an admissions/rejections thread. I’ve seen this done in other boards (I think Lit has one if i’m not mistaken).
2) create a decisions thread a little early
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5 minutes ago, ltr317 said:
@DGrayson it's not completely silent. Either eighteen decisions today or reported today.
I think some depend on time zones. For me, at a certain time (usually around 8 pm), posts updated are given a time stamp for the next day. That, and quite a few are just updates--still useful though. Generally speaking, however, there doesn't seem to be a lot of movement on the weekends.
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4 minutes ago, hrmit said:
Hey I keep seeing people posting info about specific dates that universities sent out letters on, in previous years. Where are you getting this info??
The results section of this website. There’s a bar for it up at the top of the site or you can just google it.
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4 minutes ago, khigh said:
Well, you don't have to worry about me posting about it anymore. Denied admission.
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5 minutes ago, pim81590 said:
@lordtiandao thanks for the heads-up re: UCLA. Have you heard anything from Berkeley yet? I was surprised no acceptances or rejections were sent today.
I was too. There was someone who posted about being waitlisted but I wonder if they called their POI. Apparently Berkeley sends out some acceptances first and then rejections a couple of days later, at least according to the past entries. Unless they are waiting to do everything at once, I think we may see acceptances in the next couple of days and then rejections shortly after.
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12 minutes ago, CBC said:
haven't contacted him. Been in touch with another early modernist.
I’ve heard no, but I can’t remember from where/whom.
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4 minutes ago, Imenol said:
Where is Trivellato going?
Princeton’s Advanced Institute.
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19 minutes ago, CBC said:
How prestigious is a History PhD from Yale compared to those of other top schools like Harvard or Princeton, especially if the concentration is global early modern history?
It really depends on where your particular concentration is. For religion, particularly western religion, I would argue that Yale is better in the Early Modern department than either Princeton or Harvard. For economic history, however, I would go with Harvard, as Yale is about to lose Trivellato.
What i’m trying to say is that while prestige of the department matters, and all three programs are well regarded, what matters more in terms of getting a job is the reputation of your advisor. For this, fit is the most important.
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Also, Berkeley should be sending something out soon given last years data! Fingers crossed!
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13 minutes ago, gsc said:
Obviously a livable stipend for 5 years + health insurance, but that should be your baseline.
YMMV for the following points, but I've spent a lot of time crunching numbers and (as a grad student) sitting in town hall meetings and here would be my $0.02.
TAship vs fellowship breakdown is the first thing to consider. When you have your 5 years of funding, how many of those are TAships? TAships eat up your time, even if you love it. Fellowship years give you more flexibility — work on developing other skills, time to go to faraway archives. If your departmental funding is mostly through TAships, what fellowships are available through the graduate school? Do students regularly get extended time off to go to archives?
Second thing is to consider is funding beyond the 5th year. What do 6th and 7th years do for funding? Are there additional TAships for those students? Assistantships in the school writing center, or in another department? Does the department offer completion fellowships that students can apply for? What about the graduate school, and if so, is the history department competitive in those competitions? You're looking for some sign that those students are being given some support, not that they're adjuncting at 3 different universities to make ends meet.
After this point, there's a number of other things to look for — what all fit into the nebulous category of "financial resources." By and large, they won't be enumerated in your offer letter, but they make a material difference on your life in the program regardless.
- Summer funding. It's unlikely that you'd have a school that always gives you money every summer. So 1) you want to see if the stipend is generous enough to allow you to save money for the months in the summer in which you are not getting paid, and 2) if you get some amount of money, $1000 to $3000, that you can do with as you will, either for maintenance costs (if #1 is a no-go) or (even better) to do some preliminary research. That is important because getting to do preliminary research trips your 1st and 2nd summers will jumpstart your research. So if your offer letter comes with, say, a special $2500 stipend for your first summer — very nice.
- If there isn't designated summer money (and even if there is), are there travel grants for graduate students? I'm talking small grants, like $500 or $750, but those add up. A $750 grant is 3/4 of the way to an international plane ticket.
- Conference travel is a similar game. While it's unlikely that a school will bankroll all your conference expenses all the time, is there a travel fund that students can apply for money from? Many schools have these across the graduate school (so look out for those) but if there's a department travel fund, so much the better.
- Also, your graduate student union. Does your school have one? Hopefully it does. What concessions has it gotten for grad students recently?
A lot of grad school finance is fluid. Money that's available for students one year can disappear the next as funding sources dry up, grant periods end, or a particular pool of money gets distributed in a different way. And alternatively, new funding sources can become available! So looking for specific things (does the program have X, Y, Z) is helpful only to a point. You could talk to a fifth year who says yes, she applied for a departmental travel grant to do summer research, a third year who says she applied for summer money from the graduate school, and a first year who says, I got $1000 from the department free of charge. You could talk to one sixth year who got a TA-ship in the English department, another who won a grad school completion fellowship, and another who got a semester of dept fellowship and a semester TA-ship. It's six of one and half dozen of the other. The commonality here is that most people were able to piece something together and do what they needed to do, which is what you're looking for.
Finally, you want to know what resources are available through the department, and which are available through the graduate school (School of Graduate Studies) or other multi-departmental bodies (School of Arts and Sciences, International Programs, etc). It's important that both have opportunities available. A school that cares about its graduate students has resources devoted to them at the level of the graduate school; it's not a bunch of balkanized departments fighting over scraps. These are usually listed online, so you can do your research. This is a list of internal grad school fellowships at my undergrad – https://www.grad.uiowa.edu/internal-fellowships — you can see at the bottom of the page that some fellowships are listed as "discontinued," because the money that supported them either ran out or wasn't renewed. But you can also see how some fellowships are listed as "new." This stuff changes ALL the time.
This is incredibly helpful! I think in regards to teaching, however, that it is important to keep in mind that the majority of academic jobs available to those on the job market are not going to be at R1 style institutions, so having teaching experience and being comfortable in the classroom is a must. This isn’t to say that you should go crazy and teach every semester at the expense of your dissertation, but something to keep in mind!
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48 minutes ago, noctua said:
Hi everyone! This is my first application season (just got my BA from a liberal arts college in the Midwest in December) and I applied to a mix of History and Ancient History (Classics) PhD programs. I got an email from my POI last week that I was accepted into Ohio State with full funding (!!!), but haven't heard anything from the other 8 schools I applied to.
I would love some advice-- on Thursday, I was nervous after checking the Results page and seeing so many UPenn interview requests, so I went on my application page and saw (to my horror) that its status was "materials needed" because they didn't have my GRE scores. I emailed immediately and was told that they found my scores and linked them to my application, and that it should not affect the application process. But, so many interviews and acceptances have gone out already. Should I be worried? Obviously I had a slim shot of getting in anyway, but I'm concerned my application didn't even make it to the AC yet.
I actually just went through my old email with the grad coordinator at Penn. She had me put my scores directly into the application and said that they would check the system if need be. So it's likely not a problem. While this may not be helpful for you, I figured I would leave it here for others.
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31 minutes ago, noctua said:
Hi everyone! This is my first application season (just got my BA from a liberal arts college in the Midwest in December) and I applied to a mix of History and Ancient History (Classics) PhD programs. I got an email from my POI last week that I was accepted into Ohio State with full funding (!!!), but haven't heard anything from the other 8 schools I applied to.
I would love some advice-- on Thursday, I was nervous after checking the Results page and seeing so many UPenn interview requests, so I went on my application page and saw (to my horror) that its status was "materials needed" because they didn't have my GRE scores. I emailed immediately and was told that they found my scores and linked them to my application, and that it should not affect the application process. But, so many interviews and acceptances have gone out already. Should I be worried? Obviously I had a slim shot of getting in anyway, but I'm concerned my application didn't even make it to the AC yet.
I actually had this too, which was odd because they had said previously they would match it. I had just assumed that they failed to update it. I can see where it would become a problem if they did not consider "complete" applications, but if they said that it should not affect the process... I may also call them tomorrow.
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Congrats to the person who got into Yale! I haven't heard anything about when the decision should be going out officially, but I think it'll likely be sometime next week.
- worldpeasplease and Guest345
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53 minutes ago, JVirginia said:
I was wondering if someone could help me out with some recommendations. Currently, I'm an history undergrad at a top ten public university, working on my undergrad honor's thesis. My thesis revolves around neoliberalism, communism, and the LGBT community in 1980s Britain. I have language skills in latin and am developing skills in French. I've been looking for Modern European PhD programs in the U.S. with a strong emphasis on cultural British history and gender and sexuality. Are there any great departments I should be keeping in mind?
You may want to make a separate topic for this. Not everyone on the History board reads this thread.
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57 minutes ago, FreakyFoucault said:
Seconded! Hopefully schools will follow another choice Backstreet Boys song from the same album: "Anywhere for You"
At this point I'd be happy with "The Call"...
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5 minutes ago, Kingsouth said:
Apologies if I'm wrong about Lake, I was informed that he wasn't. And similar position to yourself, Colley didn't mention anything when I spoke to her and a few others at Princeton seemed to under the impression she would.
...may have wasted a hundred or so dollars if she isn't. Just another thing to pile on top this mountain of worry I'm currently walking around with.
I don't know anything anymore!
I just heard speculation about Colley though.
Fall 2018 Applicants
in History
Posted
Sorry! Columbia.