pro Augustis

@AP and @rising_star have both given helpful advice. All I have to contribute is rather more basic. When I write an annotated bibliography, I find it helpful to start thinking about each source with the very simple question: "why have I included this source?" Obviously you need to go deeper than that in the final product, but I find that the question can be a good way to start thinking about what exactly it is that each of these works offer that makes them relevant to your project.

As @telkanuru said, it really depends where you are in your undergraduate career. It is possible to make the switch, but it gets harder (and more costly) with each passing year. I discovered that ancient history was something that I really wanted to pursue toward the end of my sophomore year, at which point the languages had to become a serious priority. Summer courses are what can save you—CUNY, Columbia, Texas, and doubtless others offer intensive programs that cover introductory and intermediate Latin and Greek. I did one before my Junior year and one before my Senior. Once you've done those summer courses, you need to be taking courses in that language every year. As @Calgacus pointed out, these are not just hoops to jump through but also chances to learn more about the ancient world through in-depth examination of a particular source. In my case, once I graduated from my undergrad my language background was still a bit low, so I did a post-bac and then applied. I got into all the MAs I applied to and some of the PhDs, so it is possible. Admittedly, my path was more toward ancient history within a classics department than within a history department, but the broad trends still hold. Most of the elite history departments will have roughly the same language requirements as classics ones. Moreover, I have been told by several professors that the greater flexibility in preparing for some history departments is largely illusory: sure, X Latin classes are not specified as they would be in Classics, but if you do not take roughly that number and get your language skills up you either won't be admitted or will be unable to keep up once there. One final thought: one of my undergraduate professors came to the languages late and did a masters in religious studies, where he could get funding without any language background, while he developed his languages. This of course only works if your interests have enough of a religion component to be viable in such a department, but it is still something to consider. Best of luck with it all, and do let me know if there is anything else about the languages or ancient history more broadly that I can help with.

Good luck!

It varies so much by school that I don't think that generalizations are possible. In my own case, my TAship involves a tuition remission and a sum of money to live off of. Some of the schools I applied to offered sums for TAships that were, however, more token than survivable.

Posselius sounds fascinating—I didn't realize that there was much Greek at all at the time. My pace is a great deal less incredible than it seems. I am not working on all of that stuff at once but am trying to devote one or two hours a day to Latin, Greek, or German. On those days I do the collaborative stuff first and, if I have time left over, read some of the other material.

I don't know much about Posselius—what makes him interesting? I feel you about having far too many ideas of things to read/research! I have something like half a dozen projects operative right now, partially as a legacy of making my summer plans and then, a short while in, have a friend suggest we read through some texts together. Being apparently fond of fragmentation, I am now proceeding with both plans. In Latin I am reading Cicero's Catalinarian speeches because I have read surprisingly little Cicero to this point and, while I so far do not love him, I know that I need to give him more of a chance and, at the very least, learn to understand/respect him. When in the mood for something less polemical, I'm reading chapters of that classic of Latin literature, Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis. With the aforementioned friend I am working through the North and Hillard prose comp book. In Greek I am doing Xenophon's Anabasis myself and Thucydides' Archaeology with the friend. Then to keep my German sharp I am reading Alföldi's Die monarchische Repräsentation in römischen Kaiserreiche at a painfully slow pace. Finally, I am trying to read some important monographs that I have not yet gotten to. So far I have done Syme's Tacitus and am going to start Millar's Emperor in the Roman World in the next few days.

Congratulations on your good news, @Quamvis. The questions you are wondering about are ones that I am still trying to figure out myself, so I can't give answers but can share my thoughts. There really is something intimidating about writing in a field that has been worked upon for millennia. Researchers have not, however, been interested in asking the same questions for millennia. I sometimes wonder if all that will be known about Rome has already been discovered. But books like Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire or Imperial Ideals in the Roman West astound me and seem like huge steps forward in understanding how Romans thought about the political order of their world. The odds that there remained great things to say in 2000 and 2011, when the above books were released, but that they are all gone now seem... low. Of course, that doesn't guarantee that I myself will have anything great to say. For that I think we can only hope and try our hardest. I did recently have the thrilling experience of, for the first time, stumbling upon a sort of ideological motif that I don't think has been sufficiently treated and got to feel like I had something to contribute. It sounds like you had a similar experience with your work on Theocritus. If it happened to us once, it hopefully will again. As for the languages, I think that a balance is needed. Grad school certainly does have a reading component: if you are at a program with survey courses, as most seem to, you will be reading 700-1000 lines a week and getting a good feel for a plethora of authors. More than that, the fact that reading stops being as focused upon in classes and the like does not mean that you have to stop. One of my professors this year said that he, after decades spent in Classics, just realized that he had never read Pliny's Natural History. He is now working through the whole thing in Latin. I don't see any reason why you, once you have passed your exams and honed your research skills, cannot also keep reading, and I imagine that such continued and protracted reading would only benefit your work.

Thanks as ever for your veteran advice, @Sigaba & @kotov. For my english-language readings this summer, I am trying to have a balance between some of the classic studies (Millar's Emperor in the Roman World, Syme's Tacitus) and work from the professors I will be working with next year that sounds particularly interesting. Being in such a language-heavy field, I will also be doing readings in Latin (the parts of Tacitus' Histories I and Annals IV I haven't yet gotten to, then some speeches of Cicero for a more relaxing finish), Greek (the start of Thucydides, Xenophon's Anabasis, and finishing Oedipus), and German, though I have not yet figured out what German I want to focus on. Theodor Mommsen would be the obvious choice, but I have heard that his German is very tough, and my comprehension is not yet superb. On a lighter note, I will also be wandering around the Mediterranean for a few weeks later this summer, and I can't wait to stand in the Pantheon.

What are you particularly interested in in ancient history? If you want Roman History narrative history type stuff, then I'd recommend checking out: A. Adrian Goldsworthy. He did military history for a time and then, so far as I can tell, set off to write narrative histories of every second of Roman History. I've just read his Roman Army and Caesar stuff, but I hear good things about him in general. B. Mary Beard's SPQR. She ends in the early third century, which drives me nuts because Rome was still kicking for quite a while after that, but that is not a knock against the quality of the book so much as a pet peeve... C. David Potter's Empire at Bay if you want a sort of chronological sequel to SPQR.

1. In your time working there, you'd work with more than one person in the department, so what is the problem with talking to multiple people now? 2. I think that the quantity of their work that you mention matters a lot less than how you talk about it and connect it to your own. I think it's better to say that you used their article when writing your senior thesis and were wondering about their thoughts of X issue related to that than it is to say that you've read all seven books they've written and provide no details about why those books are relevant for the work you want to do. I also can't imagine them demanding you to have read their whole output.

How does it differ from the standard Classics PhD? I am going to UT Austin and am looking forward to the move south in the fall. The class list looks spectacular (The Senate and the Emperor? Roman Religion? Epigraphy and the Economy of the Greek City? yes to all of the above, please), and I have just made plans to room with some of my cohort-mates.

Congratulations on WashU! I have a friend there who loves it, though he isn't doing Classics stuff. Also you get Karen Acton, who seems super cool (though admittedly more on the history side).

Yeah, Wednesday was not a fun day. Lots of going up to people and explaining that, though I said I had gotten into Michigan the day before, that apparently had not in fact happened. In a way it's better that the ultimate rejection had nothing to do with me as an applicant, but it also just makes it feel super arbitrary. Anyway, though, I still feel lucky to have a cool program to go to. Now I just need to figure out how to find an apartment in Texas and make a password that their site won't reject as too easy (it's so picky!).

Thanks! Unfortunately, the Michigan thing ended up falling through. I woke up the next morning to an email beginning with apologies and explaining that, while the department wants to admit me, the university isn't giving them funding for wait list admits. So that was possibly the most anticlimactic experience of my life. But there is an upside: I'm going to Texas, which is official as of a few minutes ago. So lots of Romans and no winter in the next few years. I'm excited.

This is the sort of question that is, I think, very hard to answer in the abstract: it entirely depends on what your goals are and what school exactly your safety school is. For some people a safety school is ranked 11th in their field rather than 1st; for others, it's 50th. You don't need to tell us that information if you don't want to, obviously, but I would encourage you to think about the merits of your safety school on its own terms rather than in comparison with the program you wanted most. After all, applications are a crap shoot, and applying next year with a stronger application does not guarantee a better result. So, in your position, the questions I would think about are: 1) what kind of job do you want and have people from this school gotten those sorts of positions? 2) what sort of training do you want in grad school and can you get it from this school? Also, remember that choice of school matters a lot, but so does the choice of an individual advisor. A well-respected advisor means a lot.

Apologies for the double post... but I just got into Michigan. Very excited but am going to take the next twenty-four hours to reflect on it before making a final decision.

I am still waiting on Michigan. Honestly not super sure how the logistics of it all are supposed to work. I have heard that some schools call on the fifteenth itself. But one presumably cannot wait too long for that call, as that is also the deadline to accept other offers...

Michigan if I get off the waitlist, UT Austin if not.

Thanks! I sent the decline email this morning, after obsessively rewriting it a time or ten.

I officially declined my Chapel Hill offer this morning, so if you are on the wait list there you will hopefully get some good news soon.

That makes a lot of sense. Do you think anything substantial changes if you haven't narrowed your options down to one? I am trying to decline one school but still have two options. Writing the email as "X and Y seem to fit my research interests better" for some reason makes me feel like I am telling this school that they came in last place, though I acknowledge that I am probably just overthinking things...

I can't say what it's like, but I do know someone admitted there who is likely to decline their offer. So if you want in, you may get your wish. I know they have J. E. Lendon, whose historical work is quite good, but I don't know about their poetry side.

I have a friend who applied to UT for philosophy and is presently on a sort of unofficial waitlist. He was told that they would love to have him, don't presently have the spot/funding for it, but that might change as other people decline. Sounds like a waitlist to me. Of course, I have no idea if every department there operates in the same fashion.

I think that one depends a lot on you and on the kind of environment you think that you could thrive in. For me, a sense of community is important, because I don't make friends easily and so could imagine being very isolated in grad school if the cohort doesn't bond. But I know other people like to make their friendships outside of school.

If it's not too late, I would say that asking some variant of "why did you choose to come here?" to present grad students is a good idea. I did, and everyone seemed happy to share their thought process. I don't think it's the kind of question that needs to be asked one on one in hushed tones, but the group Q&A might not be the proper place for it. As for other questions, it really depends on what factors are important to you in your decision. Maybe you could ask about how your potential advisors are to work with, what teaching responsibilities or examinations are like, or what classes are to be taught in the near future.