Emerson

If you're like me, you are anxious to come up with stuff to take you mind off of pending decisions. (Though I am not one of them, I'm sure Wisconsin applicants are at their wit's ends by now.) Even better, positive thinking always makes us feel good about ourselves, even if it makes the impending crash more painful. Thus, I propose a fun distraction: After you are accepted at your dream school, work with your ideal advisor, and land a tenure-track position (or at least a serviceable post-doc), what will be the title and thesis of your first book? (Necessary footnote before everyone jumps on me: yes, I know the statistics that very few--if any--of us will land in such an ideal situation. And yes, I am aware that it is almost certain that we will change once you make it through comps and progress in your dissertation. This is just a fun exercise in imagination, ok?) Mine will be, (very) tentatively titled, "Romantic Democracy: Idealist Thought and the Democratic Tradition in Antebellum America." A very crude, brief, and simplistic summury is thus: It will explore the influence of British Romanticism and German Idealism during the middle nineteenth century America, and how it effected political thought and democratic discourse. While common sensism--especially biblical common sensism--had been the primary epistemology in the early republic, thinkers in antebellum America. Most especially, strains of neoplatonic thought that had heretofore remained latent began to appear more prominents, starting in religion but expanding into the political sphere. While the Transcendentalists are the most prominent example, the American adaptations of Romantic and idealist thought spread broadly, especially as empiricism began to fall apart as the rhetorical battles over slavery required new epistemological foundations. What about everyone else?

I'm pretty sure it's not bad news, as in a rejection. I would think that it could be either the third of your options, a query whether you'd be willing to do an MA program, or something of that sort. Or, perhaps it's just good news overall and they want to gauge your interest to see where they rank in your decisions. It's really up in the air, but I'd at least think it is some form of good news. Would you mind telling us what school you are talking about?

When I was a junior, one of my professors gave me the best advice I've ever received: if you want to be a history professor, you need to start acting like a history professor now; if you want to be a grad student, you need to start acting like a grad student now. Specifically, he meant that I should spend a lot of time on publications and conference presentations. For the last three years (my senior year and my two years of master's work) I've taken that advice to heart and luckily now have a good amount of publications and presentations under my belt. (If I get a funded offer, I'll mostly have my vita to thank.) Currently, I am going through the final revision process with editors on two articles that are slated to appear either late this year or early next year (one is a revised version of last year's MA thesis, the other was my senior's thesis--they took forever to accept it), putting final touches on another article before submitting it to a journal's special issue this weekend, slowly finishing another article that I don't plan on submitting until later this summer, and making painfully slow progress on a conference paper for the Draper Conference in Early American History in March. I try to keep myself busy so I don't hit the "refresh" button on thegradcafe every ten minutes or so. As for non-academic activities, my wife and I just welcomed our second child into the world, so that keeps my nights busy.

Get used to waiting for BU. The status they will tell you at the end of January will most likely be whether it is complete or not, as you likely already imagine. I didn't hear back from them until March 17 last year. I was accepted, but couldn't go unless they offered funding. By the April 15th deadline, they still hadn't made funding decisions, so I had to defer admission.

Did your applications specifically ask if you could fund your education? If they did, then I think it is definitely a major point in your favor. Of the six schools I applied to, only one of them has a specific question of whether I was able to provide my own funding or not. But it may be a department thing.

I hate to be a parrot, but I echo all of this. "Managing" your internet presence is a must. I comment at a few academic-oriented blogs, and often use my full name, so this mindset makes sure that I alway say something respectable and that won't come back to bite me. Also, do register an academia profile. It is a great way to make yourself look professional and spread your interests/achievements/etc. Academia has a great tracker that allows you to see when your name is googled, what words they used when searching, and what country of origin the search came from. I'm very confident in saying that adcoms google applicants, because I always see a spike in searches during the weeks that admissions committees begin meeting. Biggest downfall for me: some idiot who shares my name broke into an apartment in the same town I live in, and photographs of said idiot are near the top of the results whenever my name is googled. Even somewhat looks like me, too. Luckily it says that it happened long before I moved here, but you actually have to click on the website to find that out. I really hope searchers don't think it's me.

I've subscribed for the last two years and have loved it. They have loads of useful tools online that make membership worth it. I really wish I could have attended AHA this year, but funds kept me away--as well as the fact that my wife and I are expecting our second-born any day now.

He speaks the truth. Shoot me now.

Professor X: "Let's see what we have here. Applicant 'A.' Decent grades, a long publication list, two foreign languages, fair GRE scores, demonstrates familiarity with key issues in the field..." Professor Y: "Wait, wait, wait. Let's give this a closer look. Sure his grades are good, but he has bounced around different programs like he has no sense of purpose. Since he graduated with his BA, he has gone through two graduate programs, each with a different school and in a different field. I see no reason to believe he has the disciplined rigor to succeed in history. He has no vision: he is just wandering around intellectually--an academic prostitute, if you will." Professor Z: "Yeah, and a majority of his publications are on obscure topics published in non-elite journals. I mean, The Journal of Mormon History? Pshaww!" Professor X [finally seeing the light]: "You're right. Now that I think of it, his languages are somewhat lacking as well. One was mostly honed while doing church service in Washington DC--no academic rigor involved! The other was, besides one semester of a 'readings' course--we all know how effective those are--developed in personal study. Sure, Applicant A, we can believe that...." [snickering commences] Professor Y: "And while his GRE scores are now presentable, he had to take the test three damn times in order to get over the 600 hump! Three times!" [Laughing becomes more noticeable.] Professor Z: "And if that wasn't enough [struggling to contain laughter], his personal statement tries to show how all of this background has helped prepare him for life in academia!" [Restraint is no longer achieved--loud laughter fills the room as all three professors squeal in delight.] Professor X: "You're right, you're right. I'm sorry--I should have seen this from the beginning. OFF WITH HIS HEAD! Err, to the trash with his application!" [The three professors perform a mock funeral ceremony as the application is shredded, burned, and tossed out the window. "At least this gave us a fun respite from the tedious work of admissions," they all thought.] [Across the Atlantic ocean, Applicant A shudders for no apparent reason.] Or something like that.

Just finished reading Leigh Eric Schmidt's Heaven's Bride: The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr, and Madwoman. It was wonderful--I highly recommend it. I just started Alan Taylor's The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies. My guilty pleasure--especially when I am trying to take my mind off of application woes--is a Jack Reacher Novel. I think I have read half of them now.

Strangelight: You're right, of course. I recognize that there has to be some form of entry-level hoop to weed out certain applicants, especially with today's world where there are ridiculous amounts of applications. And I do recognize that adcomms don't place too much emphasis on the scores. I liked the explanation that several department chairs told me this last year: if you get over 600V, then you are in the discussion. I'm just personally bitter against the test because I underachieved on my first two attempts (gulp--a 570V). Applying to grad schools last year, I was accepted to every program that didn't ask for GRE scores (3 in total, including Cambridge), and rejected by every program that did. I know it's simplistic to assume that my GRE scores were the only thing that kept me out of certain schools--there could have been a problem to fit, a stronger competition at other schools, or a myriad of other factors--but, for ego reasons, I like to say the GRE was the thorn in my side. It helps my self-esteem. Fortunately, I have much better GRE scores this year, so hopefully I'll have better results. But, on the other hand, I won't have that crutch anymore if I strike out...

As of fifteen minutes ago, all my PhD applications are in. Here, in no particular order, are my reflections on this round of graduate applications: I utterly hate the GRE. Still. I took it for a third time this year, and while my verbal finally improved, my writing portion dropped (despite my feeling better about it this time around). I still cannon conceive of why US programs still put so much weight on a stupid test.It is ridiculously hard to get UK schools to send transcripts to US schools. At my undergraduate program in the US, they sent any transcripts out same-day. At the two UK institutions I've done my master's degrees at, they took nearly six weeks. And I fear they missed the deadline for a school. Ugh.I don't understand how schools expect an applicant to trim their writing sample--one of the most important parts of the application--to limits like 10 or 15 pages. I wish they would allow longer writing samples and just pick and choose portions to read. I had to cut a 45 page article down to 10 pages--in the end I just picked my favorite section (which was still over ten pages), trimmed it down, but still felt it felt incomplete without the larger framework and arch of the paper.How the heck does UVirginia expect an applicant to fit a PhD proposal in 300 words? Is that even possible? (If you can't tell yet, I have a penchant for being verbose.)I've learned that potential advisors are amazingly more helpful once you've met them in person. I met a few potential advisors while touring schools in June, and I've had very fruitful correspondences with them since then, including detailed helps and critiques on my application. Is everyone else wrapping up their applications? What are your impressions going into the anxiety-riddled next two months?

Not nosy at all. I was just surprised since most americanists have no idea how the college system works!

Badger: Currently Hughes Hall, but if I end up staying I'll be trying to switch over to Jesus. Why do you ask?

I fancy myself an early Americanist, with interests that cover religion, philosophy, and culture. I am especially interested in the tensions of nationalism and internationalism, exceptionalism and cosmopolitanism, and American conceptions of the broader Atlantic world. More specific themes include the development democracy, identity boundaries, evolving notions of citizenship in the early republic, religious legitimacy in the antebellum period, the Transcendentalist movement, and even early Mormonism. So many topics, so little time.

I'm early American cultural, intellectual, and religious history. As I am already enrolled as a graduate student at a respected school with the option for staying on for a PhD, I'm only applying to my dream scenarios: Harvard, BU, UPenn, Virginia, and W&M. GRE: 640V, 660Q, 5.5W GPA: UG 3.7; UG Major 3.8; Graduate, 4.0 My first master's degree earned distinction; my current master's program is one of the most highly regarded of its field. 7 published articles, 5 published book reviews, 16 academic conference presentations. Three years as a research assistant for an acclaimed and endorsed Papers Project. Near fluent in French, reading level in German, primary skills in Spanish. Two years of volunteer work with inner-city communities (primarily western-African immigrants) in Washington DC. And might I add, I always feel good about my chances until i see everyone else's credentials on this forum. Y'all make me feel inferior with your high GPAs and GRE scores.

I totally just went through this problem an hour ago. This is what I did: Open the pdf in Preview, then go to "save as," and then click the "reduce file size" under the "Quartz filter" option. Best of luck!

Happy December 1--which, of course, is the starting point of application deadlines--to everyone! I'm going to celebrate by doing last minute revisions to several applications. And then begin the three months process of biting my nails.

I think I am finally finished with my personal statements, though I'm sure I'll continue tinkering with them until they are turned in. Now I just need to cut down all my writings samples to 20 pages...

Thanks for the heads-up! That is quite the funding package they offer!

It's always fun to meet someone with somewhat similar interests! I may PM you so we can better get to know each other's work--early American intellectual history is an intimate scholarly community, so I'm sure we'll continue running into each other! I focus on the tensions of nationalism and cosmopolitanism during the early republic period--how did American thinkers position their imagined community in relation to the broader atlantic world? I've done a previous master's degree (in historical theology) at the University of Edinburgh, and my thesis examined American responses to Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, arguing that the nation's exceptionalism stemmed from both the declining support of the French Revolution and the perceived de-Christianization process in continental Europe. My current thesis at Cambridge (in political thought and intellectual history) looks at the reception of German idealist philosophy in antebellum philosophy and engages the limits of exceptionalism during the nineteenth century. I plan on broadening the topic for my PhD work, looking at how Americans constructed the foreign "other" from, say, 1776-1845. Still a work in progress, though. Your topic sounds fascinating, and I think the fact that you resist the trend of focusing on the early republic will only help your application stand out. I fortunately met with all my potential advisors on a research trip to the East Coast this past summer: James Kloppenberg and David Armitage at Harvard (and I'd also love to work with Joyce Chaplin and Jill Lepore, as well as Religion's Leigh Eric Schmidt and English's Lawrence Buell; Chris Grasso and Chandos Brown at W&M (Grasso would be my ideal mentor there); Peter Onuf at Virginia; Michael Zuckerman and Steve Hahn at UPenn (Zuckerman, though technically retired, said he would be willing to work with me); and Charles Capper at BU.

I'm another early Americanist, focusing on religious, cultural, and intellectual trends within the Atlantic world. I am currently at Cambridge, but I'm applying to five US schools: Harvard, W&M, Virginia, UPenn, and BU. Though I guess we are in competition against each other, I still wish ya'll the best of luck!

Ha! That's what I get for trying to reply while listening to a lecture.

I think Chicago does as well, at least in the Divinity School which has several history-focused programs. I second the recommendation for an international school's 1 year PhD. It is a great way to bolster your vita, give you more experience, and better prepare you for the PhD scene while you get to enjoy living abroad. I just did a program in Edinburgh, and it was beyond amazing (both in a scholarly and personal sense).

Amen to the previous responders. I've been told many times that once you are over 600, you get your foot in the door. The rest depends on the other, more important parts of the application. Congrats on your fine score.