AP

My defaults are Oxford Bibliographies and History Compass.

I think you are saying two very different things. On the one hand, you are bummed about the prospect of not continuing into a Phd. On the other, you are struggling with accepting this as a 'professional' piece of criticism. It is very hard not to take things personally because we sacrifice a lot to be in grad school. I'm an international student, and I left a good job, my friends, my things behind to come here. It was my choice, a personal choice about my professional life. So, like you, sometimes I find it hard not to take things personally. Further, I think of all my friends attending grad school with children! They literally leave a piece of them aside to be here. The way to cope with this is knowing very clearly where the line between personal and professional is. For example, a professor sent me an e-mail today about a possible professionalization seminar (ironic, right?) he will give the Tuesday after Labor Weekend. I told him my family is going to be visiting until Wednesday and that, if possible, I'd prefer the seminar to be any other day that week. My family doesn't visit much, never actually. So I'm not going to sacrifice one day with them for one seminar. I know this now, in fourth year. I'm sure this line I talk about will shift because life changes. Now, yes, it is his job to be honest with you and you should be thankful for that honesty. If he is a mentor to you like you said, saying those things must have been really hard. That said, I'm sure that you can work out a plan together. Big questions to ask: Why does he think you won't succeed? What skills does he think you haven't fully developed? What evidence does he have to support this? Did you know you needed these skills? What broad change do you need to do? Smaller questions to ask: What can you do each month or each week to improve your situation? [Anecdote: after my first class in my first semester with my advisor, she sent me an e-mail about my final paper. It was a horrible e-mail, not because of what she said but because of what I felt. I went to her office and she walked me through the paper. It was a messy paper. She gave me one week to correct it otherwise, I'd be out. I don't know where I got the strength to do this, but I nailed it and stayed]. Talk to your advisor.

"Relationship"? The people that knew POIs from before (had worked together somehow) had some rapport. I didn't develop a relationship, in fact I was very distant from my current advisor. I honestly have no clue how she accpeted me!

Hispanists as we all understand Spanish? Yes. Also, Brazil is a huge field in itself. You know your fields and you know what you need better than me. Still, I'm not saying don't get someone in your country concentration, I'm just positing the possibility of having them at another stage. The few East Asianists I know sat for three quals: World history, East Asia, and their specific country of focus. If @narple is having a difficult time making a case for their research focused on Korea at this stage, then maybe thinking in broader terms (comparative history) can help them consider other names. Later on, things can work very differently –projects can change, advisors might leave, your interests may shift– and right now you want to get accepted to a program that fits your needs.

I'm not an Asianist, but do you absolutely need a Koreanist right now? I ask this because in my case (I'm a Latinamericanist) and other people's (from other fields) our primary advisor is not a person who studies our country but we do have specialist in our dissertation committee from outside the department/campus. So I would consider also finding a POI specialized in world history/East Asian history/studies more generally or comparative history so that they can advise you on your broader perspective during coursework/exams and cultivate a relationship with a Koreanist for the dissertation. It's just an option.

I'm of the opinion that you must pursue other interests. I agree with you: that person was exaggerating. We all need a way to distract ourselves, to turn stress, worries, questions into something productive. I practice sports: I joined two clubs and an intramural team, I go to gym/swim/run, and I even picked up two new sports during my comps/prospectus because it was a way to also learn something new and accompanying the process of intellectual 'acquisition'. That said, I don't know how serious you can be about an instrument. I know of people how participated in some small performance events because, like you, had a semi-professional past. I also know of people who joined choirs/church bands as a means to channel this. Others collaborated with the performing arts department for fundraisers. I tried to resume piano lessons but they were too pricey for my stipend. I sense you will have to come to grips with the fact that you may not keep up with your professional pace. For example, in my program we don't have any responsibilities in first year other than doing well. That was a great time for me to feel at home doing sports I practiced at home, it was a way of adjusting. During my second year it was harder to keep up with team sports and in my third year it was impossible, hence I picked up individual sports. Lay out the five-six years ahead of you and think about your PhD requirements (teaching, coursework, comps, etc). If you know what's happening when, you'll be able to tune the amount of time you devote to your music. But by no means abandon it.

Your first paragraph is not discussing the topic. The topic is state funding for the arts and your first paragraph can be understood as 'enclosing' the arts for private entertaining. In addition, when discussing a policy, GRE requires you also discuss possible consequences of your view (you timidly touched on it with the propaganda claim, but for the opposite view than yours). Further, remember this is a logical explanation. Your last two sentences are very emotional. I understand what you are saying, but that's not the point. Finally, you are wasting space you could use to strengthen your position by using unnecessary wording. For example, line 6, "Min of Cult develop and produce more and more a kind of 'customized' art production with a straight and obvious touch of feigned patriotism" can easily be: "Min of Cult have increasingly developed customized art tainted with feigned patriotism".

Line 2, movie or movie. I assume this is not for a subject GRE but for the general, right?

You should delineate your broad questions and why answering them in a particular place/time is compelling to you. The SOP is not a dissertation prospectus. It is your monologue justifying how going to X school makes sense to answer those questions. You will need geography/chronology because you are applying to work under the supervision of specific faculty that you must name (and contact). They are standard not because they are required per se but because if you don't, then you are not writing a statement of purpose. I'm not sure I understand your questions. No, don't ramble about your topic of interest and definitely don't do name dropping. You will have an opportunity to do this in your writing sample. The SOP should be about your big questions, your experience as a researcher, the department you are applying to, and how you see yourself in that program. In other words, you should show evidence of a coherent transition between a past, a present, and a future. Again, this is not a project proposal, at least not for US institutions. I strongly suggest you look at SOPs samples, like this one. You can also search for horrible samples as examples of what not to do. They helped me a lot.

I'm so glad someone young said this. This is it. Intellectual and emotional maturity are the key, not age.

Are you required by a track/certificate in the departments you are applying for to submit multimedia writing samples? If the answer is yes, contact them directly to see how each department deals with this. I know film, theater, and other performance arts departments have specific instructions for these type of work. Now, if you are applying for programs with no such support and the multimedia essay is your thing only, then you should minimize the multimedia stuff and give references to your website in the same way that others cite articles, books, scores, and images. A typical writing sample for admission in most humanities departments is evidence of good analysis, coherent narrative, cohesive thinking, and professional presentation. This is an opportunity to show that you can do critical work and present it properly to your audience. If your audience does not support multimedia, then you need to be smart enough to write the piece in such a way that they can click on your links if they want to but they don't need to. AdComms don't have time for this. If part of your future work involves multimedia in any form and your conversations with possible POIs led you to think that this should be present in your application materials, I would talk to them into how this can be done. As an outsider to English Departments but familiar with their work in digital humanities, my sense is that if they are interested in you and what to know more, they may request these materials. You are applying for admission to English, not Media Studies/Film Studies PhD so it seems to me you need to make a case of this (of course, this is based on your post, your SOP maybe stellar in this regard!). Bottomline: Why do you need to submit a multimedia essay? What can you gain from this? What are the disadvantages?

Ohhhh I see!! I'm an international student so I had no idea about comps and committees until I was already in. Professors that I contacted strongly encouraged me to contact the other faculty from the same field because of the reasons you and @TMP mention (namely, that you will most probably work with them as well). It was so hard for me to contact one person that I felt stupid contacting all of them! I don't think I did though. But yes, they might be in your AdComm (read your admission package) and so it can be an intelligent move to contact them after you've talked to your POI. You want people to remember you: "Oh yeah, that's the one who studies Venetian festivals". Good move!

I've learned of POI here, and it still feels weird. I mean, for a POI is a very good TV show!

Do you mean members of the AdComm that are not your POIs?

There is a girl in my program that applied with no graduate students above her. The department decided to open that field and she got in and accepted. She was given a lot of incentives to come and stay, especially with funding that was not available to other students. Now her caucus has about five students (it's a lot in our program, especially for a new field). Her advisor is a well-known scholar, so her LRs may be strong. I am not familiar with her field or yours, but it sounds that it is not so bad to apply for a place where you are the only student.

For what is worth, this is not the last time you will condense your work. Like many things in grad school, many 'first times' occur during application season. I've just condensed a dissertation chapter into a workshop paper, and I'm doing that again with another chapter section for a conference. Because my thesis was from a non-US university, the citation system was different and I included bibliography at the end (within the page limit). Remember that schools use portals that sometimes prevent you from uploading more than the stipulated page number. Oh, and please, please don't do the smaller font/wider margins short cut to get more words per page.

Great exercise! Thanks for that too. I forgot to say @webbks that my best resource was a blatant friend. He read my SOPs with no mercy and chopped out all my weepy paragraphs. Keep someone like that close to you. Regarding websites... I can't recall any other but I think I also googled "terrible SOPs for grad school" or something like that. Sometimes it is helpful to see what not to do. (maybe this one?)

I seriously doubt it. And you wouldn't want that either. Undergraduate and graduate work is completely different, even in the same course. As a grad student, you want to squeeze all the opportunities you get to build for your comps, your prospectus, and your dissertation so bringing in coursework you did as an undergrad is simply not good decision. As undergrad and grad students we are different scholars. I graduated pretty late, and I can tell you I'm not the same person when I defended my senior thesis than when I applied to grad school three months later, than when I got accepted three months later, than when I started, six months later. You want opportunities to grow as a scholar, and seminars/grad courses are the first of those. The worst thing that could happen when you get grad school is that you have to retake this exact same course and... ace it.

@hats has provided excellent advice, including that Berkeley SOP (I used it myself as a sample). I cannot stress enough that this is not a personal statement, but a statement of purpose. In our field, the SOP needs to show competence: Competence to ask good questions, competence to think of a plan to get good answers, and competence to learn. See the SOP from Berkley and you'll notice the author does not rumble, they show evidence. As you can see, this is a professional statement, not a personal one. The drama of your life should not appear. We all have drama, we all overcame terrible hurdles of many kinds, and standing out as a needy student will not get you in [I'm not saying you, @webbks, are; this is a broader response to other people in this forum]. Yes, studying abroad is relatively common. Yet, not everyone experiences it the same way (I have taught in studying abroad programs so I can vouch for this). So think on how grew. Did you develop better questions/more precise research interests? Did you participate in workshops/conferences? Did you do an internship? Display the evidence of that growth. I agree with @hats, again, in their suggestion of the research project but I also know people that got into R1 programs with no project. I have no idea how they did it, but I sense it has to do more with the broader questions that they brought than the specific project per se. I can definitely see them having a good SOP with excellent research questions and arguing that the POIs they chose would be the best to guide them through them. Finally, I want to address your question on uniqueness. This is a very historian-ly question, right? We study not general trends but the difference, change over time, the unique. The SOP should not show you are unique because that assumption would get you in anywhere you apply, but that doesn't happen. Hence, is a question of your unique education as a historian fitting in a specific department. Does this make some kind of sense? (It's pretty early here, sorry!)

150 pages. It could have been shorter since I was a worse writer then and used to ramble a lot.

Omit the cover page. It is not necessary because most programs do admissions through portals which prepare the package with a cover page for each applicant. Choose one of your American History papers since the Americanists will most likely read them. Take the time to condense them into a coherent whole. This is a sample, not a paper per se so there are some things that can be abridged. For example, I rewrote a summary of my thesis so I dropped much of the details of the methods section and focused on the analysis.

Condense it. I rewrote my 150-page thesis into 25. The point is not the effort, it's the evidence that shows you can do historical analysis and present it in a convincing, relatively professional manner (intro/analysis/conclusion clearly stated, well-articulated paragraphs, well presented source(s) and their analysis, etc). Here less is more. If they say 35 pages, do not submit 50. Just don't.

Greetings! I'll be on the market this year mainly for postdocs. I'm a little unaware on how important this is, how long it takes, and the fact that I'm actually on the market so I am consciously doing these little things to force me realize. So, here I am! I'm so ready for the stupid questions I may ask! For example: There is this postdoc position I want to apply for but there is no reference as to whom to address the cover letter. The only reference is "Dean of Studies" but the dean isn't doing the search so I can't address the letter to him/her. I was going to go for "Search Committee" such as University of X, Department of Y, Postdoctoral Fellowship in W Studies Search Committee, what do you all think?

Lol, I rented my first apartment 5000 miles away. I feel you. My first year I opted for a university-endorsed complex fairly off campus but with a campus shuttle, a bank, post office, and grocery store within walking distance. Another time I also did the renting from abroad and had about seven Skype interviews. They are great for getting a sense of the space, so ask for house tours! Sometimes pictures can make something look brighter or bigger. I remember a room in a house in a great location but the room was significantly smaller than I thought.

This is very important advice; not merely good, but important: @elefish92, bottomline, you still have work to do. This is great because you can begin to plan your next three years accordingly. My suggestion is to take these years an opportunity to grow intellectually: identify your research interests, participate in events/projects, expand your horizon, polish your ideas. You'll see how much of a different person you are in two years and how to use that to your advantage. and good luck!