AP

The good part is that a) You were right, your application was strong. Unfortunately, that does mean that you got accepted into the program you wanted. I really hate this part of academia, where having a strong application is not the same as being accepted/granted funding/offered a job. This is part of what we are getting ourselves into, and it's better to get acquainted with it now. b)Someone "applied" for you and you didn't have to pay for that, yay! c) Your interests were taken into account, which seems they were clear and strong because of a) The not so good part is d) Yeah, you might get rejected, but rejection is a part of the life we choose. Unfortunately, our world doesn't prepare well enough for these moments. There are many things I could say to you but at this point, when you don't know, it is pointless (so fingers crossed). e) You might get in the Biochemistry program and still resent not being in the Chemistry department. Do you see this as a possibility? f) It's not up to you. I know you know this, and I know you've heard it a million times but it's never a bad to hear it: It.is.not.up.to.you. Letting go and allowing Adcomms do their job is VERY hard. And it happens with every grant, every job, every anything you will apply for. You just want to stand right there, in front of the committee and tell them, 'Admit me, I am awesome!' But if you can come to grips with the idea that you did your best, and that is a great accomplishment, then you'd feel (maybe) a little less disheartened. Anyway, the only thing that will help right now is a hug and some liquor.

Congrats to all this acceptances. For those of you who did not receive anything yet, hang in there!

Go to a nutritionist on campus. They know the nutrients you need and they know the stress of school. They are the professionals that can help. They helped me a lot.

I think it's going to be harder for us international students going into the job market than for F1 applicants. We are the ones that we'll be "taking" jobs, although academia maybe raided -lack of a better word- altogether.

I know the application cycle is over and all, but you contact Silvana Rosenfeld at the University of South Dakota. She is an archaeologist of the Andes who specializes in food archaeology. She might be helpful in your research as you advance in your PhD.

Clearly, you want some support in your deceit because you think you are not harming anyone. Maybe so. I disagree completely even if it is a tiny lie. I will give you reasons not to do it: 1) By lying in your application you are consciously giving yourself an unfair advantage. Would you like someone lying on their CV? Tampering their GPA? Inflating their publications? 2) By submitting your application you are confirming that the information is "correct". Tell me, what is going to stop you when you apply for a job, a grant, an RA position? Do you think I am exaggerating? Let me give you the example of a scholar (in my field) that based his career on lies: Have you heard of 'Arming America'? The author based his book on non-existent sources. 3) If you are not ready to take responsibility for your grades, you are not mature enough to be in grad school. Browse the forums here. There are many people that had bad GRE scores for many reasons -it was hard, they were not having a good day, they were having personal problems, etc.- and they all ask how to work around them in the rest of the application. 4) You can do better. If you plan to take the subject test again and do better, you past results combined with the new one will show progress. Progress is promising in grad school. Bottomline: don't lie. Use your 'weaknesses' to your advantage. Show resilience, maturity, and resolve. Be more than your subject test.

In addition, you might to browse around diabetes.org, College Diabetes Network, and this presentation.

Hold on, I your visa was approved, they should have sent you your passport with the new visa. They didn't do this? But you still had the paper that said it did? (they give you a slip for you to pick up your passport at the nearest post office)

I wouldn't worry. They are obviously typos and if someone thinks they are not, they are fixable mistakes (i.e. you could be quickly taught how to fix them). Another piece of advice: as a rule of thumb I NEVER EVER look back on the applications I sent unless I have to. For the future, spare yourself this frustration by not reading again what you sent. I re-read my sample (not even my SOP) only when one of my advisors still remembered it two years later.

DGS. Although I have never e-mailed one (unless it was a POI). Ditto to contacting grad students as well. I can't stress this enough.

If you are given a name tag (assuming you are talking about an interview weekend), you can write the pronouns beneath your name; I've seen people do that at conferences. I have no idea if my school ask for preferred pronouns in applications. If it doesn't, I would like to know for interview weekend (we -grad students- host events for visiting applicants). I guess I would expect our program coordinator to know this, she is the type of person that gathers information of all sorts to accommodate everyone. So you could contact the coordinator to clarify this so that the message is properly delivered to who ever you interview with.

I always use a passport bag around my neck. If I carry more, I store it in a pouch beneath my layers. As regards holding your money, yes, you can do that. My boyfriend traveled with a significant amount of cash in our last vacay. He was asked to take the money out of his pouch into the tray and he immediately refused. He was then allowed to have the cash in his hand during screening.

I wouldn't by now.

I'm in the humanities and this doesn't happen. I have friends in the STEM sciences and they had to teach a class they only took the previous year. I don't know how the class plays into their doctoral education, how supervision works, if they were core classes, or if this is discipline-specific. All I can say is that it seems to me it may be more frequent than I initially thought... my two cents.

Your passport is a legal ID. You don't need to have another ID for doing anything else. Actually, your passport is the most legal of your IDs, sort to speak. You can have a US ID, but for getting it you'll need your passport. Once I had a renting company requesting both my ID and passport. Correct me if I'm wrong but there is no weird information in a passport scan for you to cover it. Clearly, a partially covered ID is not useful so you'll have to show them your passport and they will keep a copy of it. They, your bank, and even your university upon your arrival. Your VISA is not part of your ID, and actually it has more sensitive information than the passport front page because it contains what school you attend.

hahahaha great question. Every time I use a GRE word my advisor tells me I sound arrogant and jargony. Except for ubiquitous. That one is allowed

Thanks for sharing that! I'm not going this year but always look forward the DH stuff. Stay warm!

It is my understanding that it depends on the department (not even the school). In my department, it also depends on your field (Eg Latinamericanists interview, Africanists don't). I think that I used TheGradCafe for pretty much all of my interview prep. I read forums and forums on what to expect and what not to say, etc etc. In the end, I was asked pretty difficult questions such as "what you think of Smith's approach to the study of nationalism?" (I had no idea who Smith was) or "when you say [insert quote from SOP], what do you mean?". I remember thinking that I missed the forum with the clever questions. Anyway, the interview went well. I got in, dah, but I also know it went well because my advisor told be years later what a good sense they got of who I was in those 45 minutes. (And yes, I was honest about not knowing who Smith was). Finally, a GREAT piece of advice I took from the forums was to have questions ready. My best question was about how the processed continued once we hanged up. Also, it is the only question I remember asking!

Since your post is also for people "on the same boat" I would advise those other people to proof-read your writing sample. I know it is not what you, @RSMALLS, want to read, but typos are always a sign of laziness or rush. That said, my dissertation prospectus had a HUGE typo on the first sentences. HUGE. Everyone in the department read this document, faculty, students, even staff. I cannot begin to tell you how many jokes I had for that silly mistake (in my case, it was laziness since I didn't want to read the thing another time). So, yeah, typos are bad. Yet, AdComms are looking for you ability to do historical research. Typos are easy to teach to avoid: proof read your submissions. Historical analysis is more difficult and you should show some level of proficiency when you apply for graduate school. It sounds you made the right choice sending that writing sample. If typos don't distract the reader from your argument, I think you are fine, and -again- you made the right choice.

While I was a little sad for staying in on a Friday night to write, this thread has been totally fun to read. Thank you guys!

Absolutely. My list had a lot on space, place, landscape, borders, representations of space, and environmental history. A friend on mine's had a more agricultural history-heavy list. And another friend did a mix between Spatial History and Atlantic World. I included two or three books on methodology (which often yields something related to Digital Humanities), but I know that a friend included more about this. In conclusion, because it is such a new field you can tailor it to your interests. For the more theoretical sections, Homi Bhabha, David Harvey, Henri Lefebvre (I could never spell this), Edward Casey, Edward Soja, Yifu Tuan, Michel De Certau, Denis Cosgrove (not so theoretical), James Scott, Mike Davis. A good place to start is Key Thinkers on Space and Place and Space, Place, and Power in Modern Russia. I then moved to "classics" and new scholarship in the Americas: Richard White, Mark Carey, Raymond Craib, William Cronon, Alfred Crosby... and I included other parts of the world, but this was less dogmatic (I didn't read classics and new scholarship, I just read). Hope it helps!

NEED TO VENT: So I'm reading this source and trying to write the story behind it. Clearly, I need to read more about a policy that the source mentions so I Google it as my first approach to anything. A book that I have appears so I go to the book and read this chapter. The author quotes the source (yes, the one that I have right here) but does not cite it, he cites HIMSELF. Ok, whatever. I've met him and I know he is one of those historians who needs to cite himself every two words. Whatever. Wait for it. So I say, OK, maybe he includes the source at the end of the chapter (it is an edited volume so bibliography is at the end of the chapter). No source. Not even ONE source. I mean, you are a historian. And I saw you quoted a source of the end of the 19th century. We actually use sources! But OK, whatever, maybe the source is cited in this article of his that he cited instead. Nope. He didn't include that article in his bibliography. He included all his other papers (including a draft in his computer) but not this particular article. How messy is that? CITE YOUR F**KING SOURCES! Agggghhhhhh

As far a databases are concerned, consider also Airtable. I personally found it way easier than Access. It's online.

For my notes I use OneNote because it syncs constantly. To the notes that you take, I also added a summary of the book, the table of contents, the story(ies), and the historical context. Closer to my exams I would write notes at the top of the page saying something like "good for nationalism [i.e. good for a question on nationalism]" or "eg of land tenure struggle" and so on.

Thanks guys. This was about a month ago. I am not back on campus, but I am "back" in the prime location of my research, a home if you will. I didn't lose my archival reserach but I lost my notes. Besides the financial strike, emotionally it was hard but I was very supported by a community here and back home. @Sigaba your suggestion to speak to some trained professional is very good advice. People don't normally understand how much we value our laptop (it is not "just" a laptop), our phone, our kindle... it was hard for me to explain to people my anguish so I'll take your advice to heart. @TakeruK for now I am working with an old phone and an old laptop. I think I'll get a new phone because I use it like a camera for the archives and this one has low battery life. As a strategy, I am sticking to my research plan, only working longer hours. But yes, I was unharmed and while everything still sucks, it is an important silver lining considering I was abroad. I wanted to just follow up since I had initialized the thread about insurance and could not find something that could cover what I suspected could most probably happen. I had an insurance from a fancy credit card but the only thing they cover for theft was that they assist you when you place the claim at the police station. I also wanted to do the follow up as a reminder to plan time for managing your data. In general, all of us handle an enormous amount of data in the form of articles, quantitative information, archival research, and the like. We seldom set time apart for uploading, syncing, saving, and duplicating our precious research and we should. At least I did mention in any grant that I will spend one day a week uploading stuff to my university's server. My two cents. Thanks again