AP

Check with TOEFL. I think it says somewhere in their websites. My understanding is that it's pretty quick. I sat for it in early December, I think, and deadlines were around the 15th.

Hey there! Ok, Premo is AMAZING as a professor and as mentor. I've attended several of her talks about her work and about professional development and she is approachable, nice, and very enthusiastic. Putman was the first person I thought when I read your research interests. She is a great scholar too. And Dávila, you probably know what a great scholar and mentor he is, even though he doesn't study your topic per se. Just a word of advice: Wolfe did not write major monographs because her field is art history. Think about this if you want her to be your primary advisor. I don't know what your professional goals are but if you want to go into academia, and in history, monographs are kind of important. Pentzer is not a professor-professor, so also be careful with that. Again, it depends on your goals. That said, I am not familiar with their scholarship and by this point you know better what you want. I'm just trying to help you think long term. I'm not familiar with Wills either. You should also contact Nara Milanich from Columbia/Barnard College. Even if you don't want to go there, she might be able to point at other faculty. Finally, you might want to talk to Christine Hunefeldt in UCSD. All the best! AgPm

And while we are at it, you want to be careful what data you use for research. If you are working in that school either for research or as a faculty/staff member, you will need to notify someone that you will be using private, personal information for your work.

The classicists in my department all came in with a Master's so I think all of them earned their language requirements there. We have to comply with language requirements during our first two years and it depends by caucus how you achieve that. For example, the East Asia historians usually come in with either Japanese or Chinese and they take language courses in the other language. I know that classicists have not taken Latin or Greek while in coursework but they have taken summer courses elsewhere in paleography and the like. Another friend that focuses on African History has studied Swahili through FLAS during the summers and another East African language through independent study during coursework. As you can see, there are many ways to achieve those requirements and by "requirements" I mean what ever each department means. These can vary from place to place so be aware of that as well. For some, reading competency in one language when you apply is more than enough. I echo the suggestion of asking your professors on how to plan ahead this requirement.

I'm not sure what you mean either and based on our correspondence, I think it could mean both things @TMP said. Let me add one more thing to the second case, the one where you are torn between two fields within the History department: You have probably talked with many faculty by now or are acquainted with their work. In general, the adcomm doesn't read an application for European history and offer a place with African history because this means different advisors. In your SOP you should have made the case why you want to work with Dr. A and Dr. B from European history and if you did not make the case properly, there is no reason why the Africanists should read your SOP. What can happen in some places is that once you are in, you begin to work with other faculty besides your advisors because you discovered them during coursework or because your own project changed. In my department, I know one person who changed fields but the overall topic remained. I also know many people who incorporated/swapped some faculty as their secondary advisors because they (students) were transitioning into other topics (for example, instead of doing labor history, they prefered to focus on agriculture). I know one extreme case where the student did not get along with his advisor and changed her for another one from an entirely different field that had experience in talking to a broader audience and advising students from other disciplines (so, he was a very flexible person). And this brings me back to the beginning: you have talked/read faculty. Check how much they move around in their research to know how "flexible" they would be. In my case, none of my advisors focus on my geographical area (yes the field) and that has not been a problem thus far. And this is because I was very straight forward in my SOP: although they studied country A, I wanted to study country B and thought they could advise me with the questions they were dealing with. Finally, I am thinking of a third option to your post. If you want to do a PhD in History, say, but want someone from Sociology to be your advisor as well, this is doable, and sometimes (depending on the school) encouraged. A PhD a first sight may seem it is limiting you to one discipline, but depending on the school you can cross those boundaries and make a case for a more transdisciplinary approach to whatever you want to study.

Many, many other disciplines in the humanities overlap with history because we, as a Western society, have built our world in terms of chronological progression. Please, don't say that you overlap with history in your SOP because that will not impress anyone. Actually, if your background is in Classics and Modern Languages, we kind of expect you to overlap. At this point, there is no rush in studying historiography. What you need to do is be honest with yourself about why you want to a PhD in History and not in Classics/Languages. For this, you need to understand (if you don't already) the disciplinary difference among these three and pose why you, coming with this BA under your arm, will bring fresh perspectives into the themes you want to develop. Historians don't read historians only. In my case, I read anthropologists, geographers, literary critics, and scholars from media/film studies. I know that a friend read mostly ethnographers and another friend has a share of classicists. So, why do you want to study history? The way to address this is to look at your questions and list why answering from our discipline would be more interesting/valuable for the field. As @TMP said, it has to do with other elements than historiography, namely methods. A friend of mine studies very recent history and the constant question she got from her advisor is "why is this a history project?". Ask yourself the same thing. Do you have any professor in the history department at your school you could talk to? Finally, I would suggest you read historiography once you are in. Take that summer before school to cozy some books next to your bed and read.

I think we all go through a similar phase. In my case, nervousness and ignorance pushed me to mumble nonsense in the early weeks and make a fool of myself. But my advisors and professors knew that it was coming from a nervous place and they offered help during office hours too. Yes, do go to office hours. Talk about this. They will help you approach the material without thinking in how everyone else is dropping names but how you, as a non-specialist, are contributing to the seminar. In your meeting, ask your instructor some guiding questions. In general, they want you to 'react' to texts, and I was never sure what this meant. My first semester was tough in this regard because my advisor thought he was clear when he communicated expectations but he was not. So one day I told him that and he simply asked general questions that I could think about while reading. What is this author reacting to? Why is this important? How is related to other fields/sources/methods/etc? It helped a lot to begin to voice my concerns in class and, after two years, I could come up with my questions when preparing for exams. Finally, as a historian, you will always find yourself in an uncomfortable conversation because no one (or very few people) will be doing what you are doing. Seminars are the place to practice talking to a specialized but inexpert audience. Take advantage of this! Don't worry about dropping names but about absorbing them. Chew information, cross-reference data, question arguments, and voice all this. Good luck!

Overall, as an international student, I am thankful you are not my go-to person. Do you think we write badly on purpose? Do you think we "jump ranks" because we feel entitled? Do you think we just want to bug you about housing because we are soooo chill about moving to another country? I absolutely get it if you are just venting here, many of us just do that. But you described this as a list of "tips". These are snorty responses deep down you want to say to our faces. I wrote in red some suggestions for you to help us how to right the wrongs we do without knowing they are wrong. After looking at other posts of yours (some of which I think were insightful) I am surprised with these "tips". You have complained in several places about entitlement of faculty and grad students and here you just displayed the same evil you despise. 1) Sometimes it is not that we don't care, it's that we don't know. In a similar manner, people have responded to me with a "Mr." while I'm not a man so the confusion can work both ways. If you name is an "obvious" name, I would suggest signing "Mrs." or "Miss" or whatever title you prefer students to call you and avoid people calling you "Sir". Suggestion: When not knowing the other person's gender (or preferred gender), it is always prudent to simply say "Hello FirstName LastName" or the like. 2) I don't know where that comes from. I would never use something like that, but maybe in other fields advisors "supervise" more than in other fields. I'm thinking people that want to work in labs do request to work under someone's supervision. I still don't think this means you are hiring. I've worked on campus and when people e-mail me about working in my department they never say "I want to work under X's supervision". So I'm puzzled at this is "tip". Suggestion: When writing to someone because you want them to be your advisor or you want to work in their lab, I suggest you use the following phrase [insert your preferred phrase]. 3) I don't what your position is and who is your audience here. But EVERY time I send something to the office staff (Academic Coordinator or the Program Coordinator) I always CC my advisor, the Chair, and/or the Director of Graduate Studies. But again, I don't know where this is coming from so maybe you can explain a little so that your "tip" is in context. Suggestion: 4) Again, if you explain who you are, maybe this "tip" would make a little more sense. Let me tell you that when you are looking for an advisor, it makes sense to write to the person that knows all faculty, knows how many students each of them is currently advising, knows who is retiring/going on leave soon, etc. This is the first time I notice that talking to the department chair is jumping ranks. In my school and my department, graduate students are colleagues to faculty. There is, of course, some hierarchy, but no one is obsessed with it. If there is a chain of command to follow in your department –and I think it's totally fine–, is it clearly explained in a website or chart? Our program coordinator is very careful to explain to us when some paper needs to follow a certain path. Yet, I have never heard something like "jumping ranks". We are not in the army. Suggestion: Say something like "in our department, correspondence goes through me for reasons that escape you. Please, do not contact the Chair before contacting me and I will make sure your questions are answered". 5) Is that a threat? Again, what's your position to say something like this? English language is assessed by professionals and in the application package. How would this informal assessment play in the admission process? Are you the person in charge of English language placement? Suggestion: [again, not clear what your role is but if you do have a say in the AC and that role includes assessing English language] "Bear in mind that our communication can be use as prove of your mastery of English in the scholarly context. This may affect your application so be careful to use appropriate language, capitalization, and to communicate clearly" (again, I doubt this is an international students' monopoly of errors) 6) I agree that communication is important and sometimes people rush. Native speakers and non-native speakers. Again, I've seen it in e-mails addressed to me from a myriad of people from a diverse background. Suggestion: see 5) 7) ... Suggestion: see 5) 8) You are happy to get settled? I don't what that means. It seems you are the go-to person for several questions and I see that some resources are readily available elsewhere. Believe me, my job on campus have taught me how little people look at information available in websites. Suggestion: "Bear in mind that MOST of the information I provide about housing and getting settled is in our website. Please, kindly read through it carefully before writing your queries as most questions are responded there". Personally, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are having a bad day with an enormous amount of nerve-wrecking e-mails and you are just venting. Simply because of that, these "tips" are not to be taken to heart.

I use Prezi. I haven't thought of Piktochart for presentations primarily because it takes me forever to put together a good visual aid. I am more familiar with Prezi and I don't need to invest as much time in it.

Thanks! @fuzzylogician I'll look into BibDesk.

Well, I sat for GRE like four years ago so I won't get into any technicality. But right now, you need to do two things: don't use contractions because in theory this is formal writing, and don't write one-sentence paragraphs. Especially, your first paragraph of the second essay is full of embedded clauses. Hope it helps!

I have been a grad student for some time now. As many of you, I have hundreds of books and articles in my laptop. I've always found it daunting to organize all these files into folders. During coursework, I organized digital books/articles by course. During exams, by exam. During my prospectus writing, by other categories. After I was done with all that, I rearranged my digital library in other, broad folders. How do you organize all those articles and books you have in your computer? Folder-wise, how do you do it? I have everything on Zotero with tags, but my problem is how to save the actual documents. Does this make sense? Any ideas?

Do really think five weeks will condition five years? Do you really think that these groups are for life? I have a theory that says that people that have just met each other will be kind and friendly for about three months. After that time, they will show their real self. It happened with one of my roommates and it happened with my first 'friend' ever in grad school. Towards the end of the semester, we were both being less diplomatic and more... assertive. So I insist on the give it time thing. Now, if you don't want to give it time, then change the circumstances. IOrganize something. Find out when people's birthday's are. Study in a common area so that people see you and approach you. Suggest a study group. Organize a pool party. Now, if you don't want to do this, then my question is, do you need to get along in your cohort? In my program, we are all from different fields so we don't need to get along because eventually we set different paths. But maybe this is not the case for you. What worked for me -unintendedly- was to join clubs and find a campus job. Today, I cannot walk to the dinning hall without someone saying hi. Pff I'm popular hahahaha. No, seriously though. Maybe finding an 'external' group can also help you relax about making friends in your cohort. Does this make sense? Are you sharing courses with any of these new students?

Well, give it time. This is just the beginning. You will find LOTS of activities and events to socialize more and since you define as a very social person, I'd say relax, and initiate conversations. It is not easy, but it seems to me you are demanding a lot from yourself on the first week. Just smile! Also, it might be useful to organize something: a bbq, a tennis game, a movie night. If you want it, make it happen!

I echo what @jungThug and @Wyatt's Terps have mentioned. That said, a girl in my cohort got admitted with a better fellowship than me and ABSOLUTELY no reserach question. Seriously. She know that her chronology spanned 3000 years (yes, thousands) and it was going to be European. So, go for it! Follow these very good pieces of advice! Good luck!

Admission committees will not look at your application until after the deadline. You upload everything by X date, a secretary/assistant bundles applications together (what you uploaded plus other info such as LORs and scores), and only then the committee members receive applications. Unless otherwise stated in websites, applying early has no advantage. What you are allowed to do is begin the application but not submit it yet. FYI I've heard of schools who accept early applications and would waive your application fee. But even in this cases, they will not look at your application until later.

I am not sure I understand what the problem is. Could you paraphrase?

My roommate is about 8 years younger and in my cohort. I will tell you what I tell her every time she doubts herself because of age: no one cares about your age. NO ONE. I couldn't careless that she came straight from undergrad. Another girl a year above me, and relatively young too, is more obsessed about my age than me. I understand that it is an accomplishment to come straight from undergrad, especially because of the cultural difference between undergraduate students and their graduate counterparts. I am not minimizing your effort. Yet, be sure that nobody cares about how young you are. Only you. (Ok, MAYBE your advisor, but I doubt it) The difference between you and me, if any, is in life experience. You chose to stay in school. I chose to travel and work, and you can tell that, sorry. I am more confrontational with my advisors because I had to deal with bosses (and, as you are now, I was scared to talk to them). I have good time management techniques because I worked full time and studied for several years. It doesn't make me better than anybody. It doesn't make me smarter (I wish though!). It makes me simply more experienced. Period. In my case, I always say that I needed those years of work and travel to be ready for grad school. In your case, you made it clear that you didn't. And that's fine, be sure of that. These are our decisions. I was not ready for grad school when I was 21. You clearly are because otherwise you wouldn't be there. YOU made the decision to be here, you made the decision to follow that protocol, you are making the decision of staying here because you know this is what you want. So stop being scared of talking to your advisor or the tech, and step up as the professional grad student you want to be, who sometimes makes mistakes (but surely almost never does ).

Errr... So you are developing a model and you want someone one to advise you where to develop it? Have you asked a professor, someone familiar with your work? As it is now, your post is unintelligible. Please rephrase.

This doesn't say anything. You should say something like Dr. X's research on A will inform my approach to B and Dr. Y's methods in the application of C will be, I think, vital for my developing of B.

Hi! Congratulations on applying for grad school. My advice at this point is look for a good teacher of English to help you write. As it is now, the SOP is hard to read because of grammar. If the admission committee can't read it, then it will go to the "no" pile and you don't want that. Let me give you an example: Your first sentence is your first paragraph. This can't happen. Ever. Ever. It is long, messy, and its purpose is unclear. Another example: The paragraph that begins "I am convinced..." is an utter generalization, which is what you were specifically asked not to do. Instead of stating what you are convinced off, show that you are the right fit for that school. For this, you need to name faculty and explain how their research not simply overlaps with yours but how they will direct inform it. Good luck!

I don't think it will necessarily help you if you apply straight from UG. Yet, if you "use" the fourth year for gaining observation hours/experience/etc. and apply later on, then it will show that you got prepared beyond GPA/GRE. Scores are used to set a baseline but admission is based on more than that.

Well, in theory, no one has written a dissertation proposal until you have to write the one and only! And then, you will continue to write similar projects so it's worthwhile taking advantage of writing this one. The dissertation proposal is your opportunity to tell all faculty in the department what your project is, what your big questions are, and that they should vouch for you. I wrote it imagining my friends' advisors reading it and trying to figure out what they would say. So your audience is within your discipline. I defended back in March and I remember having no clue of what to do in early January. Talk to your advisor, they know what they want (more or less) so you can get a sense of what to do and what not to do. In my department there are guidelines but no one ever follows them so it's highly advisable talking to our supervisors. Also, I'm sure you have applied for grants by now. I used a grant application as my base document and expanded from there. I also went back to my book notes for Quals. The dissertation proposal is your opportunity to tell all faculty in the department what your project is and you want them to vouch for you. I wrote it imagining my friends' advisors reading it and trying to figure out what they would say. Good luck!

Besides contacting POIs before applying -which is excellent advice by @FiberPotter- I would add the following: In your SOP and (hopefully) your interview, be sure to sound graduate and not undergraduate. Show that you have matured your ideas and you are realistic about your goals If you consider that not having a Master's is a weakness, do not pose it a such. Use your "weaknesses" as an opportunity. In my case, I am an international student and English is not my first language. I used that to argue for adding diversity to an increasingly diverse school and department. Use your experience to highlight your knowledge of methods, in social sciences this is always a plus. Check the graduate students website in the department to check if there is a majority straight from undergrad or not. I would advise you against an overwhelmingly young student body because you also learn from peers: they read your work, they comment on it, they question it on seminars, etc. The most diverse your audience is, the more you may learn (of course, there is no straight correlation between age, intellectual maturity, and stage in the program). Good luck!

1) I don't buy chips/dips unless for parties. 2) Cook my own meals for the week. Have ALWAYS something in my bag/locker: banana, granola bars, etc. 3) I bought a Fitbit. It helped me be aware of how much I moved. For comps, not only I didn't gain weight, but I lost some. 4) Do some sport. I started off playing field hockey with the school team. Then I moved on to the gym. Then I began playing more tennis. This year I took up golf. 5) Surround yourself by people that are more or less on the same page as you or try to gain followers. My roommates and me became increasingly active as we saw each other do stuff.