AP

ditto. Not in History Departments, at least.

AdComms are usually diverse in terms of fields so, even though I probably do not share your field, I can say this with confidence: the wording, to me, is off not in terms of grammar but in terms of how you portray the idea of modernity historically. As I would say to my graduate students, countries are not assimilated into nothing. It's not that there is a "Western world order" and countries are either "in" or "out" depending on how well they do (per your words). Further, the assumption that "Western world order" = modernity apparently underpins your project without a clear layout of how these two are connected and/or why this assumption is valid. For instance, I can contest your claim that the separation of religious institutions and state necessarily signify a valid form of assessing modernity in any country (here is not the place to do that). I would urge you to de-escalate the grandiose claims and replace them with clear arguments you will be able to defend in a project. For example: "In X country, the governing elites of the early 19th century assumed that Western values such as the separation of church and state would facilitate the modernization of the infrastructure network, education, and economic institutions. Yet, not all political authorities agreed on Y. For instance, [person] argued..." and so on. Like this, you are not making claims that you cannot defend in a SOP (maybe in your dissertation) nor that anyone would be expecting in a SOP. This brings me to my second point. The SOP is not a prospectus. You need to show that you are here to learn, that in the first two years that you take coursework, you will collaborate in conversations, you will incorporate comments, and you will expand your academic horizon. In other words, you will not be more likely admitted because you can pinpoint archives than if you show you can ask interesting, doable, historical questions.

The AdComm is a group of maybe three people in the Department. So, no, the fact that a professor is not in the adcomm does not mean that they are not going to supervise any students. Professors on leave would not participate.

I worked for several years before starting my PhD and I cannot say enough benefits from it. I do think you'd be in a better position, especially for your field, to enter the PhD with more field experience. Further, I've known several higher administrators doing their PhDs as they worked. It was like their work was their field work. of course, YMMV

To be 100% fluent and bilingual, you need to move to a country where all your life is in English.

Re: Faculty and emails. It may happen that the person you are contacting is, like @OHSP's advisor, just bad at responding promptly. Others may be on precious leave (or maybe not so precious, if it's medical). Others might be waiting to hear back from their department what the policy is regarding admissions is. Admissions to programs are never decided by any one organism within the university. So, be patient and it is absolutely fine to write a follow up email if you haven't heard anything in a week. (No one will decline your admission for being respectfully insistent). I don't know about you, but my email inbox has tripled with so many online/hybrid classes and less face-to-face talks with students, colleagues, and administrators. While you should be patient, you should also protect your own interest. In the same way that you insist on a response now, you will be reminding this advisor to submit LORs in the future.

Did you get any reason for the rejections? Sometimes journals explain that your paper is not a good fit for them, so you know maybe you can sell it elsewhere. Something that worked for me was to workshop my paper. During my graduate career, we got together with other students in my field and once a month we commented on pre-circulated paper. It was lots of work for everyone, but very useful. This urgency to publish before you graduate can be field-specific (in History, Americanists publish like crazy). I suggest you approach your advisor about this. They will know better if the rejections are about the article per se, the argument, the methods, or the scope. Good luck.

I know people fall into: 1) Those who changed the geographic area because they realized they were more interested in X than they thought. Eg: switching from Latin America to Africa for decolonization. 2) Those who within the first year dropped the project they came in with, while they maintained the general topic and geographical area. Eg: Someone came in wanting to do memory studies in confederate monuments and shifted towards museums, the civil rights movements, and memory. 3) Those who came with the opposite: a loose idea of what they wanted to do –like memory or decolonization– and a geographic area (because you need to apply to work with an advisor), but only refined the project as they went through coursework. Finally, I know someone in anthro who completely changed topics every year. This delayed their comprehensive exams because they couldn't make up their mind on what fields, it delayed their prospectus defense, grant applications, and research. Thankfully, they chose a relatively "safe" topic and found a teaching position while doing research so they are conducting their research without relying too heavily on the graduate stipend.

Well, a reason can be that departments need grad students to exploit as cheap labor and TA/teach. So, it's not that they are ready to fully support them in the long run, is that they still them.

Yes. I've been telling graduate and undergraduate students alike the same thing: Anticipate that you may need to shift your project at some point. At least until November, we don't know if/when this crisis is going to end. We work with what we have.

Though sad news, I agree it's the most responsible move in order to guarantee funding and support to current students. I'm very worried for international projects who still cannot travel abroad due to their own safety measures, country of destination COVID response, or lack of funding because school won't support international travel. These students will need more than a year to recover.

I think neither is Pitt. Read something on twitter.

I applied to two countries. For now, don't worried about things that haven't happened or offers you don't have. When the time comes, you communicate with the programs to see how they can assist with decision deadlines. It's not worth your energy to worry about that, use that energy to write stellar applications so that you actually have the problem of having to choose.

CC your chair/DUS or keep them somehow in the loop. Protect yourself and anticipate this person is going to fight you tooth an nail. Also, you cannot learn critical thinking without writing clearly. If you cannot summarize (A basic skill) you cannot synthesize, compare, assess, or evaluate.

Per this Zoom Help article, you can have presenter view while only sharing the presentation and seeing the chat/other Zoom windows. I suggest you practice with a friend, since it sounds you’ve never done this before.

I think you should wait until the election.

No, again, they wouldn't typically Google you. If they do, it might be before an interview (if you program has interviews), but no one would go out of their ways to try to find your hidden posts. I know this is hard to believe, but faculty don't have that much time in their hands. They would do a Google search like anyone does. I don't think anyone would click on your social media, except maybe Twitter? To see if you follow someone they know. If a university-related post appears, they might click on that because it would be more pertinent. Other than that, there is no secret faculty spying on prospective students. And also, just to be clear, the fact that someone Googles you is not a bad thing. It's the most normal thing to do. Just have control of your digital identity.

Can they search? Yes.

You are receiving sound advice here so I will highlight only two aspects. First, writing a literature review for your senior thesis is all good. However, I think @TMP was suggesting that for your MA, trying to further the understanding not only of what they say, but what is going to be your contribution to that conversation. We all go to grad school to learn. A PhD application is not like an UG application in the sense that it does not rely on numbers so much. It relies more your ability to ask cool question and potential to provide interesting answers. As @AfricanusCrowther mentioned, the MA is a great opportunity to transition to the professional craft of historians. Second, and somehow connected to this, I do applaud your ambition to have a good research record "measured" in publications and conferences. Again, I will emphasize, do not focus on the number but on the quality. Your work as a MA student will tell the PhD AdComms how you conduct yourself. If you are a person that wastes time in little conferences for the sake of a line in the CV, while admirable, it is detrimental because it may interfere with good thesis-writing. So, yes, plan a research agenda but be very strategic. Finally, a footnote on money. While you are in a privileged position, do apply for travel grants, research monies, and the like. Funding brings more funding, and funding usually means a thumbs up from your community. While there is a moment and a place for making these application (eg: as a TT I would never apply for the ACLS fellowship for early career scholars in precious positions), there are also many fellowships and grants you should prepare for.

A couple of things here: 1) I seriously doubt any member of the AdComm has time to screen every applicant's social media. Sorry @Boolakanaka but those seem to be rescinded college admissions, which work differently than PhD admissions. 2) If they do google you at a later stage in the admissions process, it might be before or after an interview. This is something I tell everyone: have a handle of your online presence. Go into incognito mode on your browser and search yourself. What comes up? I had an early control of my presence because I use to teach, so I configured my fb or ig profiles so that people can't find me that easily (which basically means that my fb does not appear on the first page of Google results). 3) I seriously doubt a program wouldn't admit you because of engaging with others on social media. However, if you shared homophobic, sexist, racist, etc comments or jokes, I think the AdComm might be influenced by that and wonder if they want that kind of person among themselves. I don't think that being outspoken about BLM would hurt you (and if it does, do you really want to be in a program that takes issue with supporting BLM?)

One of the things you learn during a PhD is to juggle multiple priorities at the same time. For example, many of us were finishing the dissertation while applying for jobs, both equally important because it was pointless to finish without a job and it was pointless to get a job if you didn't finish. Also, at different stages you will have different priorities. Right now, your priority is you learning new ways to take care of yourself, as @PokePsych mentioned. It's your time to taste the waters, see how the department works, what support networks exists at the university, etc. I think it is very healthy to have interests outside of your department or your institution, but do not "sacrifice" being on track with requirements. Finally, and this is very important, your priorities should help you move out from UG/MA st mentality into that of a PhD student who carries themselves professionally and treats others as peers.

As @TMP mentioned, PhD admission decisions are not being made now in many places. We are preparing for a very uncertain semester, we are all panicking that X university is going online and our campus is beginning to receive students. At my own UG-centered institution on the West Coast, we are kind of dealing other priorities. I'm sorry, but triage dictates that we cannot possibly think about our admissions to graduate degrees if we can BARELY make sense of the next two weeks. Remember also that in many programs, admissions and funding for graduate students depends in many cases from administration higher up. This is not a decision all programs can take unilaterally, especially if graduate students are TAs. Follow @TMP advice. Just decide how much time you want to invest. This is excellent advice and advice you will use over and over again. You will, at some point, be preparing for comps and writing grant applications. At another point you will be deep into your dissertation and applying for conferences. You will also be writing your dissertation and applying to any job that appears on H-Net. For now, be patient and trust the information you are given. If in doubt, contact by email the department administrator. At best, they will give you an answer. At worst, they will tell you there is not policy in place yet.

I agree with these three pieces of sound advice. I would also pay attention to rank. I did not know this when I applied, but there are three types of professors: Assistant (tenure-track), Associate, and Full (both these tenured).* If you write to the assistant professor, they will probably suggest you work with someone more senior, depending on their year. For example, I'm a second year assistant professor so I'm not accepting graduate students because when they will be writing the dissertation I will be going nuts finishing the book. However, I advice students that are already in the program. If someone wanted to work with me, I respond, they should apply to work with any of my wonderful senior colleagues and then include me in their comps or committees. A colleague of mine is going up for tenure this year, so he is accepting students for next year, when he will be tenured. At my previous institution, this was very common. Senior professors almost always encouraged the inclusion of junior faculty in students' committees, especially comprehensive exams. All I'm saying is be sensitive to these ranks as different people might be able to help you better when they are tenured. I was not aware of these until I applied for jobs. If you don't know who to write, always err on the full or associate professor (there are some caveats, I know! don't @ me) * There are other types of professors, like visiting professors, postdocs, lecturers, and adjuncts, and other types of temporary positions. It would be unwise to write to them as your POI because they won't probably be there the whole time you are and/or their positions are precarious, they are often underpaid and overworked, and they would probably LOVE to mentor graduate students but do not have the time to do it. In my department, we have these positions and protect them at all costs from anything besides their two courses. We want them to have a good research agenda coming out from our department. I know two of them advice masters thesis.

Check this, but transcripts are documents that belong to you and attest to your work. It would be very problematic if they denied them to you.

Disclaimer: I'm in the humanities so I'd wait a little bit until someone in the sciences answers here or in another thread. BUT: If you finished coursework and did not graduate, I would still mention in your CV that your completed coursework. I wouldn't bring it up in a SoP unless it helps you. You want to be assertive, not defensive in SoPs. Eg: You can mention you have lab experience even though you did not graduate. They can ask in the interview and you should prepare a one-sentence response that shows you are not a problem person and that you are not blaming anyone. Like "For personal reasons, I could not finish my degree and thus my advisor could not provide a LOR." Do not think of years unexplained as gaps. People do stuff or deal with stuff. I can assure no one is like: oh, 26 years old and they have two years unexplained. You honestly think they have time to sift through all those CVs and think that? I think what you need to remember, from foreigner to foreigner, is that in the US every document you present is an argument. Use your CV to make the case they should accept you. Here people learn how to do that but in other places such as my country and maybe yours, we don't learn to tweak our CV to our advantage. This is not lying or omitting. It's simply presenting the information in such a way that when a burned out faculty, tired of dealing with covid, looks at your CV and says, aha! this is it! Yet, you need LORs.