OHSP

My visits changed everything so I definitely think that's the right move. I am actually really (perhaps naievely) surprised by how difficult the decision is. When I visited I thought I had one clear choice and now I am conpletely torn between two. Anyway, congrats on your acceptances and I hope that your decision is straightforward post visit!!

Yeah ditto this for first-gen, low-income, indigenous, lesbian -- especially given I might want to return to my home country post-PhD, in which case the rankings really do mean something to selection committees. At my current school (in Australia) the recent hires are graduates of Harvard, Columbia, NYU, USC and UNC Chapel Hill.

It's good advice--thanks. I am not interested in being a curator, historical consultant etc, but at the moment I have a strong foot in oral history and oral history documentary, and I wouldn't want to lose that--but you're right in that there are opportunities to keep a hold of that anywhere. The regional thing is not such a big issue (A is Philadelphia, B is New York). The reputation of B in oral history and documentary is better than the reputation of A. Obviously this is something I need to think about a bit more - good luck with your decision though!

I'm torn between two schools, both private with similar funding, and would appreciate any advice. School A is the more prestigious, better-ranked school, but it's currently in a "transition phase" in terms of hiring Americanists to replace a few big names who've left in the past few years. At this school I would have an advisor who is known for being extremely supportive and who I think is genuinely drawn towards my work--she is close to retirement and would take me on as an exception (she's otherwise not taking new students). That is a bit concerning to me because it means she's potentially not really going to be around (in academia, not in the world) when I'm trying to crawl my way into the job market. If she retires early then I'm not sure who else at this school would advise me, though the school is, of course, making some hires in the next few years. When I visited this school it didn't feel like a great fit. Other than my potential advisor and one Latin Americanist, the department is known for being more traditional and conservative--and this has been a problem for me at my current school, where I'm doing my MA. I would have to work outside of the history department a fair bit, and I would have an advisor from the English department who would fill my need for someone working in gender and sexuality. This school has amazing placement statistics and a great reputation but it isn't so open to the idea that public history is valuable, and that is very important to me as someone who could happily go either way. School B is less prestigious but is known as a "dynamic, innovative" program. The department offers more courses that I'd like to take and that reflects the fact that the faculty is full of historians who are doing the type of work I would like to do. My primary advisor at this school is very, very early into her career and she's not working in the exact same field as me, but the questions that she is asking are amazing and I got on really well with her when I met her at the visit. If I were listening to a gut feeling, I'd say she's the right advisor (even though she's a bit of an unknown quantity, just because she really hasn't worked with many students). Because she is quite junior, she would co-advise along with another professor who also seems like he would probably be good but it's difficult to know--I met 7th year students of his who were positive. This school does not have anyone working specifically in gender and sexuality and I am not sure where I would get that--I'd likely have to have an outside advisor on my committee. I visited this school immediately after I visited school A and a few hours in I was like "ok this is where I should be." I could imagine myself amongst the student body and there was an energy between the faculty that I did not feel at school A (where I have been told there is more tension etc). This school's placement statistics vary from year to year but it's very well-known and not unreputable. They also have a specific public history and archives program that I could take classes in, and I think I'd be very supported in my oral history work. I am completely unsure of how this decision will go. I am drawn to school B and I'm excited by the advisor there, but part of me thinks that it makes more sense to go to the nominally stronger, better-ranked program, where my advisor would also be great--if anyone has any thoughts I'm very open to hearing them.

This thread is so out of hand / absurd. Did someone actually just tell on someone to the President of Brown? Is this real life? Did Grad Cafe ever exist or is it some bizarro nightmare that we collectively dreamt up in the months we've spent losing our minds over acceptances and rejections.

I'm out of up votes but I second this.

Yeah, definitely. I guess for me, my "less prestigious" option is still "prestigious".

I strongly disagree--the MA isn't necessarily "just a stepping stone". If you're coming straight from undergrad then (a) you are young and have time and (b) the MA is going to give you an opportunity to spend two years properly locating yourself within your field, attending conferences, perhaps even publishing. I chose to do the MA not because I wasn't a "strong enough applicant" (I got into PhD programs as well) but because I wanted to spend two focused years producing a more succinct body of work and making sure that I definitely wanted to pursue history. I am so happy that I did my MA and I'm now entering a PhD program with strong contacts, an even clearer sense of my interests, teaching experience, good publications and conference presentations etc. You don't need an MA but I have absolutely no regrets about getting one.

I am pretty certain I'll be turning down a top 8 school because of how they view alt-ac paths. For my particular research interests (and for the career I've been building), it's just not going to work to be at a place where TT is viewed as the only valuable end goal. [It's not like my alternate options are significantly worse than top 8, though, and if the top 8 school were my only fully-funded option, it'd be much harder to turn it down. And also I have to say that, aside from this particular school, everyone else has been very like "yeah duh of course non-TT paths are valid and valuable"]. **using "top 8" because of that depressing Slate article.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news - I was in a similar situation with a different school and it was frustrating.

I'm not sure of your specific situation but I attended the NYU admitted students visit last weekend -- I received my acceptance by phone in early Feb and then an email followed shortly after, so the email you received seems a bit strange :/ Hopefully there's a waitlist!

Scott Nelson is amazing. And he has a lot of time for students.

Frankly I am finding the uncertainty difficult even with offers, so I can't imagine how frustrating it must be.

I struggle to see any way that the job could hurt your application - I'd pay very little attention to the CV. People are interested in you as an intellectual and part of that is the stuff you do (which you can mention in your SOP) and part of that is the ideas you have, which you'll get partly from reading more in the history field and partly from living your life as you want to live it--I find the gap year thing funny, like it might be a break from being a student but it's not a break from being alive!

If BU places its graduates in the jobs they want, then I don't really see why you shouldn't go there.

Yeah it was a painful, painful time. I saved like crazy and did extra work so that I'd be able to afford 8 as an international student. I kind of understand the application fee, without it I would have applied to a bunch more schools that weren't my first preference, and faculty would've been forced to wade through my documents for no great reason--the real rort is the fee for sending GRE test scores.

I did honours in 2013, then worked for a year, and I'm now in the final dying moments of my MA - the whole grad school application process has been a huge distraction, so I'm extremely glad that it was worth it.

Congrats! I love Putnam's work - I'm not really in her region but her recent article on the digital/transnational turns was so on point. It'd be great to work with her - exciting!

Congrats! I also found it entirely impossible to know whether I'd get in and thought I was fooling myself for most of last year. Are you in an MA program at the moment?

Yeah as a fellow international applicant the distance is a bummer. "Popping over" costs something like $2000, minimum, for me, so it's pretty unlikely I'll be doing it.

Hey - sorry about the bad news. I'm not sure about UPenn rejections but they did send out an invite to the visit weekend, and there were 15 invitees, so I suspect they're wrapped up. Unsure whether they waitlist. Hopefully you hear something official soon!

I'm currently in an MA program with far more "mature aged" students (+40) than millennial students - the best thing about it is the lack of whinging (which I will definitely admit is a young person past time), because everyone's made a pretty active choice to turn towards graduate study and (often) away from something else, whether that's their former career, or whatever. Another thing I have to say, though, is that they also have a bunch of respect for the younger students, who they know are getting by in an insanely terrible job market and going down a path that is pretty ill-advised because they care about research. Which is all to say, diversity in a program is great - people of all age groups have something different to offer and I don't think I'd go into a program being dismissive of young people. Dismissing millennials as *insert whatever the media is saying about us today here* is counter-productive, especially if you want to have good relationships with your cohort. Everyone's in a grad program for a different reason, but ideally everyone's there because they care enough about something to take a risk (and not because they'll drink the koolaid).

Thanks! You too!

I reckon that's me for grad school applications! I can finally stop checking the grad cafe results stream at 1, 3, and 5 in the morning!

Unfortunately Duke booked my flights in and out of the US a while ago, so I can't really add anything on at the end. It's like they knew.