OHSP

An ivy MA does not equal a high quality MA!! Don't think you need to go somewhere prestigious and fancy in order to do the work that will help you to get into top phd programs. Look for good potential MA advisors at low cost or funded MA programs. It's a little "alarm bells" to hear this stuff about top 15 programs blah blah blah--if you're in hist of sci, you need a good hist of sci advisor not an ivy stamp (and debt load).

DM me about nyu if you want.

I know that this is the case at other universities as well.

If you're still weighing options, I can put you in touch with current NYU MA students. I would never pay that amount for an MA, personally, and I don't know how happy the MA are.

This is a late reply but it's hard to offer advice without knowing what the well-respected private institution is. If it's NYU, feel free to email me. I have advisors in Am studies and took half of my coursework there, plus many of my friends are current students there and I have a lot of thoughts re the program/experience w the program.

Schools can also have unofficial/unannounced waitlists. NYU introduced an official waitlist recently but, before that, people would sometimes receive the news that they'd been waitlisted + an offer of admission as late as April 15.

If people have posted about receiving rejection letters and acceptance letters then chances are you on a quiet waitlist.

Seconding @telkanuru. You also can't predict the relationship you'll have with your cohort, no matter its size. I get on well with my cohort but, tbh, rarely see them. Most of the people I consider friends and colleagues (and the people who are doing work that's most closely aligned with my own) are in other cohorts and/or departments. Cohorts also tend to part ways for research, which comes sooner than you realize, and then if you're still hanging about you'll need more of those "vertical" relationships to draw on anyway.

Hopefully you get in anyway, but I wouldn't read anything into this--it's typically the case that you go through a manual procedure of setting up email access etc, and I can 100% believe that this would be a system glitch because they're pretty common. It's odd though--perhaps a reason to email the graduate administrator and ask when you might be hearing back.

Perhaps fewer applicants / dare I (jokingly) say the words "dying discipline"**. 2 of the 40 students I'm currently teaching in a history class are history majors or minors, and that was roughly the same last semester. **maybe hibernating rather than dying.

I was just being super blunt to make the point clear--but didn't intend to make you feel more nervous! My advice is actually to try and get something out of it--it's also an opportunity for you to get to know more about the department (even just from the way they run these visits). There's plenty of useful advice that you can provide, especially re what the first year feels like, how friendly the department has been etc, the process of moving to the town/city/school, coursework you've liked/disliked, and how you're finding the stipend. I just remember visiting a school and taking seriously a first year's review of my would-be advisor and their rundown of the coursework/exams/prospectus system--that's not the sort of advice you can get from people who've only been around for 6 months, but it's not to say that first years can't offer valuable feedback based on their experiences so far.

Yes, this is good advice. I should have been more specific about the kind of "flexibility" that is important--taking the example of a dept where everyone takes exams at the same time, sometimes departments will allow you to take a few months longer with exam prep if you get mono, say, and sometimes they will make you wait until the next year to sit exams with the cohort below your own. I had a major health event and my department's flexibility was very important.

Departments can/do/will hide attrition--ask students in 3rd year and above how many people were in their cohort when they started. Ask how funding has changed and how the department has handled it. Ask what kind of support there is when it comes to grants--personally, I cannot overstate how useful it has been to have substantial grant-writing workshops built into our requirements. Ask people what it's like to take exams (at schools where there appear to be regimented requirements around exams, ask around to find out if those are in fact more flexible--and ask if they're more flexible for some people than others [better to know this stuff now than to be overly optimistic]). Ask who's going to be the DGS in the coming years and work out how students feel about that prof. First years don't actually know much about the program but some will think they do (I realize this sounds harsh but I wish I'd had this word of warning before visits). Sometimes at a visit you will meet a lot of chuffed first years and it can be misleading, so try to talk to people across varying fields, in the various years. If there are social events then go to them and ask honest questions--grad school is a really weird job to commit to, and I strongly advise forgetting about your future dreams for a bit and asking what it's like, materially, spiritually, etc. (I like etc) to be in a given program--especially if you're going to move, leave a job, uproot your family...

The metrics point that @Sigaba stresses is very real -- my MA was advised by a prof no one knows at a university no one's heard of using methods that were frankly pretty random, but I think (importantly!!) guided by good questions. I really wouldn't worry about being seen as pivoting--tbh few people are reading applications closely enough to even notice a pivot. My proposed project was far away from my MA thesis in terms of topic and region, and my current diss project is lightyears away from my MA and my SoP--people are used to graduate students changing their focus--but I would say that, essentially, my core questions have stayed the same and they're probably what got me into schools. I'd be interested to know what your big questions are/what you are passionate about when it comes to research--what are the questions that would potentially stoke the enthusiasm of profs well outside of your field/period etc.

Firstly, I second everyone's commiserations and the general advice to take care of yourself! Secondly, beyond ruling you out if they're terrible, stats really don't matter--cohort sizes are so small that basically no one is being admitted simply because they look good on paper (because too many people look good on paper)--it's really about making your project sound ~~~amazing~~~, which is also going to be true for every other thing you're asked to compete for throughout grad schools (internal and external fellowships etc). I know you mention fit etc but I wonder if you might be over-focusing on fit and under-focusing on "selling your project" in a way that makes you sound super special and exciting to work with. My applications were basically like, the project I have in mind is SO urgent, potentially FIELD-ALTERING, I'm **uniquely positioned** blah blah blah--it's v painful to go back and read that SoP now but it was frankly very effective. The importance of "standing out" is sometimes under-emphasized, even though it's vitally important. If you end up needing to apply a third time I'd be focused on totally re-framing the proposed project (though fingers crossed that you hear back from one of the remaining schools soon)!

NYU's making a lot of changes--in the past decade or so it was not typical, but interviews definitely occurred this year in at least some fields. In the past few years cohort sizes have been cut dramatically, which improves the 6th year + internal grants funding situation for those who receive an offer, amongst other benefits of smaller cohorts. I think the reduction in intake is also a response to the realities of the job market.

What's your regional field/time? I know some interviews were held last week and that they've definitely made some decisions about who's going to receive an offer (but haven't extended offers). It's a very field-by-field process and I only really have insight into my own fields--feel free to PM.

The PhD is a totally different process to the MA and so PhD coursework is completed to different ends--often towards the ends of building a relationship w a professor that might last well beyond your dissertation, or towards the end of early research etc etc etc. You don't "kill the purpose of the MA" by doing PhD coursework (that's a kind of bizarre way to understand your MA). I don't know of anyone at NYU who has or who would reduce their funding to 4 years just so that they can get out of coursework credits--you can always just take "independent studies"--and most ppl I know at NYU, incld myself, enter w a masters. It's not that some programs "run longer" than others--people just take different amounts of time to complete.

This will help. Before I received an acceptance letter my POI emailed to ask how seriously I would be considering the offer if they extended one, and I said something like "very seriously if there is enough funding"--there is a specific fellowship for my subject area and I think they probably only extended a formal offer because they were able to offer that fellowship. If you receive a similar email and your POI doesn't already know about the GI funding, definitely let them know--funding is so tight.

Ditto TMP's comment. Also, I was accepted to Wisconsin in 2017 (turned it down) and they made it exceptionally clear that their admissions are at least 90% about advisor/candidate fit -- without trying to be harsh I would say the CV question is a little misguided. GPAs, papers, research experience etc are not so important (unless your GPA is awful). They want to admit candidates whose projects/questions they are excited about and who they think are ready to work towards the phd--there's such limited funding and the job market is so terrible that admissions are often based on bringing in people whose projects/backgrounds/etc create some level of excitement amongst faculty.

Yeah she's in Spanish and Portugese. I think people have her on their committee but I don't know of anyone who has her as their primary advisor. In a SoP you should say you want to work with someone who's in the history department (perhaps stating the obvious).

I strongly advise against this as a policy--some professors receive an enormous number of emails from prospective students, as well as managing classes, current students, whatever else they have going on in their lives etc. People who did not respond to my emails while I was applying have turned out to be great advisors. Given your interests I would think more carefully about nyu.

Yes, this is correct. To be really honest, I didn't look at the grades. Just wanted to stress the importance of actually having a project (and leading with your project rather than a list of stats). It's not enough to say you focus on x region in y time period.

It's really all about how you sell your project--grades are not so important. Can you be more specific about your research interests? And why not apply to NYU?

This is an extremely broad area of interest. It will help if you can be more specific about the questions driving your research. Also, most people doing this kind of work at NYU locate themselves in African Diaspora or Atlantic Worlds -- i.e. they're trans-nationally, trans-regionally focused. Just FYI. It might help you to frame your research area more precisely.