OHSP

^ this.

This might sound like an odd suggestion but have you considered NYU -- it may not obvious from their profiles but there are a lot of profs there who interests intersect with yours... maybe look into Julie Livingston and everyone connected to the Atlantic worlds program.

Also I don't really know anyone who didn't find the first semester difficult (for so many reasons). Take the advice above re reading, talk to other people in your program, trust that you'll get the hang of it. I did too much of the reading in my first semester, not realizing that a) skimming is expected and normal and b) pretending you've read the whole book even though you skimmed most of it is also normal.

Give it time! It's very natural for interests to expand like this before they narrow. My advice is to be patient with your brain. As you do more research your interests will refine. If you're not applying to PhD programs this round then just try to put them aside for a moment and don't worry too much about closing doors on potential interests etc.

There will likely be a different admissions committee this year, and your application will be read in a new context — maybe they offered places to 6 Americanists and all of them accepted, in which case they might be offering a smaller number of Americanist spots this year, etc etc. My advice would be to get in touch with the prospective advisors who accepted you and to explain the situation—otherwise it’s going to be very strange for them to have your application re-appear on their desk. Professors are just humans and will understand (and if they don’t that might be a red flag anyway). As for recommendations I’d stick with what you had, unless your relationship with any of the recommenders has changed, or you’ve added anything significant to your CV. Good luck!

You're going to have excuse my ignorance but is a 2-in-1 basically a tablet etc w a keyboard?? Maybe I'm a monster but I have a laptop, a desktop, and an ipad (the latter's the only one I bought new, the laptop's old and shitty but I need to be able to write outside of the apartment, and I bought the desktop cheap from craigslist when I started getting migraines from hunching over my laptop all week). It sounds absurd and excessive but I use them all pretty much every day. I read the majority of books and articles on my ipad -- before I began my phd, including during MA, I would never have imagined I'd be reading so much on screens--I was very much an "I need the physical book" kind of person. PhD life and qualifying exams have changed me (in many ways), and I now prefer e-books and pdfs for reading academic texts. Easier to mark up, file, and keep track of, especially if you can get an ipad type device w a stylus. I also often read from the ipad while typing notes on my desktop computer, and highly recommend a book stand for that purpose (I use the book stand for the paperback books I read, too). If I had to get rid of one of the three it would be the laptop, especially if you can get a tablet with a keyboard and a sufficiently large screen that it's not a pain when you need it for writing papers--my ipad's relatively small so I wouldn't want to use it for writing anything much longer than a response paper or email.

Go to whichever is going to land you in less debt.

I'm pretty sure I know who you're talking about and ... go to Harvard. Or feel free to pm re why.

I would find this very, very off-putting--I was in a similar position w Penn a few years ago. My prospective advisor seemed amazing but she was also very near retirement and I couldn't imagine who would become my primary advisor if she were suddenly unable to advise me. I would highly stress the importance of a supportive team over a supportive individual (and I wouldn't put too much emphasis on big names, though this person also sounds like they have a record as a good advisor, so that's a bit different). To me, a stranger reading your post, it sounds like you'd be more secure at Yale, and feeling secure in your program is really important.

All of the advice above is really good -- I have a slightly different take... feel free to PM.

NYU's MA is well respected, and has excellent placement rates into US PhD programs--the phd program is also amongst the best in Middle Eastern and Near Eastern studies and has very good placement outcomes. I recall you posting that you felt confident about NYU, I think partly because they don't require the GRE (not requiring the GRE does not make a program easier to get into, it just means that the faculty voted not to require the GRE because the GRE is a money-making rort). The program's highly selective and competitive. Oxford is not as "prestigious" within the US but it's really going to depend on how you do in the MA. I sense that you're making some assumptions about NYU not being "as prestigious" or something--but the Middle Eastern studies department is a big deal. An MA in the US will help you to apply for PhDs with a stronger sense of these things.

Basically don't take it as anything yet, people are still making decisions about their offers, you might just be waiting on someone to officially turn down their place. I don't think waitlisted students are usually invited to prospective students days--the waiting part is tough but it'll end soon!

Sure but ... that’s not what I said.

What would be the costs? Can't quite tell if you're saying that it'd be tuition free. If you don't have to pay tuition and thus don't have to go into huge debt, William and Mary is a great school that's likely to prepare you well for phd applications.

Yeah, it definitely wouldn't make sense to turn down a funded MA (also as an early Americanist W&M is awesome), it's good to know options though--and also good to know when the offer of an MA is more than just an invitation to help fund the phd program.

I'm actually not entirely sure but I would ask if you can be put in touch with current MA students, who will have a better idea. Just from the website there's this (below)--that might be how students are funding themselves--though the website does seem a little incorrect to me (even with an MA we're all funded for 5 years for the phd, for instance). "The Graduate School’s Tuition Incentive Program (TIP) encourages students to apply for external grants and provides matching tuition points (from 50 to 100 percent) to eligible recipients of external awards from recognized, academic sources of funding outside NYU. For applications and specific details about TIP eligibility criteria, please visitwww.nyu.edu/gsas/Admissions/tipform.html. New York University offers several loan programs to students. Information is available at www.nyu.edu/financial.aid or at the Office of Financial Aid, 212-998-4444. The GSAS/CAS Tuition Program: Qualified CAS students graduating in 2009 or later who complete the admissions application process and are admitted to the master's programs in History (World History, Archives and Public History, or History of Women and Gender), as well as the BA/MA program, in the term immediately following the year of their graduation from CAS, will be eligible to receive a 25% tuition discount for courses required for the degree program."

Some (not all) MA students do seem to have funding--not a stipend, but they're not paying tuition. It might just be worth looking into how MA students fund themselves--I wouldn't call NYU's MA program a cash cow, a lot of MA students are very integrated (for serious want of a better word) into phd classes/the phd "community" and professors do take MA students and their dissertations very seriously--there have been two instances where I didn't actually realize that someone was a masters student until they were like "I got into PhD programs". In other words, it's a real admission and a sign that they actually do just think you'd be better suited for a PhD once you've done an MA/would like to work with you and help you get there.

Yeah, most of my cohort have MAs and all of us have taken coursework etc—it’s a whole different thing (or it serves a very different purpose) in a PhD context.

I know, I'm not from the US. But the MA is not the same as the first two years of a US PhD, and plenty of US PhD students also have a masters degree. It's not just a matter of "extra time". Comprehensive exams (or their equivalent), for instance, are an integral part of the US system. It's not just the ivies. The ivies are not inherently better than other schools except when you're hoping to impress people who know very little about academia.

Controversial statement but US PhD programs are just rigorous in a very different way. I think people outside of the US, unfamiliar with the US system, assume that the two years of coursework are "unnecessary", time-wasting, etc (these are opinions I encountered when I was writing my MA outside of the US). Coursework years are better considered as focused reading years that both compel you and provide you with time to establish breadth of knowledge, to diversify research interests, and to work towards your project with faculty you might not otherwise encounter (and who often have thoughtful advice to offer re your work). Sometimes I've hated the coursework, but it's already made the dissertation I'm working towards so much better. Being in the US has made me even more skeptical of 3 to 4 year PhD programs--it's enough time to write a focused dissertation on a specialized subject, but I don't think it's enough time to become truly well-versed in literature across multiple fields. I'm really glad I didn't enter a program that would have had me writing my dissertation proposal and dissertation (and little else) right away--which isn't to say that I won't use the writing I've worked on in coursework years. US departments know about these differences, and so Oxbridge prestige doesn't mean all that much.

No--I honestly think it's a good idea to take a year (or more) away from academia (even if you've already taken time off between undergrad and the MA). Keep up with scholarly conversations, keep thinking about your own research interests, maybe start looking through some comprehensive exam lists (some schools have lists posted online--I'd highly recommend the lists up on the Wisconsin Madison site), etc, but for your own sanity time off can be a good thing. I also found that after time off I was like, yeahhhh I'm ready to go back now.

Sorry to bear bad news, but it’s my understanding that all wait lists and acceptances have gone out and prospective students day was last week.

Don’t discount Penn yet, though. Some people will be trying to make a decision about schools right up until the April 15 deadline. I’m amongst the terrible people who’ve turned down offers on April 15 (and I know that, at Penn, when I turned down my offer someone else was offered a spot in my place). Ie if you’d prefer Penn over Temple, wait it out for a while, even though it’s painful, because you don’t want to be in a position where you accept Temple then get into Penn etc etc—it just becomes a mess. Also, to people weighing multiple offers, try to turn down offers you know you’re not going to accept as soon as you can. If you’re tossing up between two schools even after visit days, get in contact with as many relevant people as you can—grad students, potential committee members etc.

A good reason not to accept offers until you've heard back from everywhere.

I personally think it's appropriate to cave, email the main POI who interviewed you, and ask when you can expect to hear back--and express your interest, how great it was to speak with them, etc.