AnUglyBoringNerd

Congrats! I accepted the offer of admission to the History - East Asia PhD program through EALAC Looking forward to attending Columbia as well~

I’m entering a History PhD with a Master’s degree in international politics, another Master’s degree in Public Policy, and a Bachelor’s degree in International Politics. No minors.

I’m really interested in the intersection of gender and international politics, and in women’s roles in the transformation of societies, so I have been working as a researcher for an NGO with a focus on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression in current UN politics. Meanwhile, my supervisor and colleagues at work are very supportive of my academic career, so they’ve been sending me to international conferences, workshops, and summits related to gender and women’s rights, which really helped with expanding my horizons. Given that I don’t have any degree in History (My BA and MA are in international politics and I’ve also got an MPP...oops!), it’s really difficult to find a research job working for/with historians directly, so I had to be creative and take “detours”. Congrats on the research assistant position! I didn’t realize this, but a gap year really helped me put things into perspectives. I love my NGO job and would happily make it a lifetime career, so now it’s like... I know I’m doing my PhD bc I love academic research more than policy oriented research, not bc it’s my only option. Does this make sense?

I am switching from Political Science to History (field is East Asia, with a focus on modern Japan (and maybe China)). Last year I didn't get into any of the 6 PhD programs I applied to, but this year I got in 4 out of 7, including 2 (or 3?) top programs. My GRE score wasn't the best either - 161 V, 168 Q, 4.5 (my first and only try) but I was strongly advised against retaking GRE. So, instead, I spent the 7 months in between two application cycles improving my SOP, writing sample, and getting a lot more research related experiences. I am not sure if this applies to Literature as well, but I am under the impression that as long as your GRE is not bad (e.g. I was told as long as my V is over 160 I'd be fine), you may not have to invest extra time (and money!) to retake it. That said, I am Chinese myself, English is my second language and Japanese my third, so our situations might be a bit different...

I don’t think it’s just “any foreign schools”... e.g. for universities in Japan, I’ve only seen U Tokyo- and multiple times, and for universities in mainland China, Peking University has sent several people to the “top tier” PhD programs you mentioned. (And both PKU and UTokyo are extremely difficult to get in for Chinese/Japanese nationals themselves) And the National Universiry of Singapore is (to my understanding) one of the top universities in Asia.

This has been a thread I'd like to contribute to for a while, and I am so very glad that I finally am in a position to do so! Please pardon my typos and the bad grammar. Current status (2017-2018): Applied (7): Columbia (History - East Asia), Michigan —Ann Arbor (History and Women's Studies joint program), UChicago (History), UCSB (History), Wisconsin - Madison (History) , U of Toronto (History), Princeton (East Asian Studies) Accepted (declined) : UChicago, UCSB, U of Toronto, Columbia Rejected: Princeton, Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan Past status (2016-2017): Applied (6): Columbia (PolSci), Berkeley (PolSci), GWU (PolSci), UVA (PolSci), Harvard (History), UPenn (History) Accepted: N/A Rejected: All of them (UPenn post-interview) Executive Summary: 1. Choose programs that are the best fit (in my case, this begins with choosing the right discipline...) 2. Contact not just one but multiple POIs (not just to gauge fit, but for advice) 3. Ask multiple people to review SOP (make sure some of the reviewers are advanced PhD students) 4. Not just make an effort to revise the writing sample, but make sure that the original research in this writing sample is very strong 4. (if applicable) Think of ways to proactively make the non-History related work experiences/degrees in non-History disciplines into one's advantage 5. Make sure that one has a strong support system 6. (this may only apply to me, but at least in my case) If applying to PhD programs is like shooting a target under great pressure with your life at stake (to some extent), then one may want to present oneself as a professionally trained sniper, instead of a passionate soldier. Background Info: I'm an international student with no degree in History but two Master's degrees from non-U.S. schools. I would like a career in the academia not bc this is the only option I have, but the one I desire most. So, to some extent, I am aware of the trade-off, the opportunity cost, and the risk, which means applying to PhD programs itself is an informed decision. And, in my humble opinion, the lessons I've learned are-- 1. Choose programs that are the best fit I know this is a bit cliche, but in my case this was a fundamental and challenging task to complete. To begin with, I needed to know who I am as an academic in order to choose the discipline that is the best fit given my intellectual identity. On paper, I am a significantly better applicant for PhD programs in PolSci than I am for programs in History. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to become a historian or a political scientist during my first cycle of application. For instance, I didn't know if I want to approach international politics as a historian or become a political scientist with a historical perspective. When I was preparing for my applications to History programs in 2016, I felt like I was "defecting" from one field to another. That identity crisis did real damage to my first cycle, and completely turned my existent academic training against me. Multiple POIs even (explicitly or implicitly) asked me why I wanted to be trained into a historian. So, the lesson is, if I cannot even identify my intellectual self, then the committees and POIs cannot either. I spent the past year painstakingly coming to terms with the fact that I want to be a historian (with my research interests encompassing field A, B, C...). And this has not only made the "searching for programs that are the best fit" process in 2017 a lot easier, but also helped me to concentrate all my energy on accumulating more research experiences in field A, B, C. And I am a lot happier. From the results you can see that I applied to Columbia twice, once to the PhD program in PolSci (rejected) and this time to the PhD program called History - East Asia (accepted). I think the results speak for themselves. (And I am openly glad that I only need to send TOEFL and GRE scores once!) 2. Contact POIs For the first cycle, I only contacted one POI for each of the program I applied to, and the contacting itself was of a very superficial nature- I simply asked if a given POI was interested in my research plans/academic background and if they were taking students. That was helpful but not productive. For the second cycle, I made sure to at least contact 2-3 POI for every program I was considering to apply to, and also asked all of my POIs if they have any advice on how to further develop my research interests and prepare my application. Most of them replied and most of those who replied gave advice in great detail. Two POIs literally pointed out that some of my research topics were not as original as the others, and have been already well studied. As you can imagine, I avoided writing about those research topics in my SOP. Some POIs shared their idea about what a good writing sample was, e.g. based on solid and original work, creative narrating, etc. And others suggested that I elaborated on a few research topics I originally considered not so important, bc they thought these topics could potentially lead to important research. In short, by contacting POIs via dozens of emails, I became a better applicant already, even before I made a decision on which programs I should apply to. In retrospect, contacting POIs was a significantly helpful experience where I had a perfect excuse to ask renowned historians to take time to mentor me on how the mind of a professional historian should work. 3. Ask multiple people to review SOP Many people have offered excellent advice on how to revise one's SOP, so my focus here is rather on asking reviewers to help with the revision. For the first cycle, I asked three PhD students to review my SOP, but none of them are actually doing PhDs in History (oops!). For this cycle, six PhD students selflessly offered insight. Three of them were my own senpai, who are doing PhDs in top History PhD programs and would like to go the extra mile to get me in a top program too. Three others were people I know from this very forum - I didn't ask for their permission, so please allow me to refrain from revealing their identities - with two of them being advanced PhD students/candidates. I did lots of heavy revisions to my SOPs according to their advice, e.g. I abandoned all the language about "passion", "hope", "enthusiasm" bc they show nothing about my expertise or my professionalism. What prevented me from asking more people to review my SOP during the first cycle was that I was shy, and unconsciously afraid of hearing people say "this wouldn't work, you need to rewrite everything". Yes, showing my SOP - a piece of my mind and my intellectual self - to other people, especially strangers made me feel exposed and vulnerable, but this was nevertheless a must do. It's way much better to consciously feel vulnerable rewriting a SOP for the 17th time than to unknowingly submit a vulnerable SOP to the committee and get it slaughtered. I am so very grateful that so many people took their time (while being crazy busy with their own work) to selflessly rescue my SOP again and again. And in my humble opinion, it is significant that one always humbly asks for permission to send a SOP to a potential reviewer in advance, with great respect and gratitude, before sending out the SOP. 4. Not just make an effort to revise the writing sample, but make sure that the original research in this writing sample is very strong My writing samples for both of the two cycles are actually about the same research topic. And no, my English skill/narrating style didn't improve that much in the past year. What changed is that I wrote my master's thesis based on the 2016 version of the writing sample, adding to it a lot more original research, then wrote the 2017 version of the writing sample based on the thesis. In other words, the research itself was stronger, more sophisticated, and significantly more mature. I thought revising the writing of a writing sample took a lot less time than enriching the original research the writing sample was based on, so in 2016 i focused solely on the "writing" part of the writing sample. But this was a tactical decision instead of a strategic one. A stellar research may end up producing a good (but not extraordinary) writing sample, but i feel it is unlikely that an immature and weak research can produce an original and solid writing sample. After all, the people who make decisions are established historians themselves, they can see. 4. Think of ways to proactively make the non-History related work experience/degrees in non-History disciplines into one's advantage I don't have any degree in History, so this is more like my own "demon" to deal with. Please ignore the following if you don't have the awkward disadvantage of never having majored or even minored in History. This is easier to say than to do, but is doable. I have been spending my gap year working as a researcher for an NGO and was hired bc of my expertise in politics instead of history.(ironic~) Bc of the nature of my work, I got to travel a lot (domestically and internationally) and communicate with academics from non-History disciplines, activists, and other professionals on a regular basis. At first, I was afraid that this kind of non-History experience was bound to further add to my disadvantage of not having a degree in History, but i was wrong. Many of the ideas - especially the good ones- in my SOP were a result of my learning from these people's perspectives. Hypothetically speaking, if one's interested in the historical transformation of gender norms, it doesn't hurt to work with those who endeavor to shape gender norms in our era. No, they are not the historians who study what I study and what happened one century ago, but they (are trying to) make or shape the history someone's gonna write about 100 years later. So how did this play out? During my first interview with Columbia, the professor asked nothing about my research in History but a lot of my "work", and was very interested in knowing how i make connections between my work and my research. I later learned that another applicant who was also interviewed was asked similar questions - not about their research in History, but their non-History experiences. So, when it comes to the final decision and the quality of everything else is the same/highly similar, the committee may also look at applicants' non-History experiences. So, if you are also in a similar situation where you have a significant amount of non-History training and (work) experiences for whatever reasons, which can potentially lead the committee to assume that you are not committed to/experienced in History, don't think about defending or justifying yourself (like i desperately tried doing in 2016 but in vain). Instead, think about how you can offer the program something special which they don't usually find in other applicants. 5. Make sure that one has a strong support system And don't just confine it to family and friends. For instance and in my case, I would say a very important part of my support system is my colleagues from work. After I failed my first cycle, my supervisor made an effort to send me to attend more conferences and do more business trips. I think part of this was bc I was obliviously very upset and needed distraction, and part of this was bc (my supervisor from work confirmed) my supervisor believed that this kind of experience would help me mature more as a researcher (regardless of the discipline), which, in turn, could help with my second cycle of application. Meanwhile, a colleague from work who's a native English speaker checked the language of all my SOPs and writing sample for me, that was A LOT of time-consuming work. In addition, I would also say that all the POIs I contacted were also part of this support system. First, they were all very kind and encouraging. (and this is pretty much a guaranteed response from them) More importantly, many of them would offer advice on how to better prepare one's application if one asks nicely and skillfully, and this kind of support is what, in my humble opinion, an applicant might need more - even more than the emotional support (not saying emotional support is not important, though) from family and friends. 6. (this may only apply to me, but at least in my case) If applying to PhD programs is like shooting a target under great pressure with your life at stake (to some extent), then one may want to present oneself as a professionally trained sniper, instead of a passionate soldier. In my humble opinion, one won't be offered admissions to top programs bc one is passionate about one's research. I believe I was only offered admissions bc, first of all, the committees and POIs saw me as a professional historian in the making. In retrospect, during the first cycle i acted like a passionate soldier marching towards my targets like (no offense) a lot of people did or would do, but during the second cycle I somehow managed to behave, to some extent, like a sniper - I was a lot more precise, I made calculations, and I shot at my target professionally with the intention of getting the job done. My final two cents: there are many many soldiers and significantly fewer snipers in this world. Many soldiers can be replaced by other soldiers, but each good sniper has their professional signature and style (and even self-made bullets!) which eventually make them stand out and get "caught" by the "good people". (yes, I've watched too much crime drama...) Best wishes to everyone!

I would like to point out that this tomb is actually a very nice place to live and Wang should have lived there with Lin. And there are lots of people out there (including me) who only got in the second or third time they try.

Is such an irony being an aspiring historian in this chaotic era I am gonna switch back to my political scientist mode a bit...

I am currently working at an NGO as a researcher. And I completely agree, our magical development staff is why I have money for all my travels and projects. And fundraising is definitely a skill i want to learn before I leave the office and begin my PhD study. To make my post more relevant to this thread, I am more or less also switching from another field to History and I've already did my master's in that different field. So @Pacifist101, best of luck!

Just officially declined my UChicago and UCSB offer, and will complete the declining process for my UToronto offer by the end of this week. I hope that UChicago does have a waiting list. And best of luck to all those who are on all kinds of formal/informal waiting lists!

Hi there! I received the informal admission and an invitation to the History Day on Jan 31 from the department, then got the official notification on Feb 23 (with funding details). Hope this helps and best of luck!

In theory, I should behave like this whenever I get rejected --> "未遂风云便，争不恣狂荡。何须论得丧。才子词人，自是白衣卿相"(柳永《鹤冲天·黄金榜上》）. In practice, when I was rejected by all the programs I applied to in 2017, I was like this: Back then, the most eloquent verse for me was: "Meow? Meow! Meow?! Meow..." (repeat it in all four Mandarin tones)

@Naito This is so impressive! Count me in please, though I do need to take some time to shift to the right language mode before I can come up with any decent response. (at the moment I am all about "recalling..reiterating...reaffirming") lol

I have the exactly same package and based on correspondence with current students, it's very doable. I am also an international student~

煙花三月，故人西去

Sorry, but I don’t know whether all finalists are interviewed. But I got the official notification to check the website yesterday, so I assume official results are coming out (for EALAC applicants). Also, I applied to the History -East Asia program, applicants to this program can apply through both EALAC and the History Department and are (to my understanding) considered together, so if your focus is on literature, film, or religion etc. instead of on history, then there could be a different procedure/timeline. Hope this helps!

I was wondering if anyone has withdrawn their applications via the applyweb system? (Princeton, UPenn, Michigan and a few other schools use this system I think) I am having trouble locating the "withdraw" button... I just wanna quietly withdraw without having to contact anyone. Thanks in advance!

I only contacted my POI at Harvard so I cannot say that all of our POIs will definitely tell us the reason. Maybe this has something to do with the personality of POIs and/or our rapport with them and/or how busy they are. It's not their responsibility to tell us the reasons, so if they do, I'd say they've done us a huge favor. Think about it, a renowned historian bothered to take time to comment on our writing even though we are not their students - to me that's a huge privilege. By all means, I don't think asking them about our application is gonna hurt us, although how we word this inquiry is important, in my humble opinion. Mine was something like this: [short introduction to remind POI who I am] [A]s I intend to learn from this history of failure and reapply in the fall of 2017, I was wondering if it may be proper for me to ask for your advice regarding my application so I could make more improvements this year? I apologize if I have caused you any inconvenience. Also, please allow me to thank you again for your encouragement. You can see that I used "from this history of failure", indicating I was very emotional back then (I was, which means I was less professional, oops), which, in hindsight, was unnecessary and should have been avoided. My suggestion is to try to frame our email in a positive and professional way with as much elegance and grace as you can gather, don't focus on the rejection but see it as an opportunity to make improvements, and of course let's take this opportunity to thank our POIs for reviewing our application. You may not even mention the word "rejection", I think I said something like "I have received the official notification about the result of my application to XX program, and would like to thank you for reviewing my application. Meanwhile...." Hope this helps! See if you can make this into a professional networking opportunity.

I am in a similar situation so you are definitely not alone! If you look at my CV from one year ago you might think I'm a Political Science person bc I majored in international politics, took statistics class, and do not have a degree in History . For my first cycle, I applied to 4 programs in Political Science and 2 in History (Harvard and UPenn), and got rejected by all of them. After I got the rejections, I contacted my POI (in History), thanked them for taking time to review my application, asked about how I could improve my application, and if they would recommend me to make an effort and try to reapply for the next cycle. They replied, and it was implied that they've got the impression that my training is half-half, which, among a few other things, played against me. I did lots of things in the past year to make sure that i no longer leave the impression that my training is half-half, and that I am a professional with solid research experience in History, by actually acquiring more experience in History and demonstrating this in my SOPs and writing samples. (I did audit graduate seminars in History, though not for the contents of courses but for networking opportunities with more historians who later helped me build a much stronger application for this cycle) This cycle I applied to 7 programs, all in History, so far I have heard from 5, and got in 4, all are (in my humble opinion) decent PhD programs. Hope this helps.

Congrats on the HEAL offer! Have you talked with your POI at Harvard about this concern? Maybe they'll allow (if not proactively encourage) you to also study with scholars outside the field of East Asian history, e.g. with historians in other fields and anthropologists/political scientists/etc who have research interests in East Asia? Harvard has a very strong partnership with many good universities in mainland China, including Peking University and Tsinghua University, so it might be a lot easier to build networks.

To be honest, in comparison with my other career options (e.g. NGO, think tank, consulting firm, etc), I think committing to an academic career as a historian is already the biggest guilty pleasure of my life... I mean, think about the opportunity cost of doing a PhD in history~

Professor Susan L. Burns bc of my interest in gender and sexuality. An anecdote, when I was interviewed by my POI at Columbia, they asked about my other applications, so I also mentioned UChicago, and they immediately said "Oh Professor Susan Burns!" before I even got to the "and my POI at UChicago is" part.

Honestly, I am only waiting for my rejection letter from Princeton - Princeton's EAS department interviews their top applicants as part of their admission procedure, so never being interviewed means I will definitely, definitely get a rejection letter. (I believe UPenn's History department has the same policy) If my official Columbia admission reaches me before I hear back from Michigan and Princeton, I will withdraw my applications to these two programs. In a parallel universe where I received admissions from Columbia, UChicago and Princeton, I'd still go to Columbia/UChicago. I was told that a PhD in (East Asian) History is more competitive in the job market than a PhD in East Asian studies if you eventually want to be hired as a historian. :/

I will be deciding between Chicago, Columbia and UToronto but am very strongly leaning towards Columbia. It's also about the small things that are difficult to describe.

Welcome to the forum and many congrats on the Brown offer!!! I also work on modern Japan with interests in gender and sexuality, collective identity and memory, and modernity. I kind of have this feeling that Columbia only let me know yesterday bc it was the Chinese New Year’s Eve and I’m Chinese. And I was told official notification (at least that for me) will come out next week. Hope this helps!