psstein

As I usually bang on about, keep in mind placement and funding sources. Four years TA-ship is unfortunately quite common, but it also delays research productivity.

More significant than you'd probably hope. He sounds like a great guy and a good advisor. There are two very significant concerns here: 1. Will you be able to get the type of support you need from an absentee advisor? Are there other faculty you can lean on at Penn? Just anecdotally, a friend finished his PhD last May. His advisor had recently retired and was in the middle of doing other things. He said that it was impossible to get in contact with the guy-- it took weeks to get comments on drafts and feedback. Nothing to do with ability, but a lot to do with availability. 2. Do you need a JD? Graduate programs already take an inordinate amount of time (6 years is a floor at most universities). A JD/PhD will only extend that period. I also want to say that a JD is, in a very real sense, a far more useful degree than a PhD. The job market for law is bad. The job market and long-term outlook for academic history is nothing short of miserable. This is nothing short of an absolutely giant red flag. A lack of a proven track record of success, combined with a nonchalant attitude to the job market should set off a very loud warning klaxon. The market is brutal, even for someone from a top-tier Ivy. As I've said many, many times, the point is not to get into graduate school. It's to find a job after graduate school.

Do this. Pay attention to what you hear. Faculty tend not to be incredibly direct, but if you keep hearing the same thing, you need to take it into consideration.

The US News and World Report's rankings are worthless. You should go to School A. Your advisor's reputation will follow you long after s/he dies. Think about Prof. B's time constraints. Running academic institutes is time consuming. My advisor is on multiple committees and it can be a chore to meet with her at all. You should also look at placement. Having a "star" advisor is worthless if s/he can't place students.

I would encourage you to refine specifically why you want and need the languages you're taking up. I understand @telkanuru's point about German, but I'm not sure I agree with him. Certainly some sub-fields benefit very much from having access to German language sources, including my own (history of medicine). With other sub-fields, however, focusing intensely upon French and Latin will prove far more useful. German history of science literature, for example, heavily focuses on late 19th/early 20th century physics and the development of disciplines like physiology, biology, and organic chemistry. I do echo his call, however, about finding a very specific time period and framework. For example, my MA project is about attempts to control syphilis, focusing on human medical experimentation, in both the US South and one Latin American country between 1945 and 1965. My SoP discussed French Jesuits in the New World and their role as knowledge producers and circulators. My question for you is, precisely: what do you want to do and why do you want to do it? You don't need to have a completely articulated, entirely set out framework, but it does help to understand precisely what you want to look at and why it matters. I would suggest that even your current interests are far too broad. Obviously, some of the work of the MA (and PhD) is about refining and narrowing your interests, but as you show below, you have a lot of interests. I'd strongly recommend choosing one and really digging into it. Maybe it's my own work showing, but the intersection of religion and public health sounds fascinating. I can think of many profitable ways you can go with that topic alone (e.g. church attendance as a form of medical surveillance in 15th C. Vienna), but the overarching point is that you need to become more of a specialist, rather than someone with diffuse interests. By the way, having diffuse interests is not bad, but you need to focus very heavily on one, without seemingly overly narrow. You should have a significant amount of intellectual curiosity, but you should also read with what one of my professors calls "active plunder," how a book allows you to do what you want to do.

I'd add that comparative approaches to medieval Europe and the Islamic World seem far more popular and marketable, today especially, than more Europe-centered work alone.

Would you say in that order, too? Latin and French are non-negotiable, IMO. You can get around not knowing German in certain sub-fields.

It depends on what you want to do. If you want to do Medieval/Early Modern, Latin is the language of most official documents/manuscripts/etc. It's probably not bad to know French, just so you can have some access to secondary literature. I'm obviously showing my history of science bias, but some of the foundational literature is in French. You probably don't need Old Church Slavonic unless you're planning to work on something involving the Orthodox Church. Importantly, though, determine if you want to do Medieval, Early Modern, or modern European history. You're not always going to be wedded to one over another (18th century sort of falls in between), but you should choose one to focus on.

You shouldn't bring this up with anyone outside of the people in a position to do something about it. I would also recommend sending an email saying something along the lines of "I want to attend Harvard for reasons x/y/z, but I currently have a slightly better offer from Yale, etc. Would it be at all possible for the department to increase my level of stipend?" Or something like that at least. You want to be as polite as possible about it, because money can always get touchy, even at places richer than God Himself.

See you Wisconsin folks this weekend!

IF you can afford the MAPSS, then it's a far better option. If you can't, my answer is "take neither."

The downside, of course, is that Oxbridge PhDs, no matter how prestigious, have a hell of a time finding a US job.

I could've sworn I'd replied to this last night. Anyway, to answer your questions: none of Princeton, Yale, or Wisconsin have too much trouble placing their graduates within broader history programs. In Wisconsin, you're encouraged to take courses outside of HoS. Besides, we merged in July 2017, so it's the same department overall. There's an option here for a joint HSMT/History degree, which is apparently far easier than it used to be. It's also worth understanding that the history of science field as it currently exists is far removed from the highly technical, internalist histories of science produced in the 1960s and 1970s. Outside of a few scholars (Heilbron and Shank are the two most notable ones), highly technical work is in disrepute and has been for some time. We have a fine relationship with history here, and I'd imagine Princeton does as well, since they're technically a subsidiary of the broader history department. I don't know much about Yale, but I imagine they're okay as well. These are questions you ought to ask at the respective visitation days.

Are you crazy to turn down a cash cow program that looks great on paper, but may not provide you the resources to become the scholar you want to become? Unless you're independently wealthy, there's no persuasive reason to take it.

I did, big time. Don't let it get too bad, but enjoy your last few months of college. I had a ton of fun after learning I was accepted. I wouldn't recommend my method of doing it... but still, it was a lot of fun.

@TMP has nailed it, but I'd also highlight that this isn't as solid a contract as you'd hope. Most (all?) of these funding sources depend upon "satisfactory progress," which is the most nebulous term I can think of, but it's the way it's described.

Do you speak/read French? If not, that's going to be a major obstacle. If you can produce a writing sample demonstrating good working knowledge of French, your background in European history will be a bit less of a concern. I can't remember how many Euro courses I had in college. I had zero history of science courses, and, while that did prove a bit of an impediment to my applications, it wasn't a big issue in the long run. I think NYU has a good French history program. J.B. Shank (Minnesota) is very good, but he's more a historian of science. If you came here, you'd work with Suzanne Desan, but I'm not sure how much longer she'll be active. She was going to retire shortly, but then took on a new graduate student...

It's not an outright awful choice, but part of graduate education is designed to expose you to new ways of thinking and other departments. It very heavily depends. If you get all three of your degrees from a mid-tier program, that's going to be a problem. People with three degrees from HYP or comparable places don't have that problem nearly as much. You can ask, but they're probably going to deny you the ability to look at it. Part of keeping recommendations confidential is also preserving interpersonal relationships. Letters have a tendency to be quite honest, as you're putting your name behind someone. If that someone isn't capable, you can lose a lot of standing.

That's great advice on his/her behalf.

It's not just how long it'll take. It's also about other funding concerns. Are there conference and travel funds? Conferences are expensive as it is. Is there enough money for you to focus on research during the summers, or will you have to take up another job? Don't think of it in terms of credits. Think of it in terms of time. Teaching every semester will delay you from finishing faster. Teaching can be a very draining experience. I find it pretty tough to write (or really do anything outside of light reading) after I come home from teaching, and I don't have an awful student load. Also, which one has the best placement? Knowing nothing else, I'd bet A has a better record.

This doesn't make a ton of sense to me: they're giving you three years of fellowship, then two years of TAship? Or is it that you have three guaranteed fellowship years and that's it? The "assurances" should be taken with a dose of salt. The stock market could crap out again tomorrow, which means that virtually all external funding/endowments go in the toilet. It's also worth noting that these aren't anything concrete. They're not on paper, they're not really oral contracts, so you can renege at any point without consequence. They're honored on a case by case basis. I know of people who've gotten screwed over by them, and people who've been fine with them. Realistically speaking, you're not going to finish the PhD in 4 years. You might do it in 5, if you come in with a very good idea of what you want to do, have a program that cooperates with your moving ahead (this is a HUGE if), and don't have life get in the way. The average time to completion at most programs is something like 6.5. Many programs won't let you transfer a ton of MA credits either. Generally you'll get out of a thesis. This is an aside, but it's also my understanding that you become less competitive as a job candidate if you've taken an inordinate amount of time to complete ( @telkanuru or @OHSP, do you guys have any knowledge about that?). Of the three offers you've discussed, I'd rank them as A, B, and C as a very distant 3rd. 4 years TAship and lectureship thereafter is a pretty heavy teaching load.

On the strict financials, go to A. TAing is valuable experience, but it can eat up your time and make doing your own research/writing/etc. very difficult. The hiring process for many (most?) universities focuses on research and productivity. The "teaching experience" trap is one a lot of adjuncts get stuck in, too.

There's a Simpsons-esque quality to it. This is great advice. It's very worth noting that most students do not finish in five years, whether from coursework/institutional inertia/etc.

For some reason, this was really funny, especially the second sentence.

Someone posted an acceptance on Thursday. I think it's reasonable to expect disappointment if you're still waiting.