psstein

I understand your discomfort, but I would suggest that this isn't as big a deal as you seem to think it is. Applicants don't accept offers all the time, so most faculty don't take it too personally. I would bring up your other options if asked, because, as other posters have said, faculty have far more insight into the contours of the field than someone just entering graduate school. Depending on your sub-field, your advisor may know faculty at other programs. It's also understood that applicants are going to act in their own best interests, which don't always overlap with faculty's interests. Unless you do something really egregious, most faculty don't remember accepted students from year to year. About #2: I would ask about on campus resources and would try to get some idea of their advising style; you should ask current grad students about the latter, too. One of the biggest predictors of a successful relationship is having a similar expectation of the advisor and advisee's roles.

I know someone who did this. He finished a PhD and wrote an official history for a government agency, then jumped over to a major government-facing consulting firm. I asked him about it a few months back and his advice was a) network and b) be lucky. Even the STEM fields don't have the easiest time at many of the top firms; I actually watched a Versatile PhD presentation about this exact issue only a few months back. The presenter suggested networking (through alumni/department/whatever) and trying to sell your skills in the best way you can. I think @Sigaba works around consulting?

If both of you are interested in talking to current grad students, I would suggest getting in contact with your potential advisor's students and asking them to speak about their experiences on the phone/via Skype/etc. Most people tend to be a lot more forthcoming when they're not leaving a paper trail.

Columbia's MA programs fund their PhD programs, so I wouldn't hold out for funding.

I would go with your gut. NYU's offer is a cash cow. I've never heard anything positive about that program. Boston College's offer may have strings that prevent outside work or make outside work very difficult. From my perspective, your off year plan is very solid. If possible, I would incorporate sources in that language into your writing sample. It would definitely show off your abilities.

Chicago has an outstanding Ancient Near East program, running out of the Oriental Institute. I'd place it with Harvard and Yale, that's how good it is. A 100% funded MAPPS wouldn't be a bad way to go, provided @Mehak is willing to push him/herself to learn whatever additional languages s/he needs. I know Indiana Univ. has a MA program in ANE languages and cultures. Maybe looking there would be beneficial. Just like with ancient history, the job market for ANE is very limited, so attending a top-tier program is non-negotiable.

You'll probably get a MAPPS/whatever the other one is called offer in a few weeks.

Just something that jumped into mind, there are Summer Latin courses available through several universities (e.g. Toronto and Catholic Univ. of America have well-known programs). You might want to look into them. They're not incredibly cheap, but they're definitely cheaper than the cost of a MA or a post-bac.

I would largely agree with @AP's advice, here. The only exception I can think of is if you've developed a relationship with the faculty member in question beforehand. I did request feedback from one of the programs I applied to, and the professor gave me as much information as he felt he could. That said, I'd already corresponded with this professor and spoken to him in person at some length. That's certainly an atypical case, though.

A post-bac might be more up your alley, if it's affordable and accessible. Unless that MA program has exceptional placement into PhD programs, I can't see it being a particularly good use of time. Also, I'd heed your advisor's advice. The job market in everything humanities is awful. Before you'd commit to this path, apprise yourself of the job opportunities, both academic and otherwise. Go onto H-Net and look at how many full-time ancient history positions come open in a year. Universities are in the process of consolidating departments, not opening new ones.

The entirety of the medieval/early modern history of science in my program was localized in one TA office, largely because the other student and I TAed the same two courses and became friends in the process. To the second half of your comment, if you build a critical mass of students in one area and organize well, the faculty/department is going to have to react to you. It's tough to justify not having a medieval historian of science when you have 4+ students working in topics around that area. As usual, I'm a bit late to the game, but I'll echo the remarks that a smaller cohort doesn't mean more attention. It's really advisor dependent. From what I know of Hopkins HoS, they're really attentive to their students. I don't know if that's true for HoM, too, but I suspect it is.

Often political (among faculty) or a limited number of slots going to students they suspect will accept. I was accepted to a program without funding in 2016. Talked to my PoI a year or two later and he said "you were a great candidate, but we didn't have the 'pull' necessary, plus nobody thought someone from the E. Coast would want to come to X location."

First, you need to create a maze of byzantine regulations and requirements, then call it a student handbook. Once you finish writing it, you can never update it-- seriously, some programs' last update was in the 80s.

Probably something like "19th century US with special focus on the postbellum period." Much like with any job, too, a fair number of the candidates aren't particularly qualified. For example, people with only tangentially-related backgrounds will apply to a job.

Whether or not it's fair, if you're more than 2-4 years out of a PhD program and haven't won some prestigious postdoc (or VAP-ship), you're probably not going to get a position. Far too many adjuncts think all they need is a few more classes to "prove" to the department that they can handle a TT position. Sadly, for most of them, that day never comes. I would also bet, @FruitLover, that the position receiving 12 applications was either in an extremely niche field or at a university in an incredibly undesirable area (think something like Mohammed Bin Salman College of Petrochemicals and History).

I would just echo what other posters have already said. It depends on what the opportunities look like and what they offer. TA-ing is worth much less than being an instructor of record, but the sort of trap I'm referring to the idea "I just have to teach one more class as an IoR before I can graduate," when you've already taught 3-4 courses. IMO, finishing the dissertation in a timely fashion is more important than teaching "just one more class." I realize this is a bit of an unpopular opinion, but you might be able to outpublish a mediocre teaching record. You're not likely to out-teach a mediocre publishing record, especially given the contours of today's field and how even more teaching-oriented universities have prioritized research output. Put another way, TAing and teaching other courses as an instructor of record is valuable experience, but it can also prolong your time to completion. FWIW, I found it very tough to summon the energy to write or do much beyond some light reading after coming home from a day of teaching.

Pretty much. Even some of the biggest names in Cambridge School intellectual history (Pocock, for example, who's still alive and publishing in his late 90s!) have turned to the empire and the colonies. I wish I'd also copied your remarks about advisors. Far too many are engaged in the field, but only halfway care what their students do. It's sort of sad, if you think about it. A discussion for a different time, but I'd bet that placement has just as much to do with advisor quality and reputation as it does program reputation; it can't be a coincidence that certain advisors, even at institutions I wouldn't call "top-tier," consistently place students in TT roles.

There is some preference for students who finish PhDs in shorter times (i.e. 6-8 years) over students who take much longer. Of course, that depends heavily on sub-field. It would be unreasonable to expect a medievalist to finish in the same time it takes someone specializing in 20th century US history. As for the jobs: the market is so bad that it's very tough to turn down a TT job, even if it's in a less desirable place to live. It's likely that the TT job you get will be the one you stay in for the rest of your career, based on the way the field is trending. As for @telkanuru's point about adjuncting, it's not called "adjunct hell" for nothing. Far too many PhD students (and recent PhDs) end up something I call the "teaching experience trap." What I mean is the idea that "I just need to teach 1 more course to be a competitive candidate/to get a TT job." I don't call it a "trap" lightly. On the balance of it, though, it's probably more worth devoting your energy to finish the dissertation than it is "just teaching 1 more course."

It might be a socioeconomic thing, based on social class of the average Ivy student vs. that of students who go to state schools. Or it might be that Ivies engage students better at the introductory level. A lot of interesting potential explanations, IMO.

It's a systemic problem. Rhetoric about "useless degrees" has pushed a lot of students into business degrees and STEM, though there's an oversaturation issue, now. RE Laptops: yes, spending a bit more up front on a higher quality laptop is money well-worth spending. It's also a bit out of vogue now, but it's not a bad move to have a desktop for home work. You can get a pretty solid desktop for an almost dirt cheap price, and they last far, far longer than most laptops (average useful lifespan for a laptop can be about 3-6 years; I've had the same desktop for 8 now).

One of the major reasons is that the economy is good (in the US, at least), which almost invariably leads to more people entering the workforce and fewer people going to graduate or professional schools. The other side of it is that fora, more generally, have seen a decrease in activity due to alternative sites like Reddit.

I'd add that the ability to be upset, depressed, hurt, whatever, and keep moving forward is one of the most important skills you can have for graduate school and life more generally. Most of us will end up in non-academic jobs, some in the private sector (which is far from the boogeyman a lot of us think it is). If you vent at your supervisors, it's not going to end well.

Off the top of my head, widespread attrition, insane times to completion (relative to field-- nobody expects a Russian history dissertation to finish in 5 years), poor/unreported placement, or advisor issues. The last one is something you'll likely learn at any visit weekend. As I've said before, grad students don't mind being blunt about faculty's reputation. @Sigaba isn't joking about the bathroom thing. There's not much more annoying than having the nearest restroom three floors above you, or having to pay a deposit for a key that opens all of one door.

Unless your heart is 1000% set on somewhere and there's absolutely nothing you could experience to make you choose otherwise, yes. You might go to a campus visit and find that you can't stand the grad students and the most interesting thing in town is a supermarket.

I would send a followup email after all the decisions are out and make it clear that this program is (if it's true) your top choice. I would reiterate how you think your project would fit well into the strengths of the department faculty and how much you look forward to attending. Stealing a leaf from @Sigaba, I am very wary of the way "fit" has mutated from explaining how a graduate student's project intersects with faculty interests and how that graduate student would meld with the department, to a seeming catch-all about the applicant's needs and desires.