psstein

Hi all--first ever post here. I have been lurking this thread for the last month, and I saw lots of interest in Harvard. So, I thought I would let you know I have just received an email from the graduate director informing me he must "be circumspect with the language" he uses, and that the admissions process is not "ENTIRELY over", and that the "final decision on your application will be made in collaboration with the GSAS", but that the "history department has recommended to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences that you be admitted to our PhD program."

It's a very good, though hardly elite program. They have some really excellent French history faculty (e.g. Shank) and a few well known historians of science, though that's a different department. As for employment, it depends what type of employment you'll want after. If you want a TT position at a top 20 program, that's less likely. State universities tend to do well at placing students in their own region.
You should always act as though these sorts of things are formal interviews. Part of this meeting is seeing how well you get along with the advisor and whether the two of you can see yourselves working together profitably.
That's an encouraging sign. Generally, if faculty are enthusiastic about your application and meeting with you, it's a good sign. Keep in mind that history faculty have a billion things to do at any given moment. They don't spend time lightly.
If you want an academic job, placement, placement, placement. Compare the two programs. Get your hands on a list of your prospective advisor's recent students. Use Google/LinkedIn and figure out what they're doing. Any program without a list of recent placements/recent graduates should have a very big red flag.
Your advisor's name follows you for the rest of your career, but your program's reputation will often keep doors open.

Research the COST OF LIVING for each place.  A $18K can go further in Bloomington, IN than Chicago, IL. A $25K can barely suppor you in NYC when it does alright in Durham, NC.
Agreed 100% Focus on something else.
Latter.  You need an adviser who actually gives a damn about your PhD program and helping you succeed.  Too many people fall through these cracks.  Also, note that there are excellent public universities that do exceptionally well such as Michigan and Berkeley. You can't make that kind of distinction.  You need to focus on the quality of your adviser's advising and career trajectory, the program's offerings, and post-PhD job placements.
Maybe, maybe not.  Don't assume anything in the PhD admissions until you have that final decision letter.
Never a guarantee.  I've visited places before applying and had good rapport but still got rejected. The very least you did was put a face on your application and made a networking connection.

This may be the case for Berkeley, but I’d hesitate to apply that to all public universities. In my experience at schools w/ two funding streams, the most promising candidates are nominated for fellowships (usually for 1st/ 5th year, etc) from the graduate school, and are accepted first. This is because the graduate school has a deadline for its university-wide fellowships; often it’s very early, like at the end of January, so departments have to quickly identify the most promising candidates, accept them, and forward them on to the graduate school. The remaining candidates receive TAships or internal fellowships from the department. There’s no deadline there, so they’re accepted later on.
Having said that, at my program (which is public) all admits receive identical funding, from the same funding stream, and all acceptances go out at the same time. 
I’m bringing this up only because I think there’s more variance among programs than common GC wisdom would sometimes suggest, and no matter how many general patterns can be drawn from everyone's collective experiences with admissions, funding, admin, finance, etc, it's still going to be a black box. Grad school is unfortunately full of black boxes, so once you've researched what's there to research/ submitted the best that you can submit, you've just got to get comfortable with the fact that some things will remain opaque to you and they have to be waited out. 

It's both. You don't want to spend 7 years in a place you absolutely hate and where the program thwarts your progress. That said, you also want a sufficient number of faculty who can competently supervise you and have interests which intersect with your own.
Very tough to tell. It may even be specific faculty who do interviews. Some faculty members probably care a hell of a lot less about these sorts of things than others. My advisor didn't know who I was until I met her two weeks into my first year, even though I was the only person in history of science that year.

It's both. You don't want to spend 7 years in a place you absolutely hate and where the program thwarts your progress. That said, you also want a sufficient number of faculty who can competently supervise you and have interests which intersect with your own.
Very tough to tell. It may even be specific faculty who do interviews. Some faculty members probably care a hell of a lot less about these sorts of things than others. My advisor didn't know who I was until I met her two weeks into my first year, even though I was the only person in history of science that year.

It's both. You don't want to spend 7 years in a place you absolutely hate and where the program thwarts your progress. That said, you also want a sufficient number of faculty who can competently supervise you and have interests which intersect with your own.
Very tough to tell. It may even be specific faculty who do interviews. Some faculty members probably care a hell of a lot less about these sorts of things than others. My advisor didn't know who I was until I met her two weeks into my first year, even though I was the only person in history of science that year.

Agreed. My comment specifically related to how applicants talk to professors about fit, not how aspiring graduate students analyze fit.

It's both. You don't want to spend 7 years in a place you absolutely hate and where the program thwarts your progress. That said, you also want a sufficient number of faculty who can competently supervise you and have interests which intersect with your own.
Very tough to tell. It may even be specific faculty who do interviews. Some faculty members probably care a hell of a lot less about these sorts of things than others. My advisor didn't know who I was until I met her two weeks into my first year, even though I was the only person in history of science that year.

After posting, I went through the results page and wrote down the average range for the places I applied, most of which are the first full week to the second week of February. 
Hopefully (and probably, with how my syllabus for my thesis is looking), I'll be knee-deep in demographic research in the mean time.

Don't be. Most of the programs you've applied to won't inform you until mid-February. Ivies can afford to take longer, so they often do. I realize it's somewhat nerve-wracking, but that's just the way it is.
Try to distract yourself with another hobby or work.

Don't be. Most of the programs you've applied to won't inform you until mid-February. Ivies can afford to take longer, so they often do. I realize it's somewhat nerve-wracking, but that's just the way it is.
Try to distract yourself with another hobby or work.

Sure, part of it has to do with the increasing hyper-specialization of the field, to the point where the general public has significant issues engaging with any of the major literature. This is basically the case made in The History Manifesto, so I'd encourage you to read it. The general public is largely interested in questions of military history and adjacent fields. The issue, however, is that military history is in some disrepute in the professional field. I'm not a military historian, but there's a poster who is ( @Sigaba, your and Col. Tigh's presence is requested!) and can speak more intelligently as to it. In my program, which is one of the major nexi for military history, the military historians are always looked at somewhat askance.
My next point goes to that, which is that the humanities in general do a very poor job selling what they can offer. We live in a world where, to quote Oscar Wilde, man knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing. State legislatures and many people see humanities and liberal arts as "worthless degrees" or "not real degrees" because they don't provide an easily identifiable skill, unlike, for instance, computer science. The humanities provide the ability to critically engage with ideas and, ideally, the ability to express ideas in clear, coherent fashions.
Finally, there's just the brutal reality of the job market. If you want a tenured academic job, there are only about 20 (give or take 5) programs that provide a reasonable chance at that, especially if you want a tenured job at a research oriented institution. Far too many students each year graduate from middling programs who have no chance of an academic job. There may be little difference between someone from Kansas and Princeton, but, the Princeton candidate will get the offer 95% of the time. It's a structural issue that there's really no way around, despite Kansas' having an excellent historian of the US West.
 

Please exercise care when asking questions and interpreting answers about the training graduate students receive for the job market and placement.

I specifically recommend not having preconceived notions of what information a department should have readily available or what training programs should be in place. Figure out ways to get your questions answered while also minimizing the risk of coming across like you're telling people how they should do their jobs and/or you're putting hatched chickens in front of the light at the end of the tunnel. 
It's not so much what you ask, but how.

Just now got an email from Yale with a rejection, which I was fully expecting given their 5% acceptance rate to the graduate program.
"Thank you very much for applying to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Yale University. I regret to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission. As you know, the very high number of extraordinary candidates among our more than 11,000 applicants far exceeds the number of places we have in each program, and we are not able to admit many excellent candidates.

We wish you every success in all your future endeavors."
They were much nicer about it than Arizona! 

I just found out that I got into UC Davis. Doing a happy dance!

I agree with @Sigaba and your advisers.  Keep a very open mind to other geographical periods.  Are you only interested in the early modern period?  Could you look into World History before 17th century? There is more demand out there for people to be able to teach World History.  I can't see why you can't given the tremendous period of global exploration starting in the 1400s and make an argument about different kinds of encounters between Europeans and the "rest of the world."

The sweet spot between the two recommendations is a field outside of the West that will make a more competitive applicant when it is time to look for a job. How about the corresponding time frame (early modern), the same focus, but in the Middle East?

Sure, part of it has to do with the increasing hyper-specialization of the field, to the point where the general public has significant issues engaging with any of the major literature. This is basically the case made in The History Manifesto, so I'd encourage you to read it. The general public is largely interested in questions of military history and adjacent fields. The issue, however, is that military history is in some disrepute in the professional field. I'm not a military historian, but there's a poster who is ( @Sigaba, your and Col. Tigh's presence is requested!) and can speak more intelligently as to it. In my program, which is one of the major nexi for military history, the military historians are always looked at somewhat askance.
My next point goes to that, which is that the humanities in general do a very poor job selling what they can offer. We live in a world where, to quote Oscar Wilde, man knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing. State legislatures and many people see humanities and liberal arts as "worthless degrees" or "not real degrees" because they don't provide an easily identifiable skill, unlike, for instance, computer science. The humanities provide the ability to critically engage with ideas and, ideally, the ability to express ideas in clear, coherent fashions.
Finally, there's just the brutal reality of the job market. If you want a tenured academic job, there are only about 20 (give or take 5) programs that provide a reasonable chance at that, especially if you want a tenured job at a research oriented institution. Far too many students each year graduate from middling programs who have no chance of an academic job. There may be little difference between someone from Kansas and Princeton, but, the Princeton candidate will get the offer 95% of the time. It's a structural issue that there's really no way around, despite Kansas' having an excellent historian of the US West.
 

I've said this about a trillion times before, but I interviewed with a top HoS program, did fairly well, and still didn't get in. How do I know I did well? The department chair told me the amount of stipend I'd receive.
Unless you're applying to an institution that explicitly interviews (e.g. MIT's history, anthropology, technology, and science program), you shouldn't read anything into the interview claims. Moreover, don't put too much trust in the results postings themselves.
It's definitely true. Despite the relative growth of the stock market, there are increased concerns about the long-term future of the profession (some of which, IMO, are the result of hyper-specialization, but that's a different story). Moreover, humanities is experiencing funding cuts across the board. In Wisconsin, UW- Stevens Point, which is a satellite campus, cut 12 departments as a cost saving measure. There are rumors floating around that private colleges (e.g. Hampshire) may have to close. It's a bit of a black time for higher education.
On a practical note, I've heard that Ivy departments are considering fewer acceptances than usual. I imagine Harvard is a bit more immune to that than others. In Wisconsin, though, there's hope that the current executive will be far more friendly to the UW system than his predecessor.
This has already sort of happened. Admissions for PhDs transformed about 10-15 years ago from "admit many, fund a handful" to "admit a handful and fund them all." Cohort sizes for, say, 2015, were significantly smaller than those for 2007.

Sure, part of it has to do with the increasing hyper-specialization of the field, to the point where the general public has significant issues engaging with any of the major literature. This is basically the case made in The History Manifesto, so I'd encourage you to read it. The general public is largely interested in questions of military history and adjacent fields. The issue, however, is that military history is in some disrepute in the professional field. I'm not a military historian, but there's a poster who is ( @Sigaba, your and Col. Tigh's presence is requested!) and can speak more intelligently as to it. In my program, which is one of the major nexi for military history, the military historians are always looked at somewhat askance.
My next point goes to that, which is that the humanities in general do a very poor job selling what they can offer. We live in a world where, to quote Oscar Wilde, man knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing. State legislatures and many people see humanities and liberal arts as "worthless degrees" or "not real degrees" because they don't provide an easily identifiable skill, unlike, for instance, computer science. The humanities provide the ability to critically engage with ideas and, ideally, the ability to express ideas in clear, coherent fashions.
Finally, there's just the brutal reality of the job market. If you want a tenured academic job, there are only about 20 (give or take 5) programs that provide a reasonable chance at that, especially if you want a tenured job at a research oriented institution. Far too many students each year graduate from middling programs who have no chance of an academic job. There may be little difference between someone from Kansas and Princeton, but, the Princeton candidate will get the offer 95% of the time. It's a structural issue that there's really no way around, despite Kansas' having an excellent historian of the US West.
 

This point gets glossed over too often because stupid people take it for elitism: there is a massive difference between someone who attended UKansas and one who attended Princeton, namely that one went to Princeton and the other didn't. Given the frankly insane differences in the resources - monetary, temporal, and otherwise - that each would have at their disposal, the UKansas student would have to be an order of magnitude smarter and more motivated to produce a CV (and a dissertation) equal to the Princeton student's. And of course if they were, why would the be at UKansas and not at least at one of those top-20 programs @psstein mentioned? And if you think that search committees at every level don't think this way, I have a little bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell. 
A lot of lower-tier PhD programs try to convince nervous prospective students that it's ok - their graduates do really well at other lower-tier schools, schools where those top-20 don't want to be and which would be nervous about taking anyway since they might jump ship fast. That might have been true 30 (or even 10) years ago, but we're in a market where Harvard grads think themselves darned lucky to get a job at Bridgewater State University, and search committees know it. And even if we leave all that aside, what those lower-tier schools are actually saying is that other schools hire their students because their students are perceived as aggressively mediocre (and unlikely to find a job at a better institution). That's their sales pitch.
As you approach graduate school, exercise critical self evaluation. If you go, what are you going to do differently to stand out from the crowd at the other end? 

Younger faculty members, in my experience, are keenly aware of the problems of the job market. With older faculty, it's about 50-50. I've said this before, but faculty at one well-known program I interviewed with explicitly told me "we don't have alt-ac resources," just in not so few words.
Most PhD recipients won't have academic jobs, even from the best programs. That being said, you can't telegraph that when you apply. It makes admissions committees question whether you actually have the dedication to do the PhD or whether you actually need a PhD. There are very few people who go into graduate programs wanting to do anything else than become a tenured professor at a research-first institution. There are some, but the vast majority of PhD students don't enter wanting to work for the National Library of Medicine or the FDA's historical office.

Younger faculty members, in my experience, are keenly aware of the problems of the job market. With older faculty, it's about 50-50. I've said this before, but faculty at one well-known program I interviewed with explicitly told me "we don't have alt-ac resources," just in not so few words.
Most PhD recipients won't have academic jobs, even from the best programs. That being said, you can't telegraph that when you apply. It makes admissions committees question whether you actually have the dedication to do the PhD or whether you actually need a PhD. There are very few people who go into graduate programs wanting to do anything else than become a tenured professor at a research-first institution. There are some, but the vast majority of PhD students don't enter wanting to work for the National Library of Medicine or the FDA's historical office.

Sure, part of it has to do with the increasing hyper-specialization of the field, to the point where the general public has significant issues engaging with any of the major literature. This is basically the case made in The History Manifesto, so I'd encourage you to read it. The general public is largely interested in questions of military history and adjacent fields. The issue, however, is that military history is in some disrepute in the professional field. I'm not a military historian, but there's a poster who is ( @Sigaba, your and Col. Tigh's presence is requested!) and can speak more intelligently as to it. In my program, which is one of the major nexi for military history, the military historians are always looked at somewhat askance.
My next point goes to that, which is that the humanities in general do a very poor job selling what they can offer. We live in a world where, to quote Oscar Wilde, man knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing. State legislatures and many people see humanities and liberal arts as "worthless degrees" or "not real degrees" because they don't provide an easily identifiable skill, unlike, for instance, computer science. The humanities provide the ability to critically engage with ideas and, ideally, the ability to express ideas in clear, coherent fashions.
Finally, there's just the brutal reality of the job market. If you want a tenured academic job, there are only about 20 (give or take 5) programs that provide a reasonable chance at that, especially if you want a tenured job at a research oriented institution. Far too many students each year graduate from middling programs who have no chance of an academic job. There may be little difference between someone from Kansas and Princeton, but, the Princeton candidate will get the offer 95% of the time. It's a structural issue that there's really no way around, despite Kansas' having an excellent historian of the US West.