TheHessianHistorian

And the school sends me a formal rejection email the day after I withdraw my application! LOL "The Graduate Studies Admissions Committee completed its review of your application today. I regret to inform you that yours was not accepted for admission." I'm dying here. It's the old, "You can't quit! You're fired!"

According to the Results page, it looks like yes: https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=history+irvine&t=a&o=&pp=100

Without a foreign language, it's going to be extremely unlikely to get into any of the top-tier History PhD programs that require no GRE scores. There would be nothing stopping you from earning a PhD through a lower ranked program, some of whom will not require GREs. However, you might need to ask yourself why you want to get the PhD. If it's just for personal edification or a personal accomplishment, that's fine, but it might be a big financial investment. If it's to enter academia, then you will need to earn your PhD from a top-tier institution with a good program and good placement rates. If it's the latter, then there's no way around it--you need one or more foreign languages and you need to take and do well on the GRE.

Hands down Turabian's "Manual for Writers." I've also found Storey's "Writing History: A Guide for Students" and Rampolla's "Pocket Guide to Writing in History" to be helpful.

Mine were all basically the same, yes. I led in with the same personal story, I used the same paragraph to describe my personal background, and the same paragraph to describe my research interests, and the same conclusion paragraph. However, I completely wrote from scratch the two paragraphs in each SOP in which I talked about my fit with the school and who my preferred faculty in that program were.

I applied for a large handful of graduate programs this cycle (mostly Master's programs)--15 to be precise. My last choice school (15 out of 15) keeps losing parts of my application and asking me to re-send them over and over. Now they say they never received my GRE scores from ETS, even though I've provided documentation showing the date when ETS sent the scores to the department. The school is asking me to pay to re-send the GRE scores to them a second time. At this point, since I already have several offers from much better programs, and not wanting to pay $29 to re-send my GRE scores a second time to a program I no longer have any intention of attending, is it okay for me to email them and withdraw my application before they've notified me of a decision? I would hate for them to waste any more time on reviewing my application if I'm definitely not going to be attending their Master's program. What is the nicest and most professional way to communicate this to them?

You could email both, but unless your POI was on the admissions committee, I might advise steering more toward the DGS with such a question.

I think you hit the nail on the head right there. Steer clear of "why didn't I get in?" and more toward "Thank you for the consideration you gave my application. Do you have any thoughts on weak spots in my application, and how I might strengthen my application in the future?"

Same. Early modern European history for me. Also waiting on a few more schools. Best of luck to you!

Hey, same here! What's your specialization! I haven't decided which offer I'll accept yet, but I may end up seeing you at TTU.

As we pass the time until the last of our decisions are released and April 15th is upon us, I wonder if other historians have "guilty pleasure" research topics? What are some niche topics that you love to research, but are topics that (A) are too "out there" to build a career on in real academia, or (B) are too remote from your main specialization area to be anything other than a hobby interest? My guilty pleasures would be: History of SETI/METI -- how people thought about, searched for, and tried to contact extraterrestrial intelligent life over the centuries History of names -- especially in Germany, where names were almost always inherited from baptism sponsors, it's really easy to go through baptism records of commoners and see the trail of how someone was named after someone before them, who was named after someone before them, etc. (the name trails usually lead back to nobility); also, tracing the evolution of surnames over the centuries is fascinating

I won't name names, but I really dislike books that are super esoteric and use rambling, unclear language. You see it surprisingly often in scholarly literature. Even some of my favorite books drift into this sometimes. One of my favorite books occasionally contains sentences like, "Villagers used their local knowledge of geography and traditions to define the essential unity of the village to their own benefit." ...What? You understand better what the author means when you read the rest of the paragraph, but that topic sentence could have been worded so much clearer. I'm currently on the second-to-last course of my second Bachelor's degree, and it's a class on Colonial New England. I'm thoroughly enjoying one of the required readings: William Cronon's "Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England." He weaves narrative with analysis so seamlessly, he incorporates a rich tapestry of different primary sources, and his writing is so crystal clear and well organized. The whole book has a clear thesis. Each chapter starts with a clear sub-thesis. Each paragraph starts with a clear topic sentence, all the subsequent sentences in his paragraphs prove the point of the topic sentence, and the last sentence in each paragraph wraps it all up and explains the significance to the broader thesis. Excellent! Another book we had to read in the first couple weeks of this class was "The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony" by James and Patricia Deetz. It was very fun to read, made a lot of interesting points, and touched on a lot of interesting subjects. I think part of the fun of the book was its sprinkling of irreverence and personal anecdotes from the authors. However, I would say the weak point is that it lacked a real thesis. The closest thing to a thesis that I could find in the book was that there are a lot of modern myths about Plymouth Colony and the authors were determined to correct them. However, the intro of the book explicitly says, "This is not a mythbusting book." Yet it starts off by devoting the whole first chapter to doing just that--busting various myths about the first Thanksgiving. Then there are a few chapters on daily life in Plymouth Colony (surrounding topics like sex, religion, food, etc.). Then they devote a couple chapters to archaeological dig stories. Then the last chapter is a story about how the author James Deetz made the Plimoth Plantations living history museum more historically accurate in the mid-20th century. I didn't appreciate how unfocused and tangential the book was, but it was fun to read. So, from my experience, there are enjoyable books that are edifying (see Cronon), there are unenjoyable books that are edifying (and they usually don't end up getting much attention outside of a tiny circle of hyper-specialists), there are enjoyable books that don't have much of a salient point (see Deetzes), and there are unenjoyable books that don't have much of a salient point (not naming names!).

Got an acceptance email from my POI at Binghamton University (SUNY) early this morning! I think I have a general idea of where the rest of my applications will fall at this point (with a couple wildcards). Now the emails that will be keeping me on pins and needles will be regarding funding offerings.

It's not over 'til it's over. Even if no acceptance is immediately forthcoming, you may end up near the top of a wait-list. We're rooting for you!

I started a thread a while ago that some of our users contributed some helpful resources to: https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/100694-easiest-way-to-find-out-tt-placement-rate-for-phd-programs/

Just heard from my POI at Illinois-Urbana that all acceptances and wait-list notifications for that history program have been sent out. So, if--like me--you hadn't heard anything from Illinois yet, it is an implied rejection unfortunately. POI was kind about it, said I had a "very strong application," and said Illinois simply had an overabundance of Europeanists this year and couldn't admit several students that he would have liked to see in the program.

Which U of T? Texas? Tennessee? Toronto? Here's when Texas has usually released their decisions in years' past: https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=history+texas&t=a&o=&pp=250 Here's when Tennessee has usually released their decisions in years' past: https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=history+tennessee&t=a&o=&pp=250 Here's when Toronto has usually released their decisions in years' past: https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=history+toronto&t=a&o=

@FrankJEspin, I can't help but admire (be in awe of, actually) all of your acceptances to top-notch history PhD programs this year! UNC, UMN, UM, UCSB, and Brown are not a "walk in the park" to get into. Would you mind telling us a bit about your background and academic progression, and if you have any wisdom or words of advice for crafting killer applications (which you have clearly done)?

Either that or @kenalyass took "Application Season" to mean the time when they would be submitting their applications (as opposed to the enrollment season that they would be applying for), and has picked out their schools really, really early...

According to the Results page, it looks like yes: https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=history&t=a&o=&pp=250

Just got a really nice email from a POI at Texas Tech University's Master's program, saying that final decisions haven't been made on acceptances but POI is writing a letter of support to urge that I be nominated for a university fellowship in addition to a TA-ship. First time I've heard funding news this promising from any of the schools. Very exciting!

I've found this list of questions to be helpful, in addition to the webpage URL that @historien posted above: https://web.uni.edu/sites/default/files/u55/Grad School Questions_Grad Students.pdf

From what I've seen, it's fairly standard procedure that the one or two very top applicants get super-early acceptances so that they can be nominated for university-wide scholarships or fellowships. The rest of the acceptances typically roll in for the rest of us around the same part of the calendar that they did in the last couple years. I think the fact that you were interviewed is indeed a good sign, and I would try not to fret too much.

It is hard to wait, I know. My advice would actually be to do a search on the Results page to give you a good idea of when acceptances have typically rolled out from that school in years' past. I think there are some great questions that could be asked of your POI in the interim, if you haven't asked them already (ask more about some of the latest and most innovative scholarship being produced by the department; ask for clarification on something your POI said in one of the more intriguing publications they have written lately; ask for inside knowledge on the housing situation in the area where you may be moving to; etc.), but I would actually steer clear of asking about when decisions will be rolling out as it could come across as impatient. And congrats on your positive interview! Best of luck to you.

Is that because of a situation within CUNY (declining funding or declining acceptance rates), or because the ad-com would remember your name next time and not risk giving an acceptance to someone with a history of turning them down?