Naito

I mean the chance of getting an article published is still there, but it is like anon said "highly unlikely", and the chance is very, very low. Of course there are always exceptions where an extraordinary student can publish his or her work in the MA stage but that's not a matter of rule. I said the "likelihood of success is very low" for the majority of people and the submissions are "routinely" rejected but not always rejected. Also you want to publish very high-quality article in extremely reputable peer-reviewed journal (unless you can publish in student-run law review, law journal which is relatively easier as it is student-reviewed, not peer-reviewed). So usually, from my professors, one could get the dissertation revised and published as a monograph as the first publication, preferably in a University Press. This is probably what anon has in mind when he stated that most PhDs publish after the defense. Alternatively as an MA or PhD student you can present your papers at conferences. Also a fourth unconventional approach is to write encyclopedia articles but again, not sure how good of a chance it is to get published as they probably want experts to write encyclopedia articles.

@costevens Fascinating! There are many excellent poets and writers during the Jian An (建安) era. It is ironic that the era name literally means "constructing peace", yet the majority of the literature of the period was about wars, how short life is, etc. The most famous literati of that period were the Three "Cao" -- Cao Cao（曹操）, Cao Pi （曹丕）, and Cao Zhi (曹植）-- as well as Chen Lin (陳琳), Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮）, and Kong Rong (孔融). Cao Cao is one of my favorite poets, and I believe he inspired Li Bai's famous verse of wanting to drink to one heart's content facing the moon so as to not waste one's happy life (人生得意須盡歡，莫使金樽空對月), with his own verse: "對酒當歌，人生幾何？譬如朝露，去日苦多。" 《短歌行》( My rough translation: Drinking wine and singing songs / How many more times in a man's life can one continue to do so? / Short like a morning dew / With past days bygone one is to sufferings prone!) It is interesting to note that the 4-word meter of Cao Cao inspired the 7-word meter of Li Bai！The contents of these few verses are very similar, just expressed in different poetic forms. Whereas Cao Cao was in the 2nd to 3rd century, Li Bai was in the 8th century, yet the style of the Jian An era was still brilliantly timeless. And four centuries later, 平敦盛 (Taira no Atsumori) repeated the same theme: 人間五十年、化天のうちを比ぶれば、夢幻の如くなり。 (The life of a man is 50 years / compared to the length of Heaven and Earth / is like a dream). Just some observations. As for publishing, my professors told me that one should treat book publications with "University" in it e.g. "Harvard University Press" as prestigious, and anything else (e.g. Brill, Routledge, etc.) less so. R1 (first-tier) research, doctoral-granting institutions generally prefer publications in good journals/presses for tenure tracks (TT). Not-too-good publications will come back to haunt you. On the issue of getting published as a student, there are probably three unconventional approaches (although yes, it is extremely unlikely to get published without advanced degrees, that is very true). Although the likelihood of success is very low in any of the three methods below. 1. Co-authoring: The unconventional approach that I heard is you can get a full, named professor to co-author with you; however, of course first authoring is always better than co-authoring. This Master's student was able to get an article published with a full professor as co-author in Routledge's book Transforming Corporate Governance in East Asia: https://books.google.com/books?id=VVMsNpih5C8C&pg=PA278&lpg=PA278&dq=Controlling+Minority+Structures+and+its+Application+to+Taiwan&source=bl&ots=NxcfZWxz-P&sig=XELtcc69AvytTrnE5f2-alqf00Y&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHyrnm0-TYAhXCRt8KHT1MBLkQ6AEIPDAD#v=onepage&q=Controlling Minority Structures and its Application to Taiwan&f=false 2. Translation: You can translate a significant text, novel, etc. but this requires extraordinary skills and maybe the translations you submit when you are a student may be rejected in favor of someone else who is a more established scholar. 3. Book Review: Again, unsolicited book reviews are routinely rejected. Furthermore, book reviews without advanced degree are also routinely rejected. Also, editors tend to prefer more established scholars.

@spicyramen That is very interesting! I kind of also want to incorporate some aspects of contemporary film and drama's depiction of ancient literature. But I have too many interests and really need to narrow down to one! By the way, there is a great new book just published this month for those who are students of Sinology: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674979406 It is a collection of many essays written by the top in the field. So that's a great introduction to the potential advisors; if you are interested in learning more about them, reading their essays which condense their life of scholarships may be helpful! "Table of Contents: Introduction [Michael Szonyi] I. Politics 1. Is the Chinese Communist Regime Legitimate? [Elizabeth J. Perry] 2. Can Fighting Corruption Save the Party? [Joseph Fewsmith] 3. Does Mao Still Matter? [Roderick MacFarquhar] 4. What Is the Source of Ethnic Tension in China? [Mark Elliott] 5. What Should We Know about Public Opinion in China? [Ya-Wen Lei] 6. What Does Longevity Mean for Leadership in China? [Arunabh Ghosh] 7. Can the Chinese Communist Party Learn from Chinese Emperors? [Yuhua Wang] II. International Relations 8. Will China Lead Asia? [Odd Arne Westad] 9. How Strong Are China’s Armed Forces? [Andrew S. Erickson] 10. What Does the Rise of China Mean for the United States? [Robert S. Ross] 11. Is Chinese Exceptionalism Undermining China’s Foreign Policy Interests? [Alastair Iain Johnston] 12. (When) Will Taiwan Reunify with the Mainland? [Steven M. Goldstein] 13. Can China and Japan Ever Get Along? [Ezra F. Vogel] III. Economy 14. Can China’s High Growth Continue? [Richard N. Cooper] 15. Is the Chinese Economy Headed toward a Hard Landing? [Dwight H. Perkins] 16. Will Urbanization Save the Chinese Economy or Destroy It? [Meg Rithmire] 17. Is China Keeping Its Promises on Trade? [Mark Wu] 18. How Do China’s New Rich Give Back? [Tony Saich] 19. What Can China Teach Us about Fighting Poverty? [Nara Dillon] IV. Environment 20. Can China Address Air Pollution and Climate Change? [Michael B. McElroy] 21. Is There Environmental Awareness in China? [Karen Thornber] V. Society 22. Why Does the End of the One-Child Policy Matter? [Susan Greenhalgh] 23. How Are China and Its Middle Class Handling Aging and Mental Health? [Arthur Kleinman] 24. How Important Is Religion in China? [James Robson] 25. Will There Be Another Dalai Lama? [Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp] 26. Does Law Matter in China? [William P. Alford] 27. Why Do So Many Chinese Students Come to the United States? [William C. Kirby] VI. History and Culture 28. Who Is Confucius in Today’s China? [Michael Puett] 29. Where Did the Silk Road Come From? [Rowan Flad] 30. Why Do Intellectuals Matter to Chinese Politics? [Peter K. Bol] 31. Why Do Classic Chinese Novels Matter? [Wai-yee Li] 32. How Have Chinese Writers Imagined China’s Future? [David Der-wei Wang] 33. Has Chinese Propaganda Won Hearts and Minds? [Jie Li] 34. Why Is It Still So Hard to Talk about the Cultural Revolution? [Xiaofei Tian] 35. What Is the Future of China’s Past? [Stephen Owen] 36. How Has the Study of China Changed in the Last Sixty Years? [Paul A. Cohen]"

@spicyramen What kind of film/media study are you researching on? Recently I finished watching Sanada Maru, a Taiga dorama...I love historical drama! And also anime! (Naito Baron is actually a fictional character from a famous manga/anime).

Very nice to have a Koreanologist, @Riby! Our thread now has future researchers of all of East Asia!

Thanks @SUMMER715 ! Yeah I was very surprised. I thought the email was a rejection (as usually definite rejections are sent out first, but sometimes they also wait to send out rejections much later though to see which accepted students decline to enroll so they can move down their list...) since it didn't say "admitted" in the title! But I clicked on it and found out I got accepted! That is a huge relief!

Thanks @lordtiandao! I hope you will hear from UPenn soon as well!

Thanks @spicyramen! I'm still surprised this is so much earlier than expected!

Thanks @costevens!

I got accepted to University of Pennsylvania!!!

Oh and @spicyramen -- I've just remembered something! How good are you at technologies? If you get an interview, of course come with a few questions of your own, but also express your being comfortable with technologies, such as digital humanities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities or 10,000 Rooms Project: http://digitalhumanities.yale.edu/projects/ten-thousand-rooms or Stanford: https://news.stanford.edu/2017/12/14/humanistic-inquiry-digital-technology/ or 中國哲學書電子化計劃: http://ctext.org/zh A friend at Harvard who is in the MA program right now told me he is learning a lot of methodologies using Big Data (such as mapping of literary references, what this author and 5 other authors say about this work etc.) and he thinks it will be very useful for him if he wants to get a job outside of academia in the future. (For example, beyond academia, there was a PhD grad from Princeton with a focus in Japanese literature who went to a boot camp in coding later to become a computer scientist). So express an interest in learning those technologies or better yet if you know how to use them already bring that up in your interview! If your interviewer uses such technologies in his/her research, he will be like "wow, this sets this candidate apart! I can use you for my research assistant!" The faculty thinks long-term, and so they want someone who can help them in the future and digital humanities is the cutting edge technology right now. Maybe they will need you to help them with HarvardX online!!! Just an idea! PS: And bring up if you have German or French proficiency as well because either one is a helpful language for research in Sinology, and I think for Japanology, Chinese and Korean in addition to German or French are helpful. Again, some professors told me the more languages, the better in academia. This professor is very impressive, with 15 languages!!! http://www.bu.edu/wll/files/2017/05/CV-Denecke-Winter-2017-FOR-WEB-1.pdf%20 "Language skills: German (mother tongue); English; French; Spanish; Italian; Norwegian; Hungarian; Chinese (Mandarin); Japanese; Korean. Read: Greek; Latin; and classical languages of China, Japan (bungo and kanbun), and Korea (Middle Korean and hanmun)."

@spicyramen I got asked questions in emails but not in a Skype interview like the PhD candidates (because I'm an MA-only applicant this year...taking it one step at a time 步步扎營！　and also as a caveat, most PhD programs with Harvard coming immediately to mind most likely do NOT take candidates who don't have an MA, or so I have heard!). I got some lengthy email correspondences with professors if that counts for interviews. One professor repeatedly wrote "why don't you apply to Columbia? Please apply to Columbia! If you're at Columbia, work with Professor this and that and stay there! I graduated from Columbia! It's a good program!" so on and so forth...From what I heard, MA is a different ballgame compared to PhD application, so don't worry if you don't get an interview. Actually, most people are not interviewed and my professors told me that decisions are mostly based on your written materials, especially the SOP, which makes or breaks... These people are very, very busy and sometimes the admission committee service work is another line on their CV for the tenure promotion 6 years down the road (service to the university category), so they don't really have a lot of time. They are probably more worried about publish or perish...Anyhow, I also reached out to a few people asking how to prepare for an interview either for this year or 2 years later when I apply for a PhD, and one person suggested me to prepare for interview during the stage where you collect your application materials. You want to get a LOR from a professor who was a PhD advisee of a full, endowed or emeritus professor because such professors can promote your file on the admission committee; they like to read what their former students-turned-colleagues recommend in the letters. If you end up getting an interview with the full professor who was impressed by their former student's recommendation of you, you can instantly pass the "fit and match" round right away. It's like dating. In a Japanese o-miai (お見合い) the two parties are usually introduced by a third party. Also I was told to be sure to read the acknowledgements in the potential advisors' books -- see what their personality is like, do they acknowledge their students and colleagues' contribution, etc. and of course read their books before you interview if you have time! And talk to former students of that potential advisor who interviews you -- they probably know a thing or two that only experience can teach. If I can remember anything else I will add! @costevens I was advised by a few PhD holders not in the academic track to also consider other options, such as management consulting, government, etc. Please read this article from a History PhD, who ended up becoming a partner at McKinsey consulting (https://www.mckinsey.com/our-people/josh-wolff), who also got his dissertation published in Cambridge University Press (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/western-union-and-the-creation-of-the-american-corporate-order-18451893/D96207D9AA361EDFE495AAF820B29D24) after exiting academia (in fact the connections probably helped him get published in Cambridge as opposed to some other journals, like Brill -- getting your stuff published by Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard is always a good thing, and Brill is like a second option, IMHO, but maybe @anon1234567 can offer a second opinion). Here's the article: https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2014/a-new-course-converting-a-passion-for-history-into-a-private-sector-career (It's an article written in the American Historical Association, and it's very, very well-written and has a lot of golden advice on how to use your PhD outside of academia, so please read it by all means. The author writes very well so it's a good read!) With a PhD in anything you come in as an associate and then probably get promoted very quickly because a PhD is a credential clients value (they want smart people and PhD signals you can do research and find solutions). The Director of McKinsey in Shanghai got a PhD from USC: https://www.mckinsey.com/our-people/jonathan-woetzel There was a panel last year hosted by the Association for Asian Studies on the topic of Careers Beyond the Academy for Asianists: http://www.asian-studies.org/Conferences/AAS-Annual-Conference/Conference-Menu/PROGRAM/Special-Events/Beyond-the-Academy-Careers-for-Asianists I don't know if they will host it again but there were a few prominent PhD's who didn't become professors. I'm tempted to point out Christian Murck who went to Princeton: http://www.apcoworldwide.com/about-us/our-people/bios/Christian-Murck# You can also consider the Foreign Service: Ambassador Stephen Young (PhD Chicago, History) http://globaltaiwan.org/stephen-m-young/ If you want to become a government official (for the US) like Tang dynasty's scholar-official/mandarin/bureaucrat, you can consider the Presidential Management Fellows program which requires at least an MA but if you have a PhD you come in at the GS-11 level (PhD required) which pays more than the MA level, and by the way, if you have any student loans (federal loans, that is) they pay for your student loans too. https://www.pmf.gov/become-a-pmf/eligibility.aspx https://www.pmf.gov/the-opportunity/compensation/pay-and-promotions.aspx https://www.pmf.gov/the-opportunity/compensation/student-loans.aspx But I must add, I believe Du Fu warned people not to become a bureaucrat! He wrote "束帶發狂欲大叫，簿書何急來相仍" (Stephen Owen's translation: "I tighten my belt going crazy, I want to shout out loud, how urgently public documents come continuously!" ) 《早秋苦熱，堆案相仍》 七月六日苦炎熱，對食暫餐還不能。 每愁夜中自足蠍，況乃秋後轉多蠅。 束帶發狂欲大叫，簿書何急來相仍。 南望青鬆架短壑，安得赤腳蹋層冰。 Prof. Stephen Owen's translation: "Suffering the Heat in Early Autumn, the Paperwork Keeps Piling Up on My Desk On the sixth day of the seventh month I suffer the steamy heat, I face my meal, take a bite, and then I can take it no more. I always worry how in the night there are plenty of scorpions, even worse now with the coming of autumn there are even more flies. I tighten my belt going crazy, I want to shout out loud, how urgently public documents come continuously! I gaze southward where green pines frame a short ravine — how can I get with bare feet to walk on its layered ice?" (from The Complete Poetry of Du Fu) （The poets of the Tang can roughly be divided into two types: the ones who succeed in government service, like Bai Juyi, and the ones who don't like it, like Du Fu lol...) Like the Ancient Tang, state apparatus such as the State Department is also a huge bureaucracy with a lot of paperwork...How some things never changed! Becoming a curator of a museum is also a niche: Alex Gardner (PhD Michigan, Asian Languages and Cultures), Executive Director and Chief Editor for the Treasury of Lives, a digital humanities project that comprises a "biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan region." https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/humanities-phd-proj/2017/05/15/a-digital-humanities-project-in-tibetan-studies/ You can also teach in Asia, like Professor Pastreich: http://www.asia-institute.org/members/ He also wrote a lot of books in Chinese and Korean and wrote his MA thesis in Japanese...Incredible. So there are many options for the PhD, but just that tenure track positions are very, very scarce!!! Alternatively, if you can get an assistant professor job at an Ivy school right after PhD, you can get a tenured job at a lower-ranked school. Why not at the Ivy school where you got the first academic job? Because Ivy schools tend to hire very promising PhD graduates and make them work for 6-7 years but don't really offer them tenures at the end, but the assistant professorship is like a prestigious, extended "postdoc" that once completed will open doors to tenured positions at lower ranked schools. Ivy schools tend to offer tenured jobs to established professors at other universities. @costevens, you remind me of the poet Yang Xiaobin 楊小濱 (http://www.litphil.sinica.edu.tw/people/researchers/Yang, Xiaobin) and you will be his 學弟 / 師弟 / 後輩 soon if you end up at UC Boulder! He wrote so many poetry books: 楊小濱：《穿越陽光地帶》（詩集），台北：現代詩社，1994。（獲1994年現代詩社第一本詩集獎） 楊小濱：《青春殘酷漢語·詩歌料理》（詩集），《新詩》叢刊11輯，烏魯木齊，2007。 楊小濱：《景色與情節》（詩集），北京：世界知識出版社，2008。 楊小濱：《為女太陽乾杯》（詩集），台北：傷物，2011。 楊小濱：《蹤跡與塗抹：後攝影主義》（攝影+詩集），台北：傷物，2012。 楊小濱：《賓至如歸指南》（詩集），《詩歌EMS》周刊總第161期（2012年9月）。 楊小濱：《冷乒乓主義》（詩集），《詩歌EMS》周刊總第239期（2014年4月）。 楊小濱：《楊小濱詩 X 3》（詩集《多談點主義》、《女世界》、《指南錄·自修課》），台北：秀威，2014。 楊小濱：《到海巢去——楊小濱詩選》，台北：印刻，2015。 I can imagine you becoming a (published) poet!! 楊詩人 is not only a poet, but also a researcher at Academia Sinica so that's also an academic path to take -- becoming a professional researcher at places like Academia Sinica which can make use of your literature knowledge, without the stress of getting tenure. I would love to read your poetry books so please let me know when they are published in the future! 人生得意須盡歡，莫使金樽空對月。/ 天生我材必有用，千金散盡還復來。 / 烹羊宰牛且為樂，會須一飲三百杯 [...] / 與君歌一曲，請君為我側耳聽。[...] / 古來聖賢皆寂寞，惟有飲者留其名 (!) -- 青蓮居士李太白! Alternatively, if you're a perpetual student, you can consider both grad school and law school (caveat: NOT recommended unless there is a full scholarship! All the attorneys I know even from the top schools are in greater anguish than PhD's!!! Cannot emphasize this enough), and do the JD/PhD program at Harvard. I am acquainted with one person who did the JD/PhD there and passed their state bar. I don't know if the financial incentive is still there, but if you do the JD/PhD it usually takes 9 years (3 years Law and 6 years grad school) but the Law School tuition is waived. Harvard Law now takes the GRE exam so you don't have to worry about taking the LSAT -- as long as your GPA is 3.8+ and GRE is in the 99th percentile you should be a strong candidate at Harvard Law, as their admission process is more number intensive than grad school admissions... http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/academics/degree-programs/special-programs/jdphd-program/ So that's also an option, but make sure you do the joint JD/PhD that is totally funded for both the law school and the grad school portions; I know someone who did a PhD first and then a JD but since he did it separately, he had to pay for the JD portion and is now regretting the massive student loans even though he has a very high-paying job (more than 99% of Americans). And I imagine with a JD and a PhD your tenure options are extended -- you qualify not only for academic jobs in the EALC departments but also at law schools teaching East Asia related subjects, like Chinese Legal History or something like that! And you can consult for Chinese nationals wanting to immigrate to the US under the EB-5 investor category, not just educational consulting. Oh and I should mention that publications in EALC are peer-reviewed, but publications in American law journals/law reviews are STUDENT-reviewed and run. Some professors were able to publish their articles in student-led law journals and still count those for their tenure application, and they got promoted to associate professors -- although they teach in Asia, not in the US, so maybe the tenure standard is not as stringent. University of Pennsylvania's Asia Law Review is an example of a student-led journal relating to East Asia. But it's ideal to get published in a peer-reviewed journal in the field...as low-quality publications will come back to haunt you later. And there is a Cambridge PhD holder (in Philosophy...) who ended up founding an education consulting and I think a lot of the clients are from Asia, so yeah if you are entrepreneurial and love education that is a good option: https://menlocoaching.com/team/ One PhD pointed out to me that the CEO of Palantir Technology who has a net worth of 1.6 billion has a PhD in German sociology and studied under Jürgen Habermas in Frankfurt and so that's an inspiration story for non-academic jobs in technology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp Sure, languages will definitely help with non-academic careers. There's a Comparative Literature PhD from Stanford who commands 7 languages (mostly European as they are more or less related, for example Romance languages are similar to each other)https://dlcl.stanford.edu/events/best-decision-ever-thriving-business-humanities-phd http://arcade.stanford.edu/blogs/utility-humanities-21st-century Many kind people gave me advice so I'm just regurgitating... PS: I'm also tempted to repeat a professor's advice: The PhD is about pushing the edge of human knowledge, so you will be expected to read A LOT of books (both original sources and secondary scholarly writings) and to come up with something NEW and ORIGINAL to say -- i.e. pushing the edge of the existing human knowledge even further. That's why it takes such a long time. So the professor told me to find something nobody has done before. Someone I know who read 20th century literature decided to drop out of her PhD program after 7 years because even after reading all the literature currently available on 20th century literature, she couldn't find anything new to say and so just ended up with a terminal MA. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

@lordtiandao UCLA is a great school! The 5 PhD programs (strictly for East Asian Languages, Cultures and Literatures / East Asian Studies) I was told to "concentrate" on are: Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Berkeley, UCLA. I can't imagine myself being in Chicago and although I can live in California, I prefer the East Coast yet he lists just one East Coast school there (Harvard)...

And if you can, reach out to retiring-soon professors and professors emeritus/a! I was specifically told what NOT to do, what direction NOT to take, and a list of professors specific to my research. Since they are at the top of their fields, they certainly know what works and what doesn't! In my case, a soon-to-retire professor (I didn't know he was retiring until he told me so, and suggested me not to apply there) advised me that his school doesn't really have anyone suitable for my research except him but he's retiring anyway, but I can still forcibly do it with an associate professor who hasn't really published in this line of research yet and who is just interested in it (but no publication record, and that's very important); however, that's not recommended because, again, you need an established professor as advisor!

Thanks @anon1234567 for confirming! Just wanted to share what I know. Another advice I got was to determine, if you can, who will be on the admission committee!! A professor said that your chances of admission depend on one or two professors on the admission committee who say "we want this person!" and go at length to promote your file. If you can somehow find out who are the decision makers, your chances will increase because you can tailor your applications. One advice also comes up very frequently: talk with current (and past) students. Actually, past students are likely to be the most helpful because they've been there, done that, etc. and are probably more candid to talk about the most crucial thing: the personality of the advisors. It's hard to know whether you will work well with a professor based on an interview or online bio! In my case I reached out to an associate professor who already graduated from Harvard and I got a lot of great, very specific advice!! And I'm not sure if this last piece of advice is cynical or not...But I was told specifically for PhD application, if you can show that you are prepared for a successful completion of the program and the job market, your chances will increase. I still shiver at the truth of what I was reading whenever I reread it, but PhD is a "vocational" training, with many "petty rivalries, intellectual dead-ends, disillusions and disappointments, self-doubt and self-reproach", so the admission committee is more likely to admit someone who they think is well-prepared for the storms ahead. It is like an investment. They want to invest their scarce resources (stipend and funding) for the ones most likely to finish. And, I was advised by this professor to even include a hint as to what are non-academic career options "beyond teaching" that I would do with a PhD, because a great majority of PhDs who study with even the most famous scholars never find highly elusive tenured academic jobs. Not to sound pessimistic but that's the advice I've been getting! And of course, if you can show you can be a promising teaching assistant, that will probably help too! Universities need TA's for the undergrad classes!

@SUMMER715 That seems like a good sign that they are interested in your research's specific details! Good luck to you and hope you get accepted to Chicago! @lemma Thanks Lemma, and yes please let me reach out to learn more about Yale in the future. I went to undergrad at a place where the campus has the Gothic style buildings as well as a lake in a very scenic background. So hopefully my future grad school will be similar!

@lemma is New Haven that dangerous? I visited Ithaca and loved it. I haven't visited New Haven yet but will definitely do so before April!

Sorry for a second post! But I did get an email from Harvard -- but from a current student and a former student who is now a professor -- and they recommended the below for interview prep: Why this school? How does it fit? Why MA? Why PhD? What after? Academic plan after matriculation (research methods, language acquisition plan, etc. etc.) If you can attend conferences and get your name out there in advance, it will add to credibility and potential! Since the scholarly community is small, if your professors writing the LOR know people in the school you're applying to or studied under them in the past, you get bonus points! They like to read letters from their friends, colleagues, advisees, former students, etc.

@lordtiandao, @kochanI also got asked (in email) why I didn't apply to certain schools, but a little bit more subtly. Several professors -- not from Columbia! -- told me to "consider" Columbia and listed names of professors I should consider working with. But I don't want to be in New York! I prefer idyllic settings such as New Haven (Yale) and Ithaca (Cornell) as I can imagine myself to be a hermit like many of the Chinese scholar-officials in Han and Tang who were weary of robust city life and civil service, and retreated to the mountains. So I just told one of the professors that I didn't apply to Columbia because of geography...Another professor recommended me Columbia because he himself went to Columbia and even told me to stay there after for PhD. I don't think it's that easy to get into Columbia PhD program even if one got an MA there... From talking with a Berkeley PhD third year student, I found out something about the Berkeley History PhD program. Due to shortage in academic jobs, the Berkeley PhD program in History cut half of the number of PhD entrants! Not sure which year this was and I can't remember the exact numbers I heard, but in one year there were 26 and the next year that number was down to 13! I also learned that most advisors that one designates on the SOP don't really take your research interests that seriously. Yes, they do match you with your advisors of choice, of course, but they all know you will change your research interest during the first year anyway. But then that begs the question of why they suggest students to apply to other schools or question why students didn't do so... And one piece of advice I got from a professor that I found very interesting. You should look at the acknowledgements of the books of the professors you want to work with, and see if they acknowledge their students and colleagues! You want to work with professors who have time for you and are helpful. Also I was told to not pick an assistant professor for advisor not because of how long they will be there or even whether they will get tenure, but because you need full professors with a lot of reputation to support you to get through the program and when you go on the market. That's a lot of information, and please correct me if I'm wrong. Just wanted to share what I know so far!! PS: Many thanks for @kotatsumuri for creating such an awesome thread and for the high morale! Now we just have to endure 2 more months of waiting...

@lordtiandao How were your interviews, Lord Tian Dao? Fingers crossed for your acceptance to Princeton!!!

@lordtiandao I have only heard from a professor I contacted regarding the UPenn MA program application. I was told they are able to admit more MA students because they give no funding to MA students! That's not exactly a good thing, but maybe that means I will get accepted to their MA program.

@costevens Congrats! It's always a very wise decision to go with the best financial aid offer. In addition, UC Boulder seems to place many of their MA students to top PhD programs.

@kotatsumuri Getting into a PhD program straight from undergrad is probably the best outcome! You can receive a free MA en passant and build relationships early. Also, big universities tend to spend most of the energy and resources on PhD students. Applying to both PhD and MA programs at the same time seems like a sensible strategy. Several friends of mine got into PhD straight from BA so it's possible. The one who got into a PhD in Classics told me as long as you have certain courses they look for, they're willing to consider you for admission. The other one who got into a PhD in a quantitative field got in thanks to having a few years of work experience at an economic consulting firm. I think if you have both (1) relevant courses, e.g. the program requires 3 years of Japanese for all candidates and (2) relevant East Asian work experience, your chances of admission probably increase! Anyway, good luck! Fingers crossed for you!

@costevens I heard the same, too! Professor Anna Shields' book One Who Knows Me , or 《知我者》(http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674504370) is actually on my reading list. I'm fascinated by the romanticism of the Tang. "海內存知己，天涯若比鄰!"

That's quite stressful. Adding the interview to the application process makes this whole thing look like a job application (which in some sense it is, especially for Ph.D. candidates). I think some entrepreneurial postgrad should write a book on how to apply to humanities programs such as EALC. I have another question. In choosing POI, should one choose a tenure-track assistant professor or an established, named, distinguished professor?