anon1234567

I am so sorry to hear that. Good luck with revisions!

Precisely! Money brings in more money.

@Adelaide9216 Congrats on getting the Vanier!!!

When did you get the email, if you don't mind sharing? This wait is infernal.

Direct applicant. Forwarded to the finals. Letter dated Feb 19.

No it means that they gave out 19 acceptances and 5-10 waitlists hoping to get a cohort of 16. Universities do this routinely because they know between 60 and 75 % will accept their offer of admissions.

I was waitlisted last year. And the letter informing me that my application was forwarded to the final competition arrived about mid-February. The wait is infernal.

The stipend at Columbia for 2019-2020 totals $34,116, plus tuition, insurance (for dependents as well), and all fees. If your concentration of study is also connected to an institute within Columbia, say Jewish Institute, Science and Society, or Harriman, and your POI heads it, they will match whatever other programs are offering and sometimes even more to retain you. This was done for a few students recently. Columbia has pots of funding, unevenly spread, unfortunately.

Direct applicant here! Haven't heard back yet either. You can have SSHRC deliver their mail to your address in England, just email them.

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New York direct applicant here! Got my letter yesterday, which is rather shocking how quickly it arrived (US and all). Waitlisted. The letter was dated April 26.

Well yes, it is nested in the broader history department, which is excellent. But all the schools/programs @35mm_ was admitted into are excellent, so really the decisive factors are mentorship, placement, funding, and location.

But Princeton over Penn if you want a broad history training. Penn's HSS is a stand alone program. Not sure what their relationship is with the history department. Penn's history department, however, is superb! But look at placement rates because history of science grads usually get history jobs, rather than history of science jobs, those are rare.

Agreed. The Cambridge History of Science program is superb. That's a blanket statement. If you choose to stay on this side of the pond, then Penn over Princeton. Penn's History and Sociology of Science is excellent. Their training is what other programs aspire to, their faculty is supportive, and the student body is cohesive and very friendly.

Yes as @Caravaggista wrote earlier, it is guaranteed. As long as you apply, you will get it.

I second that.

Congrats on receiving outside funding! Columbia is pretty flexible with outside funding. You can either get a top off option, but this will depend on the amount of your award (up to $15,000), which means you will keep your outside funding along with Columbia funding. Or you can push off Columbia funding for one year or more, and use the award money. And then continue with your Columbia funding the following year. You can even play around. One year get external award, next year Columbia funding. You still get your healthcare funded, and all your fees, even if you push off your Columbia funding by one year or several years. Columbia funding is guaranteed , and remains yours to claim whenever you are ready. But make sure to speak to the grad director, and your future supervisor about this. They may have some useful advice. I live at the Arbor. PM me if you want more details about it.

Direct applicant here attending a school in the US. Forwarded to the national competition. Letter dated Feb 15. Good luck everyone!

Congrats! Make sure to speak to current graduate students about the faculty, and specifically about your future potential supervisor/supervisors. Columbia encourages students to develop relationships with a few faculty members for different needs, professional and emotional. Both history programs are excellent, so you'll likely be making the decision based on the supervisors in your intended field/s.

I am an international student at Columbia. And it is affordable. Taxes are taken out immediately. Your monthly stipend, after taxes, is about $2400-2500, for the fall and winter semesters. I suggest to get Columbia housing, at least the first year, to orient yourself in NYC, or at least apply for grad housing and decline if you find a better deal in washington heights or brooklyn heights. With a roommate, it'll come out about $1000/month. But summers you get less. So keep that in mind. However, my Columbia housing contract also charges less for the summer months. The rent is charged by semesters not by months. The stipend is increased each year by 3%. There are also summer grants that you apply for internal to Columbia, or part of the consortium with NYU. Those are not too difficult to get. You just have to be on top of applying for them. Good luck!

Most definitely. The strength of a consortium is that it pools in resources: archives, grants, visiting scholars, and professors. Every course I've taken, aside from foundation courses that only permit Columbia students, had one or two students either from NYU, CUNY, Bard or Princeton. Often with those individuals one ends up becoming close friends, and sharing deep research interests that lead to fruitful collaborations.

I had another course that included bringing in a scholar in residence from England to work with students, and consult privately on projects. This course also invited biweekly lectures from visiting scholars from the chemical heritage foundation, Hopkins, and Indiana-Bloomington. As a consotrium member you can take those courses. Most importantly, NYC has archives! Aside from the NY public library, Columbia has extensive archives, including the Butler library (rare books, and we just acquired medieval Islamic texts), Harriman institute, etc. All on campus. NYU has impressive archives (Fales Library and special collections). And very accessible. There is the New York historical society archives, I think hosted at NYU library as well. There are special grants that only consortium grad students are elibgible for, but some of those maybe just open to Columbia and NYU grad students for now. In your decisions, the NYC consortium should not be taken lightly.

Not sure how those programs compare but keep in mind New York City attracts top scholars on weekly, if not on daily, basis. And you’ll be a part of the greater NYC consortium, Columbia-NYU-CUNY. That has a big payoff. We had a course offered last fall that was structured on bringing in a new scholar every week to lecture to us on a relevant topic to the discussion, which included the scholar’s own work. Basically a private workshop. Scholars from Penn, Brown, Harvard, and MIT. And if it isn’t Columbia or NYU inviting or hosting weekly scholars or workshops, it is scholarly societies that are based in New York doing it.

That's what the waitlist is for, although I have heard for some schools students are forced to wait until March to find out they are on a waitlist, or a hidden waitlist.

Cool. But that graph reflects acceptances and rejections over several years. Schools don't accept/reject applicants on the same calendar day every year. Also, He/She probably did not take into account that not everyone reports their decision on the day they received it, may do so later, and either forget or missdate the original receipt date of decision. Clearly I thought too much about this. Only because official admission/rejection is released by the graduate school, and it is a computer generated email. It doesn't read "Dear Name", it reads "Dear Name Last name". Whereas personalized department emails that follow about an hour after a grad school formal email, read Dear Name.