Balleu

How does one convincingly answer the SOP question about "your reasons for pursuing graduate study?" The obvious answer is that you pursue graduate study in history because you want an academic career in history. But doesn't that obvious answer feel exceptionally... obvious?

This was super well-stated and helped clarify my perspective. Thank you!

To those of you who are already attending: How much weight did you put on early stage positive responses from POIs? I have a few schools so far where faculty have been very encouraging, but I have no frame of reference for how encouraged I should actually feel.

Good feedback, thank you for that. I'm still in the early stages of SOPs and I definitely agree that things will change as I continue reading and continue getting feedback from potential advisers I'm corresponding with. I am in touch with some current PhD students as part of that research process. I feel super awkward about asking busy strangers to read my work and spend their time on feedback, but I'll just have to get over it. I'm 30 and have a decent-ish professional life, which in some ways makes this process easier. I haven't pinned all my hopes on grad school, but I will spend the rest of my life wondering "what if" if I don't try for it. I'm definitely trying to set my goals high and my expectations low.

How would folks feel about swapping SOP drafts on July 15th or so? For those of you who are done or close to it, what's your writing process been like? I know that the SOP needs to be customized to each school. So far I've been approaching it as a 2:1 ratio: first two-thirds of each SOP is more universal and describes my research background and the evolution of my interests; the final third specifically talks about my fit for that program. Is it a mistake to treat that first two thirds as a more "generic" portion that will go into each SOP?

I'm certainly open to an SOP swap. What's your timeline?

Is anyone else running into the challenge of the ages/career stages of potential supervisors? Maybe this is just a function of being in a less populous field with fewer people in any given department to choose from, but I'm definitely running into otherwise promising options where there's a host of new assistant professors and a handful of close-to-retirement full professors, with no one in between. I've taken to emailing and introducing myself regardless, with a line about "If you won't be directly advising graduate students, are there particular colleagues of yours you would suggest I contact?" Any words of wisdom from those already attending?

Happy summer, everyone! What are you reading, whether for research or for pleasure? I'm in the middle of The Experiential Caribbean by Pablo Gómez. It's been a while since I've read a book that's so electrifying. The clarity and strength of his argument is just phenomenal. Just finished David Wheat's Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean. Well researched, but not necessarily well structured. To get my sci-fi/fantasy fix, I'm reading N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.

Excellent, Sample A it is then. The "Lessons Learned" thread is also pretty unambiguous about the need to demonstrate language proficiency whenever possible. Using Sample A does mean I won't be demonstrating in my WS that I am familiar with the historiography of my proposed research area. Is that something that can conceivably be incorporated in an SoP? Or just hope that my recommenders can speak to that? Thank you so much, both for sharing your SoP and for the words of comfort. My six year customer service stint was running a game store, so I have my own version: "I don't know what I want to do with my life, but I know it doesn't involve getting leered at while I try to explain the rules of Settlers of Catan." 2019 cohort, how goes your process? I have a pretty healthy spreadsheet at this point with program info (language reqs, course sequence, funding), application info (deadlines, fees, max page counts), and POI info. Speaking of which: I put together a little research elevator pitch for when I start reaching out to potential advisers. "My research background has focused on the relationship between gender, access to the public sphere, and discourses of respectability during the West African colonial period. I wrote my thesis on Nigerian market women's resistance to an attempt by colonial authorities to regulate the Lagos food marketplace. I especially focused on the competing discursive strategies that Lagosians and colonial officials used to frame this conflict, and the claims they each made about the distinctive nature of foodstuffs markets. As I move toward graduate research, I know that I want to bring those themes (gender, economic and social access, food and the environment) into an Atlantic African context. Broadly, I plan to focus on Afro-Iberian creole societies in the 17th and 18th centuries, with particular focus on gender in the process of community formation and adaptation to the natural environment." Too much? Too little? No one cares about my interests/background in an introductory email?

Thank you for making this so clear. I know for myself, this means resisting the temptation to focus on numbers. My UGPA is lower than I'd like because I had a health crisis a decade ago and dropped out of my first undergrad institution. I could easily go down the road of worrying about that, or overanalyzing my GRE scores ("My Verbal is 168 but AW was only 4.5. Is that a red flag? Is that cause for concern?"). But numerical measures are the area that I have the least control over, and numbers are not going to make the case to an admissions committee that they should commit time and resources to my research over the next 5+ years. Having read through the "Lessons Learned" thread, I think I have a sense of the community consensus on writing samples, but I'm feeling torn between two options. Any input would be much appreciated: Sample A: A 20 page seminar paper analyzing a primary source in my research language and making a modest new argument on that source's interpretation. Won my department's Best Seminar Paper prize and will need polishing but not significant revisions. Less closely related to my proposed graduate research area (paper is on late medieval Iberian cultural history, graduate interest is early modern Atlantic Creole social history). Sample B: My undergraduate honors thesis, based on a larger archive of primary sources but all in English. My research for this thesis was funded by my department and required me to travel to another institution to access their archives. To use it as a writing sample, it will need either significant revisions or excerpting a section. More closely related to my proposed graduate research area (thesis is on colonial Nigerian social history).

Excellent, thanks all! Sending PMs. Thank you! Both of those are on my spreadsheet, but I wasn't sure how highly to prioritize them. I've received conflicting information (the nature of grad school, I know) on how many schools to apply to. Assuming my final list ends up more like 10-12, Wisconsin and Northwestern are definitely on there. I also appreciate the heads up on who may not be accepting new students this cycle.

Hi folks! Thanks for starting this thread, hbhowe. It was the push I needed to move from lurking to posting. I'm a few years out of undergrad at a state school in the Pacific Northwest. My thesis was on Nigerian market women's resistance to an attempt by colonial authorities to impose price controls. My interests have evolved since then away from straight African history toward the Atlantic African diaspora; chronologically I expect I'll end up working in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, geographically in the Caribbean, thematically in the overlap between environmental history (especially food) and social history. One of the POIs below put together a very helpful sample comps list for the Atlantic African diaspora, so I'm doing as much reading as possible before going into writing SOPs. So far my list includes: NYU (Morgan, Gomez, Goetz) Brown (Ferreira, Cope, Jacobs) Cornell (Greene, Byfield, Bassi, Craib) UNC (Lindsay, Radding) Johns Hopkins (Morgan, Johnson) Columbia (Brown, Lightfoot) Princeton (This one is a maybe for me right now, but I can see how a combination of Adelman/Candiani/Kreike could get me where I want to be) U of Toronto and U of British Columbia for funded MAs. I am very open to feedback on this list. Please, let me know who else I should consider. GRE is over and done with! I actually just got my scores back today. Glad that hurdle is out of the way and that it was less onerous than I expected. I'm revising my thesis into a writing sample, which my thesis adviser graciously offered to read and workshop with me, so that's next on my to-do list. Good luck to all and I look forward to getting to know you over the next year.