cyborg213

Considering you will graduate with a BA degree in Art History, is the MA in Art History really necessary? Without having too much information on your situation, I think you should focus your BA thesis in Medieval French visual culture, and then go directly to the MA in Medieval Studies - making sure you take a fair amount of courses in Art History and focus your MA thesis in Medieval French visual culture. Or go for the MA in Art History and focus on Medieval French VC. However, even if you go through the 2 MAs (which is not weird at all!), it won't take you as long as a PhD program in the US, which usually takes 6 to 7 years to complete (and in most cases people start their PhDs after one or two years of an MA). In any case, if you feel comfortable enough with writing a dissertation right after pursuing a yearlong masters program, I'd go for it. I guess the decision has to do more with how much you think you can accomplish in a year-long masters program, and how much experience and knowledge you feel you need to acquire in order to write a dissertation.

A very good friend of mine just got an offer from Rochester's Visual and Cultural Studies. Any thoughts on this program?

The night before getting my rejection letter from UChicago, I dreamt that I was already admitted and went to my “first day of class”. It was an abandoned futuristic building in the middle of the desert. I went up the stairs (they were extremely fragile), entered the classroom and found that the two professors that were welcoming us were Miranda Priestly, from “The Devil Wears Prada”, and Mr. B., an American History teacher I had when I was a exchange high school student in the US 15 years ago. Miranda then takes me on a tour around the “campus” and proudly shows me the library, which looks like a poorer version of the main hall of the Grand Budapest Hotel.

Although this is true, it's also terrible. I'm sure many people with no connections are offered admission (right?) but for all of us who come from unknown universities or foreign countries this puts us in considerable disadvantage.

Ha! I'm also an international student and made a similar mistake. I used Mr. instead of Dr. when completing the information about my LoRs. They are all doctors and tenured professors, but they will come up as Mr. and Ms. haha. It's kind of clumsy, but don't think it's a great deal... I hope!

Hi everyone! As most of us are still (((anxiously))) waiting for the results, I thought it might be interesting to bring up the following question: What is social life like in graduate school? What are your experiences? Expectations? Fears? Hopes? This is a question that usually comes up to my mind, especially in those moments when I feel graduate school will be a reality, which means my life will radically change in the next few months - and for the next 6+ years. In my case, I will move to a whole new different continent (I'm European), and start a new life by myself. I've gone through this experience many times before (I've lived in many different countries), but I feel this is a particularly unique situation. I won't lie: I hope to meet interesting people, make good friends and become part of a nourishing, supporting community. And I do so because I think having this kind of affective interactions is crucial in order to be happy and healthy as we navigate the many hardships of writing a dissertation and completing a PhD program. I know there are as many experiences as people who've gone through graduate school, but I wonder what you guys think of this. Do you think graduate school promotes this kind of community-building experience (beyond the professional sphere)? Do you think this is more likely to happen outside of school, by getting involved in other types of activities?

Me too. From what I know, UChicago has conducted interviews in previous years, but not on a regular basis. I guess they might be requested in specific cases... as far as I know, people have been accepted without being interviewed. Has anybody gone through this process in previous years to shed more light on this?

Hi! I'm also applying to CUNY and after reading your post I checked my portal and found the same message (“your application is incomplete”). My GRE scores are also unofficial, which is weird, since I sent the official reports to all of my schools at the same time (in November, just as you did!), and they've all received the official reports. I submitted my application on the 31st, so it might be possible that the system hasn't been updated for us. I will write the department just in case... Let me know if you hear something!

Exactly. I actually saw a few days ago a blog written by a professor from the University of Chicago (in the filed of political science and economics), stating that outside funding was a valuable component in an application. Although this may vary from school to school, and it's not, of course, a requirement, it could add a lot because of this. This is such a controversial topic, and something that, in my opinion, should be further addressed and debated. There are already so many financial restrictions for graduate school. Most of us applying are probably not rich but financially privileged in some way or another... so that's one first “filter”. I wonder what the stats say about this, and if there are any recent sociological studies analyzing class and wealth issues in relation to graduate schools, especially the prestigious ones..

I agree. In my view, the fact that I “have the money” is not at all important in terms of the assessment of my project and academic qualifications, and won't make a difference. It would actually be alarming and unethical if it does. I guess the only thing that might have some weight is that the fellowship is very competitive and made me go through a rigorous selection process - based on my academic qualifications and research project - so it can serve as evidence of my qualifications.. though just as much as any other accomplishment in one's CV.

Thank you! My area is Latin American history (Chile-Argentina, 1950-1990), with a focus on space, urbanism and postcolonialism. I'm applying to Yale, Columbia, Chicago, NYU and Rutgers.

And I also have a question: I was granted with a European fellowship that covers full tuition + stipend for graduate studies in the US (this is the reason I'm applying to PhD programs in the US in the first place). Although most graduate programs I'm applying are fully funded, in which case the fellowship would just be added or adjusted to the financial conditions offered by the school I attend (if I'm lucky to be admitted somewhere!). The fellowship is very prestigious in Europe, but I have no idea of the extent to which having this fellowship will make a difference in the admission process. As I know, many American applicants are also granted with different fellowships prior to their admission to grad school, so I wonder if anyone can tell me the weight this accomplishment might have for admissions. I know there's no exact way to tell, but if anyone is or has been in a similar situation, I would love to hear your comments. Thank you!

Hi everyone! I've been silently following this thread for some months and I'm impressed by the amazing advice so many of you have provided. It's been extremely helpful in my process, especially because I'm from a non-English speaking country in Europe and many of the intricacies and nuances of the application world in the US - which I was totally unaware of until I found this forum - seem now to be at least a bit more familiar to me. So I just wanted to say THANK YOU for such thoughtful and useful comments and advice. I just submitted my last application and I'm extremely uncertain about everything (as I imagine many of you are!!!). Being an international applicant adds an extra layer of uncertainty (and clumsiness) to the process. For instance, I tragically found out about the GRE a month before the deadlines (I mean, I discovered its existence, and became aware of the fact that I had to pay for it, study for it and actually take it haha. Somehow my mind wasn't ready to accept that there was a standardized test for graduate school ? -even though I read many times the admissions requirements that clearly stated it). And I guess being unfamiliar with the academic culture in the US makes it harder to have any clue about my chances and “position” among other applicants (I know, for instance, what my European colleagues “look like” and have a sense of the “level” they have). And well, at the end of the day this is a competition, and consequently we are all insistently (and involuntarily) wondering what our “position” is or will turn out to be once we get the results. Will this anxiety-provoking scenario (that is likely to increase) ever let us think, write and enjoy what we do? Of course yes, but I imagine this requires some level of mastery. And I guess all of us are already acquiring some level of mastery just by applying. Anyways, I don't know why I'm saying this, but I do know that this has already been an exhausting adventure, and I truly empathize with all the efforts, anxiety and uncertainty many of you have been struggling with in the last months. Cheers for us, and good luck!!