BalkanItinerant

Also got a rejection from Berkeley. Gotta say, getting an interview request in December with a top choice at a top school, and having the interview and being told you're in the final group only to end up with a rejection definitely hurts. Nowhere to go but up though! Re everyone who's rejected from UCB post interview: It was the #1 ranked history graduate school this year and was very selective. If you got to the interview stage, it means you have a great application, and I bet you'll hear good things soon enough if you have a wide net cast.

Rejected at Brown with a bunch of others today. First response of the season. Weird that they are posting rejections before any acceptances first though. Does any program do that? The first of February seems way early to send out a spat of rejections.

I'd just like to say that you all seem like fine folks and I'll bet this forum is full of excellent scholars in the making. Whether this is a good or bad season for you or not, whether this is the right professional path for you or not, I wish everyone here the best. This is my third application session, so I get what this is like for sure. It's such a specific, esoteric anxiety to be hung up on, so it's kinda heartening that everyone here gets it. Hoping for the best for us all.

@timurdidnothingwrong Tacking on to your question, any 19th century Americanists or historians of slavery among the Berkeley acceptances?

Whoa, four Berkeley acceptances posted in one hour. Anyone claiming the others? It says three American and one International.

@timurdidnothingwrong I asked about the stages of the process for admission and she explained how they had wiped out most applicants from contention (something like 90%) pre winter break and that from there the remaining contenders got forwarded to their relevant faculty members for further scrutiny at their discretion. She said getting to the interview stage gets you to the final group of candidates and that most people who made it there are offered admission. Simultaneously, they wait a bit longer until perhaps March to extend a few additional acceptances to ensure they have a decent cohort. I'm paraphrasing but this was the gist.

Big congrats to the two Berkeley acceptances! I had my interview on the 3rd and I've been pretty tense. I'm a 19th century Americanist and my POI insinuated that most interviewees get accepted and that she'd get back to me within a couple weeks, but it's all quiet thus far on email and portal. She said they were looking to matriculate 16 this year, and I hope it's an American heavy cohort. I kinda worried I bored her rambling about my research interests toward the end of the call and I'm hoping that didn't kill me! Congrats to y'all!

Had my interview for Berkeley today. She said that 80-90% of those who have applied have been removed from contention and that most people who are interviewed will be accepted. Most decisions for their program should be in by February 3rd. Hope this helps others who applied there!

I just got an interview request with my POI at Berkeley as well. I'm a 19th century Americanist btw. Can anyone give me a rundown of what theirs was like? Any idea what fraction of applicants get interviewed for a preliminary shortlist and accepted? Just a little nervous and trying to gauge my chances and get in the game beforehand.

Hi all. This semester I'm working as a Research Assistant for a retired prof working on a book. He heard about me through the grapevine and reached out. The pay is pretty good and the research is outside of my focus area. Would his recommendation letter go further with an application, since I only know him professionally and not as an instructor?

Anyone heard anything from CUNY? I had gotten nothing from them so I finally inquired a week ago to my potential adviser (who is also on the admissions committee). He said that they'd only extended two offers of admission thus far (for 7 total funded spots) and implied that neither of them had accepted at this point and they were waiting for the April 15 deadline before pulling the trigger on the waitlist. He was very prompt in answering my email (sent it a bit before midnight and had a response early the next morning 8 hours later or so). He said my application was "competitive and still in the running". I haven't gotten accepted anywhere this session so I'm really anxious about an offer from CUNY hopefully coming through. A top 40 program with respected faculty in such an important area for research really does sound good. If I could get any perspective on my shot at hearing some good news this week or next it would be much appreciated. Also, I've heard nothing from South Carolina, but I've seen they've had both admissions and rejections posted on the portal. I messaged their graduate studies director to inquire about my app's status last week as well but no reply yet. Any info on what they're up to would be much obliged as well.

Just got a rejection from NYU. I suppose an online profile and an email address on their portal genuinely doesn't mean anything. I wonder how much longer I'll have access to their online resources.

Out of curiosity, I'd tested out the UID to see if it would do anything on the net ID portal with this link after hitting the 'don't know netid' option on the top right. It gave me one, and from there allowed me to log in to an online profile. I'm skeptical that it actually means anything but I now have access to the course explorer, online library, student housing info, etc. https://start.nyu.edu/ibin/start0.cgi

I logged into the NYU Home page and went to profile. An email with my initials was displayed under it.

So I've looked around on the NYU portal and have found that I have an entire profile and assigned email address set up despite having no response on my application yet. I have full access to their online library archives and everything. Is this standard NYU practice or is this a hint of acceptance? If the former, why on earth do they assign emails, netid, and UID numbers before even accepting you?

late 19th century- early 20th American political and immigration history with a transatlantic focus

Waiting on NYU still as well. So far I'm 3 rejections for my five apps. Hope to hell either NYU or UPenn pull through.

Has anyone else rejected by Columbia now gotten a follow up email to invite you to transfer your phd application to certain master's programs in the fall? This is the only school that's done this for me thus far.

Just got a rejection from Columbia. Maybe a dumb question but are the individual rejection letters personalized at all to your application? They make it sound like I was really on the line on whether to admit or not, using the term "unique individuals like you", that I was given "the most careful consideration" and that the department spent a lot of time on my app. Does this mean anything to how they perceived my app in particular or is this the standard copy paste response every dejected misfit gets?

Is it common practice for Yale's department to interview PhD candidates? I know it's broadly uncommon for history to conduct interviews and didn't think Yale was any different. Now I'm nervous because I applied last month there with an American focus and have had no contact from them as of yet.

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I'll be applying for probably around ten PhD programs this December. I'm curious about the place of language comprehension on the applications. English is the only language I have fluency in, but I have beginner to intermediate level comprehension of a few other languages, and used French-language scholarship to write a paper in undergrad once. I understand the basics of grammar and a lot of vocab in these languages, but I don't have speaking fluency in them and often need a translator or dictionary to look up certain terms. Can I put languages like French, Russian, Irish, and Bulgarian on an application as languages I have some knowledge with, as long as I clarify that it's more a reading comprehension ability rather than a native-level fluency? I know one accomplished historian of Eastern Europe at my undergrad had about eight languages besides English on his CV, but he only professed speaking fluency in one of them (Romanian). My field of study is America in the late-19th to early 20th century with a tentative focus on immigration, labor, and politics.

Hi all. I'm recently graduated with a BA in History from an R1 school. My major GPA was solid at around a 3.7, while my overall GPA was lagging behind at around a 3.1 thanks to certain STEM courses I probably should have avoided. I did however show a solid upward trend the last two semesters of undergrad. I'm applying for around ten top-ranked PhD programs on the East Coast this winter (all top 20, hopefully not a reach) and am trying to pad my application a little bit with good letters of recommendation (not a worry at all for me), a competent GRE score, and a publication of one of my undergrad papers from Spring. When I submitted the paper in the course, the professor said that it was worthy of publication and gave me some tips on certain undergraduate/graduate history journals that would consider publishing it. He went so far as to call it a "for sure publication", which made me feel a bit better at my chances to get into a program at a place like Columbia/Brown/Yale/etc despite a sub-par cumulative GPA. Has anyone here applied for a PhD from BA level with a publication already secured? Does it make any profound difference in the admissions process or is it not something that is really considered?