FruitLover

I have no insights, but I got into Columbia today. Still can’t believe it! I received an email to check my application status - and there was the offer with funding information. I’m surprised more people haven’t posted anything on the results page...

Thank you! It was a huge surprise. Wishing everyone a fruitful decision season that’s nearing its peak!

I have no insights, but I got into Columbia today. Still can’t believe it! I received an email to check my application status - and there was the offer with funding information. I’m surprised more people haven’t posted anything on the results page...

Thank you! I’m doing modern Europe

Congratulations!! That is awesome! ?

I have no insights, but I got into Columbia today. Still can’t believe it! I received an email to check my application status - and there was the offer with funding information. I’m surprised more people haven’t posted anything on the results page...

I am literally overcome with emotion ? I got into Yale!!! 

I received the second acceptance, and was notified by a POI. I work on modern (20thC) East Asia. 
 
 

Did it also come your POI?

Seeing other people hear back from the schools I've applied to makes me increasingly convinced that I'm about to get rejected from everything. ? Anyone else in the same boat?

Does anyone want to claim the UChicago offer? Would you be willing to share the initials of your POI?

You can search “history” on the results page. Most schools have yet to release any decisions. Based on results from previous years, many schools send out their acceptances around the same time (i.e. one school informs all of their admitted students on the same day, another school does so within the span of a few days, etc).

Top Ten Bourbons:
10. Philip V
9. Charles III
8. Ferdinand I
7. John I
6. Louis XIII
5. Louis XVIII
4. Charles III of Spain
3. François Louis, le Grand Conti
2. Henry IV
1. Louis XIV

Same as everywhere else. Professors review the applications that pertain to them, send 0-3 promising apps to a dedicated committee, that committee whittles the pool down to what they want to take that year and sends the list off to the grad school for approval. The grad school sends out the admissions letters. Some professors like to reach out when they know a candidate has been sent to the grad school for final approval; others wait until the official announcement goes out. The rough dates when the official announcements go out have been very consistent from year to year, and can be found simply with a search of the results forums.

You can search “history” on the results page. Most schools have yet to release any decisions. Based on results from previous years, many schools send out their acceptances around the same time (i.e. one school informs all of their admitted students on the same day, another school does so within the span of a few days, etc).

You can search “history” on the results page. Most schools have yet to release any decisions. Based on results from previous years, many schools send out their acceptances around the same time (i.e. one school informs all of their admitted students on the same day, another school does so within the span of a few days, etc).

You can search “history” on the results page. Most schools have yet to release any decisions. Based on results from previous years, many schools send out their acceptances around the same time (i.e. one school informs all of their admitted students on the same day, another school does so within the span of a few days, etc).

Do you have any specific reason to? If your grades have improved, you can contact the graduate coordinator to see if it's possible to send an updated (unofficial) transcript. For most part, most of your work has been done and profs will assume that you've maintained your performance and not have failed courses

The second guessing and checking and re-checking file names of what we uploaded and sent -- I guess this is life for the next little while.
In the meantime, I've got a thesis a bunch more applications to finish. Good luck to everyone

This has been a thread I'd like to contribute to for a while, and I am so very glad that I finally am in a position to do so! Please pardon my typos and the bad grammar. 
Current status (2017-2018): 
Applied (7): Columbia (History - East Asia), Michigan —Ann Arbor (History and Women's Studies joint program), UChicago (History), UCSB (History), Wisconsin - Madison (History) , U of Toronto (History), Princeton (East Asian Studies)
Accepted (declined) : UChicago, UCSB, U of Toronto, Columbia
Rejected: Princeton, Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan
Past status (2016-2017):
Applied (6): Columbia (PolSci), Berkeley (PolSci), GWU (PolSci), UVA (PolSci), Harvard (History), UPenn (History)
Accepted: N/A
Rejected: All of them (UPenn post-interview)
Executive Summary:
1. Choose programs that are the best fit (in my case, this begins with choosing the right discipline...)
2. Contact not just one but multiple POIs (not just to gauge fit, but for advice)
3. Ask multiple people to review SOP (make sure some of the reviewers are advanced PhD students)
4. Not just make an effort to revise the writing sample, but make sure that the original research in this writing sample is very strong
4. (if applicable) Think of ways to proactively make the non-History related work experiences/degrees in non-History disciplines into one's advantage
5. Make sure that one has a strong support system
6. (this may only apply to me, but at least in my case) If applying to PhD programs is like shooting a target under great pressure with your life at stake (to some extent), then one may want to present oneself as a professionally trained sniper, instead of a passionate soldier. 
Background Info:
I'm an international student with no degree in History but two Master's degrees from non-U.S. schools. I would like a career in the academia not bc this is the only option I have, but the one I desire most. So, to some extent, I am aware of the trade-off, the opportunity cost, and the risk, which means applying to PhD programs itself is an informed decision. And, in my humble opinion, the lessons I've learned are--
1. Choose programs that are the best fit
I know this is a bit cliche, but in my case this was a fundamental and challenging task to complete. To begin with, I needed to know who I am as an academic in order to choose the discipline that is the best fit given my intellectual identity. On paper, I am a significantly better applicant for PhD programs in PolSci than I am for programs in History.  And I wasn't sure if I wanted to become a historian or a political scientist during my first cycle of application. For instance, I didn't know if I want to approach international politics as a historian or become a political scientist with a historical perspective. When I was preparing for my applications to History programs in 2016, I felt like I was "defecting" from one field to another. That identity crisis did real damage to my first cycle, and completely turned my existent academic training against me. Multiple POIs  even (explicitly or implicitly) asked  me why I wanted to be trained into a historian. 
So, the lesson is, if I cannot even identify my intellectual self, then the committees and POIs cannot either.
I spent the past year painstakingly coming to terms with the fact that I want to be a historian (with my research interests encompassing field A, B, C...). And this has not only made the "searching for programs that are the best fit" process in 2017 a lot easier, but also helped me to concentrate all my energy on accumulating more research experiences in field A, B, C. And I am a lot happier. 
From the results you can see that I applied to Columbia twice, once to the PhD program in PolSci (rejected) and this time to the PhD program called History - East Asia (accepted). I think the results speak for themselves. (And I am openly glad that I only need to send TOEFL and GRE scores once!)
2. Contact POIs
For the first cycle, I only contacted one POI for each of the program I applied to, and the contacting itself was of a very superficial nature- I simply asked if a given POI was interested in my research plans/academic background and if they were taking students. That was helpful but not productive. For the second cycle, I made sure to at least contact 2-3 POI for every program I was considering to apply to, and also asked all of my POIs if they have any advice on how to further develop my research interests and prepare my application. Most of them replied and most of those who replied gave advice in great detail. Two POIs literally pointed out that some of my research topics were not as original as the others, and have been already well studied. As you can imagine, I avoided writing about those research topics in my SOP. Some POIs shared their idea about what a good writing sample was, e.g. based on solid and original work, creative narrating, etc. And others suggested that I elaborated on a few research topics I originally considered not so important, bc they thought these topics could potentially lead to important research.
In short, by contacting POIs via dozens of emails, I became a better applicant already, even before I made a decision on which programs I should apply to. In retrospect, contacting POIs was a significantly helpful experience where I had a perfect excuse to ask renowned historians to take time to mentor me on how the mind of a professional historian should work. 
3. Ask multiple people to review SOP
Many people have offered excellent advice on how to revise one's SOP, so my focus here is rather on asking reviewers to help with the revision. For the first cycle, I asked three PhD students to review my SOP, but none of them are actually doing PhDs in History (oops!). For this cycle, six PhD students selflessly offered insight. Three of them were my own senpai, who are doing PhDs in top History PhD programs and would like to go the extra mile to get me in a top program too. Three others were people I know from this very forum - I didn't ask for their permission, so please allow me to refrain from revealing their identities - with two of them being advanced PhD students/candidates. I did lots of heavy revisions to my SOPs according to their advice, e.g. I abandoned all the language about "passion", "hope", "enthusiasm" bc they show nothing about my expertise or my professionalism. 
What prevented me from asking more people to review my SOP during the first cycle was that I was shy, and unconsciously afraid of hearing people say "this wouldn't work, you need to rewrite everything". Yes, showing my SOP - a piece of my mind and my intellectual self - to other people, especially strangers made me feel exposed and vulnerable, but this was nevertheless a must do. It's way much better to consciously feel vulnerable rewriting a SOP for the 17th time than to unknowingly submit a vulnerable SOP to the committee and get it slaughtered. I am so very grateful that so many people took their time (while being crazy busy with their own work) to selflessly rescue my SOP again and again. And in my humble opinion, it is significant that one always humbly asks for permission to send a SOP to a potential reviewer in advance, with great respect and gratitude, before sending out the SOP.
4. Not just make an effort to revise the writing sample, but make sure that the original research in this writing sample is very strong
My writing samples for both of the two cycles are actually about the same research topic. And no, my English skill/narrating style didn't improve that much in the past year. What changed is that I wrote my master's thesis based on the 2016 version of the writing sample, adding to it a lot more original research, then wrote the 2017 version of the writing sample based on the thesis. In other words, the research itself was stronger, more sophisticated, and significantly more mature. I thought revising the writing of a writing sample took a lot less time than enriching the original research the writing sample was based on, so in 2016 i focused solely on the "writing" part of the writing sample. But this was a tactical decision instead of a strategic one. A stellar research may end up producing a good (but not extraordinary) writing sample, but i feel it is unlikely that an immature and weak research can produce an original and solid writing sample. After all, the people who make decisions are established historians themselves, they can see.
4. Think of ways to proactively make the non-History related work experience/degrees in non-History disciplines into one's advantage
I don't have any degree in History, so this is more like my own "demon" to deal with. Please ignore the following if you don't have the awkward disadvantage of never having majored or even minored in History. 
This is easier to say than to do, but is doable. I have been spending my gap year working as a researcher for an NGO and was hired bc of my expertise in politics instead of history.(ironic~)  Bc of the nature of my work, I got to travel a lot (domestically and internationally) and communicate with academics from non-History disciplines, activists, and other professionals on a regular basis. At first, I was afraid that this kind of non-History experience was bound to further add to my disadvantage of not having a degree in History, but i was wrong. Many of the ideas - especially the good ones- in my SOP were a result of my learning from these people's perspectives. Hypothetically speaking, if one's interested in the historical transformation of gender norms, it doesn't hurt to work with those who endeavor to shape gender norms in our era. No, they are not the historians who study what I study and what happened one century ago, but they (are trying to) make or shape the history someone's gonna write about 100 years later.
So how did this play out? During my first interview with Columbia, the professor asked nothing about my research in History but a lot of my "work", and was very interested in knowing how i make connections between my work and my research. I later learned that another applicant who was also interviewed was asked similar questions - not about their research in History, but their non-History experiences. So, when it comes to the final decision and the quality of everything else  is the same/highly similar, the committee may also look at applicants' non-History experiences.
So, if you are also in a similar situation where you have a significant amount of non-History training and (work) experiences for whatever reasons, which can potentially lead the committee to assume that you are not committed to/experienced in History,  don't think about defending or justifying yourself (like i desperately tried doing in 2016 but in vain). Instead, think about how you can offer the program something special which they don't usually find in other applicants. 
5. Make sure that one has a strong support system
And don't just confine it to family and friends. For instance and in my case, I would say a very important part of my support system is my colleagues from work. After I failed my first cycle, my supervisor made an effort to send me to attend more conferences and do more business trips. I think part of this was bc I was obliviously very upset and needed distraction, and part of this was bc (my supervisor from work confirmed) my supervisor believed that this kind of experience would help me mature more as a researcher (regardless of the discipline), which, in turn, could help with my second cycle of application.
Meanwhile, a colleague from work who's a native English speaker checked the language of all my SOPs and writing sample for me, that was A LOT of time-consuming work. 
In addition, I would also say that all the POIs I contacted were also part of this support system. First, they were all very kind and encouraging. (and this is pretty much a guaranteed response from them) More importantly, many of them would offer advice on how to better prepare one's application if one asks nicely and skillfully, and this kind of support is what, in my humble opinion, an applicant might need more - even more than the emotional support (not saying emotional support is not important, though) from family and friends.
6. (this may only apply to me, but at least in my case) If applying to PhD programs is like shooting a target under great pressure with your life at stake (to some extent), then one may want to present oneself as a professionally trained sniper, instead of a passionate soldier. 
In my humble opinion, one won't be offered admissions to top programs bc one is passionate about one's research. I believe I was only offered admissions bc, first of all, the committees and POIs saw me as a professional historian in the making. In retrospect, during the first cycle i acted like a passionate soldier marching towards my targets like (no offense) a lot of people did or would do, but during the second cycle I somehow managed to behave, to some extent, like a sniper -  I was a lot more precise, I made calculations,  and I shot at my target professionally with the intention of getting the job done. 
My final two cents: there are many many soldiers and significantly fewer snipers in this world. Many soldiers can be replaced by other soldiers, but each good sniper has their professional signature and style (and even self-made bullets!) which eventually make them stand out and get "caught" by the "good people". (yes, I've watched too much crime drama...)
 
Best wishes to everyone!

It is probably in your best interest to be around 1000 words, though slightly over is okay. It's really designed to prevent them from having to read 10 page SoPs with multiple footnotes, long historiographical discourses, etc.