Manana

Thank you so much! 

Hello Manana,
I used to live in London pursuing my Master degree. I've visited the campus of UCL and LSE. They're quite close. I lived in the residence offered by my university. To be frank, I'm quite satisfied with both the expense and its neighbourhoods. It's an en-suite located near the Thames River in Southwark, Zone 1. The south bank area is always hustle and bustle and I can promise you can safely hang out with your friends even at 11 pm. I tried to move out of the accomodation my school offered me and I also compared the prices between living outside and living in the accomodation. The fact is choosing the accomodation is much more cheaper and you don't need to worry about all the bills like gas, electricity, house tax and more. Considering you'd like to share a studio with a couple of women, then I suppose the price for each person will be roughly 200 pounds per week and 800 pounds per month. For commute cost, you can apply for a Student Oyster card to gain a certain percentage of discount. I can only remember if you get a student card, you can enjoy a £1.5-2.5 single way by bus. The tube there is quite expensive but sorry I forgot the detailed price (about 4-6 single way? I suppose). When it comes to food, the cost is around £5-15 per meal. But if you choose to have your meal at an exquisite restaurant, then the price will be around £30-80.
It's been quite a while after your last log-in. However, I assume most of the students who're accepted to get a place in UCL might choose to defer their offers. So, I hope my comment can still help you in some way.
All the best,
Felix.

I am also just now applying in my 30s! On the one hand, any PhD program will be way more fun than my job. On the other hand, a bit concerned about my ongoing ability to stay up late reading...

TBH, there are only that many programs fitting with your research interests. 

Late summer, early fall.
As many as you can afford. It's nice that some faculty think that students have $800 for admissions... that was not my case. 

Thank you! I have written to them now. Here's hoping we will be classmates this fall

@MananaRegarding the EUI, I am in the same situation. I think you should reply to the email. I did it and I think we have a chance. They are trying to find funding for those admitted as international students. However, they don't say anything about the deadline for an answer about our case.

It does depend on your division, so I don't know about the others, but for Humanities I don't think they have been announced.  An MSt History student claimed a couple of weeks ago to have received one, but that is very very unusual.  I would expect they would go out first week or two of April, but since everything has been pushed back this year, it could take longer.
 

Thank you! I have indeed asked for the parameters, was answered kindly. It was basically a 15 minute conversation. Not really sure how it went, I forgot a ton of words but managed to keep up with the conversation. I'm supposed to be notified soon if I had been accepted to the program, and I heard that they sometimes actually give feedback if you hadn't been accepted, we'll see.

Thank you! It's been about 3 years since i applied for phd programs (first round included rejection letter after rejection letter) so I'm beyond ready to start this new process. ❤️

Oh! Whoops! 
I was accepted to Univ of Denver for Religious Studies and UCLA for Chicanx Studies. 
I committed to UCLA ? 

Late to the dance. In circumstances like this one, I recommend asking about the parameters of the exam rather than the purpose.
IME weirdness and anxiety can combine to set the stage for asking questions about purpose with an odd tone.
Conversely, questions about parameters of a task provide opportunities to appear calm and engaged and to receive information that can be used to answer the "why" question. 

Just my 2 cents from afar: I don't think it's disrespectful at all to ask about the purpose of the test. If this is a component of what's expected of you as part of the program, they should have no problem telling you about it.

Hey, anyone else slowly dying (not to be overdramatic or anything) waiting for admissions decisions to come out?
Last year I received my offer on March 6th, so since this date passed I'm going a bit crazy.

Second this. While I had many supportive professors there were a few who seemed hellbent on making students feel like they were complete idiots. My historiography professor in particular seemed intent to tear down my cohort. To the point where many of us considered quitting--and one actually did. I later had another professor tell me (after I went to office hours asked for clarification on something I wasn't getting) that "well, not everyone is meant to be a grad student." Fortunately my advisor and committee were a bunch of standup fellows, so once I finished my course work I was able to go into hiding and hunker down on my thesis. That said my mental health was at the lowest its ever been during grad school. Academia is a brutal and unforgiving place.

No MA, though i have an MA acceptance from last year with partial funding that I deferred. I am thinking about the MA, but I'm honestly feeling incredibly disheartened at this point - I would really only want the MA as a stepping stone to a PhD. Mostly, I do not want to use my time and money on an MA that would not guarantee admission to a PhD program.
 
I know that's not how it goes, so I'm trying to decide if I want to stay in the field. I know it's rough for the humanities which is a a part of the rejection, but not getting in to programs has been a major blow to my self esteem and estimation of my own intelligence. I've worked my tail off thus far, and despite my love of the field and my topic, I simply find my motivation and passion being depleted. I would accept any PhD program in a heartbeat, I want to contribute, but there is something emotionally and mentally taxing getting rejected by a field that has dwindling opportunities. No matter how much I love history, I really need to consider if this is my path. 
 
I just wish rejection didn't make me feel stupid or lazy.

I know rejection hurts. I've gone through my share of rejections during my first round of applications (100% rejection). I thought similar thoughts. 
And after all the rejections I really thought about my future in the field. I took the time to focus on other jobs in other fields but nothing gave me the same sense of fulfillment. Yes, the days are long. Yes, there is lots of reading and writing. However, at the end of the long days I felt like my work made a much needed dent in human knowledge so I continued to do research. On my own. Just for fun. (Nothing intense just lots of reading.)
So, I applied again to other programs outside of history and was happy to be accepted into a program at UCLA--in a department I never saw myself in but made sense this application cycle. 
Breathe. Give yourself time to think. Be gentle with yourself.   

I'm so sorry you're going through this. Rejection is a huge part of academia, but it doesn't mean the sting goes away. Your value isn't tied to an acceptance to a PhD program. I recognize saying that is easy, and feeling the truth of it is much harder in these moments.
It is brutal in the humanities right now. Absolutely brutal. And we haven't felt the full impact of it yet. Rejection now can be an opportunity for you to reassess if it's worth it when the number of jobs is becoming vanishingly small--and the number was small pre-covid. I started my program in 2015 fully understanding the challenges and accepting the risk. A sad realization I've had over the past year is, if I had to apply today facing the post-covid market, I wouldn't. I also wouldn't accumulate debt to get an MA when even the programs with good placement records are going to struggle to place their grads in academic jobs. But it's an individual choice. As always, each prospective and current grad student needs to assess the risks themselves.

Rejection blows. I’m sorry.
It's difficult, but really try to resist the urge to assign some greater personal significance or meaning to your rejections. Not getting into a graduate program doesn’t mean you’re stupid or lazy. It doesn’t mean you overestimated your intelligence or misjudged your capabilities. It doesn't mean your ideas aren't worth contributing. It just means what it says: you didn’t get into a graduate program, during a very competitive cycle.
Also, what about doing history do you love, or were you most excited to do in a PhD program? I'm talking about actual tasks and actions you do, not topics you like. Do you like writing? Research? Thinking about complicated problems? Telling stories? I bet you can find something in a not-dying-industry that scratches a similar itch and probably pays better, too.

If your entire sense of self-worth is dictated by the opinions of history professors, get ready for a lifetime of psychological torment. Take it from me: that's no way to live. Constant rejection is an inherent part of grad student/academic life. There's a reason so many graduate students struggle with mental health problems.

No -- just send a thank you email.

No. If you send a second email it should ONLY be to thank them.  

I mean, "my chances of getting into a program are low" is blanket a good assumption. 

You can also try prompting faculty to talk about the one thing they always really want to talk about: themselves.

As you may begin to receive interview invitations (not all programs have them, and not all faculty do them), let me share some unsolicited and by no means exhaustive advice.
Try as much as possible to detach yourself from your UG identity. Don't be a student, be a prospective colleague.  Interviews aren't that long, about 30 minutes (has anyone had a different experience?). You want to answer as many questions as possible so practice answering questions in 2-3 minutes.  In general, faculty want to know that you are not a jerk. Don't be a jerk.  You will get a question about why you want to come here. This is a chance for you to talk about about your research interests in terms of what they are offering (not in terms of you). So, talk about how faculty research inspire/inform/fir your interests, how course offerings and other training opportunities fit your professional goals, and how university-wide mission fits your persona (and this doesn't need to be very broad, think intern opportunities in the museum).  You will be offered to ask them questions and this is a question. Have smart questions ready, like how does the program sees itself in five years? (you'll ~on the market). This is the most urgent themes I could think of.