50CentParty

Anyone has heard back from Northwestern’s waitlist?

Just in case anyone is waiting for UCSD, the Department told me they've sent out "initial offers" and probably won't have a waitlist this year. And they'll send rejections in the next few weeks.

Absolutely agreed with this. But in my field (Modern China; not including late imperial China), a lot of POIs told me to treat the SOP as a research proposal and they'd like to know what kind of sources and/or archives I prepare to use (they asked me very specific questions re sources/archives in my POI meetings before I submitted my applications). This is a result of 1) China's zero-COVID policy (non-Chinese citizens very hard to get into China after the pandemic) and 2) deteriorating archive access during the past decade (a useful comparison would be pre-1989/1991 Soviet history). Hopefully other fields don't have similar expectations!

Harvard has an independent RSEA MA program and its EALC Department doesn't have its own MA. RSEA MA result will be out by mid-March. As far as I remember, some (but not all) EALC rejects will be transferred to RSEA MA, but the transfer is not guaranteed.

For those who has experience of getting off the waitlist, is it recommended to reach out to POI to talk about the waitlist (in addition to emailing DGS)? Or it's an entirely random process?

Thank you!! I have had 9 rejections in a row. Hopefully we could all get off our waitlists very soon!!

Waitlisted. Field: China. Notified via email from the department (not portal). Anyone accepted but with better offers?

Same here...

Thanks for this! You're right US Fulbright funds US MAs. But the Trump administration ended the Fulbright program for China and HK back in 2020 unfortunately. Definitely not an ideal time for Chinese students to study in the U.S... And thanks for providing the perspective re European history!

Definitely agree a funded MA would boost PhD admissions chance for all fields. The sad thing is that for the field of modern China, I've seen some extremely-strong and well-prepared applicants with 2 MAs who have been rejected from most of the schools they applied to this cycle. This is hurting.

Thanks! Congrats on your offers!! I'm increasingly convinced it's only an issue for the field of Chinese history unfortunately.

No need to apologize at all! This will be useful info for future U.S. applicants.

Yeah I know. Unfortunately US Fulbright is only for US citizens while I'm an international student.

Thank you for sharing this! It's the same w/t my undergraduate professors (liberal arts college; so no graduate-level experience). Almost all of them think getting a MA is unnecessary and a waste of money basically. It seems this is the general consensus of this forum as well: only get an MA if 1) it's fully-funded and 2) if you have a particularly weak component in the profile that a MA could help. But now I realize the competition has become so intense (especially for top programs) that a MA will give an inherent advantage over BA-only applicants (regardless of the actual profile?). Or it's very possible it's only an issue for the field of China I guess. One possible reason is the China filed has additional supply of applicants that many other fields don't have. A lot of international students from China wants to study Chinese history in the U.S. and typically if their undergraduate is in China, they have to do a U.S./UK/overseas MA to be competitive for PhD programs. For other fields like US history and European history, most applicants are domestic students.

Thanks for sharing the information!