Highfructose

"Another reason that the UK PhD is shorter is that the MA is a prerequisite, and undergraduate work is significantly more focused instead of covering more varied liberal arts topics. It's just my own personal opinion, and probably goes against what most people think, but personally I'd say that UK institutions offer better preparation for the PhD, but don't offer quite as strong PhD programs" This hits the nail on the head. I think history training in the UK is probably a bit better at the undergrad level. BA's take only 3 years, but ALL of the coursework is history coursework and usually specifically in your speciality. They expect you to work out pretty early what you want to do. Also there are no combined Masters/Phd programs and so it is a requirement to get a Masters in the Uk. In the end i think it's actually about the same amount of coursework for a UK or US Ph.D. In the US you have (approximately) 2 years of history during undergrad after having done your General education requirments, and then probably about 2 during your MA/PhD for a total of 4 years courswork. In the UK you have 3 years undergrad, and 1 year Masters for about the same. The UK Ph.d officially takes 3 years but it's not uncommon to stay for a 4th (thought the 4th year is a hard deadline). It is 100% thesis, usually by the end of the first year your expected to have a draft chapter, and your application is less a statement of purpose and more of a direct research proposal. You could frame this a number of ways, personally i find it a bit threatening to have to come into the program guns blazing already working on your pHD thesis, but at the same time since that is the sole focus of the program i've heard it argued that the UK facilitates better dissertations, which is of course contentious. The key and probably decisive difference is that US Ph.D's often give way more teaching opportunities. Though there are still some forms of teaching experience in the Uk, usually Ph.D's have a few undergrad supervisees that they advise on paper topics and occassionally you can even teach a class or two. Maybe postdocs are more relevant in the UK for this reason? As far as UK Ph.Ds having trouble getting a job in the States there may be something to that. An element of it is probably the different (though i wouldn't go as far as some here have and claim lesser) requirements for postgrad work, especially the lack of teaching experience. Another element is possibly regionalism or nepotism. As in it seems to be that it is advantageous for aspiring history professors to get thier Ph.D.s in regions that they would like to work, and to utilize thier advisors friends or contacts which are possibly not transnational. Many people have cited that UK Ph.D.s seem to be in short supply in American universities, but the inverse is also true, most professors in the UK got thier Ph.D.s here. So if you want to work in the UK probably getting a Ph.D from Oxbridge/LSE isn't so insane. Also the academic job market in the UK for history ph.ds appears to be not as flooded as in the States, which may be somethign to take into account.

I am American doing an MSc this year at the London School of Economics. I did history for undergrad but struck out when applying to get straight into Ph.D.s last year- well I got into UCLA but unfunded and a few masters programs. I went for this one because it was shorter, and honestly because I thought London would make me happier than LA. I don't regret it. I didn't really know the UK academic vocabulary before coming and wasn't myself aware of the difference between M.Phil and M.Sc. and had I known that I might have considered an M.Phil at Cambridge or something. But London rocks, I am getting a lot personally out of living here and that shows itself academically. I am sort of redefining my academic interest a bit to focus on British Colonialism. Academically it is also quite a blast, my M.Sc. is 'History of Empires'. I feel like I am learning lots, learning to locate myself in the geography of the field and getting a clearer idea of exactly what I want to study. Mainly I feel like I can articulate a clearer argument about what I want to do and how I have prepared for doing it than last year. But the ultimate question is - Will it help get me into a Ph.D. program? I am not applying until next December but I'd like to think it would. I know other people have went this route and got into top schools in the U.S. Since I want to be a European historian, I'd imagine that getting to know the archives here, doing a dissertation based on research in those archives which might act as a prototype to a PH.D. would give me a substantial leg up on an American student with a similar specialization. Next year is going to be a year off for me to relax a bit, teach english, and put a lot of effort into applications in November/December. Something to take into account when doing a one year masters is that had I applied this past December, I would have only had a couple months at the LSE under my belt which wasn't really enough time to get Letters of Reccomendation or to formulate a convincing argument about how my time working here has expanded me as a historian. I figured to just wait till I have a dissertation I can talk about and have developed more intimate relations with professors and to just give it a really concerted effort next round. Some of the critiques raised above do have some validity. Masters programs at least here at the LSE do have a bit of a factory element to them, you have to put in a little more effort yourself to develop closer contacts with professors. But still I'd frame it in a more positive way, my lecturers and fellow grads are top notch, the instruction challenging, the school fairly prestigious, and I also find I get some of my most inspiring education from the city itself. An experience I contrast my time at the LSE with is that of a Masters student I knew at UW. He was on the third year of a Masters in Sociology and was burning out. He felt like he was putting an amazing amount of effort into a degree which doesn't have the finality or academic clout of a PH.D., and described the bus ride in everyday a site for a daily existential breakdown. When doing an advanced degree at least from what I observed and experienced, there are these existential waverings and moments of extreme self doubt. Am I doing the right thing? Will this really get me where I want to go? Should I do something else? When I started the program here in London there was a lot of these feelings, but it was hard for serious self doubt to take hold because it's only been a few months and I'am already about halfway through the Masters! If I was locked into a Masters that could take into three years I think these self doubts might have had more weight and I might have seriously questioned what I was doing. Anyway i think the verdict on this whole experience is on hold till next spring when I figure out if it paid off for getting into Ph.D.s at all - I think it might!

Yep, I got an early notification because the Chair is friends with my adviser here. The email seemed to imply there would be at least some kind of funding although I am betting 1/2 off tuition or something. Only thing else he said was that it is taking them an extremely long time to get out their decisions this year for some reason.

My Rejection began with this: "When you submitted your application for admission, you indicated that Graduate Enrollment Services could contact you by email regarding the status of your application. This email is your official decision letter from the Graduate School." Maybe you didn't specify you wanted to be notified by email?

2/3 of 38,000 is something like 26,500, I don't have the letter with me but I remember it was 26000something, and I think they called it a scholarship - but yeah its essentially remission. Looks like I got one of the better deals on the Mapps-- it would only cost like 12ksomething(+living expenses). I still don't find it especially appealing.

I got rejected from Cuny & NYU today, and into Mapss with 2/3 tuition. So now I got an unfunded PhD offer from UCLA, and 3 MA offers all with lukewarm partial tuition wavers. I guess I didn't do as bad as I could have this round of applications, but it's still disappointing to not get a funded PhD offer. I feel so - rejected. Anyway its not the end of the world, at least I get to continue to study history. I think i am leaning towards doing a one year masters at LSE. A year abroad sounds great right now and I am sure living in London will teach me a lot if not just by osmosis. I could work on my languages, travel a decent bit, and try to enjoy myself. I learned a lot from going through the gauntlet this year and through obsessively combing these forums and I think next round I'll do a lot better ~ especially without having to finish my senior thesis and while doing my apps.

Still waiting on Cuny, Nyu, Chicago. Haven't got funding+stipend anywhere yet, and it's beginning to look bleak. Come on CUNY!

I went to CC for my first 1.5 years of undergrad, and this above comment is spot on. It's hard to adapt to a new university, finish off your general education requirements, all the while trying to find your niche within the span of really about a year (if you apply your senior year, then you probably should get a good writing sample and LOR's developed you junior year). There are plenty of university resources and faculty members with research that i find interesting, that I have only become aware of here at the end- it takes time to really learn the geography of a department and your place in it. But as far as whether an admission committee would ever throw your application out because you took some classes at a CC - i'd say nope: most students have taken at least a few classes at community college.

A lot of schools have as a minimum requirement that you have to be basically fluent in another language even if your US. I think they believe it is at minimum a requirement to being a well rounded intellectual or whatever. I am also a US historian and I could see how Chinese or Spanish could be useful for studying immigration, but that's not something I am directly interested in. I am fulfilling my language requirement with czech - I often wonder how that is perceived by US history Depts, as unlike spanish or chinese I can't really make the case that my language interest intersects my academic interests very directly. I always imagine ad comms thinking 'Why the hell does this kid speak czech?'

Congrats! Did you call them or did they call you? >< : this is the last Phd I am still in play at that I think I have a shot at with funding.

Wow, really? I guess the rejection letter should be in the mail.

I will trade you my rejection for at least the faint glimmer of hope you still have. It appeared something like a mass rejection yesterday - that you weren't included in it probably ought to be read as a good sign.

I am thinking about going to LSE. Umis mluvit cestinu? If not then I don't think Charles University in Prague is a good choice...I've got a year of intense czech and a quarter in Prague under my belt and I still think I would need A LOT of language prep to speak czech well enough for post grad work. Also I know a professor there and a couple of grad students all of whom have many complaints. The professor gripes about how the extremely low pay for the makes it hard to attract profs who pay a lot of attention to teaching - most including her have to supplement their incomes with other things like translation. A girl I know who got her masters in history there complained about how much the department was very old school in their over emphasis on the memorization of facts, she also had other complaints that I can't quite remember. With that said, I think that Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Also culturally, it is an extremely enriching environment- there is a sort of bookish sentiment there which I find irresistible. And Czech women... I think I fall in love every 10 minutes there. I noticed your mentioning universities in a wide variety of countries - I think language barriers might surface unless these U's offer taught masters programs in English I don't know about. You might want to look at the University of Amsterdam - I know they have a lot of english masters programs.

Interesting. I had the impression that since CUNY includes so many colleges under its umbrella that it would help facilitate getting a gig teaching more easily. But if as you say, I would have to compete with Columbia/NYU/Princeton/Rutgers grads on an equal basis then that does raise the stakes. Their placement record isn't exactly hot, but a great deal of grads seemed to end up working at one of the gillions of cuny colleges which I found encouraging. Anyway I am a pretty darn good fit there so I'd very seriously consider attending if they threw me some decent funding. Thanks for your imput, it's helpful because I haven't found a great deal of discussion about CUNY GC around this board. Anyone else have any interesting tidbits like this?

I am US History.