Mandyz

I'm on winter break until mid-February, so I keep having a heart attack every time I hear the notification sound for my email. It's supposed to be my time to relax but PhD admissions are consuming it. ?

Yes. I had one last Friday, with two of my potential supervisors. It was short and sweet (about 30 min), and it felt more like a chat than a formal interview. I also applied to UChicago but have not heard anything yet, granted that I don't think my research interests and those of my POIs are a perfect match. Hang in there. The wait can be so frustrating. ?

Yes. I had one last Friday, with two of my potential supervisors. It was short and sweet (about 30 min), and it felt more like a chat than a formal interview. I also applied to UChicago but have not heard anything yet, granted that I don't think my research interests and those of my POIs are a perfect match. Hang in there. The wait can be so frustrating. ?

Yes. I had one last Friday, with two of my potential supervisors. It was short and sweet (about 30 min), and it felt more like a chat than a formal interview. I also applied to UChicago but have not heard anything yet, granted that I don't think my research interests and those of my POIs are a perfect match. Hang in there. The wait can be so frustrating. ?

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

Some good news to come from the start of 2021: I just heard from my POI at Berkelely, asking to schedule an interview. He said that the department asked faculty to interview the "most promising candidates,"  and he had some nice things to say about my application, so this feels like an encouraging sign!
I get the sense that this is more casual than some of the high-stakes fellowship interviews I've done before, so if anyone has suggestions or advice I would love to hear it. Also, I know that most schools don't interview, but does anyone have an idea of other schools that normally do? 

Re: Low GPAs and PhD applications
Hello everyone and welcome to those new posters. 
I want to say something to be clear about low GPAs and your urge to explain your performance. The place that you would have room for doing this is your SOP. Do not explain your GPA. Your SOP is not a story about you and the difficult semester you had. Trust me, it took me six years to finish my BA. 
The SOP is about your research: the questions that move you, the topic that you are interested in, and how these questions and these topics fit with the school you are applying to. Now, and this is very important, if something that happened to you, if something you went through, speaks to, informs, underpins your research, then you might as well talk about it. However, talk about it not in the melodramatic tone of "this happened and I got this GPA" but rather "this happened and this is what I did". The first one is defensive, the second is assertive. You want to be assertive. 
I say this based on experience. My initial SOPs were a weepy complaint of how horrible my thesis committee had been in my defense. They truly had been vicious and tanked my GPA (well, I thought so, even though it went down just a tiny bit). Thanks to a mentor and a looooooot of work, I turned my whining into something along the lines of "I incorporated the comments from the thesis committee in three published articles" (articles were, of course, my proud moment in the CV). Sounds better, right? 
 So, do not feel you owe anyone an explanation. Nobody is checking if your GPA went suddenly down in sophomore year Spring semester (actually, if someone is checking that, you don't want to work with that person). Just talk about your research, this is what get you in doctoral programs. 
My two cents. 

Right now and through May, universities will be deciding on their budget for next year and how to cut it as EVERYONE is anticipating losses in staff, funding, and enrollment. Simultaneously, as there will be less jobs in general, more people will apply to funded graduate programs. 
 
My advice is:
1) Communicate with potential POIs early on, probably during the summer. Do not -I repeat, do not- e-mail us now. We are in the last few weeks of a very difficult semester caring for our students and our families. We are all holding our breaths waiting to hear about furloughs, cancelled research funds, indefinitely postponed leaves, and layoffs. Now is absolutely not the right time to contact your POIs, but it is the right time to do the appropriate research. I doubt anyone will be doing much traveling during the summer so most faculty would be available to respond relatively promptly.
2) Consider that most programs will be highly competitive so prepare excellent applications. To be clear: your application is NOT your GPA. Also, if you have questions about GRE or TOEFL/IELTS, e-mail the graduate administrator or the graduate school, they will have updated data. Do not email POIs about that. 
3) Do not imagine possible scenarios but prepare for them. In other words, do not speculate with “do you guys think they will take less students?” Because there is no way for anyone here can answer that and speculation can lead to unnecessary hysteria and anxiety. However, do prepare for the possibility of all programs admitting less students. Prepare applications that illustrate your resilience and your ability to work across disciplines, as you would likely TA for a course outside your field. Also follow @Sigaba´s advice on contingency plans (and I would always advice that regardless of the situation, design plans B, C, and D.I come from a country where there is always a crisis so I’m used to contingency plans). 
 
4) Psychologically, it’s very healthy to project into the future. I’d argue that it’s healthy to acknowledge the crisis while working towards your goals in the best way you can control. I have to write a book and I can’t go to the archives this summer, so I will write it with what I have. but I will write it. Similarly, I urge new applicants to continue to project your careers (in grad school or not) while maintaining an informed perspective. As historians, we are aware of the deep, rapid changes this pandemic is forcing on the world while we can also appreciate the continuities. While I’m sure you are all re-evaluating your life now, remember that faculty are working hard to keep programs open and provide continuity. 
my two cents.