Auzzfest

Thanks Guys!!! Hopefully you get some good news soon!

Found the UCSB decision notification on the website without word from the department or the grad school through email. Just gives you a link to the official admissions letter saying your in. I apologize if I am now the cause for obsessive website checking. I doubt that situation is typical. Still haven't been contacted by a professor or seen anything about funding. I was contacted about my file last week, saying that there were some considerations taking place. That was when I was posting about the strange email from the grad secretary and the cover sheet problem, so it seems like last Friday they made some decisions. My guess is that you guys should be hearing soon, hang in there. Synth, don't panic my professors were right.... at least about getting into another UC if snubbed by UCSD.

Synthla don't fret, got the rejection email from UCSD today myself, Also one of my lower ranked schools. Not great news but I wasn't really surprised at all. I was told early on by numerous profs at my undergrad that UCSD has a bit of a complex and that they had snubbed every single applicant from our uni previously. They told me they thought it was because we are a small liberal arts college in their neighborhood, an ego thing. In hindsight should have crossed them off the list and added somebody else. Anyways, the good news is that my professors also told me that those same candidates who were snubbed by UCSD were granted admission to other west coast universities (UCSB for example) and were successful at other great schools nationally. Congrats to those who have received acceptances, and to everybody else please stay positive!!

Interested in what you guys think this might mean. I got an email today from a graduate program assistant saying that one of my rec's forgot to completely fill out their cover sheet. The first three lines were very urgent sounding, saying that this afternoon it became necessary that the form be resent. She continued to say that it must be at the department by tomorrow at 3pm. Yet, then she 180'd on me..writing, "Please know that the absence of this form in no way affects whether or not you will be admitted or denied. But, there are other considerations which are under review. If you are unable to reach the professor, please explain in an email why the original Coversheet was not complete." Although I guess it's good that they are looking at my application, I really have no idea how to read into it. Especially the part about "other considerations." Anyways thanks for your thoughts in advance.

20th century Latin America. My central interest is urban/political history in the Andean region and Mexico. Any guesses on why the History board is so slow this year?

Yeah it seemed to be just splitting a typical statement of purpose in half, so I just took out diversity, awards, and accomplishments and put them into a separate small two paragraph essay. With the actual statement, I kept interests, previous research, who I want to work with in the department, etc. But that was only for UCSB, UCSD only required a regular SOP. Honestly a couple of the applications I did were very tedious with three or four documents that had to be created separately that could have been placed online or made into a single document. Being that I live in Colombia and had to organize all kinds of material from over here, I really appreciated the schools which have put the great majority of their applications online.

So how do you guys think the economy will affect admissions and funding this year. I know for a fact there has been major cut backs within the UC system. Whether that will directly affect funding availability for history grads I don't know. I wonder if private schools will be more protected from the downturn. What about the number of applicants in general. For example there have been record numbers of recent grads joining the peace corps instead of attempting to enter a weak job market. I wonder if it is the same with grad school? I for one am glad to be living abroad right now where finding work is relatively easy. .