Undergrad Institution: Very small, private, liberal arts college in Louisiana. History department is well regarded within the state historical groups (such as PAT and LHA), but definitely not nationally. Only two history professors, plus one occasional adjunct.
Senior Thesis: Required. I wrote about the history of our college radio station. We had limited access to primary sources (our adviser did not want to be responsible for sending us on the road), so I picked what was important to me locally (I was the station manager of the station for two years). I hope that radio will be apart of my future research and I found that college radio has been poorly, if at all, researched.
Honors Program: Did not pursue the "honors program" we had (two independent research seminars which culminated in a bigger senior seminar paper).
Major(s): History
Minor(s): Political Science, German
GPA in Major: 3.8 ish
Overall GPA: 3.88
Position in Class: Graduated Magna Cum Laude
Type of Student: White, female
GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Highest Q: 67th percentile (or somewhere around that)
V: 89th percentile
W: Got 4.5 on every damn test I took.
Research Experience: Researched the history of our college radio station at my institution's archives. Mostly consisted of searching into 20 years of newspapers and cleaning out of office stacks looking for relevant documents.
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Dean's List 8/8 semesters; two departmental awards (one for research, the other for work in international history/political science); member of ODK and PAT; presented my senior thesis at the regional PAT conference where it won an honorable mention; finally my senior seminar paper was published in North Louisiana History (which came as a complete surprise to me, but a nice one!).
Pertinent Activities or Jobs: I was a student assistant for the European History professor for two years. I graded some Western Heritage assignments and even got to teach two lectures for him my senior year.
Applying to Where: 8 PhD (Northwestern, Indiana, Notre Dame, UT Austin, Boston College, UMN, WUSTL and SUNY Buffalo) and 3 MA (SUNY Binghamton, Miami University and UT Dallas)
Research Interests & Areas of Focus: Modern European, with a regional focus of Germany and a thematic one of political and technological history.
Languages: Germany (not the best reading/writing, null extemporaneous speaking); Latin (it's been a while, but decent reading and writing).
Letters of Recommendation: Since our department only had two history professors, I got both to write one for me. Luckily one was my adviser and the other was the professor I worked for. The third is a political science professor that I took many classes under and was my political science minor adviser. Tiny school meant GREAT professor/student relationships, so they all knew very well of my desire to go to graduate school. However, they are not big "names."
Statement of Purpose: One document in which a specific paragraph was tailored to each school. I named which specific professor(s) I would like to work with and a short reason why.
Writing Sample: My entire senior thesis, it was within the page limit for most, if not all programs. While it does not fit in my area of focus, I wanted to show the schools my ability to work with primary resources.
Communication with POIs: Did not contact any of them. It was something I had plan on doing and wish I had, but I just did not have the time.
Lessons Learned from Application Process: Well, since this is round two for me I feel like I've learn a lot from both rounds. Do not take rejection so hard, because taking a year off is not the end of the world. I have been able to work, gain life experience and save money. I've also been able to spend money on myself that I haven't been able to and probably won't be able to for another 5-6 years.
Plus taking a year off could be beneficial to your applications if you have less to worry about while preparing. I know for my first time I was freaking out about the end of the semester and getting my senior thesis done, so my applications suffered. I feel better knowing that time this around, I sent them not only a polished writing sample, but one that has been awarded and even published!
Oh also, checking the results page religiously does not help your sanity. I definitely learned that one the hard way.
