RF237

Anyone else beginning to feel like they're in some strange limbo? Rumor has it the Columbia and Cornell have already contacted all their accepted and waitlisted students, and Columbia seems to have sent out email rejections while Cornell has mailed out theirs, but I still haven't heard from either! If you're going to reject me, just reject me already!

It is harder to deal with rejection when the people around just don't believe you could be rejected. This happened to me last year (I'm on my second round of applications). Most people just don't seem to realize what a crapshoot this whole process is--that no matter how great your application is, some little factor completely out of your control can decide whether you get into a program. Maybe they accepted someone with similar interests last year. Maybe your intended adviser is going on sabbatical in a year. Maybe your intended adviser irritated everyone else in the department. Maybe the economy tanked and a program you might have gotten into last year is accepting only half as many students. It could be anything. Next time someone expresses their disbelief or is overly encouraging, tell them this completely unsubstantiated, but probably true, statement a friend applying for grad school told me that might help them understand: Statistically (i.e., number of applicants versus numbers of acceptances/slots in the incoming class), it is harder to get into a Harvard humanities PhD progam than to get into Harvard Law!

I'd second that suggestion. Like you said, most programs state they don't usually notify until mid-March, and you gotta feel bad for those admissions people and department secretaries dealing with endless inquiries about whether decisions have been made yet. If you haven't heard by March 15, then start sending out inquiries. I'm still waiting, as patiently as I can, on four programs, and it's killing me!

Thanks for the info. I had expected as much. I guess they're just taking their time getting the rejection letters sent out.

So there have been rumors that Columbia and Cornell have made their decisions, and a couple of people have posted that they got into one or the other, but not that many and there hasn't been the usual mass posting of rejections. Does anyone know if Cornell and Columbia have finished making their decisions and notified all their acceptances? If not, does anyone know when they will be doing so? How about WashU or the University of Toronto? I know it's still early, but I'm getting impatient. I work full time, and I'm going to have to start asking for days off to visit schools.

If I go to Rutgers, I probably do the medieval studies certificate, although I have to look into it some more. It's pretty much getting permission and taking classes outside your department, right? I already have a masters, which seems to mean they expect me to finish a year sooner, so I have to figure out how that works.

My two suggestions, if money is not a major issues, would be to look for local National Historic sites and see if you can volunteer at one, hopefully working on the collection/archives or take language classes. Or both. The websites for history PhD programs may imply that if you're a strong candidate otherwise you can get in without a strong language background, but that just doesn't seem to be true. And languages can be useful even if you don't end up going to graduate school.

I took learn-to-read language courses, since languages were the main weakness of my app. I also submitted--and was accepted to present--papers for the two major conferences in my field. I researched and applied to many more programs, and made sure I emailed professors at every program I applied to. Meanwhile, I worked freelance.

Ok, for those of you already in/already attending Ohio State, I have a question about their fellowships and funding. I've been nominated for fellowships, but the decisions won't be made until early March. However, I'm trying to do some preliminary comparison of offers and was wondering if anyone knew whether the fellowship amount is added to your department stipend or replaces it. I've tried reading the uni's info on this, and couldn't quite figure it out, despite being smart enough to get in to grad school.

I just got into the history department! I am very excited. I'm not visiting until the end of March, though, so when you come back I'd appreciate your opinion on New Brunswick as a place to live and on what neighborhoods might be good to live in, if that's something you're looking in to.

Legally, you have until April 15 to respond to any offer, including funding. Once they've offered it, they can't take it away, at least not until then. They put that rush-rush language in there because they want to know your decision as soon as possible so if you decide to go somewhere else, then they can offer your position and funding to someone on the waitlist.

I have also been thinking of getting a house. I just wanted to remind people that they'll also need to factor in local property taxes (which can amount to several thousand dollars or more a year) and the rental market (from my research into housing prices vs rental prices, I imagine that for a place like Bloomington, if houses are that cheap then rent is usually also low--typically $300-400 a month for a room in a house or apartment) when deciding how much of a mortgage they can afford. Especially since monthly rent usually includes some portion of utilities, whether heat or electricity or water. You'll probably be able to get other grad students to pay a slight premium to live in a nice house with other grad students, but since we're all living on stipends, it can't be too high a premium.

Not to discourage those waiting on Ohio State, but I know some people have already been admitted. I found out online (status changed to "decision" and you clicked on it for the answer) and then received a letter from the Grad School about a week later. Don't give up all hope, though, because when I emailed the professor I had been in contact with (after I received the letter), he had no idea that any notifications had been sent out. I don't know if they've already made all their admit decisions, but I do know that they're still sorting out funding stuff, so it could be that they're waiting until that's sorted to contact people really, which won't be until mid-March. And the visiting day isn't until early April. Hope this gives some people hope!

I agree that schools need some sort of common assessment for all applicants, but the GRE is not the answer. It is ridiculously expensive to take, and ridiculously expensive to get your scores sent out. And they keep raising the price for score reports--I believe it was only $16/report last year when I applied. At least you can order online now: before you had to mail in the form or order over the phone, and they charged you an extra fee for ordering over the phone. I disagree, however, with those who think the test isn't teachable. I, for one, took the GRE, was unhappy with my scores, paid a ridiculous amount of money for a name-brand course, and raised my score around 150 points. The types of questions that put on the test are so particular and always fit certain types and patterns so that if you understand how they write the questions/what format they're conforming to, what they're trying to test with them, and the best strategy for quickly answering them, you will do much better on the test than someone who merely memorized formulas and vocabulary. I think that, perhaps, is why many people don't improve their scores with books--when self-teaching, perhaps, they tend to focus more on vocabulary and math formulas than on testing strategies. All the major testing companies guarantee that they will raise your score by 100 points, or let you take the class again, and some even refund your money after a certain lack of progress on your part. They're certainly not losing money, so I imagine they're doing something right. Not to mention the fact that newspapers publish articles every year on how the children of middle-class and wealthy parents have an advantage in admissions because their parents can afford test-prep courses. Even my large, city public high school had it's own pathetic version of a test-prep class that it required of all honors students.

I also applied to WashU, and haven't heard a peep. I applied there last year as well, and was rejected, but it wasn't until early March that they finally decided to tell me. It was awful!

My parents are super supportive and have been since I was applying to undergrad. Mom has some college, Dad has a law degree. They think it's cool that I want to be an academic. Which is good, because they've pretty much never stopped supporting me financially and plan on continuing to help support me for however long my PhD takes. I boomeranged home for two years after getting a liberal arts BA, took out massive loans to get an MA abroad, and boomeranged back home again while I figured out the PhD thing. They supported me every step of the way, even when I passed up an MA with funding here for the one abroad. I have paid my own way through the application process, but they're already planning on paying my cell phone bill and taking me on occasional shopping sprees for the next 5-7 years. Most importantly, if I go to a school in an area with a cheap housing market, they're considering buying an investment property there (i.e, a house) that I could live in and rent out the other rooms to coverage the mortgage and associated costs (and no, they're not rich, just solidly middle middle class, so it would be a big investment for them). Which would make it much easier to leave on a tiny stipend! (Maybe I can even pay my own cell phone bill then!) Can't get more supportive than that!

I'm also waiting on Rutgers, which people were discussing in posts a few pages back. And Toronto, which according to the grad school website, might start notifying in January/February but often won't until mid-March. Seriously? Does anyone know when the Toronto history department generally makes its decisions? Or Cornell? Someone posted earlier that Cornell was done deciding, but I haven't heard anything. I did, however, receive my rejection from Harvard in the mail today, so it looks like they're sending out round 2 of rejections. I haven't seen any other rejections from them posted today, but I live near there, so I imagine I'd receive mine first. I'm beginning to think that, from a lot of these schools, if the first contact you receive is a postal letter, then it's not good news. Which is sad, really, because I so used to look forward to the mail.

I also just received my rejection from Princeton. I emailed a professor there early in the process and he wasn't very helpful--just told me to email his students. Of course, he was more helpful than the Yale professor I had emailed, who didn't answer any of my questions or recommend anyone else for me to talk to, but just said, yes, we would welcome your application. I've found that the professors at state schools have been friendliest, although the professors I contacted at Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia were also very friendly and helpful. I thankfully have gotten into to one school, but if I hadn't, and ended up not getting into any, I would be done because this was my second round of applications, and there is no way I can think of to improve them. My GREs and GPA are great, I have a masters with distinction from one of the top history departments in the UK, and I'm sure my LOR, writing sample, and LOI were strong (explaining, not bragging, of course). And I can read Latin, French, and German, although I picked up the last two only last summer in learn-to-read courses. What more do you want?!?!?! Congrats to everyone who got good news today. Let's hope that good fortune spreads to some more of us tomorrow!

Thanks for the congrats, riss287, and thanks for replies everyone! I have been thinking that fit is more important than Ivy/Top Ten status myself, but wanted to see if other historians shared my opinion. As for ranking, all my schools are in the top 26, or something, according to US News and World Report, which was the most understandable rankings I could find. Although I tend to think that these rankings can be very subjective, as they are to date (supposedly to change soon) based only on professors' opinions of schools. Granted, professors' opinions about schools are important, but that sort of ranking system is also highly biased by which professors actually receive, carefully fill out, and return the surveys and how much they know about their peers and other schools. Fit, too, is subjective, which does make it a difficult topic to discuss. My idea of "fit" in general order of importance: departmental resources and professors; department atmosphere; university resources; reputation of department and university; student life; location/COL; personal factors. And, of course, funding is a big wedge in there somewhere.

Ok, so I'm sure this topic has been discussed in various places on this forums numerous times, but I thought it could be helpful to start a history-specific thread on the importance of ranking versus fit. Personally, I have received one reply, an acceptance from one of my safety schools, but instead of feeling relief, I'm beginning to feel panic that I'm actually going to get in to more than one school and will have to make a decision! (Overly optimistic of me, I know!) I know the general consensus is that fit is the most important factor in deciding, but with the insane market for jobs, does it make sense to choose a school that's a good fit, but not the best fit, if it's noticeably higher in the rankings than the school you think is your best fit? What if the best fit school is lower in the rankings but has a very good placement rate? In my case, I think one of my safety schools, for instance, would be a better fit than a certain Ivy, but when I shared that thought with a friend whose applying to religion programs, he looked at me like I was nuts! On a related note, I know that visits are important to determining fit, but I've been too busy and too broke to visit any of my programs yet. Did you visit before/during the application process, or are you waiting to see where you were accepted? I know this general topic is well discussed, but I'm looking for ANY distraction while waiting for replies!

I was wondering about the housing market in Columbus. Does anyone have advice on/has anyone bought a house and rented out rooms to other graduate students? Knowing I'll be there for 5 years or so (if that's where I decide to go), it seems like it could be a good idea. I'll have help with the down payment, so, ideally, the rent from the other rooms could cover the mortgage and slowly pay back the down payment. Any thoughts?

I might be. I got in, but I'm waiting to hear back from a few other schools and to hear about financial aid.