Tweaked this a bit to reflect my MA as well.
Undergrad Institution: Top tier public institution in Ireland (we certainly consider ourselves the best university in the country).
Senior Thesis: Required: An examination of the evolution of WWI air combat as interpreted through the Illustrated London News.
Honors Program: None by any traditional American definition.
Major(s): History
Minor(s): N/A
GPA in Major: N/A
Overall GPA: N/A, overall result was a 2:2
Position in Class: Low
MA Institution: Well respected 4 year college within the largest urban university system in the US.
Thesis: An exploration of the evolution of British occupational policy in the late Georgian Era.
Major: History
GPA: 3.82
Position in Class: No formal rankings but quite high.
Type of Student: Male, white, NYC born and raised.
GRE Scores (old version):
Q: 44%
V: 96%
W: 5.0
Answers below are in reference to my MA years.
Research Experience: Extensive. Both theses, plus several MA class papers. Seven conference papers to date, one in a panel I put together, and one accepted to be published in proceedings.
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Two academic awards for research excellence and recruitment into an international honour society.
Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Five semesters of TAing, plus a summer job as a content expert at a well known American history institute.
Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Damn fine ballroom dancer and SCUBA diver (although I doubt this will help), can also fix photocopiers (come to think of it, I should have included this, it would have made me a shoe-in).
Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:
Applying to Where:
All applications are for PhDs to the History department: Cambridge (Cambridge has contacted me asking my permission for them to consider me for the MPhil, to which I agreed), Oxford, Exeter, Yale, Harvard, Columbia, U Chicago, Stanford, UNC: Chapel Hill, CUNY Grad Center.
Research Interests & Areas of Focus: British Empire, more specifically occupational policy.
Languages: French (speaking: fair, reading: good, writing: good). Comfortable with 18th and 19th century handwriting.
Letters of Recommendation: My adviser and second reader on my thesis, plus one of the professors I TA'd for, who has also read my thesis. My supervisor is relatively well know in European history.
Statement of Purpose: Went with the European approach - spoke mainly about my proposed dissertation. I tailored each one to the library holdings/research resources of each institution, and also mentioned the professors I wanted to work with.
Writing Sample: Depending on page limits either the entirety of or a chapter from my MA thesis, which is directly related to what I want to continue to do. If I only sent a chapter, I also enclosed my introduction, just to demonstrate where the chapter fit within the overall argument.
Communication with POIs: Tried to communicate with most of them, almost all who responded were guardedly encouraging.
Lessons Learned from Application Process: This is the third time I've done this, and it does get easier. I really do prefer the European approach to SOP - it reads much more professionally. To quote from the Oxford website: "In general we would emphasise (contrary to what seem to be common North American expectations) that we are not so much interested in your personal story as in your academic potential."
