StrangeLight

"Bailyn" is a dirty word in my department.

barricades is a latin americanist and got into princeton, i believe.

i'm already in a PhD program.

"toilets never flush." of course, i'm bond. with boobs. doing research in central america's pretty awesome. especially in places that have coup governments that illegally block your access to public domain documents. i'm fairly certain the process of doing research in my particular locales is way more interesting than my actual research is.

nope. last summer i used 8 archives in 3 countries. and my documents aren't in english. i had to take a speedboat to get between countries and the government archive i used didn't have toilet paper. or soap. or a sink (just a tap in the wall over a rain barrel). or a plumbed-in toilet (just a toilet sitting loosely over a hole in the ground). i win. i think?

RAships in the social sciences and humanities PAY LESS than, or at best the same as, TAships. it's a different animal in social sciences. fellowships for international students can be difficult to come by. contact current grad students in the program and ask them to be up front with you about how competitive funding is for the years where it's not guaranteed. they'll give you a more honest sense of how difficult it would be to find the money for the last 3 years.

that's the thing. without the PhD, probably no school will take you as a full time instructor. especially in poli sci. there are too many PhD holders for too few jobs, so any full time gig with bennies is going to go to someone with a PhD. just quit, dude. it's not the end of the world. you've got the MA so you could probably get into public policy, and that actually pays well.

you will almost certainly need to get a terminal MA before you can get into a PhD program. a strong performance in an MA program can make up for subpar undergrad GPAs and that's the most common way that sub-3.0 GPAs finally make it into history PhD programs. the only catch with this is that it's rare (though not impossible) to find terminal MA programs that will offer you funding, so you may need to find a way to pay for this degree yourself. languages will help, always. somehow americanists and britainists can get away with having only one (or no) foreign languages, but even if you study the US or the UK, having reading proficiency in one or two foreign languages will always help your application. you need to write a really great writing sample. these are research papers that are anywhere from 20 to 35 pages in length, depending on the page-limit each program gives you. if you haven't done a research paper based on primary sources in your program, you'll need to write that on your own. i'd suggest contacting a history prof you enjoyed during undergrad and asking if they'd informally supervise you as you write this paper. if you have a research paper to your name, take it to profs that you liked and have them help you draft and redraft and rewrite that sucker until it's damn-near publishable. (and then maybe even consider submitting it for publication). this process will not only help you write a rock solid writing sample, it'll also give you some sustained contact with professors who might've given you a B in their class. i can tell you from experience as a TA, there are students i gave A-s to that i wouldn't recommend for grad school at all and students i gave As to that would only get a lukewarm recommendation from me. they completed the requirements of the course fully and adequately, but that doesn't necessarily make them grad material. even though you may be fully capable and may make a great scholar, a B+ or an A- from a professor means you didn't demonstrate that to them. unless you had 3 professors who always gave you As, you're going to need to take the time between now and your application to increase your contact with your potential letter of recommendation writers and prove to them that you can do good research work. you should also seek help from your profs when writing your statement of purpose. this will demonstrate to them that you're serious about grad school and you'll get really helpful feedback.

i wouldn't be so sure. i had high school teachers with PhDs. some had even published.

yep, means nothing. i had that message in my wolverine account, and i didn't get accepted to michigan.

right, but it isn't "homosexual history." queer history is not (just) the history of homosexuals (or gay people), it's the history of sexuality. sexual norms and sexual deviance, masculinities and femininities and androgyny. the same way that gender history is not "women history." sure, the history of women is part of gender history, but it's not synonymous with it.

uhhh... it's the history of gender and sexuality, using gender theory and/or queer theory.

as a latin americanist, for me personally, an exact match is unnecessary, but i had a few prerequisites. 1) similar general region. i study a place that straddles two "traditional" regions, central america and the caribbean. i wanted a PA that either studied central america or the caribbean. i figured, odds are i'll have to navigate one of the subfields myself, so it was important to have a PA with some familiarity in the literature of the other subfield. 2) thematic focus/types of questions. i work on cultural history, social history, and environmental history. i wanted a PA that did cultural or social or environmental history. any of the three would do. i was not looking to work with an economic historian or a straight political historian. in general i had a preference for people that worked on race, mostly because that was the sort of work i was exposed to as an undergraduate. 3) time. i wanted a modernist. gradually, i've come to appreciate the colonial latin american literature, but at the time i applied i wasn't interested. that was it. even though i think those are some pretty vague and undemanding requirements, it severely limited my list of potential schools. in latin american history, there's a tendency to focus on three countries: mexico, brazil, and cuba. in theory, a mexicanist could advise on central america, a brazilianist on south america, and a cubanist on the caribbean. in practice, i encountered many caribbeanists and mexicanists that told me they wouldn't be able to advise a project on central america. a few tried to talk me into picking a different subregion. sometimes i did, changing my SOP, other times i just saved myself the application fee. in my experience, here is when fit REALLY matters: when you apply. the guy who is renowned for studying cuba has every potential cubanist applying to work under him. he gets his pick of 1-3 students each year. he's going to pick the projects that interest him, and odds are they'll be on cuba. once you're actually in a program, if you change your mind or shift your interests, the faculty will work with you to advise you. they'll be flexible and accommodate you (with notable exceptions at certain top 10 schools). but you've got to get into the program first, and to do that, you've got to make your PA interested in your ideas. also, there are definitely PAs at top schools who will advise on almost anything in latin america. usually they'll stick to colonial or modern history, but any geographic or thematic approach is open. but i've learned secondhand that in those sorts of advisor-advisee situations, the student really does all the work. the PA will read drafts and offer comments on structure or research design, but both the content and the theory are left up to the student to figure out. i guess that's fine, and i definitely applied to programs where that would've been the case for me, but ultimately i'm glad i didn't end up in that sort of situation. i want my advisor to mentor my intellectual development, not function as my editor. looking back, i would've done many things differently in my applications, but i would probably end up in the same place. there were really only two programs that spoke to me. they each had a cubanist, a central americanist, and a brazilianist, all of whom are highly respected and award-winning, and all of whom i had read as an undergraduate and loved. i got into one of the two schools and, after two years, i couldn't be happier with the program.

also, at schools that had greater yield of enrollments than they had anticipated (e.g. they offered 20 spots hoping 10 would accept but 16 or 17 enrolled) in previous years, they will often only offer as many spaces as they have funding. so if they want 14 students, they offer 14 spots, and encourage those students to decide faster than usual so they can move to the waitlist. but, honestly... for the "big" programs that attract hundreds of applications, a 5% acceptance rate is not unheard of. before "this economy," 10% was probably more likely than 5%, but the odds have never been that good (in the last 20 years, anyway).

oh, and i meant 20th century, not 2th. the twoth century? tooth century? UBC's cool. a few of my friends from undergrad are doing the masters' program, so i know you'll have a couple quality people to hang out with, if you go there.

where did you go for undergrad? i was at UBC and, even though i didn't do US history courses, i feel like 2th century US was always on offer.

i'm in pittsburgh. i'm sick of the steelers but hope they win because i missed all the legendary riots after their previous wins. students drag couches into the street and set them on fire and people tear bus shelters and lamp posts out of the ground. i'm glad i don't live on the ground floor. maniacs. i'm hoping a sunday night riot spills over into monday and they cancel classes.

no. not unless you can walk away with an MA at the end of those two years. just no.

man, you guys got it bad. we're only 3 days into february and people are expecting answers and even deciding that their chances at X school are gone already because of one or two admits. a lot of schools do rolling admissions. just breathe.

i BS'd my SOP for grad school. i mentioned a few avenues of interest and a geographical, thematic, and temporal focus, but that was it. so when i got here i had nothin'. i started reading the secondary lit on my region and then looked for gaps or silences in the scholarship. grabbed 3 potential topics and looked for sources on each (not the sources themselves, just trying to find if they exist in an archive somewhere). then i picked one of the topics that seemed most interesting and had the most potential and i read the secondary literature on that particular issue. made a rough outline of two potential theses, depending on whether or not my sources said what i thought they would. gathered sources in the summer, processed them, and formulated a single, tight research question. then i wrote a lit review. three times. then i wrote a detailed, 6-page single-spaced outline. then three drafts (one of which required major revision). now i'm waiting on notes from the latest version. hopefully it'll be line edits and not a rewrite (again). but yeah... i just started with secondary lit and looked for potential ideas based on the kinds of tangential questions left open in the work. i did that reading in an independent study with my advisor, but i realize that's not an option for everyone. getting a general reading list from your advisor on your specific country, sub-region, or whatever, would help.

pro - in one of my discussion sessions, i tried a performative task with students. basically, i pretended to be mexican dictator, porfirio diaz and they, in groups, served as my economic advisors from various schools of thought. they had to convince me why their economic programs were best for the country. it worked really well. they grasped the material and laughed and had fun in the process. con - in another one of my discussion sessions, it was clear my students hadn't even done their readings, or didn't grasp the readings, so i had to abort the performative task midway through. and then lecture them, in as friendly a tone as i could manage, that if they can't prepare for class there's no point in me holding it. pro - i cranked out a conference paper in about 3 hours. it's got a different slant than my thesis and brings my historical work into the realm of present-day policy, which i like. conferences seem to be the sort of places where you can get away with that presentism. i'm really happy with it and i really enjoy giving conference presentations, so i'm excited for that. con - i don't make enough money to turn the heat up in my apartment, so my toesies are cold.

do you travel for research? if you work in the field, explain that you need to be relieved from teaching duties in order to conduct your research in another location. in my experience, when fellowships ask for that information, they want to know how you plan to use their financing, not that you can't afford to pay for grad school yourself. so explain how the money would help you complete your research or grad studies.

if you do not yet have an MA, then doing a two-year funded offer is really good. go there, enroll, use both years of funding, and collect your MA. and apply to other PhD programs two years from now. if this is the school that i think it is, their MA will carry a lot of weight for PhD admissions. you will also be a better applicant after 2 years of grad school (as would anyone) so it's definitely possible to get a better deal elsewhere at that point. if you already have an MA, i'd be very cautious. talk to current students and ask them how difficult it is to secure departmental funding in the years where it's NOT guaranteed. 'cause here's the deal: every student in your department is going to be applying for fellowships, even the students with 5 years of guaranteed funding. if those funding years are TAships or RAships, they'll be looking to dump them for fellowships. you will be competing with the very people the department already decided were worth more funding than you. it's certainly possible to win something but it's not just the have-nots that will be competing with you. also, i have the sense from talking to people in departments where not everyone is funded that, among both the students and the faculty, there's is a sense of hierarchy between the funded and unfunded students. animosity between the fully, partially, and un-funded students and strong preferences and favouritism for funded students over unfunded ones. so again, i'd stress talking to current PhD students at this particular school and imploring them to be honest with you on this. do the partially funded or unfunded people get treated differently? how competitive is funding in those un-guaranteed years? how do professors treat the unfunded students? and, as usual, no humanities/social sciences PhD is worth paying for. taking out loans to cover a minimum of 3 years of your degree will never pay off financially. if this is the institution you decide to attend, i'd suggest preparing yourself for the possibility of temporarily leaving the program if further funding doesn't come through.

unc was also trying to poach rebecca scott, so there was some fear that lou perez was leaving, but it looks like they just hired cynthia radding instead. if you're using "ivy" to mean "top 10/15," then i take your point about rank being an important factor provided there are no other major deficiencies (like advising or regional coverage). but i took the OP as meaning "ivy league" like harvard/princeton/yale with no real consideration of his/her own research interests. it seemed more like "i want to tell people i go to harvard," rather than "i want to get into the best possible program for what i want to study."

i wouldn't mind seeing some recent PhD placement statistics from them.