StrangeLight

if you want to get into a PhD program, then yes, it matters where you get your MA. ask northeastern for their placement rates for MA students moving onto PhDs. if their MA kids are all making into PhD programs and that those programs are ones you would like to attend. if they've got good MA-to-PhD placement rates, then northeastern would be fine for you and you shouldn't worry about their ranking. if their students aren't getting into PhD programs when they finish the terminal MA, then you have something to worry about. if you want to be a government analyst, i'm not sure if you need the PhD. the PhD is preparation for being a professor (unless you go to a program with a concentration in public history). the PhD doesn't really train you for government work, but a lot of people doing that government work hold PhDs. i can't really answer your question as to whether northeastern's ranking matters for a gov't job. my sense is that "fit" is thrown out the window when you leave academia, and it all comes down to how well known the school is overall. northeastern's a well known institution, so that could work in your favour, but on this part, i'm totally guessing. but yes, again. if you want a PhD (for whatever ultimate career path), then the place you get your MA from matters. the ranking doesn't matter, their placement rate does.

last year sucked too. i also don't recall seeing that many people get admitted to top programs. i remember more bad news than good. it did, however, seem like people were either admitted for the PhD or rejected outright (or waitlisted and then rejected). i don't remember very many from last year (on this site) getting MA offers. i'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. surely an MA offer is better than an outright "no," but funding, and guaranteed admission to the PhD, would be nice. perhaps schools are in something of a transition, more willing to admit masters students who pay their own way and "fund" the PhD students who don't do coursework anyway (and therefore have no tuition to waive). i will say, though, that in early february, this board sounded VERY cheery. much more so than that time last year. but yes, applications are up (but not by that much more than last year) and spots (and spots with funding) are down, significantly. that is rough. and that's also why i'd advise people take what's being offered to them, if anything. forget about your big name undergrad prof who tells you that you're top 10/ivy league material. there are great faculty and students at any top 50 program (seriously), there are jobs for any student that does top notch research (seriously), and that undergrad prof is really out of touch with the way the admissions work nowadays (seriously). i had a professor, one of the top two scholars in his field (depends on where you fall in the ideological debate if he's #1 or #2) tell me that the top schools would be fighting over me to recruit me. he was shocked when i was only accepted to 1/3 of the places i applied to. it's not the 80s anymore. the talent pool is larger and the spaces are smaller.

listen, lukewarm letters suck, but it's not like the professor says, "yes, i'll write your letter" and then writes, "student X was one of the worst i've had." they write stuff like "adequate" and "capable" and "hard-working." it's really hard to find three professors that all say you're one of the best students they've had in 10 years. i saw the checklists that came with a few schools' letters. this student is a) the best student you've had in 10 years, the best student you've had in 5 years, c) the best student you've had in two years, d) the best student you've had this year, e) one of the best students you've had this year, f) something about being strong and capable, g) something about being adequate, h) would not recommend this student for graduate studies, i) do not know this student well enough to say. i mean, shit. when you've got to go down 5 pegs on the ladder just to get to "one of the best students this year," that's rough. lukewarm praise is stuff like, "this student would make an excellent graduate student. he is thoughtful and dedicated and would make a fine scholar." it's not as though a professor is sabotaging you with that sort of letter. it sucks to find out a weak letter can keep you out of some schools. it really does, and i'm not minimizing that. but "lukewarm" doesn't mean the prof was doing some shady shit or sabotaging your potential. it just means you weren't, to that one professor, the greatest student they've had in years.

i moved 3000 miles, from one side of canada to the other side of the US. i researched individual neighbourhoods carefully, asked some grad students via email about different areas, what place had cool restaurants or art galleries or whatever. checked craigslist for apartment listings. visited late may/early june, stayed for 5 days. spent the first day driving around the neighbourhoods i had researched, writing down the phone numbers listed on the outside of various buildings. spent the second day calling everyone and setting up rental appointments. then saw 19 places (yes, 19!!) in the next three days. signed the lease on my last day there. it was exhausting, but i ended up in a really cool place. everything on my list and more. i live alone and pay less than everyone i know (unless they have roommates, and even then it's about even), so within a year, what i've saved in rent will equal what i spent to get here early and find a good place. i will say... seeing the neighbourhood is important. google street view is good, but it can be misleading. and the pictures on craiglist are misleading too, and not necessarily intentionally. one place i saw was a dark, tiny, cramped dungeon in a basement, but the pictures i took myself made it look spacious and light and full of character. i was shocked. the place i ended up renting is large, airy, bright, but the photos made it look dark and cramped. it's really in your best interest, if possible, to see these places for yourself. i know some people in my program who crashed on strangers' couches when they arrived and found a place in their first weeks in the city, right before the program started. it was hectic and none of them were happy with what they got. they moved within a year, or are struggling with the rent because a potential roommate fell through, stuff like that.

some would argue that any relationship between a grad student and a faculty member is inappropriate, even if both are single. personally, i don't think it's a big deal if the student and the prof are in different subfields and the prof won't ever actually teach the grad student. i do think it's inappropriate when profs date their advisees. any situation where the prof has some control over the student's career just screams uneven power relations. some people don't think that's a big deal, and i guess it would depend on the individuals involved, but in general... dating your prof, rather than a prof, is a no-no. it happens, though. a lot.

this is a really good idea. if you can strong-arm them into funding you, then harvard's probably worth the risk of doing area studies instead of history. keep in mind that you may still need to complete a truncated version of history MA in addition to the area studies MA, probably adding a year of coursework and an extra thesis to your schedule. as you've seen from other posters, the MA doesn't guarantee much. if you do go to the fully funded PhD and find that you are indeed on an intellectual island, that your advisors can't quite help you along as well as you'd like, then it's pretty reasonable to apply for a PhD somewhere else. whatever you decide, good luck to you!

personally, i think it's a mistake to pay for your own MA when you have other options. how about you take the fully funded offer, complete the MA portion of the combined degree, and then reapply to different PhD programs (top-10 ivies). yes, having an MA before entering PhD programs can be very beneficial. if this is really a top public school, then an MA from there should make you competitive for any top program. that way, you get the MA to help your future apps and you aren't paying for it. when the time comes to jump ship, you tell your advisors that while X is a great school, you would like to complete your dissertation at a program with a clearer fit for your interests. a kid came to my program and altered his thesis topic only slightly, to focus on medical history. that's fine for his MA, but to complete his dissertation he wants to be advised by someone else in the medical history field, so he may try to move on to another school. fair enough. i guess... i guess if i was buying your argument that the fit at these other places sucks, i'd wonder why you applied there in the first place. or why they're recruiting you. it's possible they're bringing in other students who study your century in this latest cohort. you don't know who was been accepted besides yourself, right? but this whole thread sounds like you're seeking justification for paying for an MA from harvard. i think you've made up your mind and you just need a handful of people to say "yeah, go for it!" so... yeah, go for it. i can tell you it is definitely not the decision i would be making, but then i only applied to two top-10 schools in my field. not because i'm a bad student (i got into columbia's journalism program, so i can't be that bad) but because there wasn't anyone at most of those schools that i was interested in working with or they wouldn't advise on anything other than a very narrow set of topics. i followed the advisors, and i'd suggest the same for you. if harvard has perfect advisors for you, people whose work you've read and loved, then cool. go there. if not, i'd take the free MA from the public school and reapply in two years.

uhhhhh... an MA from harvard doesn't guarantee you a PhD acceptance from an ivy league or top 10 program. and what sort of "public ivy" are we talking here? michigan? wisconsin? berkeley? UNC? if it's one of those, or of similar stature, take the PhD offer. follow. the. money. contrary to the above poster's assertion, it is VERY possible to get a tenure-track job at a research institution where you will be advising graduate students without coming from a top-10 school. every graduating PhD from my program this year has secured a tenure-track job offer from well-known schools with graduate programs. one of them has three tenure-track offers to choose from, and if he picks prestige over sunshine, he'll be advising at a top-20 overall (top-10 in certain fields) graduate program. he's probably the only person in the country that can say he's turning down two tenure-track job offers and he's not coming from an ivy or a top-10 whatever. follow the money. you shouldn't go into a program without a fellowship, let alone without full funding. edit: also, the distinction between a #9 school and a #14 school is absolutely meaningless. the USNWR rankings are meaningless. YES the prestige of the school matters (but not as much as some people here maintain). YES it is important that your school is known as a place where top students go to study X. but HELL NO is there any real difference between #7 and #16. "fit" matters only in terms of getting an acceptance. the job prospects depend heavily on 1) your primary advisor's connections and reputation, and 2) on the quality of your research. you can get a great advisor and do excellent research outside the top 10 and you can get an unknown advisor and do poor work at the #1 ranked program. this whole idea that "harvard" means more than "UNC" or "michigan" does is really an undergraduate mentality.

does your potential advisor study medieval spain? imperial spain? spain and its colonies? if yes, then he's probably well-equipped to advise you on the colonial andes unless you're specifically looking to study indigenous communities. california's budget crisis is scary, but if you've been guaranteed 5 years of funding, then you've got that money. conference funds are usually negligible anyway, and travel funds can be secured from external sources as well the department, so i think financially UCLA is doable for you. latin americanists do see more job listings than medievalists, but if you're studying colonial latin america, you'll get plenty of offers. we get degrees in "history," and our specializations are really whatever we decide to call them. even at UCLA, you can declare yourself a medieval latin americanist. i'd probably go to UCLA if i were you, if only for the weather. you sound like you're trying to convince yourself to take notre dame over them instead, and i don't think you'd hurt your career prospects by doing so. if your advisor is well-known and well-respected, you'll be good to go at notre dame.

seattle on 15K would be tough. you'd need a few roommates, i don't think you could live alone on that stipend, and probably in a "less desirable" (which can often be more fun) neighbourhood. it would be tight, though, i won't lie.

don't get too excited, the wet bar probably won't happen and our grad lounge doesn't even have windows, but we're supposed to get new computers next year, which is a big deal considering only one of them actually works right now. the brownies are for real, though. and they were delicious. i hope the department can get your funding together, it would be nice to have you around in the fall. good luck!

personally, i think your relationship with your advisor is extremely important. if they're completely inattentive, you'll never get any work done, never get enough feedback, and you'll feel like you're doing it all yourself. because you will be. i don't know what to say about what you should do. look into outside sources of funding to pay for one of the other programs?

i survive in pittsburgh on 18K a year. cost of living is low. i pay $600/month for rent including basic utilities, i live on my own in a pretty big apartment in a cool mixed-income neighbourhood. it's manageable for sure, yet i always feel the pinch at the end of the month (possibly because they take much more in tax than i had thought they would at my income level, and i didn't budget for it). i don't think 23K in new york is doable unless you have a few roommates and/or live outside of manhattan. you really don't want to spend more than half your paycheque on rent, and 1/3 is more ideal. say they take $200 in taxes each month (they do with my tiny stipend, shockingly, so i imagine they would with yours as well), that leaves you with $1700/month. you'll want to spend $850 or less (including your basic utilities) on rent. doable in some parts of brooklyn or queens or jersey, far more difficult in manhattan, even with roommates. it's just hard to find something for that price.

really? would you mind pm-ing me and letting me know who might leave?

yep, i'm there/here now. my acceptance email from them included my funding package, but i know that they worked pretty hard throughout the spring to cobble together packages for other students so that none of the incoming class had to teach in their first year. no guarantee that it will be the same this year, but i can promise you that they keep working to put together your financing well into the summer. a colleague of mine was offered a TAship in his first year and mid-summer another fellowship became available so they offered it to him. edit: if you have questions about the program, feel free to pm me. i will brag that in last week's seminar, the professor made us all brownies. and they're supposed to renovate the grad lounge over the summer, so we've got our fingers crossed that the department will approve our proposal for a wet bar.

i don't know if anyone's still waiting on CMU, but a student there told me they only took 6 students this year (and 6 last year as well).

this. this is how you figure out where to apply. oh, and the student of one particularly famous faculty member at my school now has three tenure-track job offers to choose from, the latest being a top-20 overall history program. that is due in large part to his talent and hard work over many, many years, but it's also due to his affiliation with his big-name advisor. when you tell someone in your subfield, "my advisor is X," you want them to say "that's amazing," not "who?" if the lower-ranked school has a heavyweight advisor, take it. you would rather have your family and friends say "where's that?" when you mention your school than a historian in your field say "who's that?" when you mention your advisor.

i'm not being touchy. i'm just responding to something ridiculous. but saying something like "professors at ivy leagues work harder to get their students placed" is based on zero data. it's like saying, "all professors got their nicknames from their advisors when they were in graduate school." that is not knowable. there's no way to prove that ivy league professors do OR don't work harder to place their students. i just find it weird to declare unknowable things, any unknowable thing, as plain fact. i have friends at ivy leagues who are bright and doing challenging work. for my subfield, michigan is lightyears better than brown or harvard or upenn, but i don't mean to suggest people at ivies are incapable of doing interesting or innovative work. i just really take issue with the idea that the ivies are the only place you can do ]any work. and as for the OP's concerns about going to temple vs. trying again next year... his or her application may not be significantly different next year, but the odds of getting into an ivy league school will be about the same, or possibly worse. look at temple's placement rates for your subfield. if they're strong (tenure-track jobs at schools you've actually heard of), then go for it. and if temple's placement rate for your subfield is dismal (adjuncting, community colleges you've never heard of, etc.) then don't go. but one would think that you would only apply to schools you would be happy to attend.

oh, i was being completely sarcastic with my statement. that's why i put it rudely. i also don't agree at all with your first paragraph. how can you know that ivy league profs put more effort into placing their students if you're not at a non-ivy league school as well? you're guessing at something that you, or anyone else, could never actually know. it is unknowable, so it's a very bizarre declaration to make.

i'd definitely reapply if i were you. my god, can you imagine not going to an ivy league school? those other programs never place their PhDs in tenure track jobs. it's amazing anyone even applies there.

when i spoke with potential advisors at the top 10 schools (and some ivy leagues that weren't in the top 10), i got a lot of this: "i only work on cuba." okay. "i went to school X for my grad degree and i really had an awful time. they ignore anyone that doesn't do mexico. you'll feel very lonely there, i hated it." okay. "we really only do colonial latin america and modern brazil here." okay. "we have no funding for international students." okay. "oh, prof. X [the big name] doesn't teach here anymore." okay. "we've got three latin americanists retiring in the next five years." okay. "the person at prestigious school Y? she's my arch-nemesis and she HATES me and if she knows i was your undergrad advisor, you probably won't get in. plus, she's an awful human being." okay. "the program at prestigious school Z is a total mess right now. that entire subfield is like a dysfunctional family and most of the big names are looking to jump ship soon." okay. "oh, i don't really work on that. i know it's listed on my CV as part of my interests, but i couldn't advise your project." okay. the list i had in the summer before i applied was WAY different than the one i ended up with. a lot of the departments on the top 10 lists are great. but it seemed like a lot of them were also in transition, losing their heavyweights to other schools or to retirement. i don't think anyone pays attention to that stuff unless it's their own subfield, and since the USNWRs are determined in part by other professors' opinions, the fewer profs there are in your subfield, the less likely it is that they'll know big name from X moved to Y or half of the faculty at Z just retired.

you're completely right, most of their family and friends think they're mental for turning down harvard. many of the grad students in our department also think they're crazy for turning down harvard. but i don't think most people spend 5-8 years of their life toiling away on a dissertation no one will read to impress their friends and family. you go where the best academics in your field are, and a lot of times, those people are not at harvard (or brown or wherever else). shit, i had a hard time just explaining my list of applications to my family. "no, mom, i promise, michigan is one of the best schools in the country. ... mom, upenn IS ivy league. yes, it is. i swear." that familial pressure to give them the ability to impress their friends at bingo night caused me to waste about $500 on applications to schools without grad programs in my field, like upenn, and to forgo applying to schools that were much better fits for my specific research, like indiana and tulane. when i told my mom where i was applying, there were a lot of silences, punctuated occasionally by, "oh, i've heard of that one!" my parents have never been to college, my dad never finished high school or got his GED. you'd think they'd be easier to impress.

i don't think the poster was trying to dash anyone's dreams. i know, for me, that last year i didn't let myself get excited about my admits because i kept holding out hope that i had been waitlisted at one of my top choices. all signs pointed to negative, but i kept it alive, still looked for apartments on craigslist, tortured myself with it. when i got the rejection that i should've seen coming, not only was i bummed out, but it seemed silly to be excited about the other offers i had received weeks earlier. i never let myself enjoy it. much easier said that done, particularly for the people still waiting for an offer, but if some people have heard yes and you haven't, cross it off. if it turns out to be an acceptance in a month or so, then you'll have a really awesome surprise. but don't torture yourself with "maybe there's still space for me," because more often than not, there isn't. i think the poster just meant, if you've got something else, enjoy that and move on.

also, to some degree, the schools do move around in the rankings, but the rankings are also meaningless. i've used this example before, but harvard's in the top 10 for latin american history, and they've got one mexicanist who isn't exactly a heavyweight in the field. they never offer grad courses on latin america. unless you wanted to work with that advisor on some project quite close to his/her own research, it would be silly to apply there. and yet... top 10 for latin american history. it's meaningless. indiana's really moved up the rankings in the last 10 years, primarily from a giant injection of cash and a concerted effort to recruit big names and promising young scholars. the big names are expensive to get. the innovative young scholar whose dissertation won an award is a much cheaper buy. that's how we'll get hired: by being the innovative young ones who can become the future heavyweights of a department, not (necessarily) by having "ivy league" stamped on our degrees. a school looking to become a staple in asian history, for example, will throw some money at one or two profs and poach them from other schools and then they'll pour the rest of their dollars into newbies like us. when, suddenly, a program has 7 or 8 asianists and a litany of awards and grants behind their faculty, they'll move up the subfield ranking. once they're firmly in the top 10 there, they'll creep into the top 20 overall. i guess the rough part is, some schools have put their expansion on hold due to money shortages, and others are looking to expand into new regional and thematic fields, making things still seem bleak for americanists and europeanists. and that sucks. to love something and dedicate your life to it and then have people tell you, "oh yeah, we're not really looking for that right now."

two people in my program turned down fully funded PhD offers from harvard to go to pitt. so for what it's worth, people definitely turn down harvard, even though "it's harvard!!" because the program doesn't offer what they're after. both of their decisions were based primarily on the opportunity to work with a particular advisor and a less "traditional" methodology. there is one member of my program who has received two offers for tenure-track positions, one at a research institute in an undesirable location and the other at a highly-ranked LAC in a very desirable location. it's taken him 9 years to complete his MA and PhD, but he's been published three times and has a litany of prestigious fellowships on his CV. he's in a relatively competitive field (colonial american history) and he's got two solid offers to choose from with a few more interviews to go. so... the work is out there. and you don't need to be from harvard or yale to get the job. your research needs to stand out and your CV needs to go beyond the "standard funding, three conference presentations, two book reviews, and maybe one article" minimum that most PhDs have on their CVs. just this year, two highly desirable, well-funded research institutions in a fantastic city in the pacNW called off their searches for new faculty. they got plenty of applications, went through the interview process, voted on the candidates. one department decided that none of them were particularly good and just called it off right there. the other offered the job to one candidate, despite half the faculty insisting his work was just not any good, and the guy turned it down for another job offer (!!). both schools that offered the gigs were top-30 in the world. not top 30 in the US. not top 30 public. not top 30 research. top 30 overall. the moral of that story being, good work will set you apart. you may even get hired without good work. but if you take your research seriously and genuinely contribute something of value to your field (MUCH easier said than done), then a tenure track job is definitely possible to obtain. you have to be exceptional, though, whether you're at harvard or arizona. so seriously, be cheered. there are places that are hiring tenure-track faculty and the jobs aren't going to people with ivy league degrees and nothing interesting to say. make your work really, truly count, do something innovative with it, and you'll get a job. as for the retirees being replaced with adjuncts... sure, that's a concern. the bigger concern is whether those boomers even retire. a lot of them are sticking around into their 70s and 80s. just from looking at what's up on h-net for job listings, yeah, a lot of them are lectureships or "visiting professors" or whatever other terminology they use to say "temporary without benefits," but i've also seen probably 10 listings since september for tenure-track positions in my field. that's not bad considering the number of people that get PhDs in my field each year isn't that high.