StrangeLight

i got nothing. 6 people have posted acceptances so far, 1 posted a waitlist notification. i read somewhere around here that NYU said they were taking 15 people this year, 2-3 people per subfield. so if 6 of 15 have posted acceptances, i think it's safe to say that's it. last year a few people were notified of acceptances in late march, and one person was notified on april 14, the day before the cut off, so there's certainly still hope of getting in, but if NYU isn't your top choice it's probably safe to start making other arrangements. i had applied for latin american and caribbean history. oh well.

i haven't heard from michigan yet either. 2 or 3 people have posted that they were contacted, but that was back at the end of february (oh so long ago). i don't know if that means all the admits have been contacted already or just some of them. their website says they notify people from march 3-7, so i think after march 7 it's reasonable to give the department a ring. otherwise just sweat it out and hope for good news. as for NYU, 6 people have posted acceptances and 1 posted a waitlist notification. since NYU is only taking 15 people this year (i think... i remember someone saying that in this thread), i think that's it for yes's from them. it's reasonable to think that just over 1/3 of the people accepted this year know about this website and posted their results. i'm still hoping to hear something positive from pittsburgh but i'm expecting no's across the board from everyone else.

yes. i give the working stiffs far more credit than that. people can learn about equality and the use and abuse of power without going to university. man, sorry. i agree that the humanities are really important and don't even need to be justified, but it's opinions like that that make me dread the thought of living in a college town.

white rhino. i mean, what?

thanks! it's nice to hear good things about CMU. i don't mean this as negatively as it will undoubtedly sound, but i was surprised to see their history program is ranked top 50. they weren't really on my radar at first but there are some fantastic people who teach there and they've got close ties with pitt, which also has three really great scholars in my field. i'm from toronto originally, so i'm used to experiencing all four seasons within a 24 hour span, but i've been living in vancouver for the last 5 years and it'll be an adjustment to move back to a cold place. the weather here is pretty mild, just like seattle's weather. i've been to pittsburgh before and i love the town. something distinctly un-college town about it, which is actually its biggest draw for me. that, and i can blow my stipend on steelers tickets.

someone here was nice enough to send me a private message regarding cornell's admissions. for the sake of privacy as well as because it's highly unofficial, i won't copy and paste it but i'll give people the gist of it if they're still waiting for hear from cornell. the school's already contacted everyone that was accepted for the history PhD. they're offering spaces to 12 or 13 people this year, hoping for an incoming class of 8 or 9 people. they only took one latin americanist this year, and the professor that i would've had as my adviser is taking a position at another institution in the fall, so (s)he wouldn't even have been there. so i won't take it too personally. and, heard more from carnegie mellon this morning. they are mailing out their acceptances, but emailing out invitations to the program's open house. i received my email invitation before my snail mail acceptance (i live in canada and our mail here is always either late or lost). the grad secretary was nice enough to upload a scan of the acceptance letter and it guarantees funding for 4 years with the possibility of being funded all the way to the 7th year. not bad at all. also a rather sizable stipend for the city of pittsburgh ($17,500/yr).

anyone else still waiting on cornell? one person posted an admit, and everyone else has been rejected. i hope that they're still planning on sending out some good news along with the bad. is it realistic to think that they're taking so few people this year that only one person who was admitted would post it here?

this is why i just have pets. they don't care where they're living as long as you rub their bellies and give em something to eat. refreshingly uncomplicated. one of my professors, the head of my department, has been at schools all over canada and the US. if he loves a town, his wife hates it (newfoundland). if she loves it, he hates it (san diego), and on and on. he thinks they've finally found a compromise, after decades of teaching, where they both like the city they're in. this job certainly takes you away from your extended family, and it can put a tremendous amount of stress on your relationship with your SO. that's part of the deal that lets you get paid to research and write about anything you want to.

i don't know if this is "okay" to do or not, but i don't think most professors would complain if a student helped someone who wanted to learn more, so... here's a truncated reading list for a course on african-american history from a high-quality, thoroughly fantastic historian who does US labour and african american history, mostly 19th and 20th centuries. Nell Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol Nicholas Lemann, Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God Toni Morrison, Beloved Richard Wright, Black Boy/American Hunger Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality Richard Hofstadter,

thanks. they sent me an email inviting me to an open house weekend, and within that email, it said i had been admitted. i don't know if they're sending out separate admissions emails and i never got it (my email account is evil like that), or if the open house invitation is the acceptance letter. no word on funding though.

i got into carnegie mellon this morning. if nothing else, it will be exciting to work with john soluri and paul eiss. also nice to have options now.

for me, i'd just go to one of the schools i was admitted to. i'd have to ask myself what i expected to significantly change in my application in order to get accepted a second time around. if i'm not going to redo the GRE (the scores were already pretty competitive), take enough courses to budge my GPA (near impossible), or improve the quality of my reference letters (out of my control), that means the only thing that i feel kept me out this year was either my writing sample or my statement of purpose. yeah, i could change those, but would the change be enough to suddenly make myself a consideration for my top school? how will my app be any different? yeah, this year is particularly tough. fewer spaces (almost 50% fewer in some cases) and almost twice as many people applying as normal. but who's to say that won't be the case again next year? the way i look at it is, i only applied to places where i'd be happy doing my degree. if i was really only going to consider my top school, i would've only applied to my top school.

more on NYU... a few days ago i sent an email to the grad secretary because i had a question about transcripts. (long story semi-short: when i applied in 2007 for journalism, i sent a transcript that was still degree in progress, when i applied in 2008 i sent a transcript with degree conferred and, frankly, high grades. i wanted to make sure the school received my most recent transcript because it was better than the one i'd sent in 2007). anyway, the grad secretary at NYU told me, as of this morning, now, i know people have been phoned, but i take this to mean that not all the decisions are over. maybe only some fields have been decided, maybe only the first-round yes's have been told. like someone else said, NYU was admitting people with funding as late as the end of march or the beginning of april, so until you hear a decision from them, just wait it out. (this little pep talk is as much for me as for anyone else...)

thanks for the link.

thanks. congrats on getting in. on another note, does anyone know where to find this elusive website that the u-texas applicants are checking? i've seen one or two yes's, and a lot of no's via the website... the only site i know of is the applytexas site, and on there all it says is that my application status is "submitted." is there another site i'm missing?

yeah, i believe people were called. just interesting to see how it's getting vicious already.

i think i need to start drinking heavily. i'm so panicked, but at least i got in somewhere. and somewhere with faculty members i'd be excited to work with and some measure of resources for my field of study. looks like someone got a little disgruntled in the results search section though... calling the people who've been told they're accepted to NYU pieces of shit (or assholes, can't remember) because NYU only informs people of admission through the mail. when i applied for a journalism/latin american studies double masters last year, i found out through email that i was accepted, but only because it was early april and i contacted them to see what the hold up was (i was waitlisted for funding and they weren't going to tell me i had been admitted until they had decided if i had funding). so... while NYU states that they only inform people via snail mail, that may not always be the case. eager profs might be contacting students hoping to sway them towards NYU by letting them know now rather than a few weeks down the road in the mail.

i got my BA in may 2008. spent the summer and this year adding to my languages. worked as a journalist/assistant news producer. i've been a research assistant for documentary filmmakers (i was nominated for two emmys!) and i've done research for a history prof. i had the top journalism programs fighting over me last year, and this year i can't get into most history PhD programs despite competitive grades, GRE scores, strong writing samples, and really strong recommendations from well-known faculty members. i think it's just a tough year. also, looks like NYU is notifying the accepted today. if i don't hear something today or tomorrow, i'll assume that means i'm out. poop. poop on a stick.

for anyone waiting on pittsburgh, here's what the grad secretary told me: 112 applied. they have no minimum or maximum number of students that they enroll. if you fit with a professor and the department, and your grades/GRE/etc. are where they need to be, you're in. they are currently making the second round of cuts, but no one has been notified yes or no yet. the department won't send out any decisions until they've all been made, which should be some time in early march. (this makes me breathe a lot easier, since pitt is my best "fit" for any school i've applied to, and my grades and scores certainly meet the standard).

re-reading larry goodwyn's classic, the populist moment. makes all the stress of applying for grad school and waiting for admissions worth it.

i love you.

hmmm, maybe. michigan hasn't sent out official letters yet, true, but people are starting to get phone calls from advisers and department-types. someone here mentioned that michigan phoned all of their admitted students, and all on the same day, in previous years. so it makes me think, if you don't get a phone call, that means the answer's gonna be no.

i've got a feeling that everyone who is going to get into michigan or columbia has already heard. maybe i'm just pessimistic. it's reassuring to hear that the NYU prospectives students weekend was confusing, though, because i wasn't invited. hopefully that means i've still got a shot at getting in.

you know, it's possible that the circumstances that has made this person not want to leave the east coast materialized after applications were submitted. as a group of people who study human nature, we seem to have very little compassion for human nature in action. you can always move back to the east coast once you're done your coursework and simply communicate with advisers via phone or email. it's a fairly common practice. fly back for your field exams, maybe fly in once a semester to have in-person meetings with advisers, and the rest is done long distance. your commitment to the city of chicago would be 3 years max. if you really didn't get in anywhere else, are you sure you want to sacrifice your career goals for a relationship that couldn't endure 2-3 years apart? i know i'm a debbie downer, but think about it... could you imagine turning down chicago, and then having this committed relationship end? like others have said, detroit doesn't really seem any closer to the east coast, and you can probably get cheaper flights chicago-NY than detroit-NY, so i don't really see how dropping chicago for a law degree in detroit keeps you closer to your loved ones. just because the PhD takes 5-7 years doesn't mean you have to live there for 5-7 years. depending on chicago's program, you could be back in the new york area within 2 years. i would caution not to write off the school completely.

yeah, i was told repeatedly by a professor who was very interested in working with me that i needed to look into outside fellowships and student loans for the first year because they simply would not fund international applicants. i didn't apply because i'm not going to go anywhere that doesn't offer full funding, but now... i don't know, maybe i'll look at that as a mistake. i'll just tell myself that i wouldn't have been accepted anyway.