reallywantcolumbia

quick update -- found this on Columbia's history department website http://www.columbia.edu/cu/history/grad ... index.html 30 PhD's defended in 2007-08

Hi all I've started the good ole' craigslist search and a little confused. I was told the neighborhoods I should look at are Kerrytown and the Old West Side. I was wondering if anyone had a handle on how much a bedroom in a house would normally cost to rent in those areas -- nothing over-the-top, just a nice large-ish bedroom in a 3-5 person house. I mean, I don't want a luxury apartment or anything, but would prefer to stay away from undergrad housing and be within easy walking distance of central campus... any tips/suggestions/thoughts on rent?

you need to send in a (signed and sealed) preliminary transcript from the registrar's office at your undergraduate institution. It's an official transcript -- just not complete. but if you don't get the final degree -- you're screwed. The contract you sign with the university is almost always contingent on you having that degree in hand. If the degree is just delayed for administrative reasons (e.g. you handed in work late and it took some time for the university to process the degree), you should probably be able to negotiate that with your graduate institution. Otherwise I'm afraid you're pretty much screwed.

From the discussion on the 'rankings' thread -- that would be a very good move. I know that my LAC tried to have a search for an American Indian Historian and had a really hard time finding people. There is always a dearth of people to fill those jobs -- hence, good career prospects.

very very true!

Oh, I'm sorry -- I guess I should have done some precise calculations on my guess-stimations. But let's go with that -- 160 PhDs per year. The Michigan DGS told me that 90% of emerging PhDs pursue a career in higher education. Perhaps that's on the higher end of the spectrum. Extrapolating, you are still talking about ~140 PhDs (146 is 90% of 160) going into academia. Some into law school -- sure. We are still talking about a huge number of people -- my only argument was about the order of magnitude. Anyway, this is a somewhat inane conversation at this point. I agree with your argument about publications, interviews yada yada yada.... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opini ... l?emc=eta1 p.s. Don't trust the AHA dissertation listing to tell you how many PhDs are produced from each department. I used it to find grad students to contact at schools -- it is hopelessly out-dated and incompletefor most places.

fair enough, perhaps I was being too bleak about this. But let's look at that "20 PhD's a year" I threw out there Michigan is matriculating about 27 people this year. Columbia 20. Harvard (I think) 22. NYU about 25. Stanford about 15. Berkeley around 20. Yale is probably pretty small and so is Princeton. The attrition rate over 8 years at all of these places (except at NYU -- where I don't know), is something like 3 people per cohort. That means that the rest of the people there are getting PhDs. True, not all of them are getting them in the same year. But, on average, about that number of people will be getting their PhDs. In fact, up to a few years ago, many of these programs were taking a lot more grad students because they didn't fund them as well. I know that that was the case with Columbia. That would push up the average number of people getting their PhDs every year (across cohorts). So, if about 80% of grad students in each cohort are getting their degrees and each cohort is, on average, about 20-22 people strong, then there must be (on average) about 20 PhDs being produced per department every year. Otherwise where are those PhDs disappearing? Perhaps there is a simple explanation to this, but nothing springs to my mind. Anyway Absolutely. No question about that. But again, that doesn't take away from the fact that a top-20 degree makes it easier to get that interview. I had a very similar experience at my LAC -- three candidates, two from big schools, one from a significantly lower ranked school. The lower ranked guy was the BOMB! Amazing research and everything. He got offered the job -- took an offer at an Ivy instead. The chair of my department was pretty bummed, but said that there are maybe two or three truly exceptional candidates in the field every year who come to your attention no matter where they went to school. But they are literally a handful -- and they get a vast majority of the interviews. Now, I have some faith in my abilities as a historian, but I don't want to count on my truly "exceptional" qualities to get me a job interview -- not in this market. If you're an exceptional historian, it doesn't matter where you go -- you'll be fine. For the rest of us (a category in which I firmly place myself), things aren't always that easy. no argument there Thanks synthla!

Umm, I donno. From what I heard, it does matter quite a bit where you got your PhD (in terms of overall ranking). Now, if you're gonna work with a superstar at a low ranked school who is very well connected, well and good. He/she will make the calls for you and make sure you get interviewed (and get the proverbial foot in the door). Otherwise you could be rejected out of hand by the overstressed profs who are doing hiring searches and don't immediately recognize your school/adviser as a top-20. And also, if you're working with a superstar who is well connected but at a lower ranked school -- why is that person still at the lower ranked school? Departments, especially in the top-20, poach off of each other ALL the time. There's an kind of osmosis as up-and-coming profs move up the rankings/tenure track. The advantage of a highly ranked school (in general) is that it will make it much more likely that someone will pick up your file and read it through carefully -- perhaps even interview you based on that name. The lower-ranked school just makes it that much harder -- you really need to shine, and have a lot of luck, if you want your application to be looked at by a top-20 department or a top-15 LAC. I know that my LAC would not even look at people who didn't got to a top-10 program -- and rarely at someone who didnt got to a top-5 program. It is a horribly snobbish and closed-loop kind of world. I sat on a hiring committee and went through the list of faculty at my school -- I realized that less than 10% went to schools that were not in the top ten programs in the country. All of those non-top-10 people had been hired in the 1960's. Obviously this is all in relation to schools that are already in the top 20. I don't think it matters too much if your school is ranked 10 in Asian history but 12th in African-American history as long as it is generally ranked in the top few programs for history in the country. Now, in the unlikely event that the school is ranked 54th in general, but 9th in a particular subfield, that will probably make a difference. But honestly, that's pretty unlikely. The top twenty schools for each subfield are pretty much the top twenty schools overall -- with just a bit of shuffling around. Think of it this way -- say every top-10 program produces 20 PhD's a year. That's 200 people going on the job market. In an average year, a top-50 department will have no more than about 4 faculty searches going on -- most for non-tenure positions. Perhaps one tenure track position per department on average. So there are 200 top-ten people applying to 50 tenure track positions and 150 non-tenure positions. If you're not up there, you need to make a hell of a push to get your foot in the door. In the end, it's a very 'natural selection' kind of world and going to a lower ranked school is quite a gamble! EDIT: I just read over this post and realized that it came of as kinda elitist and snobby. I don't mean it to be. I just want to stress the fact that the academic job market is absolutely horrible right now, and it's hard enough getting a stable job if you go to a top-5 program...

While I agree with StrangeLight, I would keep it shorter. The template I went by was, broadly, "Hi...... got your email address from ................................ and am applying to ............................ Saw your interests in ............................. I am interested in .......................................... and ...................................... with a focus on....................................... In particular, the question that fascinated me is .......................... As someone with obvious expertise in................................, I was wondering if you had any advice/thoughts on this topic............................. [suitably polite ending thanking them for their time] [name] BA.................. " If I had actually read something of their work, I would put in a paragraph after the "email address" talking about how their work influenced mine. Then I would go into the next para about my interests. My advice: keep the first email as short as possible -- while having something in there that will hook a prof's attention. After you get a response, you can elaborate on your interests/background/their leave patterns etc. best of luck!

Hey WannaPhD My advice would be to figure out which professors you want to work with in the department, and then get in touch with them. Ask them these questions. From the applications I did, I got the feeling that departments really want 'non-traditional' grad students, and are willing to make exceptions for them. There might be some way to get around the LoR requirement that professors might be willing to help you out with.

Well, I have to ship my stuff from a good bit further away -- I wouldn't have great advice on this. My feeling is that the cheapest way would be to use regular parcel post. And as to surface vs. air -- ummm, is this for the NYC to Vermont bit? or for the England to the US bit? I have no idea what's the best way to go for UK-US shipping -- but again, regular post might be the easiest/cheapest. Do you have any friends in the East Coast area who you could ship your stuff to? Cos storage could be a HUGE pain. As for the 25 thing. Car insurance in the US is a massive pain in the bum -- and is significantly worse if you're less than 25. I donno if it'll make a difference that you're almost there. Many car rental companies refuse to rent to drivers under 25 -- especially drivers with international licenses. Call a couple of big national chains (Hertz, etc.) and ask them. It sounds like, contrary to my own advice, it might actually make sense for you to go the UK-Burlington route. Unless you feel like navigating the rest of this stuff. I ended up carrying three suitcases and a box on a Greyhound bus across New England. Cheap, but NOT a fun experience in the least. Now that I'm no longer a bonny 18 year old, I'm thinking of putting some money out there and doing a more comfortable move. p.s. on the excess baggage question -- CHECK with your airline before trying this. I once got charged $300 for being 4kg over the limit!!

almost certainly not. Just BA and MA. High schools grades only count for undergrad admissions (and I'm so glad that's the case!!). Well -- that really depends -- thanks to that mysterious beast known as 'grade inflation.' At my undergrad -- A+ (very very rare) was 4.33, A was 4.00, A- was 3.67 and B+ was 3.33. The top 15% of the class had GPA's above about 3.7. I would ask the institutions you're applying to. true -- but I would urge you not to completely bomb your Math section And geigwm6 raises the important point about languages -- which I had completely forgotten about! The rule of thumb here seems to be that you need two non-English languages for History PhD work. While you don't necessarily need to show proficiency in both on entering the program, it's probably best that you demonstrate a serious attempt. Most places require you to exhibit proficiency in one language (via a translation test) on admission. Some of this also has to do with the field/area you're studying. Greek, Roman, ancient history can require 3, 4 or even 5 languages! If you're planning to do Japanese history -- Japanese and Chinese would be useful, Afrikaans less so. For some fields the language requirement is just that -- an administrative hurdle that the department has put into place. My future advisers told me not to worry about it and just get through the language exams so that I didn't have to stress on that. Ask around on this. The important exception is American history. Again, this differs from place to place, but the norm is that you need at least one non-English language. What that language is, would probably depend on what period you're looking at. Off the top of my head I would say you would need French. But hey, I'm not an Americanist! Italian might be useful if you're doing migration history -- or something along those lines. From the forums it seems like the default language for most Americanists is Spanish (with some French). You may be able to get away with a statistics course as a replacement, but I donno. It will certainly hurt your admissions chances if you can't show some kind of proficiency in some language. The general rule of thumb is -- the more languages, the better. Most people I know who feel like they want to eventually do a PhD, but don't feel like they have the languages/grades/writing sample they need, go in for MA programs. That way you get more primary source research, a chance to up your grades, more LoR's, and a chance to do more language training. Academia is a brutal world right now, and it's hard enough getting a job if you go to a top place (top 10). I would just think about that. Still, best of luck on the apps! I'm glad I'm done with them.....

As someone who did the East Coast luggage haul many many MANY times, I would suggest shipping your stuff to Boston (or even better, NYC). It is almost always significantly cheaper. Not only that, flying into those two cities is also a lot cheaper. Only caveat -- make sure you're over 25, otherwise renting a car will be a huge pain. People tend to forget that Vermont (like most places in New England) is pretty isolated. It should take you about 4-5 hours to get from Boston to Burlington. And maybe about 7-8 hours for NYC to Burlington. Edit: It's gonna cost you over ~$600 either way.

I would strongly suggest joining the Cairo Scholars listserve. It's a group of expats living and working in Cairo and would be the perfect place to get that info. It's run by Professor Samer Ali at the University of Texas. https://utlists.utexas.edu/sympa/info/cairoscholars

Well, let me take a stab at it requirements for most history PhD applications: GRE scores -- out of a total of 1600. Other people should chime in here, but my impression was that, beyond a certain score, it doesn't really matter. So if you get more than a 1450 or so -- you're fine. If you get less than a 1350, that might be an issue. Either way, it's really something that backs up the rest of your application -- and isn't the defining part of it. Letters of Recommendation -- generally need three. Harvard lets you send four. Should be from people who have a close knowledge of your work. At least one or two should be from history profs. My impression was that they need to complement each other -- i.e. don't choose three people who will say the same thing about the same stuff (unless it's along the lines of "this was my best student, EVER") Personal statement/SOP -- very important. basically works as both an intention of study as well as a writing sample. It took me four months to come up with a good enough one. Not supposed to be particularly personal -- basically an academic history with an explanation of what you want to do, why and with whom. Some places (like U of M) require both a Personal statement and an SOP. Then the personal statement is more...umm...personal. Transcripts -- Of all post-High School classes taken, ever! Sealed, signed etc. Yale doesnt require you to send hard copies -- just upload them onto the online application. Writing Sample -- This is where Yale gets to be a real pain. They require a book review -- which I personally thought was a pain to write. Most other places generally want a writing sample that is about 20-30pgs. Much better if it's on a historical subject and uses primary sources. Works as both a demonstration of your knowledge of the field, and of your writing skills. I sent a writing sample AND a book review to Yale. On the other stuff brithistorian mentioned: prestige of school -- really, I have no idea. If you're doing an MA at a London college associated with Yale I think you should be fine. While also an international, I did my undergrad in the states. That said, I looked at a lot of professor CVs over the last few months. Most professors teaching at top thirty universities/colleges went to the top ten history grad programs. Most of them also went to top 20 undergraduate institutions. Donno what the correlation is. GPA -- I would say a 3.2 would be on the lower end of applicant pool. But wouldn't cut you out of the running. Again, not sure on this. From what I've heard, the important thing is your history GPA. Though if you did your undergrad in the UK, does that mean you only did history? The additional information section would be the place to talk about those mitigating circumstances. [Also, grades in the UK are generally lower than in the states -- donno how that would change stuff] Same goes for geigwm6. I don't think 3.6-3.7 in history is bad. Again, other people might be able to help. My GPA was 3.68 (overall) and 3.89 (history). Topic -- This is important. I don't think it matters how 'unusual/unique' your topic is. Obviously, there should be some scope to work in it (e.g. If your topic is the allied offense in Normandy, you're gonna need a REALLY new take on it). What is most important is that there is someone at the institution you are applying to who can work with you. Preferably several someones. You should also have more than a passing acquaintance with it. People can chime in on the importance of this! Best of luck! p.s. I applied to Cambridge and the LSE -- and I just want to say, those were AWFUL applications!!