CageFree

You probably should ask your professor and/or the people who manage your program. We can't answer that.

Send them an e-mail. Personally, I think it's embarrassing for a program to wait THIS late to notify people... this is why waitlists were created.

I think one needs to qualify this statement. While you may want to know if there are others to work with in case your POI leaves (and hopefully mention this in your application), it's also useful to find out exactly where that person is on the ladder. My adviser, for example, has two other students, both of whom are a year ahead of me, and JUST got tenured. They were just waiting for this person's book to be done, and now that it is, it's official. That's why my adviser has been able to take students in the last two cohorts. However, there are now four people in my field working in the department.. and that's a key factor in deciding to work with someone who isn't tenured yet. Also, just because someone is well-established doesn't mean they might not leave. A good friend of mine just found out her adviser, who is well established and fully tenured, got an offer elsewhere and is leaving pretty much after she finishes her qualifying exams. That program even admitted students to work with that prof for next fall. One of my letter writers left my old UG program for Europe half-way through the year (I believe it was last year), and was also tenured and had been there since the mid 1990's. I doubt this person took any of their students along to Europe.

Depending on what your historical field is, I would add UC Davis. You can do essentially both things by pursuing a History Ph.D. with a Designated Emphasis in Feminist Research and Theory.

A paper doesn't have to represent what you are going to be doing specifically.

I wouldn't put too much stock on what was on the letter. The DGS wouldn't have lied to you about the quality of your app. I think they are required to put "something" in there, based on what I've seen on the results boards... people with 4.0s being told their GPA wasn't competitive enough?

I did. My dissertation topic is completely different from what I thought I'd be doing. I really love my new topic and it's absolutely fascinating, but I switched because by the time I'm out there won't be much of a future in what I was doing before. My adviser agreed that I should switch when I brought it up.

The advice I've gotten is to take a tripod and a digital camera and take photos whenever possible (if the archive allows it). Find out if they will let you do that.

That would be great! I will be there in July and part of August. I'll PM you when I get closer to finalizing my travel plans. I definitely need to pick your brain!

I am going to be visiting those archives this summer for the first time. Joy! :/

A good edited volume is the Collective Memory reader. http://www.amazon.com/Collective-Memory-Reader-Jeffrey-Olick/dp/0195337425/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363565576&sr=8-1&keywords=collective+memory+reader

Memory studies in History are on their way out, especially in South America. I changed directions 180 degrees.

I don't talk to my DGS except in passing. He's a professor in a completely different field.

You can have a very quick explanation about those particular grades. But they generally won't look at transfer grades at all... they seem to focus primarily on what you did the last couple of years. You DO have to submit your transcripts but what they will look at is your history grades, primarily.

She said it was her M.A. GPA. That's a grad school GPA.

A 3.5 is almost a must for your MAJOR GPA but not for overall. Good programs are not going to turn you down because you started out as a Pre-Med (or Engineering) major and did poorly in Chemistry or Calculus, even though those grades will bring down your GPA. In terms of grad school/MA GPA, I would say anything under a 3.7 is going to keep you from most good programs.

UCR responded super late for my PhD app last year. My guess is that the MA takes longer b/c they want to see how many PhD students they have first.

There's truth in both of these statements. During my application season, I was interested in several programs here in CA. Prog 1. Prof seemed super friendly at first, asked me to drive down for coffee, and when I replied saying I'd love to, I never heard anything again. It was strange. I went over that reply a thousand times wondering why and came up with nothing. Prog 2. The prof. basically said, "I am gone half the year every year for research." What's worse, the email was addressed to someone else but it came to me. Prog 3. Prof replied back super enthusiastically and asked a bunch of questions. I replied back and heard NOTHING. I was thinking something was very wrong with my emails... like I was turning everyone off. I got a really bad vibe from #2 so I didn't bother emailing again. I emailed #1 and #3 a few weeks later to ask if they'd gotten my responses. #1 never replied. I didn't apply and to this day I don't know what happened. I didn't apply. $80 savings. As for #2, a friend of mine was an UG at that program and basically confirmed my bad vibe. Another $80 savings. #3 responded very apologetically. Turns out this person was a) on leave and b ) dealing with family stuff. #3 is now my adviser and is absolutely FANTASTIC to work with.

Sent a PM.

It really shouldn't be a problem, especially since you have people to work with at the same institution.

Some of it may be dependent upon your discipline and overall campus atmosphere. I think the humanities, for the most part, tend to be more open to student activism than the sciences, but campus culture is a big factor as well. My department is very left-wing and as a result both faculty and grad students are heavily involved in activism. The grad student union on campus has a LOT of people from my department, faculty knows and often encourages it. When we had a serious incident on campus a few years ago (involving abuse of pepper spray), several of my professors participated in open 'lectures' discussing the history of protest movements and activism, and wrote strong letters to denounce what happened. As for it being a distraction from your studies... one of the most active people I know passed his comps at the beginning of his third year. Most people do their comps at the END of their third year. So... it doesn't have to be a distraction, but it certainly CAN be.

Just a few thoughts: 1) I would not apply to the same school again. Sure, it may be a good program, but a) you have already dropped out of one graduate program, and you have to be exposed to other ways of thinking. Try a local state university, for example. You have to start fresh. 2) I am not sure you have a clear expectation of what graduate school is going to be like. You said things have been scattered after graduation and based on what you've written, that's absolutely right. You can't be scattered in grad school. It's not at ALL like an undergraduate program, you don't take random classes based on "what you're interested in." You take classes to fulfill requirements and develop knowledge about your field(s), do a lot of reading that may not be interesting to you, but you stick it out anyway because that's what mature, grown-up people do when they start a new enterprise. 3) Based on what you've written, it appears you need to figure out exactly what you want to do and demonstrate committment to it before wasting people's time and applying to yet another graduate program. Maybe start by taking a few history courses at a local college and developing your interests and writing. Get a steady job and stick with it for a while. It's not a race and the worst thing you can do is enter a grad program when you're not ready for it.

They are. My cohort is smaller than 10, the previous year's cohort was 15. In my program they have been aiming for cohorts of about 10 now... there was a cohort of 18 at one point.

I quit my teaching career to work on a Ph.D.. I don't have a M.A. Feel free to PM me for specifics.

I agree with your colleague. Rather than calling those who participate "brown nosers," if I were you, I'd make sure that my voice is heard. If you think people are going on tangents, why not steer the conversation in a different direction? Bring up something new? I bet you're not the only who feels like the discussions are unproductive. Your "protest," unless you speak to the professor, is likely to come across as you having nothing to contribute and in the end, the only one who will be negatively affected is you. :/