Simple Twist of Fate

Congrats to the OSU admit... only 15 students? I think I need to lay down.

If you end up turning down Istanbul, it sounds like there would be a few people around here who wouldn't mind a referral Seriously, though, it seems like you should just wait patiently until you hear back from the remaining programs. They may end up making it an easy decision. Though I wish you the best of luck with those remaining schools, and it's always good to have options, I know it's sometimes nice to have a big decision made for you.

Congrats to those who have received good news. A couple of IU waitlists up on the big board... which surprises me. Hope things turn out well for those individuals.

Glad I'm not the only one frustrated. "Why didn't you apply to [x] University? Don't you want to live in [y]?" (It's a bit more complicated than that) "Where do you think you'll end up teaching?" (The number of variables involved in giving a meaningful answer to that question are mind-boggling.) "You got rejected? But you have such a good GPA and GRE!" (If only it was that simple)

Every school has a different process, it seems. Some are more painful than others. I'm expecting all of my rejections to arrive on my birthday next month. It just seems fitting. I suspect W&M may have sent/are sending their rejections via snail mail this week. Seems like they've made decisions, since there's an admit up. And last year the rejections came via mail. So I'll just watch for that little envelope this week and next...

Agreed. It is by no means a perfect novel, but entertaining and compelling. It's not like anything else I've read (including "Drown").

Congrats, and EEP!

Congrats runner. Penn is awesome, as you know. I was just there this summer and I'm mighty jealous but mostly wishing you well. AFB: good luck with everything. I'm sorry to hear about your final rejection, but I'm glad you aren't admitting defeat. I hope that in a few years you'll come back strong and pull a Safferz.

I wasn't expecting anything from BU soon, but I just quickly checked the results page and it seems like they could have already announced. I'm not expecting much from them, given their funding problems, though.

I enjoyed that book. He also wrote a short story collection called "Drown". If you end up liking Oscar Wao, "Drown" is a pretty good read. Sounds like you might not have time in the near future, of course... Just finished Anna Karenina. It was... okay. Seems to be one of those books that people either love or hate, yet I don't have any strong feelings about it. By the way, my birthday's coming up and I'm making a list of a few good monographs that might be useful to own someday. Do any early Americanists have thoughts?

Hello everyone and congrats to those who received good news in the past few days. I successfully steered myself away from this board over the weekend and today. I had a very nice, relaxed weekend overall, but That Feeling is starting to return. I had to resend GRE scores to one institution today (problem cleared up, thankfully) which frightened me a bit. Now based on the last few years' patterns I expect to hear back from several of my schools in the next two weeks. I'm nervous, but I've been lowering internal expectations and figuring out what I'll do if I'm universally rejected, so I know I'll be okay no matter what. Still nervous though. Hope this week brings us all good news, and especially those of us who haven't received any acceptances yet.

I can sympathize with these feelings. My family, friends and even some profs all think I should be able to get into any school I apply to. It's painful to explain. I have also not received an acceptance this cycle. But that doesn't make me, or any of the rest of us still waiting "losers". If we had taken the time, energy and pain and applied it to most other endeavors, we might be stars... but this is a cruel, often unfair process that doesn't always adequately reward the intelligent and hard working. If I fail this cycle, I will not take it as a sign of my personal worth or ability as an historian. I will be (and have been) very sad, but I'll just come back with a more prepared, ambitious application next year. Don't get discouraged - least not of all when most people still have some schools to hear back from. Keep the faith.

Congrats goldie! Hmm. Intriguing. Details, anyone? Also, apparently UConn will announce late Feb to early March. I can't remember who else was applying there, but there are maybe a couple of folks.

I don't have any insight about what ad coms think about a light course load, but I just wanted to mention this... Since you probably have an idea of the sub field you're going into, be conscious of taking classes that seem to be related. I know that this sounds obvious, but I realized that from my transcript, it looked like I had only taken one class in my sub field. I had to spend some precious sop space showing how I had engaged with my time/region in classes that don't necessarily appear to be related just from the course title. Languages are a great point. Keep in mind that you're paying tuition now, and for the most part it's going to be the same or similar with or without an extra language credit. If you have to pay for language classes in the future, that will be a net loss. I'm a big proponent of maximizing the value of your education (which has led to four very stressful but productive years of taking the full number of credits possible). Good luck in a couple of years. The fact that you're thinking this far ahead indicates that you're well ahead where I was when I was in your position.

Broke down and emailed the DGS. I know - it doesn't help anything, and I'm lucky that she was very kind - but I was honestly concerned that my application hadn't been received, or something of that sort. No official offer/waitlist yet. Just encouraging words indicating that my fondest hopes were likely true. Anyone else who's yet to hear from IU feel free to PM me for more details.

Just got some encouraging news from Indiana... It's really the first encouraging sign I've received this year, so I'm overreacting with joy. I guess I'm so pleased because it's a validation that I didn't completely, utterly screw up my application and that I am at least worthy of consideration at a good history program.

Well, welcome to the dark side, Aedes. What kind of American history do you do? Also, did you get the sense when putting those graphs together that were are more history phd results this year than last year? I'm just curious (and looking for excuses as to why I might not be accepted anywhere).

Oh wow... Welcome to the forums Aedes, though something tells me you've been lurking. What an entrance. Interesting graphs. It seems that in both years, acceptances held steady or outpaced rejections early on. But that changed in the 2011 graph around this time. Yikes. Also confirms what we already knew - that we've got a whole lot of decisions to hear in the next month and a half.

I did that too for an unrelated purpose about a week ago. It also made me feel confident, because I think it's well written, well researched, original and creative. But when I start down that path, I think about the fact that my research interests aren't "trendy" or popular right now. Ugh. I can remember lots of posts saying "I wish it was Feb 15 already". Now that's passed, we're seeing "I wish it was March". Once it's March, it will be "I wish it was April" and then after April 15, it will be "I wish it was August". No judgments - I'm right there with you. But for a bunch of historians, we're certainly fixated on the future.

The calm before the storm? Or are we in the "eye" of the storm? Either way, kind of boring.

Congratulations to Rutgers admits. That was another school I almost applied to, but didn't quite. Good luck to the other Rutgers hopefuls, who I'm sure are totally on edge right now. Today is finally Feb 15. Back in the dreary days of December and January, we kept mentioning this day as if it held some magical properties. I bet it will be another relatively quiet day. (prepared to eat my words)

An Arsenal fan? And I thought I liked you because of the Arrested Development avatar/name...

My mom seems to equate a history phd with law school. It's a minor source of frustration to me.

Well, I haven't received any emails about a wait list yet, so I don't know... honestly, sometimes I think it's easier to interpret the actions of people hundreds of years ago than the actions of these admissions committees. If those two wait lists would like to share more information (such as who the email was from, personalization, details of email, etc) that would be very welcome.

Sorry, poor form, I know - but I don't want to publicly share info that I'm not 100% sure they're comfortable with sharing yet. If anyone wants the info, just PM me. I'm not a hoarder, I promise!