Simple Twist of Fate

I just opened an academia account also, but I think it's futile. My name is a bit too common. My school's registrar once mentioned to me that there are 8 other people with my name at my (mid-sized) school.

I liked The March when I read it a few years ago. Recommended. Of Doctorow's others, I've read Ragtime and Homer & Langley and they're also quite good reads. Homer and Langley Collyer are interesting historical figures in their own right. For anyone looking for a distraction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers I thought Freedom was okay. However, I just recently read Franzen's The Corrections, and that is a hell of a book.

I read The Devil in the White City last winter. Riveting stuff. I'm reading Anna Karenina now, for a class on Russian history. I'm setting aside pleasure reading for the time being until this I've finished this monster of a book. I'm less than halfway in, but I already dislike Vronsky pretty intensely.

I'm suddenly glad I registered a very full load for this last semester of undergrad. I don't know if I could handle free time this next month.

This board has been really busy, so I must not be the only one experiencing anxiety about the wait. I've been spending time revising my honors thesis, and I've realized that this is not helpful for the anxiety. Every change I make (which is more fussing than improving, to be honest) seems like a blow to my application. I don't recommend this. Today was also the deadline of the one program I had been vaguely considering applying to. I've decided against it, but that sort of gives this day a "point of no return" feel. Hope everyone else is managing their stress levels better than I am.

Just got back from the PAT Biennial (I haven't been checking this forum often since I submitted my apps - not to mention the fact that the hotel didn't have free wifi there). I and everyone in my group had a great time.

I'm also procrastinating on a paper, so this was a welcome diversion. Undergrad Institution: Medium-to-small sized midwestern private university. Only a few "names" in the history dept, who aren't quite relevant to my interests. Senior Thesis: No required thesis for my major, but I wrote an Honors thesis. Honors Program: Yes. They funded a research trip to Philadelphia for my thesis. One of my LoR writers is head of the Honors dept, so that helped. Major(s): History Minor(s): Philosophy, English. GPA in Major: 3.97 Overall GPA: 3.93 Position in Class: Probably near the top. Type of Student: WASP male. (ugh) GRE Scores: old version Q: 650 (56%? something like that) V: 780 (99%) W: 6.0 (99%) Research Experience: My thesis, two major seminar papers and a fairly independent internship as a research assistant for a upcoming book. A few undergraduate journal publications. Nothing to really write home about. One small conference presentation next month. Pertinent Activities or Jobs: T.A., SI Leader, Tutor in history, philosophy and, at one point, geology for some reason. I'm also running a history tutoring program next semester in conjunction with my department. Also started/edit an undergraduate history journal at my school. Applying to Where: Duke, Wm and Mary, Notre Dame, Indiana, Connecticut, Boston U, WUSTL, Princeton, UPenn, Ohio State. Research Interests & Areas of Focus: Early American social and intellectual. Languages: French - competent in reading and speaking, useless at writing. Letters of Recommendation: I opted for profs that know me the best. One is my thesis advisor/mentor, who's a young guy with an emerging reputation in my field. He knows a few of my POIs personally, though not all. The other two are seminar profs whom I have good relationships with, even though their interests aren't aligned with mine. One of these last two has a reputation for writing greater LoRs. Statement of Purpose: Basically just walked through how my teaching, research and undergraduate experience led me to pursuing a history PhD, my specific interests, and then the school/POIs in question. Each was tailored to the program, though some were more closely tailored than others. I really agonized over these. Writing Sample: I saved the writing sample for last, which in retrospect may have been a mistake. It didn't feel rushed and I turned everything in early, but I would have liked to spend more time on it. The writing samples were various versions of my thesis. My thesis advisor has been great about working with me to produce these writing samples (including one marathon three hour session in his office before I turned things in). Since my thesis has really steered me towards my research interests, it was closely related to the POIs and the interests I outline in the SOP. Communication with POIs: Emailed in early October when I was still deciding exactly where to apply to. Several didn't respond, but those that did respond were very encouraging and kind. I didn't pick up a correspondence with any of them, unfortunately, but the responses I got were reassuring. When a few profs didn't respond at all at schools I was on the fence about, that helped make up my mind not to apply there. Lessons Learned from Application Process: I would have spent more time on crafting the writing sample. I would have showed it to more people also. I also wish I had more "bonus" goodies, like conference presentations and publications - but I think everybody wishes that. I wish I had spent more time working on the SOP/writing sample over the summer, in order to avoid cramming the application process on top of a full course schedule and 20 hrs/week of work.

My strongest recommender hasn't written his rec yet and the Dec. 1 deadline is about 3 hours away. I appreciate everyone's input about why this won't be the end of the world, but I would still be much more comfortable if it was in on time. Two positives: I'm only applying to one school with a Dec. 1 deadline, and my recommender emailed me this morning to assure me that it would be in before midnight. This prof is a younger guy and has a reputation for overburdening himself and becoming too involved to the point where he misses deadlines and sometimes neglects his students. This will be a long three hours.

Just sent all of my applications off yesterday. I spent today nervously second-guessing myself... "Why didn't I triple-check everything, rather than just double checking?" But it's incredibly liberating to only have to worry about a full course load, two 10hr/week jobs, a girlfriend, finishing my thesis and a conference paper. Back to my regularly scheduled stress, I guess.

3/9 SOPs done as of today (or as close to "done" as they'll get). I'm aiming for 3 more this weekend. Meeting with my thesis adviser on Wednesday, so after that I'll need to focus my energies on the thesis and shaping parts of it into a writing sample for each school.

If I see the prof. on a regular basis, I prefer to ask them in person. Otherwise, email is fine. I chose to email them asking for a time to meet so that we could discuss the possibility of a letter of recommendation. I preferred that phrasing because it lets them know what's coming, but also doesn't force them to respond over email. In the meeting, I formally asked them if they would write for me. This was easier, knowing that they probably wouldn't set up the meeting if they were planning to say no. (but then, I'm pretty close with all three of my recommenders, so I wasn't worried about that) Meeting with them gives you a chance to hand them a file with your information in it. I included an unofficial transcript, a template SOP (not specific to any particular program), a writing sample they had not seen before, a resume, a copy of the undergraduate history journal I edited and contributed to, and a list of programs with their deadlines. They each really seemed to appreciate it.

The advice I've always heard is that if you can conceivably imagine yourself happily doing something other than the work of a professional historian, then do that. If you can imagine yourself working as a lawyer, then do that rather than history graduate school. It's something that will test your resolve, and in the dark night of the aspiring historian's soul, there's no room for the question, "What if I had done law school instead?". Sigaba, I usually admire your posts on this board, but it seems to me as if you've placed a bit too much emphasis on the role of an applicant's undergraduate institution during the admissions process. I would argue that the individual's preparation and hard work are far more important. My guess is that undergraduates at Penn State have gone to upper-tier graduate programs, as well as mid- and lower-tier programs, based on their independent qualifications. Perhaps I'm just reading your post wrong.

I've been getting very encouraging responses to my emails to potential advisers. A couple of professors have also offered to set up a time to speak over phone as well, which surprised me a bit. I've never felt that I'm at my best over the phone. I feel most effective either in person or in email... so I'm not sure what to do. As for the propriety of asking for a LoR from a current Prof., I think it depends on the individual. I had to get an LoR from a history professor a couple of years ago for a campus job. I asked one professor after class, and he declined. When I asked a different professor after class, she enthusiastically accepted. The first professor later implied that he would have written the letter for me if I had asked him in private (apparently another student in that class was applying for the same job and he didn't want to show favoritism), and he's now writing one of my LoRs for grad school. Of course the most important part of that story is that I got the job in the end...

Goldie, do you have any tips for contacting profs? I've written a few emails, but they're just sitting in my word processor now. Every time I look at them, they feel contrived and phony. It just feels strange to send an unsolicited email in the first place. What sort of format or formula do you follow? Thanks.

I appreciate all of your replies. This is actually a pretty interesting discussion, even independent of the application process. Speaking with my thesis adviser, I think we've pretty much come to an agreement about my scope. We agreed it was okay to keep a broad chronological scope, as long as I'm disciplined and focused analytically. Sigaba, I think you're right that there are always going to be profs who favor deep specialization, as well as profs who think we've become over-specialized. But there's not much I can do about that, so I guess I'll just hope for the best. At this point in my intellectual life, I think I fall more into the latter camp, but who knows where I'll be in ten years? If you don't mind, I'll keep the specific topic of my thesis to myself (who knows if adcomms stalk these fora?). But it's 18th century American (covering 12 years in American history), and it's social/intellectual, with a lot of religious subject matter. I can only scratch the surface with my thesis, but my research has done exactly what I was hoping for - it's given me a subfield that I can hopefully shape in the future.

Hi everyone, In order to stay sane this summer, I took the approach of really focusing on one thing at a time, rather than trying to do everything at once. I finished up an internship first, then studied for and took the GRE and then I focused on research for my thesis for about a month and a half. I'm just now starting to write. Next is contacting profs, and deciding exactly where I want to apply. I took the old GRE, so unfortunately I don't have much wisdom to add. They didn't change the writing section, though, right? I did really well on that (6) so my advice is to focus on the scored essays online and in your books. Use the prompt to write your own response out in a word processor, or even just do an outline, and then read the scorer's comments, and figure out what you were missing and why you missed it. This process might be obvious to everybody, but it didn't occur to me to do this until a week before the test. I'm convinced that this is why I did well on that portion (particularly on the analytical section). For vocab - this might sound silly, but I was doing some research for my thesis while I was going over vocab... My field is early America, and if you ever wondered who every uses these ridiculous GRE words, the answer is 18th century Americans. Looking through old newspapers and pamphlets was genuinely a great way of quizzing myself on GRE vocab. I would spot a strange word from my vocab list in the text, and if I couldn't remember what it meant, I would pause and look it up. For some reason, seeing it in context helped. I know for a fact that my early American test prep strategy helped me answer at least one verbal question. Sorry, I know this isn't really a GRE thread, but it seems like everybody is stressing about the test, so I thought I'd offer my experiences. Good luck on it, everyone.

My department demanded a very specific format, which made things easier. It included two abstracts (one for a general audience, one for historians), a more detailed description of what I was hoping to do, a timeline, a working bibliography and a budget. Like others say, the historiography is a really important thing to emphasize. I had to submit my proposal just as I was getting started, so my department was content with me simply saying that I would examine existing historiography more deeply, but my basic idea is... etc. If you have a good idea what historiographical "gaps" your thesis is intending to fill, try to emphasize the importance of your project, and what kind of contribution you're making. Depending on the sources you've got now, it might be a good idea to have a separate bibliography for primary and secondary sources. Good luck.

Sorry, I didn't mean to cause a stir with that comment. It was really just said offhand. I don't have statistics, but from looking at the schools I have been looking at, it was just an observation I had made, so it may be inaccurate.

Thanks for your responses.

Just to be clear, I'm referring to breadth or depth in terms of topics or focus, rather than methodology. Will a grad program hold it against me if my writing sample, for example, attempts to make a statement about an 11 year period in American history?

This may seem like a strange question, but bear with me please. I'm interested in a particular topic in American history which hasn't been well-explored by previous historians. When I started on this topic for my undergraduate thesis, I had expected to find a well-developed body of work on this subject, but I was shocked to find that it had been rarely studied in a concentrated manner. My thesis adviser wants me to find a niche, or a more narrow focus. Given that I'm hoping to use my thesis as my writing sample, I'm wondering if there's any general rule here. Are graduate programs looking for very specialized, narrowly focused research projects? Or would they prefer a more broadly focused work? I realize that every program is different, but if anyone has any experience here or ideas, I would really appreciate them. Thanks.

Hello I'm planning on applying to history phd programs in the fall. I have several questions, and would be very grateful if anyone who knows more about these things could take the time to answer any of them. 1. I took the GRE recently and received a 780 Verbal, 650 Quant. I know that these are good scores, and I studied very hard to get them. However, some of the posts here indicate that it doesn't really matter, as long as I didn't bomb it. Is that true? I know that other facts are generally more important, but does an impressive GRE mean nothing? I also have a 3.92 GPA (3.95 history) but is that really so unimportant? Reading some of the posts here makes me wish I hadn't studied as hard the past three years. 2. I've been looking at Prof bios on the websites of the grad schools I'm interested in. My field of interest is 19th century American social/intellectual history. However, I'm less interested in popular topics like race, gender and sexuality, and more in labor, religion and political movements. Is it still worth contacting a professor or mentioning them in my SOP if they share a broad field of interest, but not the exact same research specialty? I suspect that this may be a bigger problem for American historians, where it's so specialized and fragmented. Am I only likely to stand out to a professor if my interests are the same as his/hers? 3. When is the best time to attempt to contact faculty?