iamincontrolhere-haig

That sounds great! Those definitely fall into my definition of "scholarly works." Since you didn't specify beyond magazine articles in your first post, though, I was worried you wanted to cite something decidedly unscholarly like Reader's Digest or Popular Mechanics.

I have footnotes in my SOP, but they refer to scholarly works not general interest magazine articles. If you think it fits, I'd go for it! Just make sure you cite correctly using whichever format (APA, MLA, Turabian, etc.) is standard in your field.

I haven't seen any templates for anything like this type of letter, only sample letters to POIs for grad school. IMO, this is probably something best done in person, not via email. The biggest names in the field are in all likelihood extremely busy, so you'd probably have better luck tracking them down at a conference and chatting with them there--and then possibly using that meeting as an excuse to begin an electronic correspondence.

If the applications you're working on are done over the Internet and only allow three letters one possibility is to have your extra LoR writer send an additional "soft" letter to somebody they know at each institution (if that's an option and your intern supervisors are connected to academics). I would only have your third or fourth writer serve as the "extra," though--depending on whom they know--because you'll want your strongest letters to be in your main file. Alternatively, just ask the three people whom you think will write you the best letters!

Good point. To continue with your example, Bradley might be cautious about advising a student focused on multiarchival research in diplomatic history if he had no or limited knowledge of the archives, sources, and languages that said student wanted to study. But I guess the area studies programs present a way around that (and have their own advantages in terms of collaboration/interdisciplinarity)! Unfortunately not. I had graduated already and there was no way I was going to pay my own way from the west coast! It sounds like we might be encountering each other there in the years to come, though.

I haven't looked at all the programs you're applying to, but regarding the ones I'm aware of, who at Cornell, Princeton, Temple, and Chicago teaches and researches on US involvement in the Middle East? Unfortunately--and I think this is starting to change--the subfield you're interested in seems somewhat cloistered within the greater field of US foreign relations and Cold War studies. Perhaps this is due to US policy with regard to the ME being governed by a somewhat different dynamic than, say, US policy toward Vietnam (in that the main American goal was to preserve "stability" for the sake of Israel's security and the region's oil exports instead of containing communism, which was arguably the predominant American foreign policy goal elsewhere--how much the three objectives were intertwined is open to debate). Then again, maybe it's because scholars of the Cold War simply tended to overlook the Middle East until 9/11. The more I look at it, the more I think GWU would be a great place to study the Cold War. It has so much breadth in terms of faculty expertise--not to mention its proximity to Archives II and the Library of Congress! Also, if you're still looking for programs to add to your list, check out OSU and UCSB. Both have specialists whose primary field is US-ME relations. I have the same problem as you. Hopefully admissions committees will overlook or at least outweigh a thoroughly lackluster freshman year if it comes before three great years!

That depends on how you interpret "help." While I think it's uncouth to ask a professor for help writing a statement of purpose--that is, showing up in his or her office with a pen and paper and asking, "what should I write about?"--I don't see anything wrong with having professors read, critique, and make suggestions on a draft. As this is in all likelihood the first SOP applicants write or even read, consulting with an expert as to how to best make use of the limited amount of words one is allotted is not only acceptable but wise.

I'm basing my order of preference on a mix of "fit" and the school's/program's prestige. From what I've been told, my chances of landing a good job after graduation increase with an Ivy League degree. It's dumb and hierarchical, but apparently it's the way of the world. After learning that Gaddis is no longer accepting graduate students and that I won't have an opportunity to convince him how misguided he and his views are, Yale has probably fallen a spot or two. I might add Harvard and Erez Manela to the list, but my analytical framework isn't entirely novel (though it's a bit more specific than I let on) and it sounds like he's only interested in working with students who bring a pathbreaking new perspective. I'm wrestling with your question with regard to Cornell. I think Logevall is brilliant, and his interests align very closely to my own (Choosing War and the broad points in America's Cold War). As far as other possible members of a committee, though, it's a mixed bag. Chen Jian for international Cold War and US-China relations, Kohler-Hausmann for political history. There are a few people in the government department whose writings coincide with my interests, but I realize that raises some methodological issues. Texas is close, so I anticipate visiting before I send an application. Suri's arrival there makes it all the more appealing. Good call on UConn--I hadn't given it as close of a look as I should have. Proximity to archives presents a bit of a dilemma. The West Coast has the Hoover Institute and Reagan, Bush the first, Nixon, and LBJ Libraries, and those are big draws. On the other hand, the other side of the country has the National Archives, the Carter and Ford Libraries, and a host of smaller archival collections like the Rockefeller Archives in NY. The more prestigious schools also tend to have their own collections of personal papers (Princeton, for instance, has the Dulles brothers, George F Kennan, Bernard Baruch, James Baker III, etc.). And good guess! Olé, olé, olé, oléee!

Hi all, I should be finishing my SOP, but I figure posting in here is a productive way to procrastinate--or at least that's what I'm telling myself. I was wondering if the rest of you are writing separate SOPs for each program that you're applying to, or are you just tailoring one statement to fit the various schools? Anyways, I'm applying to PhD programs in US foreign relations during the Cold War. To be (slightly) more specific, I'm interested in the interconnections between domestic politics and foreign affairs during the eras of detente and the "New Cold War." So far, I plan on applying to Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Chicago, Columbia, UTexas-Austin, Northwestern, Ohio State, and George Washington (in rough order of preference). Any other Cold Warriors here? Any good programs that I missed? Now all I have to worry about is editing a fifty page chapter of my senior thesis that I plan on using as my writing sample down to twenty-five--fun stuff.

From what I've heard from my professors, GRE scores are most important when it comes to qualifying for university-wide fellowships--not admissions. For instance, to qualify for four to five year funding at UCSB, two of your three score percentiles have to exceed 180.