Hi everyone,
As an avid reader and fall 2012 applicant for Ph.D. history programs, I thought that I would check in. In the fall I will be entering my senior year and am a history major and minoring in American studies.
My focus as an undergraduate will translate to my focus in graduate school—early American history with an emphasis on racial history, specifically the construction of racial categories in colonial America as well as the history of slavery. I’ve been working on a list of professors with my thesis advisor and my top schools are Yale, Harvard, Penn and Johns Hopkins, although I will be applying to other programs as well. I have a soft spot in my heart for Princeton but the department, from what I have been told, is lacking in my focus at this current moment so I will likely not be applying. Columbia is another school that I really like and has a host of professors who I thoroughly enjoy.
I have not taken my GRE yet although I have been using the summer months to study, as well as prepare for my senior thesis, which I will be using for my writing sample. Further, my recommendations are figured out which I am very thankful for—all three are fairly well known in the field, two have strong connections to Yale and the third has strong connections to Penn and Columbia which can not hurt.
Overall it is a very anxious yet exciting time. I will be elated to get into any top program on my list and ecstatic if I actually get into multiple programs and have a choice.
Also, before I forget to ask, for those who have been through the process before and those knowledgeable about admissions, how do paper presentations look? That is, I have presented and discussed in panel discussions two papers at symposiums (one with a colonial, racial focus and the other in queer theory) and was hoping if anyone could help me with how these will be viewed by the schools I will be applying to. Obviously my presentations and panel discussions will not hurt me but will they do anything to help improve my application? I know that this may seem obvious but anything to calm my mind would be greatly appreciated.
Take care and I look forward to hearing from other applicants and posting in the future.
