maximumride

Thanks for the contributions so far. I will be graduating with my Bachelors next Fall. I just want to get a heads up and all of the information I can.

I am about to finish my bachelors degree in History with a gpa of 3.8. My eventual goal is to become a college history professor. I am in NJ and only three schools offer a phd in history; Drew,Rutgers,Princeton. I have only checked Rutgers but they only accept 12 people per year into their program. Do you think it is better if I apply for the masters program at Rutgers,monmouth,a different college then after getting my masters apply to the Rutgers phd program? Will this raise my chance of getting into their phd program or should I just attempt to apply to their phd prog right out of undergrad? Can I apply to both Rutger's masters and phd program at the same time to have something to fall back on? Thanks. -so pretty much my question is 'should I get my masters in history before i go for the phd.