Jeppe

Yes, this. If people had only heard through advisers and informal channels, I might still have a chance of receiving a positive decision. Given that both waitlisted and accepted candidates have heard through official channels by now, I can cross Columbia off my list

Today Yale broke up with me after two years of what I thought was a faithful and loyal relationship. Meh

Well, that sucks. Thanks for the info though!

What did you think about Prof Pincus? He is a very, very cool professor, but also pretty intense.

So Columbia seems to have made their decisions. Have anyone heard from them via some other channel than through a potential adviser?

Another rejection here. Too bad, but c'est la vie.

As I see it, the only advantage of a one-year program is the lower cost, if you are unfunded. If this is not the case, I would most definitely recommend a two-year program. If you have two years, you will be in a much better position to secure good letters of recommendation, and you will be more likely to write a substantial thesis, which would give you both valuable research experience and provide for a nice writing sample for future PhD applications. Provided that you are planning to apply for a doctorate degree later on, these really are the two main things you want to get out of a master's degree - recommenders and research experience. I am currently finishing my fourth semester of an interdisciplinary MA program, and I have been very satisfied with my experience.

No, no, and no. But rumor has it that final decisions haven't been made there yet.

Congratulations gradwoes! Now I'll go weep in a corner while waiting for the bad news.

My best guess is that if you haven't heard back yet, you are either going to be rejected, waitlisted, or offered a spot in the MA program (depending on your area). I'm a little bummed by not getting in, but that's life

Congratulations to everyone who received appectances today!

As another non-native English speaker and current graduate student, I agree with RDX on this. You sound like you're already very competent, and your language skills will definitely improve even more once you come over here and start taking courses and talking with people. Really, don't worry about it too much. I certainly know the feeling of unease when you write your first couple of seminar papers in English, as well as the fear that people wont be able to understand you due to your accent, but it is almost never as bad as you think, and what problems you might have initially will dissappear quickly with practice. To be honest, there is only so much you can do from abroad, and that last amount of proficiency will only truly come from being immersed in the language on a day-to-day basis. Congratulations with getting admitted to NYU, I hope we'll end up in the same cohort

Congratulations Pudewen and Roarie!

If you don't mind me asking, what is your subfield? While I haven't attended either school, I do know quite a few doctoral students at my institution who received their M.Phil. degrees from Oxbridge before applying to US programs, and I would say that there are certain preferences for one or the other university, depending on what you study.

Really? I don't know anyone at my school who are sensitive in this manner, but it might be more widespread among the undergraduate population. After all, a lot of the graduate students come from other schools and have a slightly wider perspective on this sort of stuff.

Their placement of history PhDs is excellent, at least within the subfields that I'm familiar with. That said, anyone graduating in 2011 is probably in trouble no matter where he or she received their diploma from.

Well that sucks ... Thanks for the information though.

Do you mean Vincent Brown? As far as I know, he is on leave in 2010-2011, but I do believe he is returning afterwards.

And the anxiety sets in. Ugh.

That pretty much sums it up

According to the results page it was via email. I'm curious to hear the details though.

I'm late to the party, but I'll join in anyways. Field: Early Modern Atlantic/Imperial History Schools: Chicago Columbia Harvard NYU Yale Background: B.Sc. in Political Science, a couple of years of work experience in international affairs, and currently finishing up a two-year MA degree in European Studies. Good luck everyone! Don't let the anxiety get to you

I also received an invitation to the Prospective Students Weekend, and I'm applying for Early Modern Atlantic. I don't think too much should be read into it, though, as people have been admitted in the past who did not attent the weekend, and some people attending were rejected afterwards. So yeah.

I'm working on early modern Imperial and political history, specifically of the Northern Atlantic from around 1650 to 1776. I am mostly doing comparative work on the British, Dutch, French, Swedish, and Danish empires and state formation.

Last year in a research seminar a professor told us that "if you're not dreaming of your paper yet, you're obviously not working hard enough." I think the same applies for grad school applications.