New England Nat

Depending on who is around you should look at Harvard, Hopkins, Penn (HSS not the general history department), Princeton... USF was also mentioned by someone looking over my shoulder but you should check at the faculty. I'm at princeton and I would look across both the americanists and the historians of science. Off the top of my head Rebecca Rix, Allison Isenberg and Erika Milam are people at Princeton who would take an interest in such an application.

My academic record was just as spotty as yours was, just in slightly different ways. And I was older than you are now when I was in my application season. I'm the third oldest person in my cohort and not that much older than the pack. If I was to guess the average age of my cohort I'd say 27 would be right. If your professors are telling you that your age alone makes you unusal it may be that they haven't been to grad school in a verylong time. The age spred has gotten much larger in the last two decades. Some programs will throw out the application out of hand, some will not. Don't try and second guess which programs you have no chance in. I'm at Princeton, and I know several people who have similar life histories to you. Yale is also famous for taking "second chancers" in part because it diversifies their cohorts. The brilliant kid from a stable family that goes straight from BA to PhD at top tier institutions need to be mixed with other people. You may have to consider that given your circumstances you may have to get a masters first so that you can show that you can handle and are serious about graduate work, but that advise applies almost universally now. As for how to handle it in your statement of purpose... Write no more than one paragraph about it, be straight forward, much like what you have just done here. Explain the circumstances directly and point out that those circimstances no longer exist. Mine was at the end of my statement of purpose and read something like this.... (nanes changed to protect the guilty): "In parting, I would like to offer an explanation for part of my past academic transcript. During the late 1990s I first attempted to complete an undergraduate degree at XXXXXX. A combination of illness and family difficulties interfered with my studies beginning in my last two years of high school. At the time, I lacked the maturity to rise above the stressful circumstances in which I found myself. I spent the next seven years working full-time while attending community college part-time, eventually, transferring to the XXXXXX where I was on the Dean’s List. I paid out of pocket for my undergraduate education, which delayed my education during that period. These events occurred well over a decade ago, and I trust that my transcripts from both XXXXX (undregraduate) and XXXXX (masters) show that I am no longer the person I was at that time."

No. That happens all the time and many places will put all their unsuccessful PhD applications into the MA pool. But don't count on it unless you know that they will do that for sure.

That makes sense. She wasn't differentiating that much between the fraud and the difference between the historical methodology and tradition, and this was hardly someone who would have put down something just because it was foreign. A deeply serious advocate of Chinese history. She is famous in my department forforcing those of us that work on the rest of the world to think about China.

I'm going to third or fourth the "apply to both" advise. On the subject of Chinese MAs, I was told last year by a now retiring very senior scholar of Chinese history that because of the amount of fraud and differences in the historigraphical approaches that they didn't count Chinese MAs for anything other than proof that you are proficient in Chinese. On the other hand, proving that you are really proficient in Chinese is not an insignficant thing.

I have, and I wont. I will suggest you go look at JSTOR for book reviews. Those wont help you if you haven't read the book, but they will help you understand what other people thought were important. I would suggest reading several from several different kinds of journals because that book is working on a number of levels.

I don't think you should think of it as excuse. No matter what you say they're going to notice the blemishes. I think it's more give context, and as they say in the comments of that GRE post, it's not "i'm a much better student than my scores show" it's "I was in an accident" or "I was a biochemistry major".

Really it would be up to you, because this is a point of style. That said, I would avoid making it sound like you got a bright idea by going to a conference. Try and phrase it more like you thinking evolved as you saw the way the field was moving, or that you have identified a lacuna in the literature that you would like to explore. Otherwise you risk sounding a bit naive.

Nothing to say myself, but Tony Grafton posted this today over at http://historiann.com and it's something people should be seeing when thinking about Princeton admissions. Nothing about this surprised me, it also explain why the smaller fields would be looking at applications when they are on leave or going on leave, and not people from the larger fields. It comes from a discussion of GRE scores and their usefulness. "We receive something like 400 applications a year these days. I haven’t been on the committee in a long time, and don’t know the exact number. But the procedure is this: the committee members read all of the applications and reject about half of them. In my experience they pay most attention to the recommendations, the personal statement and grades in history courses. The GRE is a further useful indicator, nothing more. As Brian says, it’s most helpful in cases where we’re not sure what a GPA means on its own. Then the applications that survive the first scrutiny are divided by fields, and all faculty in each field read them and agree on a unified ranking. In that second process, the writing sample is the most important single part of the file. A fair number of applicants are not native English speakers, and a fair number come from systems that don’t use GRE-like tests. We try to identify those cases and ignore part or all of the GRE if the other evidence is strong. Finally, the applications and the field committee evaluations go back to the admissions committee, which determines the order of admission, and then to the graduate school, which tells us how many we may admit. The graduate school has been known to raise questions about low GREs, but I can’t remember the deans turning someone down on that ground. Whenever a prospective student visits–and many do–I ask if his or her adviser has described conditions in grad school and after. Usually the student has been informed, but if the answer is no, I do my best to fill in the gaps. I do the same, of course, for my own undergraduate advisees."

He's an exception to the rule because he's the only person in your field here. No one was taken off the wait list to replace you, and his pregenerals students are having to go through significant hoops the rest of us arent' because he isn't here. I know that among the Americanists, the Europeanists and the History of Science people what i described is the general case.

They may or may not. But for instance in my program professors about to go on sabbatical or on sabbatical wont even look at any of the applications that cycle. And at my program every professor gets a sabbatical every three years, so it can really be a crap shoot.

QFT what natsteel said. Most professors in my experiance respond. Not only do you have retiring professors, but you also often get a "you should talk to so and so at X other university" who may or may not be on your list. The other thing to remember is that professors on leave in the middle of your course work can be awkward.

She totally deserves it. One of the harder working proffies I've ever seen.

God I am so isolated. Pitty me at my horrible little college in new jersey no one has heard of Well, good for Oklahoma, they're building up a really cool environmental history program. I wrote an encyclopedia entry for her and she was always lovely in my dealings with her.

The writing score could be better, but the GRE's in that package aren't something to worry that much about. I would mention but not focus on the China experiance in your SOP, focus on your experiance in Bulgaria. That's what's important to your future as a scholar. Link your narrative about your experiances to the project you want to work on as a phd student.

Funded MA programs are rare, and even if you end up paying for a large part of it, it may still be worth it. I had a research assistantship during my MA that was nothing like comprehensive but I wouldn't have gotten into a good phd program without the experiance.

Hadn't heard that. Where has Brosnan ended up?

I would not. That's asking for a GPA in a graduate program.

And there are particularly egregious offending programs where the MA students are ignored, so you should try and float by specifric names before you make any assumptions about them. The place I've heard unending lists of negative experiances from is Chicago's MA for example.

If the professors at your undergrad aren't very helpful for you, i would suggest that you pick a couple of books in the area you like and look up their authors. Make sure they are still working in the field and write them an email. Ask for advise about the field and tell them about your concerns. Often an honest confession of confusion and request for help can get you a lot of good advise. I don't know about Soviet political history, but I know a lot of interesting work is being done in History of Science. Soviet environmental history is nearly an open area. I second the suggestion that cultural history might be interesting to you. You can tell I am around Michael Gordin too much... I would advise against military history as that can be a handicap in academia these days. Having military topics is fine, but "military history" can be greeted with hostility or confusion in many good history departments. I wouldn't try to get published as an undergrad. The last thing you want out there later in your career is something with your name on it that you are going to be embarrassed about later. And believe me no matter how much work you put into it now, you will be embarrassed about it later. I know someone who wrote a book near her field before going to grad school, published by a good commercial press, and she is very embarrassed by how naive she percieves it to be now. I think she's got no reason to be embarassed, but I can also tell you she didn't get in based on the book. Write the best research papers you can. Do solid work and have a polished writing sample using primary sources by the fall of your senior year. Select 3 professors who you want to write letters of recommendation for you and build a relationship with them. If you have a big fish locally that would be nationally known, consider them. Don't use non-tenure track faculty, and avoid very junior assisstant professors. The letters are going to have to talk about your potential for success in grad school and many places will disregard the too junior. Consider taking the GRE this summer. Between now and next september try and figure out where the best places to do Russian history are going to be for you. 8 places are around where you want to come up with. Be warry of places with only one person that can work with you, and don't think you can go somewhere to work with an assistant professor. Many places wont let them take students.

The other thing to know is that schools often wont take students in particular areas based on who will be lon leave during the course work period of a particular cohort. Last year Princeton only took one Africanist because the major Africanist professor was going to be on leave this year. A lot of times you can't predict these things because competative leave is decided at the last minute and departments aren't always upfront about such yearly restrictions. The real thing you should take away from this is that a rejection is not a judgement on you as a scholar but could be due to factors beyond your control that have nothing to do with you.

Given the range of secure online forms available now, I think even using a email PDF form these days is outdated. But nothing that can be done about it.

Can't answer for all your institutions on the list but your current credentials should at least put you in the reasonable pool for Princeton. That doesn't mean you'll get in, but your credentials are in line with people who did.

I haven't had to request a scan in a while but yes. No scans of the paper acceptable. Must send them the bloody thing in the mail.

IIRC when I was going through this I had a couple of schools at the $50-60 range, most places at $90, SUNY Stony Brook at $100 and Stanford at $125. I think my favorite absurdity from that period of my life was my undergraduate, which I was applying to grad school after having gotten a masters somewhere else. They claimed that they wouldn't charge me to send a transcript to themselves, but gave no mechanism to do that. At all. In fact, my undergraduate still makes me request transcripts by filling out a paper form and sending it to them in the mail.