New England Nat

Shep, Many in academia believe that they have a duty to warn off any and all people looking at grad school. I wouldn't take it personally. If you hang around grad cafe long enough you'll run into the kinds of people who really need to be hit in the head several times with that kind of information. And some who already knew it.

Just to answer an earlier question ... about having studied at an institution where the primary language was other than english. It's enough for some places and not for others. I have friends who have been required to sit exams in their native languages. Though I'm pretty sure that was a secret english test given how rampent cheating on the TOFEL is.

Yes... that surprises me. Depending on if you are looking at the early or late middle ages, or the Byzantine period, and what part of Europe I have friends who are required to show proficiency in at French, German, Latin, and Greek. The idea of being allowed to work primarily from translated documents surprises me.

It really depends on the field. If you don't have proven proficiency in Chinese before entry no one is going to let you into a Chinese history program. Ancient and medieval historians have to prove some proficiency in languages because they are often required to prove so many that you can't possibly learn them all during course work. I'm at Princeton.

TMP may be correct in some places but not in others. My language requirement was handled exclusively by the department and it was not done with the foreknowledge that I was an Americanist. It was a standardized text across everyone taking that particular language exam. In my program the exam in one language can be easy one semester and impossible the next. Everyone may pass one semester and fail the next. My adviser had no say at all in how it was handled or how I was judged. I needed one language, but I could have easily been classified as needing two. My university offers intensive reading courses in French and German, and will pay for other such courses elsewhere during the summer, but all lnaguage requirements must be passed before you take generals exams at the end of year two. I know of some Americanists who will never use the language professionally who carry the requirement around like a weight around their neck.

I think the thing to remember is that the academic job market in history is so bad right now that no matter how good some of those programs are at "lesser schools" you are going to have trouble getting a job coming out of there. I could name a few off the top of my head where I know they have never ... as in never... had a PhD graduate get a tenure track job. There are a number of students doing history of science/history of anthroplogy/geography and exploration at Princeton. But if you get jumpy about elitism that's probably the last place you want to be.

It honestly depends on the program. There is no way of telling ahead of time if they are going to throw you to the slush pile or not. My advise would be to apply to a few more programs than the standard 8ish that most people do. From my experiance programs in the top 20 history departments in the country look for diversity in their cohorts, while those in the 20-50 rankings will often be much less forgiving of their applicants blemishes. I know that sounds weird.

I think we've had this conversation about our mutal bitterness before. (says another military historian)

This only applies to Americanists but the Eric Foner edited American History Now is extremely good.

I have to disagree with the idea that you shouldn't get too specific. If you have a project you should lay it out, being vague in a statement of purpose does you little good and a lot of harm. These departments are hiring you for a job and the majority of them do not want someone who will spend a couple of years finding yourself. The trick is to avoid seeming to have blinders on. This is often why I recommend people use their statement of purpose to describe the thought processes by which they came to their project because it demonstrates that you are open to change.

There is an excellent legal history on the topic that I can go look up if you are interested, and there is a modern political history about the role of pornography in the rise of conservatism in the 20th century. I'm not a historian of sexuality, but I've taken courses in it, talk about it the way you would talk about it scholastically. It's not like you are writing pornography, and any place that would kick your application to the reject pile over the mention of pornography the way you describe will not be someplace you want to be spending 7 years.

TakeruK is right, it's probably illegal, but it would be entirely unprovable. Remember in most programs we're dealing with places that have 10-20 times the applicants than they have spaces to fill. While I do think you should own up to any holes in your past record (I couldn't have hidden mine from my papertrail), I would encourage a generic description like "a series of ongoing health problems" rather than identifying mental illness. There is still a lot of discrimination against those who suffer from mental illness. There is an exception. I have a family member who worked in disability studies, and there not having any identifible disability really hurt him in his career.

I'm going to agree with all of thedig's recommendations about a masters, so consider those seconded. I would also assure you that a lot of undergraduate history majors discover that graduate level history is a very different thing than what they did even in their upper level undergraduate classes. I'm not a huge fan of this book as light reading, but you should take a glance through Peter Novak's That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession. It ends in a moment 20 years ago that is very particular, but it is an excellent introduction to the way in which the historical profession changes over time.

I flunked out of college fifteen years before I applied to PhD programs. My SoP had a paragraph at the end to explain the horrific transcript, it was brief, direct, and did not offer excuses other than what happened. I'm sure it got me tossed into a lot of rejection piles, but strangely in most cases they were the least prestigious schools on my list. Yale for example is famous for giving second chances, and I know of two other Princeton students who have old blots that bad or worse. Some adcoms will hold it against you, but you can't do anything about that. Other adcoms will be more interested in your forthrightness.

To add to the dirty secret bit... MA's finish faster. Often they come in with a project or at least with something very much closer to a project.

While some of the top tier programs wont give you course credit for your existing masters, there are a number of top 10 programs that are either taking no or almost no students right out of undergrad anymore. From their point of view a masters is a way of avoiding people burning out in their PhD, and it proves that you can handle graduate level work. I went to a top tier flagship state university, got a masters at a very good but not very well known or regarded state institution, and than went onto a phd program at an Ivy. I would not have gotten into the program i got into without having done the masters, which I actually think is well worth not getting credit for that masters. In my cohort, the students who came in with masters were much better prepared than those that went straight from undergrad or those who came in from law school (not uncommon in my program). That said, I used my masters to get a credential that is different than my PhD. My masters is in a subfield that is almost entirely missing from my PhD institution, to the degree that I am sought out to explain what is happening in that field by the faculty.

I am in your field and a student at one of the top PhD programs in the country. I can assure you that this guy is poison for your letter of recommendation. He's going to use all the key words to describe you as "unacceptable". I agree with TMP, you shuld try and change thesis advisers.

Yeah, your prof is a moron. Don't ask him for your letter of rec either. If he doesn't think you should be going to grad school he wont write the right kind of letter.

I'm afraid that I've given people in your position the same advise most of the time. You should not do a PhD if you aren't absolutely sure that's what you want. It's long, hard, and the job prospects at the end are far from certain.

Your offer letter should have come with specific instructions. Each schools bureaucracy differs.

Professor Plum is right. The fact is that the process is hard and the market for jobs afterwards is worse. It's one reason I would strongly encourage a college senior to consider a masters program first. 1) it will make you a stronger candidate and let the adcom know that you can handle graduate level work and do original research. 2) it will force YOU to understand what you are getting into. If you are going to burn out you will burn out in a 2 year program rather than a 5-7 year one. I will point out though that while Professor Plum's experiance is his own and I have no doubt that it is true, it's not universal. My cohort had two people who failed out of college at 19. I was one of them. We both came back as significantly older students with masters degrees.

I don't think that should be an issue, especially if you are looking at German or European history. The women's study adviser I'd worry about least because often historians are hired in women's studies departments. They might not be a historian but the adcoms may not know it. It's better to have recommendations from people who know your work well rather than ones who do not. A recommendation that says "he took x course from me and got Y grade" are essentially wasting your chance to sell yourself. The best thing to remember about letter writers is that they need to be people who will have a particular narrative about you.

Having sat as an observer on a search committee for a civil war job this year it's worth remember it's a bit of a goldie locks field. Everyone thinks they know what their idea of a civil war historian is, and it's never the same thing. I am not of this school, but there are some who say the field is stale, and even though I will defend that there is some really fascinating stuff coming out of the civil war these days.... there is also a lot that is stale. Totally recommend two books from Unv. Georgia Press lately. Ruin Nation about destruction and the war, and Lisa Brady's War Upon the Land, an environmental history of the civil war. And despite the fact that it's depressing as hell, Drew Guilpin Faust's last book isn't to be missed.

Being as I'm a woman that's both flattering and a little disturbing. Finished a draft of my first year research paper today so I'm happy. Are you applying again next cycle?

TMP, I've always wondered if Wisconsin really perfers the straight out of undergrad people because they're less likely to know that more funding should be available. Most of the Ivy's are pulling the majority of their classes from masters programs these days. This year was the first one in ages that mine took more than a handful of their applicants from undergrad and they still took a majority with post graduate degrees. Speaking as an environmental historian, one of the things to really worry about is that the places with good environmental history programs are often at state schools with larger funding issues and not always the shinny name. I hate to tell people this, but the name does matter. The PoI is the most important thing, but a great PoI at a history department ranked somewhere in the 60s nationally is going to be hard to get a job.