New England Nat

It's very important to understand that at this point you have turned from someone who is trying to sell yourself to them, into a very shinny object they want very much. It's a hard transition to make in your mind (and once you sign the acceptence you are back to being just a normal student to them). In general there is no reason not to tell people who your other offers are and what their general terms are. It will only help you. Either they will be able to match, or they wont. If they can't match the money, you should at least give them a chance to make their sales pitch on non monitary grounds.

Don't dwell too much about making the people you turn down feel badly. There might be some awkward feelings yes, but these are professionals and they will get over it. You may in the future still work with them (many institutions allow or require outside readers for disertations). Turn down the offer by whatever proceedure the school outlines in their paperwork. If the proceedure isn't clear contact the program administrator or department administrator and ask them how you should do it. After that (so that they can't try and talk you out of it), write the PoIs an email. Inform them very directly that you have decided to turn down the offer because you recieved more favorable offer(s) from University X and University Y. Or that you have chosen to attend University Z. Don't dwell too much on why you have made that decision. Thank them for their time over the past year and tell them that you look forward to working with them in the future or speaking with them at conferences. 99 times out of 100 they will respond with a very encouraging email.

So to try and help let people know how I can help them I come from a family of academics so have a wide range of knowledge of how the world works. I have specific knowledge of about a half dozen institutions and could probably give you in depth thoughts on UNC, Stony Brook, Rutgers, Cornell, Princeton, Yale, Penn and have some tid bits here and there from other places. Also anyone who has a specialty in history of science, technology, medicine or environmnetal history. Feel free to PM me. I'm glad to help.

Yeah, well, all other things being basically equal I ended up going for a Princeton degree versus a Cornell degree for those kinds of reasons. I still to this day feel kind of mercenary about it.

It's not terribly uncommon for professors who are being hired into senior positions to bring graduate students with them. At my undergrad a professor I was close to was new in my senior year, she had come from respectable big state school to big name big state school into a named chair bringing a 3rd or 4th year grad student with her. My sisters' adviser moved late in her time from one Ivy to another and continued advising her disertation, while she remained at her original department. So your adviser getting a better job doesn't mean you lose them.

The cost question isn't as obvious at Princeton but there is a huge range between what you can draw for Princeton owed apartments.

The paperwork should give instructions, if it does not... Call the graduate coordinator or department administrator and ask the proceedure. It is different everywhere. Once you have done the official work write any PoIs you have personal contact with and politely tell them that you are declining the offer. You do not have to tell them where you are going, but if you do know where you are going you can say that. Basically thank them for their time and interest.

Princeton is a crazy place with crazy amouts of resources. I've never ridden in the golf carts but they regularly try to run me over if that counts? Don't assume my description of the visiting weekend there is like other places, even other Ivys. You have to remember that even though Harvard has a larger endowment Princeton doesn't have a B School, a Med School, or a Law School. All those things take up a lot of money (Med School and Law School faculty saleries are twice that of a regular humanities professor so as to keep them from abandoning academia for the private sector). Princeton's endowment per student (undergrad and grad student) is the largest in the country. Now they're too cheap to heat the buildings but I always figured that was a kind of estetic choice to remind us that we're supposed to be serious scholars.

Yes, they stay in the Nassau Inn. Last year and I have no reason to believe it will be different this year, there is an open bar in the hotel bar with current grad students, sunday night, monday breakfest, talkign to professors and visiting classes with some information sessions and lunch in Prospect House (my friends and I have decided that prospect house is really transported from Kenya in 1950 with all the serving staff and atmosphere intact, though the running guess also includes the Punjab, or Joberg, something colonial). They're taken for dinner that night at a local brew pub, and than another open bar at the Nassau Inn... I remember trying to calculate how much money was spent on booze alone and gave up trying.

If nothing else they will put you up in a beautiful hotel and they'll be a lot of free booze on offer for two nights. The campus looks like Hogwarts and it's not like it's going to cost you any money. I don't think it's a matter of wasting Princeton's money (I say this as someone sitting in the middle of that money and while they don't spend it infinately and they are cheap about weird things, but not this one). The question really is the wait list question. On the other hand I doubt anyone on the wait list would really turn down the offer just because they didn't get to go to the visiting days. Btw, I'm starting to think of it as the invasion of the mongol horde just for how disruptive it is to have that many visiters around... but I mean that in the most affectionate possible way.

It's really a culture of the department issue. Some places there may be faculty interested in you that you didn't identify whose interests link with yours in ways you had no way of knowing when you applied. Those people may want to make themselves known to you so that they can influence your decision one way or the other. I had some places that other than official communication didn't contact me at all. And Princeton on the other extreme I had an email from a different professor in my box every day for a week after my acceptence. It almost became distracting before it slowed... My sister, a junior level faculty member in a history department found the Princeton behavior on the extreme of wooing, but didn't think it was strange at all that places tried to influence my decision.

You know your field better than I do and are probably making the right decision. I don't have a dog in the fight of you coming to Princeton as you aren't in my field. It's a wonderful place but you are in a relatively specialized field. I've had long conversations about the various "mafias" in African history (i.e. the Kenyan Mafia, the Botswana Mafia, the South African...). Where there is a lot of work being done and it is relatively safe to research. You don't fall into that catagory and so you have to forge your own path and make your own decisions. I honestly suspect you are making the right decision in picking Harvard over Princeton in the narrow circumstances of what you've been saying about what you want.

Similarly, one of the attributions to the origin of the word "hooker" for prostitutes comes from Union Major General Joe Hooker.

I was slightly surprised that she knew as much about your area of study as she did. THe professors in American history certainly haven't chatted with their students about the pool of people they accepted. Other than the fact that I've found at at least one of my classes if not two of them will be open to visitors on visiting days nothing's gone out in my subfield. I have some methodological reasons for chatting with the Africanists. The conversation wasn't in too much detail, just a mention that they wanted you but were unsure if you would come because of your specific area of study and how UPenn seemed closer. As for missing school days for visiting days... that's between you and your current school. I was writing a masters thesis during that equivalent semester, so was more open.

Had a conversation about Safferz's today with an Africanist friend. Had to bite my tongue, but they really want her but were sure they'd loose her to UPenn.... oh you guys aren't good for me.

Dirk puts up with a lot of pig jokes to this day. And I love that paper too.

The lights in Dickinson Hall are on motion sensors and in some rooms if the class is still enough as they talk the lights will turn off. I saw one professor just casually wave her hands over her head to get them to turn back on without breaking her train of thought. One thing I will say about my department, is that it's super dressy and formal. I've seen a couple of people go to class in a tshirt, but it's very rare. Only place I've ever been where a university sweet shirt wouldn't be appropriate to wear to class. On the other hand.... in the sublevels of Firstone Library in the middle of the summer... that's another story.

Yes, he's tenured, and yes, they love each other. The two of them bickered good naturedly all semester. But performance is a good way to describe him. The first time he sat on a table or stood on his chair I think she might have had a heart attack. She's a brilliant in her own right historian of China but very formal. He's ... not. Hendrick Hartog is probably the most casually dressed historian in the department. So perhaps there is something to your theory.

Every day he wears a white dress shirt, a sweeter vest, a cortroy jacket, and those hiking pants you can unzip at the knees. He doesn't do the kind of history I do, but he makes me think outside my comfort zone and even if I disgard the thoughts it is always productive.

You have obviously never met D. Graham Burnett, who loved all the books you love and is a really neat guy to talk to. And teaches History 500 at Princeton almost every year. Trust me, you are not alone in your love of the postmodern.

I was once told by a pretty boundry pushing professor that you could stand in the middle of Princeton's campus shouting Marx and still seem conservative. The power of the place just makes everything seem that way. There are plenty of people at elite institutions pushing boundries and who welcome the pushing of boundries. You just have to be willing to defend that work. YMMV.

No, I was in Naquin's section, sitting on the edge on the other side of the room from you. We shook hands though when your friend introduced you. Alas I'm a modern Americanist so I didn't think I had much to offer you during your visit so let the hordes of people closer to your area talk to you.

I didn't mind E.P. Thompson. And I remember you

I think the Noble Dream is a good backstory to a lot of fights in history but it has limited reach for those who come from fields that aren't standard political or even social history. And it's of only limited value to anyone who isn't an Americanist. I preferred Bloc. Now the book I really suffered through was Hayden White's Metahistory. If you want ... well just imagine all the fancy words that could mean bull shit... My sibling, also a trained historian called Princeton's emphasis on objectivity (we read a history of science book also on the subject) "the Harvard-Princeton echo chamber". I'm not sure that's totally fair but it's also not completely off the mark. I'm the black sheep of my family and it took me a long time to get my shit togeather. My parents have hard science PhDs and my mother is from the deep south. She dismissed her PhD institution (an Ivy) because she hated it there, and didn't like that i applied there. Princeton though... now Princeton is the southern ivy.... It was kind of hilarious to watch her be so excited about me for once.

The Canadian Dream