New England Nat

They were aiming for 22, and they would have had to have been down in the low teen until they would have pulled from the wait list. I had one professor tell me about a month and a half ago that princeton considers it's wait list to be a means of telling applicants that their projects are really good but they never have any real intention of pulling from the wait list.

You were also there on the first warm day in three months. It was very t-shirt weather. But you do not know the level of branded gear that is worn by the average UNC undergrad (says the woman currently wearing a UNC tshirt).

One of the weird things about getting used to grad school was discovering the different cultures of places. Both the big state schools I went to were totally university appeal places where 40% of the students in any one class would be wearing a t-shirt sweetshirt. My current institution I'd say only 15% of students will be wearing university gear, but rarely to class. They dress better for class. It also took me about a year and a half to come to terms with the orange. Oh and anyone curious, Princeton's yield this year was 26 students out of 38 acceptances.

Yes, he is currently at my institution. The history department largely ignores his status as a law student other than allowing him to spend a summer doing internship to keep his legal knowledge up and current rather than research. Essentially he was admitted to the history department on his own standing. Yale I believe charges him a nominal continuing tuition for the 5-6 years it will take him to get his PhD and once he is finished here he will go back to do his third year. The Yale/Princeton JD/PhD done that way is relatively common. Have you considered writing a legal historian and just asking advise on these counts? Dirk Hartog is just about the loveliest man I've ever known and I think would respond to a politely worded letter seeking advise.

Most law schools wont hire someone to teach there without a JD, but my friends who are either doing joint degrees or coming to a PhD with a JD are dealing with serious debt from their law school classes. Unless the school you are going to has an established JD-PhD track you may have to go to a different institution to get your history degree. I have one friend who came to get his PhD after having taught in law school. I've another who finished a clerkship and than went to get a PhD, and yet a third who is doing his PhD between his 2nd and 3rd year of law school, but he's at Yale law where they'll let you go off for that long a break before coming back to finish. And yes, he's going elsewhere than yale to get the PhD. This is particularly true as there are only a handful of places that you can get a PhD with a legal history adviser.

You can ask the department their placement rate, though many don't track the stat on purpose. You can ask for a list of recent graduate's placements, which is more likely to be helpful. You can look at a sample of departments at the sort of universities you want to teach at and see where their professors got their PhDs.

I think those are perfectly respectable scores and the written is important. I wouldn't both retesting unless you get below a 5. For reference i had a pair of 160s and a 6.

YMMV. I think it's relatively meaningless. It's a line on your CV yes, but it's going to carry very little weight in an application relative to the SoP and writing sample.

It's worth remembering about Princeton's non-teaching requirement is that it just means we pick up our teaching at our leisure. Everyone in the program knows they have to teach for the market.

It depends on the school really. Intermeral sports are very important to some of my grad school cohort.

Not at the moment. The US army and the national parks story is before my dissertation starts, though it is one of the ways that I came to my subject.

20th century US environmental political/social history of the US military. Also history of the field sciences (ecology, geology, field biology). I track the history of environmentalism and conservation in the army.

Thank you again

Thank you lafayette, that's more what I was looking for.

Does anyone have a good recommendation for a book about veteran anti Vietnam war protests. I don't have any objection to a serious book about John Kerry in this context but I'd like to avoid the puff pieces and the swiftboating stuff that came out during the 2004 campaign.

Many prestigious schools are located in not great neighborhoods. Some of the bordering neighborhoods to Penn's campus are pretty sketchy (Philly tends to have micro neighborhoods so a few blocks may be dangerous right next to perfectly fine places). Columbia used to be legendary for it's neighborhood in New York but the gentrifcation of Harlam may have changed that...

I suspect based on what my friends have told me in the past that Rutgers does not offer equal packages to all their students.

I think you also need to understand that some of this is personality that you wouldn't be able to figure out until you work with someone. I have one adviser rather than another because the second one intimidates me to inaction despite that not being his/her intension.

In my department you can't have an assistnat professor as a primary adviser, in particular because tenure here is a very dicey thing. It's alight to ask where they are on the tenure clock, and to say you want to work with them as long as you also want to work with someone who has tenure. But for the record, of the five people who are either on my generals committee or my dissertation committee only one of them is an assistant prof. As for retirements, professors planning on retiring wont take new students for a few years before that retirement. This is part of the reason you should email professors because you will get a few "I'm not taking new students" replies.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/sharpwriter?page=1 I mostly liked Teddy when he was machine gunning big foot

I'd throw Princeton on your list if you haven't. A number of political historains plus a soviet nuke guy adds togeather. Now for your general thoughts, I don't think it should matter if your letters come from American studies people if that's what your graduate degree is in. Just make sure that in your statement of purpose show that you know that AMS isn't the same thing as history. Speaking of which, somewhere in your SoP list the languages you have studied. It's a minor thing for americanists but it indicates you know that language is important. And remember that this is all a crap shoot and just because you didn't get in this year doesn't mean you wont next year. Cohorts all over the country were smaller this year.

I don't think anyone is squabbling about if 2 is better than 5 really.

I took a bunch of geography classes but not officially as a major or minor.

Often you will recieve a piece of paper with the formal offer that you can check decline with. Otherwise, call or email the graduate administrator at the department and tell them (politely) that you will be declining their offer. Than you should email each PoI that you've had direct contact with and tell them again politely that you will be declining. Remember this is your first professional act. You may still need these people later.

Exactly. There are no safeties