New England Nat

I wouldn't worry too much about your GPA even converted. The professors will know you come from a non-US school.

Yes, I noticed. i'm not being snarky I'm pointing out that New York has 4 flagship state universities. There is no such thing as the DGS at SUNY. it's much like leave the "the" out of The Ohio State University. If you look the way the SUNY's describe themselves these days they are walking away from that acronym for individual schools.

Even if you are dreaming of teaching and not research you still need to be realistic about the quality of the program. When I said there are programs granting PhDs that have a zero job placement rate in academia I really mean it. Not at a research university, not at a slac, not at a community college. Getting a PhD at a program that no one will hire from is a preventable mistake. And it's not just universities you've never heard of that fall into this catagory. There are major state universities... some of them flagships... that fit into this catagory in history. They have great scholars at them that might be your best fit. It's still a trap.

You do realize there are 62 SUNYs right? You have to note which one when you say that.

I drove down and interviewed at a program that seemed super obvious to me and the professors were lovely. Except there were a bunch of small red flags, but the one that stuck with me was the main interviewer going "oh but we don't have someone who does x subfield". They did. Her office was next door. Yes it was a big department but how bad does communication have to be for you not to know what the woman sitting in the next office does. And it wasn't tangental to her work. It was the core of her work. As a consequence I didn't apply. Savings $75.

I suspect the Canadian history one is also a troll based on the comments. Seriously the Hogwart's ones that show up every year are cute. This isn't.

It would be academic malpractice not to give the "doom and gloom" talk to people thinking about grad school. What's more, there are programs out there that are granting PhDs that have no business granting them. Entire programs that have zero academic job placement rates.

Anyone who will be at Princeton's spective visiting days who wants the super secret unofficial tour of campus sunday afternoon before events start please PM me.

You should get a hold of a copy of Secor, Victorian Sensation. It's about pre-darwinian evolutionary theory in public discourse through a book called the Vestages of Natural Creation. One of the coolest books i've read this year full of neat things. If you want to talk about history of science programs with me throw me a PM.

There are only a handful of places where you can do graduate work in the history of science, but some of the most exciting books in the field in the last few years have been about public science, science education, and the like. What century are you interested in?

The time commitment to a well done application is that needed for a graduate level course. Just the application will consume about a third of your life. Don't half ass it. And I'd make an arguement that religion and the environment are also hot.

When I was looking at STS programs that was the advise I got. Make sure that my adviser and most of my committee were historians, and be recognizable as a historian.

The rise of public history certainly exists, but that's a very different thing than interdisciplinary work.

Many schools have deadlines in december so you just send them the grades up to the spring before.

The idea that history departments are going to look different in ten years is... bizarre to me. People being hired today are being hired by people who were hired ten or fifteen years ago. There is also a long standing tendencyof history departments to want people with degrees that say "history" on them. Try talking to a historical geographer about trying to be on the job market, or someone from an STS department.

Wikipedia explains it all. Sort of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_in_the_United_States The R1/R2 reference.

Virmundi I think "yes but" is the real answer to both sides of the go for PoI versus go for big name department debate. Mostly I said what I did because I haven't seen anyone on this board say the other side of it.

Princeton admitted 38 people this year, versus 34 last year and 35 the year before. They're aiming for a cohort in the low twenties.

So this is a major trade off and really it hits on the job market. Remember that hiring is not done by people in your subfield, it's done by entire departments. This is a dirty ugly aspect that I hate, but if you are dealing with an interview committee full of Asianists they will know that UCSC is a good place to have come with that degree. But very few places actually have enough asianists to make up an entire hiring committee. There are a lot of people around who will tell you the prestige of the general department isn't as important as the PoI. I'm not going to say they're wrong... but theyr'e not right either. I have a masters from a ... shall we say... not disreputable place. But not somewhere you think "world class scholars". It was filled with very good scholars. Some of them were tops in their fields, but I can tell you when I went to conferences I could feel the brush offs I got. It only diminished a little when I could say "I'm so and so's student". The professors at lesser ranked programs will tell you it doesn't matter so much, and they aren't lying, but you should remember that if you are teaching at an R2 or non-flag ship state university you really have to tell yourself that.

I would be very leary of going to a school with only one person you can work with, but these are tha balances one must make.

I drive a standard as well, and normally would agree. The thing about Cornell is specific. Ithaca's hills are a major pain and add the snow and ice and that will just make it even worse with a stick shift.

Having driven around Ithaca... don't buy a stick shift car.

It sounds to me like you've already made your decision. But that said I'll give you a few words of warning; as a Tar Heel I feel like I can say this in all honesty. Chapel Hill has been facing some serious budget cuts for the last few years, and the newly elected governor of the state is already showing signs that he has no respect for the humanities. He was in the news a couple weeks ago dismissing educational elites and the entire idea of women's studies. Crappy politics matter. The department has a history of overworking their graduate students as TAs, something they are aware of, but breaking the cycle is harder to do than most people thought. If you go there you can be certain to do a LOT of teaching. Congeniality is all well and good until the professors leave. Nearly half the professors I had as an undergrad are no longer at UNC. They're all at Yale. The Ivy's love Chapel Hill's history department as much as you do. The history department at UNC has a serious poaching problem at the associate level. It's not just a matter of the assistant professors leaving, and there really is very little warning or way you can figure ahead of time if your PoI will leave. All of that said, Chicago has it's own issues. There is a reason people say it's where the fun goes to die. It has a reputation for eating it's grad students alive. I can't say as much specifically about Chicago as about Chapel Hill, and there are great things about the department. Just understand that there are tradeoffs.

You say "I still have application's pending and feel like I need to see how they play out before I accept or decline." Everyone knows you applied to more than one school and even top schools know that you applied to other top schools. They're not supposed to force you to accept before April 1st so that all the schools have a chance to get through the application season.

Don't contact POIs about decisions. It will do you no good and can only make you look high maintanance.