midnightfox

czesc - Thanks for that helpful input. It gets so frustrating this time of year waiting and hoping to hear good news. I've started to second guess all of my application material and wonder if I'd be getting different results if I had changed a few things.

For those of you already in programs, how is it traditionally viewed by POIs if someone coming from a non-history job but has the proper degrees is applying to these programs? I've often wondered because that's the situation I'm in and I haven't had much success. I double majored as an undergrad and have a B.A. in communication and history. I had an opportunity for a career in journalism and took it, but later earned my M.A. in history while continuing to work full time, but now I seem to be stuck. I've been working on research on my own and I think I have some good ideas for projects, but so far schools are not biting. My grades were decent (3.8 undergrad, 4.0 masters) and so are my GRE scores (158/152/4.0). For a writing sample, this time around I used a paper I was particularly proud of from a seminar class I had to take for my masters-- though it isn't geared specifically toward my exact topic of interest, and all three of my lor writers were from the school where I obtained my masters degree. I was rejected by every school I applied to last year and am not very optimistic anymore this year, though at present I only have one rejection in hand. Does anybody see anything there that could raise any red flags and would be keeping me from being admitted? How about any advice on what I may want to change if I have to repeat this process again next year?

Does anyone here have any experience reapplying to Pitt? I was rejected from there previously but had some productive conversations with one of the professors and have a good feeling about it now that I've changed my intended focus. My problem is that whenever I attempt to access the application it shows me the one I submitted last year and gives me no option to fill out a new one. Of course with it being in between holidays I cannot get in contact with anyone at the school, though I've tried and sent an email. I haven't been able to locate anything on the graduate school's website related to this sort of issue. Has anyone else had this problem or know how to fix it?

Whoops... You'd think that as someone who wants to spend the rest of their life doing research that I'd have thought of that Thanks again though, I'm sure there is a lot of interesting info and useful advice to be found here.

Thank you everyone, I really appreciate all the input and you all taking the time to respond. I do have one more question. I remember reading last year where people would talk about communicating with POIs at the various schools to which they applied. What is the procedure for contacting faculty members you might be interested in working with at various schools? Does anyone have any advice for what you should or should not say?

Hi all, I mainly lurked around here through the last application cycle and was looking for some advice/input as I prepare to try again this fall. My main concern, hence the title of this topic, is that I've completely changed my intended focus area and am unsure how to address this on applications or what programs will think if I reapply to those schools this cycle. Here's a brief summary of what happened: When I applied last year I wanted to study American colonial/Revolutionary history. While I had done a considerable amount of reading related to that time period and written various papers for schools, I had done no major research. Part of that was due to the fact that I don't live in an area with a history that is really relevant to that time period and there aren't a lot of primary sources nearby. Several months ago, one of our local historians suggested I select a topic that I could research locally and at least try to come up with a better writing sample. I live in a fairly rural area and, after some debate, settled on examining how the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918 impacted this community. Long story short, while my interest in colonian/Revolutionary history is as strong as ever, I've really become quite passionate about this topic and feel strongly that it is the area I'd like to focus future research. What is the best way to address this change in future applications? Could making a change like this further hurt my chances of getting accepted at a school that previously rejected me? Has anybody else had a similar experience? Or better yet, is anybody studying something similar?

I had that problem happen too this afternoon. What browser are you using? It wouldn't work for me in Firefox so I tried using Safari and it showed up there. Hope that helps

Looking at the results board, I noticed that someone yesterday posted that they had applied for the M.A. program at Northeastern University but had their application shifted into the Ph.D. track and were accepted. Does anyone know if this is something that normally occurs, or if a graduate program does this, is it indicative of a lack of quality applications received for the Ph.D. program? I'm curious because I too was a Northeastern applicant (for the Ph.D. program) but haven't heard anything. In fact, I'm pretty close to going 0-14 in this application cycle.

Greetings everyone, I've been compulsively checking the results board multiple times a day visiting the site occasionally and finally decided to stop lurking and register for an account. Congrats to all those who have heard good news recently, and hopefully good news awaits those of us, including myself, who are still waiting to hear back.