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As someone who graduated from a law school that regularly produces quite a few legal academics I feel compelled to share what I know about teaching law as a plan B. Factors like law review membership and SCOTUS clerkships still hold some weight, but are barely relevant anymore compared to the quality and quantity of a candidate's scholarship. Publishing a lot, in good journals, is the most consistent factor in obtaining a position. Outside of that, it's a lot of luck. There are very few positions available in legal teaching right now. Believe it or not, people who are well placed to know think that history positions might be easier to obtain at the moment - for those who have the luxury or pursuing both markets.

I misspelled a potential advisor's name in one of my SOPs. It was part of the application for the one school I did get accepted to. If they like everything else about the application, it won't even be remotely dispositive. Breathe easy.

This article put a much more negative spin on this news than the Chronicle version. Quite a few people are rejoicing over this study; it dispels a lot of fears (based mostly on worst case scenario anecdotes) that most history PhDs are predestined to wind up working four adjunct jobs at a time and still making poverty wages that won't cover routine healthcare costs even though they qualify for food stamps. The key is really rooting people away from the pure academic track if they don't wind up with an academic lifestyle that's tolerable - and toward something that the study shows a history PhD has proven valuable for. The fact that the AHA is encouraging Plan Bs more explicitly now and not being complicit in shaming people into submission to the idea that tenure track is a be all and end all of existence is only going to help matters, as will the network effect of more history PhDs employed outside academe.

I've had some very enthusiastic interactions with profs at schools where I was rejected. Of course that doesn't mean they all feel that way. The point is that the institution's decision in the end doesn't mean there aren't profs who went to bat for you - or vice versa. I'm sure there are even profs at my current institution who didn't want me here (or at least wanted someone else more) - which is always an awkward thing to think / worry / wonder about.

@DavidRArmitage, the head of the Harvard history department, usually has good stuff. Also, @appendixjournal, which is an academic history-oriented online magazine. A lot of historians on Twitter also use the hashtag #twitterstorians and you can usually find a lot of stuff that way (maybe as a way to start looking for people/organizations on Twitter in your field).

Be careful about promoting MOOCs too widely if you ever want a teaching job. Though Latour's might be an exception. What other MOOC seems so perfectly tailored to confer the conceptual tools to critique MOOCs?

I'm confused about this poster's life situation. How long have you been out of undergrad? Have you been working through your bachelors degree or another, subsequent degree? Have you already had a long working gap at some point in your life, or have you effectively been in school since entering college? I think if we are dealing with a person who's already been working for 15 years, it might be a different story (or not; what's two more years on top of that?) But if this is a situation in which the person in question has always been in school and is now worried about not being in a degree program, the answer, to echo the others, is clear: it's actually the norm to have a working gap. Literally no one who entered my program with me this year did not. More posters should be worried about their chances applying straight out of undergrad than vice versa.

Conversely, I've heard that schools will look and see that they're not likely to be as good a match for you as some of the other schools you've listed, judge that you may be likely to get into those schools, and admit someone else for one of the few places they have that would be a better match and likely to attend. Of course, this can suck for you if you don't get admitted to the "better fit" schools the school that might have admitted you thought you'd prefer to go for, but since the schools can't formally collaborate, that's the way things sometimes go.

From what I've read/heard, this kind of switch (between disciplines anywhere rather than between departments in the same subject at different schools) is typically easiest to do by switching departments within the same university - particularly where all grad students are fully funded - than by applying again to other institutions, though you'd probably have to do the latter anyway if you absolutely want to be guaranteed the ability to study history next year. Since you're already taking (or have taken) a lot of history courses, speak to the professors whose classes you've taken about your inclinations and see if they'd support you - or recommend you to outside programs. If you have enough history faculty on your side to make it viable, you may never have to rely on your home department, should they be hostile about the process. Of course, that's not to say things will be pleasant - the departments may still talk to one another - but it definitely beats just throwing yourself on the mercy of your current chair and/or other lit profs.

If you can, I would have your professors explain these circumstances in their LORs. It certainly seems like a compelling extenuating circumstance to me, and if your profs can attest to what you've learned in your period on your own, adcoms might not feel like you would need additional training in another, non-PRC MA before you're admitted.

I'm not sure you should say that. When you say "pretty much," do you mean you haven't done any formal coursework/research? You may be asked who you've worked with at your previous institutions. This is a pretty loose term and in my experience can mean as little as you took a course with x/y person (or more). If you haven't done any such work or have historian contacts, who are you planning to get letters of recommendation from? You might be better positioned if you apply for MAs first, in that case.

Are people in history departments doing research there or is it just being set up for other researchers / future historians? (just curious)

It's possible for you to discuss your area of interest with faculty POIs at the institutions where you're applying. You can emphasize that, while you got good background training, no one at your current or former institution works in the area you're interested in, and you're trying to work out leads on x. Several people on this board have shaped their projects/proposals this way.

I followed the rules rigidly. I know some schools even have software that will cut off your submissions if they go over the specified length (though from what I recall this usually seemed to apply to the number of pages in the writing sample, not the word length of the SOP).

You're doing 21st century France!? I guess this century has moved along more quickly than I'd thought. In all seriousness, I'd consider adding Chicago to your list.

There are usually placement tests offered at the beginning of the semester (a few days before classes start) at most universities. Many of these tests are now also online and I've talked to departmental admins about arranging special seatings, so I'd imagine there's some flexibility, depending on your school, the language(s) you want to be tested in, and departmental policies.

I went to professional school for three years in an unrelated field and then worked for another two in that field before applying for my PhD, so maybe I can help. Adcoms will be able to judge from the fact that you've been out of school for a few years that you're probably used to working in a professional environment, which will be an asset. What may will help you to do in order to augment that asset is to make sure you reassure them that you haven't compromised other aspects of a high quality applicant in order to do so. Writing an SOP that indicates you have a firm grasp on the most up-to-date historiography in your field will help. Indicating whatever you've done in the interim while you've been working that has helped to build your research or speaking skills or anything else you can think of related to being a history graduate student/professor will also be useful. If you've done anything relevant to the profession of history at all in the last three years -attended conferences, worked for an organization that deals with historical scholarship, anything - highlight that as well. Overall, I wouldn't spend too much time justifying your last three years of work experience, though. It's increasingly typical that a successful applicant will have been several years away from undergrad before applying.

^ I think this may vary by department, or at least by professor. In graduate school so far, I haven't really seen professors here "demand confidence;" in their role as teachers, they're usually quite gentle with students who are just encountering material for the first time, or who are reticent (for whatever reason - maybe they know these students are simply better scholars than speakers, maybe the class is outside these students' subfield, maybe some professors simply relish a "teaching moment" rather than having to listen to a know-it-all who thinks he or she has found an original way to critique the same book the prof has been teaching forever and knows inside-out). I would imagine the bias manifests itself more at the admissions level - and that once you're in, you're given more of the benefit of the doubt part of the collegial department community. That said, there sometimes does seem to be some personal favoritism shown toward more bombastic and demonstratively well-read students.

NP, just sent it to you. Again, I wouldn't necessarily vouch for it - maybe track down someone on this forum who was admitted to a larger choice of schools and ask for their statement as well.

I wouldn't have thought it'd make a difference when you submit, but it may not have been a coincidence that the one application I submitted a couple weeks ahead of schedule was the one school where I was admitted. I wouldn't be surprised if, all other things being relatively equal amid likely admit candidates in their pile, the person whose application circulated earlier benefits - maybe the department will have set the admitted group as early as possible, and only a superhumanly outstanding candidate would wind up unseating one of the members of the group at that point.

I'm not sure mine is the world's greatest so I hesitate to share, but I'll message you the one I based it off of.

Your goals are to convey your interest in a broad enough period that the program can still shape you in some way but also to demonstrate that you're capable of conceiving a more constrained project now. In my SOP I tried to cover both bases by stating the general area I was interested in and then providing some non-exclusive examples of a couple potential, more specific areas of inquiry (I based the structure of my SOP on one of a person who'd been admitted to a top program). I'm still not sure how effective this was, though, and still vacillate as to whether I was too specific or not specific enough.

Agreed with what telkanuru wrote. Being president of an honors society is well and good, but if I were a faculty member, I'd prefer someone with a demonstrable understanding of what graduate coursework (and maybe teaching) demands, who has a demonstrated track record of living and working on his/her own and taking care of him/herself outside of college, etc. - think of the factors that would make training a graduate student easier and less likely to consume endless years of funding. It's not hard to see why admissions committees are leaning toward older admits with MAs. Beyond that, I think a better question you have to ask yourself is whether you're a good fit for the scholars you want to work with at the above schools. Maybe (and this is unfortunate but it's how the game is played) whether any of your LOR writers are connected with them). This really isn't that much of a numbers game.

I'm guessing you mean other than historians? It varies a lot, as you said. Beyond the two you mentioned, Marx and Weber are big. Various Marxists like Gramsci and Lenin. Also Edward Said (for Orientalism), and maybe Gayatri Spivak (for subaltern studies) or Walter Benjamin as (usually for his essay On the Concept of History). Economists tend to crop up a lot - so Smith and Schumpeter, to start. I could go on, but this list is obviously biased toward my interests in Europe and imperialism.

Typically Americanists need to know at least one foreign language, and they typically choose an easy European one (say, Spanish or French). This isn't as burdensome as you might think: I bet with minimal practice or even not you might be able to pass a requisite reading exam in French - being able to translate something with the aid of a dictionary is usually what a department requires.