jaw17

FWIW, I know someone who was accepted at Harvard (Population & International Health, in HSPH), Johns Hopkins (International Health) and University of Washington (Health Services) on Friday. For those of you who applied to Harvard Health Policy, did you have interviews? I know that at least one person interviewed with the management track, but I am desperately hoping that is by concentration rather than program wide.

Wow, congrats! Were you contacted by the program administrator or a professor in your field (e.g. have most/all accepted folks been notified, or just in certain areas)? I had heard that it's incredibly unlikely that the Eurasian field at UMich will take anyone this year after a higher-than-expected yield in 2007, but had been holding out some lingering irrational hope...

Minnesotan - please don't! I think that public health is a tricky one to categorize; it would never occur to me, for example, to check life sciences. Government, maybe, even economics (given my focus), but science? Never. Obviously, that may not be the case for the OP, who may be more epi-focused than policy-oriented, but I think that this poor little thread has been homeless for a reason...

I'm about half a degree over from public health - I've applied for PhD's in health policy and economics (primarily Harvard and UPenn/Wharton). I interviewed at the latter on Thursday, so have my fingers crossed, but no final decisions yet. I specialize in the supply of essential medical technologies for developing countries - what about you? And where are you going overseas?!?

With husband out of town, I have far too much alone time on my hands to agonize over his admissions prospects. (My own are in limbo following an interview at UPenn last week and an outstanding email to the program administrator at Harvard.) So I figure now is the perfect time to pose a few questions about the history process that have been nagging at me: 1) What is the relative importance of the application materials? Much of the discussion here seems to be focused on GPA/GRE and the SoP, but I had previously been under the impression that a primary source-based writing sample was actually the most important factor. Is that true, and where do LoRs fit in? 2) Does eligibility for FLAS funds appreciably increase the odds of admission? It stands to reason that a department could much more easily admit an additional student at the margins if the bill doesn't come out of their own budget. 3) How much does the overall department ranking matter (for placements, etc.) vs. work with specific scholars? I am particularly interested in the case of Georgetown, which is ranked below most of the other programs discussed here, presumably because of its relatively weak American history field. Is it still regarded on the lower end of the spectrum in, say, Russian or Asian fields? 4) Where else have people heard from? Go ahead, I warmly invite you to crush my hopes and dreams - better that than the suspense! So far, hubby has just heard from Georgetown (accepted), and based on the results boards I am assuming that "no news is bad news" as far as Stanford and Harvard. But what about Princeton, UPenn, Columbia, NYU, UMich and/or Washington - any word?

Forget Monday - apparently even Saturday is fair game! After my original post, my husband received an acceptance email. Clearly it was silly of me to think that professors behaved according to the regular workweek, let alone holidays.

Thanks for the inside info! What is your subfield? (Husband's is Soviet/Central Asian history.) I'd also be curious to know whether you think you'll end up at G-Town and what "full funding" actually looks like in $$$ terms, if that's not too intrusive. Where else are you waiting to hear from? And don't forget to post over on the results board to satisfy the curiosity/stoke the anxiety of all the historians who aren't haunting the boards :wink:

Well, so much for the long weekend hypothesis. My husband just received the following email from a Georgetown professor: "I do not have your phone number, so can you call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. I have some good news for you!" I can only take that to mean one thing. Unfortunately, though, said husband is currently off ice climbing until Monday... Actually, on second thought it could mean two things - this prof wrote all of his LORs, so in addition to/instead of a likely G-Town acceptance it's also possible that he had heard promising news from colleagues at the other schools where husband applied. Stupid ice climbing - the suspense is killing me!

Do most departments have Monday off for President's Day, or is it fair game for more acceptances/rejections?

Do most departments have Monday off for President's Day, or is it fair game for more acceptances/rejections?

Run away to Africa? Or maybe pop out a kid. At this particular moment, both seem somewhat more appealing than shelling out two years and $60k for a MA and then going through the whole damn process over again.

They actually have an algorithm for that used for medical residency placements (e.g. the "couples match"). Apparently its derived from mechanism design theory in economics, which won the 2007 Nobel Prize. Rumor has it that it does usually pull up the weaker partner rather than the other way around. However, the key difference there is that the funding comes from the same source. Somehow I don't see the incentives for UPenn history to accept husbers just to make Wharton happy...

No, not in the same field - I'm just a history groupie because my husband is too damn sane to read these boards of his own accord. I'm actually an international health policy/economics person, but since I'm apparently the only one on any of the admissions boards there is really no way to satisfy my own curiousity...and so I've pathetically resorted to tracking the history boards as a consolation prize. At least that way I can feel like I have some power (or at least knowledge!) over where we'll be living next year. I've got an interview at UPenn this week, and am desperately praying to the admissions gods that either Penn or Princeton will accept my husband too - another several years of long-distance really does not sound appealing at this stage in life, and I've never even dared to hope that we'd get matching tickets to Harvard. Does this make me sound as pathetic as I feel?

Just the interview at Wharton this Thursday (for Health Care Management and Economics). I think this discussion is slightly less dead over at Test Magic.

Oh, c'mon guys, cut cso162 some slack. I know that we're all stressed out about schools (especially those of us neurotic enough to be worrying about two people's sets of applications!), and so now of all times is probably not when we're spending the time and energy to word things carefully. S/he was clearly trying to share as much information as possible (which is one of the main functions of this board), not to deliberately and maliciously stomp on everyone's hopes and dreams. Yes, it would be great to try and capture as much nuance as possible to avoid misinterpretations, but frankly I'd rather have some news than no news. And I don't know about you, but I for one am not at my most articulate when I'm viscerally disappointed myself. So let's be offering our condolences about his/her rejection, not jumping down his/her throat for saying "all" instead of "most." And for those who would rather wait it out and see what comes in the mail than find these things out on the boards...well, why are you here? (Not a challenge, I'm genuinely curious.)

I second the request for info from the UPenn reject! I'm desperately hoping that my husband is accepted there (or - even less likely - Princeton) so I can attend my own dream program in Philly... Are they starting to notify everybody, or was this a one-off email from a specific professor?

They're not useless if you didn't major in history undergrad but belatedly realize your calling as a history professor - in that scenario, they're supposed to be a great way to improve your standing as a PhD candidate. If you're at all serious about it, check out Georgetown's Master of Arts in Global, International & Comparative History. (Yes, that's right - the MAGIC degree.) It's a 3-semester, semi-funded program in DC, and I gather that they're really looking to build up their environmental history component with a new professor and a full fellowship for PhDs in that area.

So far, I'd been so focused on getting to the interview stage that I hadn't paid much heed to what happens after that. Generally speaking, 1) what percentage of interviewed candidates are eventually admitted, and 2) how long is the time lag between the interview and final decisions? I'm sure that this varies tremendously by field, but any insight would be valuable!

So who is the Stanford applicant over on the results board....?

I just got off the phone with Wharton - they're inviting candidates for the Health Care Management and Economics program for in-person interviews on Feb. 14 or 15. Still doing the happy dance

Sounds like your friend was probably interviewing for MBA programs. I was just assuming that the OP was referring to interviews for business PhD programs...but that might just have been me projecting my own anxieties.

I saw on the TestMagic boards that someone heard from Kellogg earlier this week about an interview- no more info than that, though. Personally, I'm waiting impatiently on Wharton...

And yes, I realize that I am neurotic enough for the both of us. :oops:

Husband just received an email from the UPenn history department saying that they had never received one of his LORs and requesting that he have it emailed/faxed ASAP to their Soviet studies professor. Given UPenn's structure, this prof wouldn't actually be his likely advisor - he had applied to the transregional program to better integrate the Persian approach into his studies of Central Asia - and so I am trying to convince myself that this is a blessing in disguise. Am I deluding myself to interpret the request to mean that he's already made it past the first cut and is being seriously considered? On the other hand, it doesn't reflect well of UPenn's bureaucracy if his application could have made it so far along the process without anyone letting him know that it was incomplete...

University of Michigan or Michigan State? Either way, congrats!