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L13

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Everything posted by L13

  1. Sorry to hear about your rejection @khigh! I wish you the best of luck whichever path you choose from here.
  2. All JHU acceptances have gone out.
  3. That’s pretty tough. I don’t know much about archeology, but if it’s anything like manuscript studies, I assume German would be very helpful. On the other hand, virtually every European medievalist needs Latin... Are you thinking you’ll focus on an area where Old Norse was predominant? Honestly, I’d advise you to start learning both if possible.
  4. Just say you're actually really interested in the program and would love to attend. That's not presumptuous and people can usually detect and respond to sincere enthusiasm.
  5. In that case, try to focus on your thesis. The marginal utility of obsessing over the interview any further is bound to be smaller than the marginal utility of spending that time finishing your thesis. Good luck!
  6. None of the following is truly necessary IMO, but if you're feeling anxious and looking for ways to assert control over the interviewing process, here are some more productive ways to do it: Reread your statement of purpose carefully and, if you have the time, look over your writing sample to refresh your memory. Try to think of further questions that might arise from your statement of purpose and come up with potential answers. Jot down 2-3 questions you have about the program; interviewers usually ask if you have any questions for them and it looks good to say yes, so be prepared with backup questions in case the interviewer preempts the most obvious ones herself. Troubleshoot your Skype connection/video call software/communications technology before the actual interview, especially if you haven't used it in a while. Look at a list of medievalists and medievalist-adjacent scholars at Yale because their names may come up. Look at what the person who's going to be interviewing you has published recently and get a sense for where their career is going in terms of research interests. Big names sometimes swerve in new directions mid-career and it's good to be aware of that. Ultimately, remember that no matter how you interview, the decision is out of your hands, and may be out of your interviewer's hands as well. While it's usually easy to tell if you're interviewing with a department/POI that's already decided to accept/advocate for you because they'll try to sell you on the department instead of interrogating you about your research, every interview is a two-way sales pitch to some extent, so be prepared to take what you hear with a grain of salt. If the person who's interviewing you hastens to assuage a concern you didn't raise/haven't even thought of, that means lots of other people have brought it up.
  7. Good luck to the people who applied to Notre Dame! I had to turn down a spot there, but the impression I got from my interviews was that the medievalist faculty there is very nice and supportive. (Of course, I may be totally wrong about this because my exposure to the department was limited and controlled, plus the student I was put in touch with voiced some other issues she had with the university, but that's the impression I got.) A good departmental climate can really make a difference to your PhD experience.
  8. I did get into one of those schools and yes, the process is arbitrary and the odds are stacked against low-SES applicants.
  9. You get one free GRE score report if I'm not mistaken, but you have to specify the name of the school you're sending it to right after taking the test. From what I remember of the SAT, you got 4 free SAT score reports and they could be redeemed at any point. Even that would be a massive improvement on the GRE policy.
  10. I don't see a substantial difference between the Chicago and Brown letters.
  11. What do you mean by 'strengths and weaknesses'? Like, specific subfields or structural features of the department?
  12. No idea if anyone is still waiting on Johns Hopkins, but acceptances were sent out a while ago and the accepted applicants have already been invited for a visit. I'm not sure how the timeline for waitlist notifications works, though.
  13. The typos won't kill you unless there are many of them or you run into an especially pedantic adcom. That's the good (?) news. The bad news is that your writing sample is the most important component of your application, followed by your statement of purpose, followed by your recommendations, followed by everything else. If the people in charge of admitting you don't like your writing sample, your publications won't matter.
  14. I unwisely applied to two PhD programs as a senior last year, when I was busy with coursework, and was rejected by both. This is my second application cycle and I applied to five PhD programs without a master's degree and was accepted to two. There were some minor improvements to my application that must have amounted to a better package overall, but in all honesty I did not make fundamental changes to it because I got a job in June and was too busy/tired to devote much time to my applications in the subsequent months. I think I would have had a better chance of getting into some programs with a master's in hand, but I am nevertheless very happy with my results. JHU is the best fit for me considering my proposed dissertation topic and I managed to get accepted there, so I have absolutely no regrets. if you have the language skills you need and a good idea of what you want to do in grad school, your application can be competitive.
  15. It seems you should be asking yourself two questions, not one. First, do you take up UCLA's funded PhD offer, which you're not in love with, or do you pass on it in hopes that you'll get into a program you like more at a later point? Second, if you choose to re-apply to grad school later, do you get a (very likely unfunded) master's degree at Harvard or Yale first or not? Honestly, I think the answer to the second question is more obvious than the answer to the first. I would advise you against getting an unfunded master's under any circumstances. I also want to warn you against assuming an unfunded terminal master's degree from a given school would boost your chances of acceptance to the PhD at the same school. As for the first question, I think that's the one you need to think long and hard about. You need to weigh the potential utility of going to a school you like better than UCLA against the utility of going to UCLA, and decide if the difference is worth the risk of never getting an offer better than the one you'd give up. I think that even for a strong applicant, which I'm sure you are, the chance lightning will strike twice (i.e., the likelihood of acceptance to a programme as good as UCLA) is not very good. You just can't assume it will happen, considering how competitive graduate admissions are. I also think that you don't sound like you have a very good reason to be wary of going to UCLA, which indicates that going to a school you like more, e.g. Harvard, wouldn't confer some massive added benefit. Therefore, I don't think holding out for a different PhD acceptance at a later date would be worth turning down UCLA and going through the application process again. tl;dr: Go to UCLA.
  16. Take it as a pass/fail class. I can't pretend to know how graduate admissions committees think, but I'd be surprised if it was a problem.
  17. Ah, that makes sense. I edited my post to elaborate on that possibility a bit.
  18. Haha, yes, I don't understand why they consistently get the largest number of rejection notifications on GradCafe out of all history programs. If the ratio of reported results to applicants is roughly the same for most programs, they must get the most applicants out of any history program by far.
  19. Berkeley is so ridiculous, SMH...
  20. No idea if this is the case at UCSD, but history of science programs (and occasionally ancient history ones) tend to run their admission process separately from the history department.
  21. Oh no, don't apologize! You actually reminded me to check my status on their website, which I'd totally forgotten about. It hasn't changed yet, as far as I can tell. And thanks, everyone.
  22. Both.
  23. Yeah, that would be me. Super stoked! Did not expect to hear back so early (or to get in, really).
  24. Wisconsin-Madison also asks for an official physical copy, IIRC.
  25. Sorry for the delayed response, telkanuru. Very helpful post! I think I'll stick with UTK and Princeton--though your post prompted me to email WCJ and ask if he's open to taking on new students, which he confirmed--but I had no idea about the controversy surrounding Madden. Could you please elaborate on that? (Though I understand discussing stuff like this on the internet could be impolitic, so feel free not to respond.) Also thanks for the list of suggestions. I've actually thought about and eliminated Columbia, Berkeley and Chicago from my list--I even applied to Chicago last year, and got the MAPSS + full tuition remission consolation prize; I just don't think they have anyone there who'd really vibe with my interests--but I hadn't thought of Daniel Hobbins at ND. I've now added Notre Dame to my list, and will keep thinking about Toronto and OSU. I think it's hard for me to find potential advisors, especially in America--it's slightly easier in the UK, where, however, the competition for funding is absolutely ruthless--because I'm not as interested in monasticism as I should be. Anyway, thank you for the thought-provoking advice!
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