Applications 2019

[joebobthebumbo]

8 minutes ago, ipavineri said:

Nervously waiting here too! Curious, where have you applied?

Stanford, Northwestern, Columbia, Yale, Duke, Berkeley, Michigan, and Harvard. What about you?

[fordlandia]

1 minute ago, joebobthebumbo said:

Stanford, Northwestern, Columbia, Yale, Duke, Berkeley, Michigan, and Harvard. What about you?

We share Northwestern - I"m also applying to UT Austin, NYU and New Mexico.

[joebobthebumbo]

@ipavineri Best of luck to you!

[fordlandia]

1 hour ago, joebobthebumbo said:

@ipavineri Best of luck to you!

Same to you! Have you heard anything from your POI at Northwestern about interviews and decisions timelines?

[joebobthebumbo]

2 hours ago, ipavineri said:

Same to you! Have you heard anything from your POI at Northwestern about interviews and decisions timelines?

Nope..radio silence from them so far.

[dauery]

This post is inspired by the recent updates to the GC Results page, especialy those results pertaining to Yale's program. Filtering the results page by "history" reveals that 4 Fall 2019 History PhD applicants have posted about being contacted by their POI for an interview. The first of these 4 was contacted on January 7th, the second on January 11 and the third and fourth today, January 17. The last of these 4 included a comment about their POI saying that receiving an offer to interview "was standard routine for the most promising candidates." I am guessing that more people than just these 4 got interview offers in the past couple of weeks, but they just didnt post about it. 

Does this suggest that most of the "most promising candidates" have already been contacted for an interview? Yales own PhD admisions statistics page shows that about 30 offers go out every year to history PhD applicants. It's not unreasonable to think that besides the 4 who posted, another 20+ people were contacted for interviews, but we haven't seen those on the Results page because they didn't post them, aren't GC members/lurkers, etc. 

It would be great if past applicants to Yale's History program could respond with their own interview experiences or the experiences of those they know. If you got an interview, when were you contacted for it? Were you ultimately accepted or rejected? If you were accepted, did almost everyone else in your cohort get an interview? 

[Tigla]

18 minutes ago, dauery said:

It would be great if past applicants to Yale's History program could respond with their own interview experiences or the experiences of those they know. If you got an interview, when were you contacted for it? Were you ultimately accepted or rejected? If you were accepted, did almost everyone else in your cohort get an interview? 

Interviews are a good sign, but not a guarantee that you will receive a letter of admission. Also, some universities do not interview and some POIs may choose not to interview. From my experiences of last cycle, I was interviewed and placed on wait-lists which could mean that I flunked the interview, my POI chose not to push my application, or (more likely) I did not convince the admissions committee to offer me an acceptance letter. If you are not interviewed by a school, then try not to stress out. The admission process is really starting up this week/next week as professors return from vacations. Hang in there! We have only 4-6 weeks to go!

[Sigaba]

Rather than attempting to read the tea leaves of a process that is now beyond one's control, please consider the benefits of managing your stress by

• assuming that you're going to get into a program somewhere and somewhen;
• accepting the fact that all of you are already historians because you are focused on the study of change over time;
• understanding that the majority of what you learn as a historian will be self-taught (for better and for worse);
• realizing that nothing is stopping you from learning more about the craft while you wait for the results of a truly grueling process with moments of pain and even despair.

Even if you don't know which continent or century or nation or event or dynamic will be at the center of your endeavors, there are still shelves and shelves of books, monographs, periodicals, and unpublished works that are waiting for you. The essential reads, the books that change everything, the works "one ignores at one's peril," the literary masterpieces, the methodological trainwrecks, the prize winners, the memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies of key academics--they are waiting for you.

Believe it or not, in a couple of years, many of you will be dealing with stress and intellectual challenges and personal crises that will make you think of your present circumstances with wistful yearning. Now is a good time to start building up the skills and resources and resilience that will serve you well in those ghastly moments of terror that come when preparing for qualifying exams. 

[historygeek]

I was talking to my thesis advisor today, and he said that top programs (Harvard, for example) are really cutting down how many applicants get accepted (he said from 20 to about 6). Does anyone happen to know the validity of this?

In happier news, I picked up my first grant check today!

[OHSP]

44 minutes ago, dauery said:

It would be great if past applicants to Yale's History program could respond with their own interview experiences or the experiences of those they know. If you got an interview, when were you contacted for it? Were you ultimately accepted or rejected? If you were accepted, did almost everyone else in your cohort get an interview? 

I know that in the past not everyone was interviewed, and I suspect that's still the case--a few years ago I had a call and a conversation about how the department's previous strengths in my field were no longer going to be their strengths because pretty much all the relevant faculty were in the process of either retiring or leaving, which I hadn't known about, and a chat about how much that mattered to me (it mattered quite a lot). Unsurprisingly was not offered a place but at that point didn't really want one. At least two friends accepted to the school (neither of them ended up attending) were not interviewed and had no contact with POIs until after they received their acceptance. 

[OHSP]

9 minutes ago, historygeek said:

I was talking to my thesis advisor today, and he said that top programs (Harvard, for example) are really cutting down how many applicants get accepted (he said from 20 to about 6). Does anyone happen to know the validity of this?

Yup. This is a nation wide thing. NYU is admitting a much smaller cohort (it's typically been about 20, including about 6-7 people in joint programs). It's largely about funding--mellon grants etc etc 

[historygeek]

Just now, OHSP said:

Yup. This is a nation wide thing. NYU is admitting a much smaller cohort (it's typically been about 20, including about 6-7 people in joint programs). It's largely about funding--mellon grants etc etc 

That’s what I figured! I know that, when I talked to the program director at Loyola Chicago, she said that they only admit however many applicants they can fund— this year, that means 3. Hopefully I can be one of the three! ? 

[dauery]

27 minutes ago, historygeek said:

I was talking to my thesis advisor today, and he said that top programs (Harvard, for example) are really cutting down how many applicants get accepted (he said from 20 to about 6).

20 to 6 is such a steep cut. What would prompt such a drastic slashing this year, as opposed to last, or as opposed to a gradual decline over several years?

[OHSP]

17 minutes ago, dauery said:

20 to 6 is such a steep cut. What would prompt such a drastic slashing this year, as opposed to last, or as opposed to a gradual decline over several years?

Dramatic funding cuts and proposed funding cuts across the board. Politics. Etc. Trust people who are currently in programs that funding has been severely cut across the board. Once-guaranteed 6th years have disappeared, and so future cohort numbers are being reduced. 

[dauery]

Thank you for the info. I am unfortunately not up on the news about the funding cuts. I knew the cuts have been happening for some time, but I did not think they would pick up so dramatically from last year to now. I thought that at worst acceptances would steadily go down from one year to the next. I guess we 2019 applicants are just very unlucky to be applying when the number of spots have so severely plumeted. 

[oikos]

Having a hard time believing Harvard would cut to just six admits? They will need cheap labor (i.e. TAs), unless way too many came the past couple of years...

[dr. t]

1 hour ago, oikos said:

They will need cheap labor (i.e. TAs), unless way too many came the past couple of years...

1) Their TAs are unionized

2) Their TAs don't have contractual teaching obligations IIRC

[The Last Byzantine]

For what it's worth, when I met the director of Graduate Studies while visiting Harvard (he's who I'm hoping for as an advisor) he maintained that they were taking about 20ish people in the program. This was in late October. Perhaps something has drastically changed since then, but every other professor I met was very upfront about the possibility that the cohort might be downsized but he said nothing of the sort. 

Edited January 18, 2019 by The Last Byzantine

[psstein]

13 hours ago, Tigla said:

Interviews are a good sign, but not a guarantee that you will receive a letter of admission. Also, some universities do not interview and some POIs may choose not to interview. From my experiences of last cycle, I was interviewed and placed on wait-lists which could mean that I flunked the interview, my POI chose not to push my application, or (more likely) I did not convince the admissions committee to offer me an acceptance letter. If you are not interviewed by a school, then try not to stress out. The admission process is really starting up this week/next week as professors return from vacations. Hang in there! We have only 4-6 weeks to go!

I've said this about a trillion times before, but I interviewed with a top HoS program, did fairly well, and still didn't get in. How do I know I did well? The department chair told me the amount of stipend I'd receive.

Unless you're applying to an institution that explicitly interviews (e.g. MIT's history, anthropology, technology, and science program), you shouldn't read anything into the interview claims. Moreover, don't put too much trust in the results postings themselves.

13 hours ago, historygeek said:

I was talking to my thesis advisor today, and he said that top programs (Harvard, for example) are really cutting down how many applicants get accepted (he said from 20 to about 6). Does anyone happen to know the validity of this?

In happier news, I picked up my first grant check today!

It's definitely true. Despite the relative growth of the stock market, there are increased concerns about the long-term future of the profession (some of which, IMO, are the result of hyper-specialization, but that's a different story). Moreover, humanities is experiencing funding cuts across the board. In Wisconsin, UW- Stevens Point, which is a satellite campus, cut 12 departments as a cost saving measure. There are rumors floating around that private colleges (e.g. Hampshire) may have to close. It's a bit of a black time for higher education.

On a practical note, I've heard that Ivy departments are considering fewer acceptances than usual. I imagine Harvard is a bit more immune to that than others. In Wisconsin, though, there's hope that the current executive will be far more friendly to the UW system than his predecessor.

12 hours ago, dauery said:

Thank you for the info. I am unfortunately not up on the news about the funding cuts. I knew the cuts have been happening for some time, but I did not think they would pick up so dramatically from last year to now. I thought that at worst acceptances would steadily go down from one year to the next. I guess we 2019 applicants are just very unlucky to be applying when the number of spots have so severely plumeted. 

This has already sort of happened. Admissions for PhDs transformed about 10-15 years ago from "admit many, fund a handful" to "admit a handful and fund them all." Cohort sizes for, say, 2015, were significantly smaller than those for 2007.

[TMP]

Start subscribing to Inside Higher Ed if you haven't.  All of these funding cut news don't surprise me though I'm very skeptical at the claim that Harvard cut down from 20 to 6.  Although my program has very slowly reduce the cohort size (from 20 to 15), the University just told us, one more cut.  Whee.

As for @Sigaba's comment...  this is only the beginning of many, many funding cycles you'll go through.  How am I killing time as I await my writing fellowship news? (Deadlines were back in October/December... for March/April announcements)  By reading, reading, reading,  And oh, writing.  Days go by. Get lost in the past.

[gsc]

45 minutes ago, TMP said:

All of these funding cut news don't surprise me though I'm very skeptical at the claim that Harvard cut down from 20 to 6.  

I agree with TMP; a cohort of 6 seems unlikely. Programs are very sensitive to adjusting cohort sizes. In the short term, if you reduce it too drastically, you won’t be able to fill out a class or seminar, and the life of the department can suffer. In the long term, you’ll have fewer people graduating from the program. Unless you’re an Ivy or an elite public school and your school’s brand is already assured, fewer graduates means fewer people representing the program in the profession. Less representation means less name recognition and its attendant benefits.

Edited January 18, 2019 by gsc

[ashiepoo72]

Agree it's unlikely Harvard cut its cohorts so drastically, mostly because it's private and well-funded--but it's not impossible for top programs to do so, considering Berkeley cut its cohort by more than half last application season.

[psstein]

15 minutes ago, ashiepoo72 said:

Agree it's unlikely Harvard cut its cohorts so drastically, mostly because it's private and well-funded--but it's not impossible for top programs to do so, considering Berkeley cut its cohort by more than half last application season.

My understanding is that the UC system is under some significant financial stress.

[ashiepoo72]

2 hours ago, psstein said:

My understanding is that the UC system is under some significant financial stress.

The UC is always having significant financial stress, unfortunately. My department also started accepting fewer people about 8 years ago. Let's just say that, even with that in mind, Berkeley's cut in cohort size is extreme. 

[elx]

On 1/18/2019 at 9:16 PM, ashiepoo72 said:

Agree it's unlikely Harvard cut its cohorts so drastically, mostly because it's private and well-funded--but it's not impossible for top programs to do so, considering Berkeley cut its cohort by more than half last application season.

I don't know how to feel about these cuts. It'll be easier to accept a rejection with this in mind, but also, hot damn, cutting half a cohort? From 20 to 6? I knew a humanities PhD wasn't the safest aspiration when getting into this, but by 2020, will there even be new cohorts? By what time are people going to stop applying because admission rates will be down to 0.5%?