2021 Application Thread

[sciencehistorian]

UPenn has closed all Arts & Sciences PhD admissions this year (picture from reddit).

Unless you want to pay for a PhD, I guess.

[AP]

13 hours ago, sciencehistorian said:

UPenn has closed all Arts & Sciences PhD admissions this year (picture from reddit).

Unless you want to pay for a PhD, I guess.

Though sad news, I agree it's the most responsible move in order to guarantee funding and support to current students. I'm very worried for international projects who still cannot travel abroad due to their own safety measures, country of destination COVID response, or lack of funding because school won't support international travel. These students will need more than a year to recover. 

[Sigaba]

9 hours ago, AP said:

 [International] students will need more than a year to recover. 

I agree. And at the same time I augur that there will those students who figure out how to use available, but limited resources and the COVID-19 related restrictions to do excellent work.

[psstein]

4 hours ago, Sigaba said:

I agree. And at the same time I augur that there will those students who figure out how to use available, but limited resources and the COVID-19 related restrictions to do excellent work.

Agreed. Just from my own experience, there are a lot of microfilmed/online materials that need studying. Seminar papers can turn into dissertation ideas quite easily... had I stayed in my program, one of mine would have.

[dr. t]

On 9/16/2020 at 6:59 PM, Sigaba said:

I agree. And at the same time I augur that there will those students who figure out how to use available, but limited resources and the COVID-19 related restrictions to do excellent work.

This, of course, favors the already-privileged. 

[Sigaba]

12 hours ago, telkanuru said:

This, of course, favors the already-privileged. 

The craft has almost always has favored those who could afford to think about the past and to gather primary source materials and to purchase secondary works.

Now, I think technology levels the field a bit, but this opinion is provincial. As an Americanist, I'm floored by the ever-expanding range of digitized government documents and archival sources freely available to all. The financial hurdles for access to journals are manageable. 

From a computing standpoint, memory, processing power, and software are inexpensive "force multipliers." 

The internet makes access to "how to" knowledge a bit more democratic as well.

To be clear, my comments should not be taken as advocacy for the "pull yourself up by your boot straps" mentality that wrongly reduces good fortune, random chance, and misfortune to a lack of motivation. I'm attempting to encourage aspiring graduate students to think of ways to use available resources creatively and ambitiously. Flexibility may also prove crucial -- a writing sample that makes use of what's available may prove more beneficial in the short run than one that suffers from lack of primary sources even though it's closer to one's research interests.

[AP]

20 hours ago, Sigaba said:

The craft has almost always has favored those who could afford to think about the past and to gather primary source materials and to purchase secondary works.

Now, I think technology levels the field a bit, but this opinion is provincial. As an Americanist, I'm floored by the ever-expanding range of digitized government documents and archival sources freely available to all. The financial hurdles for access to journals are manageable. 

From a computing standpoint, memory, processing power, and software are inexpensive "force multipliers." 

The internet makes access to "how to" knowledge a bit more democratic as well.

To be clear, my comments should not be taken as advocacy for the "pull yourself up by your boot straps" mentality that wrongly reduces good fortune, random chance, and misfortune to a lack of motivation. I'm attempting to encourage aspiring graduate students to think of ways to use available resources creatively and ambitiously. Flexibility may also prove crucial -- a writing sample that makes use of what's available may prove more beneficial in the short run than one that suffers from lack of primary sources even though it's closer to one's research interests.

Yes.

I've been telling graduate and undergraduate students alike the same thing: Anticipate that you may need to shift your project at some point. At least until November, we don't know if/when this crisis is going to end. We work with what we have. 

[AfricanusCrowther]

22 hours ago, Sigaba said:

Now, I think technology levels the field a bit, but this opinion is provincial. As an Americanist, I'm floored by the ever-expanding range of digitized government documents and archival sources freely available to all.

 

I'm glad you made this concession (in your similarly thoughtful post). For those of us who have based their proposed dissertations on rare manuscripts held in resource-poor institutions abroad or on extensive international fieldwork, our projects cannot be adapted to digital sources in an honest way. Those projects are over, and my friends who are in this position are looking for ways out. (I fortunately gathered enough archival materials in the months before the travel restrictions were put in place to write...something.)

[casqueye]

Okay so I applied to all of my P.h.D programs, and I'm looking to focus on American sports history in the 20th century, specifically fencing history. The kinesiology programs I applied to have sports history focuses which is why I applied to them. Here are the programs and my stats.

Programs

• University of Texas at Austin- P.h.D in Kinesiology 
• Penn State University- P.h.D in Kinesioloy
• Arizona State University- P.h.D in History
• Ohio State University- P.h.D in History
• Purdue University-P.h.D in History
• Michigan State University- P.h.D in History
• Wayne State University- Dual M.A. in Public History and Library and Information Sciences

Stats

• GPA-3.65
• Extracurriculars/jobs
  • Community Service
  • 4-time starter on Wayne State's varsity fencing team
  • Research assistant in the summer of 2020
  • Camp counselor in 2018 and 2019
  • Warrior Welcome Crew Member 2020
  • Warrior Safe is Warrior Strong Ambassador
• Awards/Honors
  • Inaugural recipient of the Byron Krieger Memorial Scholarship
  • Member of the Honors College
  • Member of Delta Alpha Phi German National Honors Society
  • Member of Phi Alpha Theta History National Honors Society
  • Wayne State Gold Scholarship Recipient

[dr. t]

On 9/18/2020 at 12:41 PM, Sigaba said:

The craft has almost always has favored those who could afford to think about the past and to gather primary source materials and to purchase secondary works.

Sure, but suddenly having to homeschool your kid, for example, is somewhat different that what came before. That new burden disproportionately affects women (in this example) - from the available evidence, it affects them all the way up the food chain.

So this is new, and if you find yourself able to be productive, as I have, it's one small blessing in a large shitpile.

[thisisnew]

On 9/5/2020 at 12:58 AM, telkanuru said:

With that many high-quality programs not accepting applicants this year, it's also a good idea to contemplate the fact that others are, and why that might be the case. 

"Reading between the lines" is certainly a skill imperative for grad school... but I can't quite piece together what you mean here. I see this as either a very spicy take or a modestly encouraging one (perhaps I'm just searching for some good news in 2020). Can you elaborate?

[AP]

2 hours ago, thisisnew said:

"Reading between the lines" is certainly a skill imperative for grad school... but I can't quite piece together what you mean here. I see this as either a very spicy take or a modestly encouraging one (perhaps I'm just searching for some good news in 2020). Can you elaborate?

Well, a reason can be that departments need grad students to exploit as cheap labor and TA/teach. So, it's not that they are ready to fully support them in the long run, is that they still them.

Edited September 22, 2020 by AP

[Sigaba]

9 minutes ago, AP said:

Well, a reason can be that departments need grad students to exploit as cheap labor and TA/teach. So, it's not that they are ready to fully support them in the long run, is that they still them.

Oh! The cynicism!

Another take is that programs that are not as highly ranked as they would like understand that they have the opportunity to get graduate students that would otherwise end up at Happyland University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then exploit them as cheap TA labor.

 

[dr. t]

3 hours ago, thisisnew said:

"Reading between the lines" is certainly a skill imperative for grad school... but I can't quite piece together what you mean here. I see this as either a very spicy take or a modestly encouraging one (perhaps I'm just searching for some good news in 2020). Can you elaborate?

It's not encouraging. Schools who have looked at the current situation and decided to take more graduate students either 

1) Have little connection to reality,
2) Can't function without grad student labor, or

3) Both.

[Sigaba]

9 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

It's not encouraging. Schools who have looked at the current situation and decided to take more graduate students either 

1) Have little connection to reality,
2) Can't function without grad student labor, or

3) Both.

There's a fourth possibility, albeit unlikely.  The Powers That Be have measured the risks of COVID-19 against the benefits of scoring better on KPI that are being used to determine future levels of internal and external funding for either the graduate school or the history department. In this scenario, there's an assumption that if they have to shut things down for the next flare up of COVID-19, that the graduate students will figure out how to work harder and get finished faster because they're a cut above previous classes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And during a COVID-19 lockdown they can be exploited as cheap RA labor.

[emhafe]

My university told departments to spread 1 cohort across 2 years to prevent a full year without acceptances. This information won't be publicized and I suspect will be common. The philosophy department at the university filled up all their slots for this fall and won't be able to take anyone until fall 2022. 

[histori041512]

Michigan is planning to accept some students for Fall 2021 but not a full cohort. No clue on how many students or for what areas. There were a lot of European historians in the Fall 2020 cohort so I am not sure if they plan to accept more in the coming year.

[Sigaba]

2 hours ago, histori041512 said:

Michigan is planning to accept some students for Fall 2021 but not a full cohort. No clue on how many students or for what areas. There were a lot of European historians in the Fall 2020 cohort so I am not sure if they plan to accept more in the coming year.

The number and areas of students could be driven by key performance indicators centered around revenue and expenses.

Do Americanists studying social history complete the program faster than Europeanists studying early modern intellectual history?

How many TAs will be needed if the department offers crowd favorite courses?

Which professors need to be nudged to supervise more dissertations to justify their continued employment?

Who among a group of applicants could provide a lot of "bang for the buck" because their interests will see them using other resources at Michigan and/or could be funded by other sources and/or could be dual hatted as a TA for other departments/programs?

What are the financial benefits of offering admissions to students who already live nearby? (Do applicants already familiar with Ann Arbor need less support?)

[HRL]

Hello all, 

I applied to PhD programs as an Americanist 2 years ago, was admitted to MA programs only, and proceeded with the UChicago MA. I just finished the MA program this fall and am looking to re-apply to PhDs this cycle, COVID notwithstanding. 

I've just been lurking on this thread thusfar but am joining in the conversation now in the hopes of finding out if anyone has an ear to the ground on UT or Northwestern's plans to admit a cohort or not this year. 

For UT, their admissions page for the History PhD program says the following:

**Given the current uncertainties of the pandemic, the Department of History is considering suspending or limiting admission for Fall 2021. No applications can be submitted at this time. An update will be posted here by early October 2020.**

For Northwestern, they have evidently not updated their admissions page since last year (all the dates noted on the page are for last year's cycle). So I reached out to the grad coordinator last week to ask if they are taking people this cycle. The response I got was the following:

"Thank you for your email. We will be providing an update on admissions for Fall 2021 in the next few weeks. Please check our website for updates."

Any insight/vague rumors anyone has on either school that they would be willing to share would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Sleepless in skellefteå]

I am having some issues regarding the Statement of Purpose for one of my programs (the Columbia & LSE M.A in world history). I have focused on how my undergrad research, course selection and extracurriculars have revolved around the history of  immigration in the early 20th century, thinking that it would benefit me to show my defined interests. However, in an video I just watched, a Professor involved in admissions states both that ''We want students who are interested in doing comparative and connected work across space and time, so people who are only interested in one country or time-period wont actually do well in applications'' as well as ''We are also looking for persons who have pretty well-developed research interests, an application that details what research the student wants to do will be stronger''. Does these mean that I might benefit from talking more about the general theme of immigration and less about specifics? One of the reasons I am excited about is that the program has a research cluster focused on the period 1900-1945 with several professors working on immigration. Maybe I have focused to narrowly on my fit for that specific section? 

[Sigaba]

1 hour ago, Sleepless in skellefteå said:

I am having some issues regarding the Statement of Purpose for one of my programs (the Columbia & LSE M.A in world history). I have focused on how my undergrad research, course selection and extracurriculars have revolved around the history of  immigration in the early 20th century, thinking that it would benefit me to show my defined interests. However, in an video I just watched, a Professor involved in admissions states both that ''We want students who are interested in doing comparative and connected work across space and time, so people who are only interested in one country or time-period wont actually do well in applications'' as well as ''We are also looking for persons who have pretty well-developed research interests, an application that details what research the student wants to do will be stronger''. Does these mean that I might benefit from talking more about the general theme of immigration and less about specifics? One of the reasons I am excited about is that the program has a research cluster focused on the period 1900-1945 with several professors working on immigration. Maybe I have focused to narrowly on my fit for that specific section? 

This reply is rushed.

Use your SOP to ell the story of how focusing on specific interests led you to consider broader themes -- how does focusing on a couple of trees in one forest help you to understand other forest and from there, a wider eco system. (Not my area of specialization so the following may insult you. Let's say you were focused on how Irish immigrants assimilated in America during a given decade. From that, can you imagine big picture questions that would impact other immigrants in other parts of the world and even different centuries? A bit more in my wheelhouse. If a student is focused on how the U.S. navy prepared to fight a general war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the student should be able to relay his or her findings to the broader themes of what was once known as "the New military history," if not also to the revolution in military affairs policy debates, and the historiography of the military revolution.)

As an initial step, I recommend that you consult journals that specialize in your area of interest. Look for state of the field historiographical essays that lay out themes. It is likely that many of the footnotes will include works that initially seem loosely connected, but I think that's what they're talking about. Pie in the sky, scholars in the programs you seek to join wrote one or more of these pieces.

[hfprospect20]

Anyone else here applying to human factors psychology/human computer interaction programs? 

[Sigaba]

24 minutes ago, mbat72 said:

Anyone else here applying to human factors psychology/human computer interaction programs? 

@mbat72 , welcome to the Grad Cafe. The following forum may a better match for your interests than this one. https://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/8-psychology/

 

[Sleepless in skellefteå]

Thank you, @Sigaba!

[exitiumax]

Are there any currently enrolled or graduated doctoral students/candidates willing to critique my SOP? I'm worried I'm not being clear enough about my research proposal/interests but I'm also worried about being too specific! It would be greatly appreciated . The topic is 20th century US History if that makes any difference. Thanks in advance!