2021 Application Thread

[OHSP]

On 11/9/2020 at 8:08 AM, OHSP said:

**If you DM me I will send you my SoP from 2017. I'm not sure you've seen enough examples and that might help. 

Just an FYI that I was only offering this for the OP, otherwise it's too much sharing of my own info. If you want advice from the people on this forum I do recommend posting on the forum -- I understand the urge to lurk but you may as well ask advice, and that way people are more likely to chat about your application in DMs as a follow up to your post.  

Edited November 15, 2020 by OHSP

[Sleepless in skellefteå]

Does anyone in here have any general advice for writing a 500 word Statement of Purpose? What would be the parts that gets cut from a 1000 one? 

[AP]

On 11/14/2020 at 12:19 AM, KenzieUT said:

Anyone getting little-to-no response from POIs? Should I be worried? Only one prof responded by saying they will respond at the end of Nov.

We are overwhelmed with figuring out how our departments will look like next year, with burned out undergrads also struggling with mental health issues, with domestic responsibilities, with re-structuring entire courses (no, teaching online is not easier), with isolation, with the uncertainty of our research (i.e. our production, i.e. our job security). So, I'm sorry to tell you that an email from a potential student is not a top priority right now. 

Edited November 16, 2020 by AP

[TMP]

On 11/16/2020 at 6:00 AM, Sleepless in skellefteå said:

Does anyone in here have any general advice for writing a 500 word Statement of Purpose? What would be the parts that gets cut from a 1000 one? 

Without even seeing the structure of your SOP, it's hard to even suggest.  If you had to give a 2 minute elevator speech, what would you say exactly?

[exitiumax]

I've seen and received so much wonderful help here over the past few months. Huge shoutout to @pssteinwho offered insight on one particular program, @TMPwho helped me in navigating the application process generally, and @APwho was kind enough to offer me feedback on my SoP.

 

I'm just about done with all of my application materials. I'm making last minute revisions to my SoP (on top of those @APsuggested), particularly the section(s) that deal with my research interests and research questions. The Berkeley example is phenomenal and yet the writer was utilizing her past experience researching the same topic and rolling that into her SoP. My circumstance is not quite the same, so I was wondering if anyone would be willing to offer some additional feedback.

 

In particular, I'm curious whether or not my two paragraphs are redundant or if they're useful in explaining and contextualizing my interest and questions. Getting an Americanists insight on my questions would be incredibly helpful, too. Last piece before submissions! Thanks!

Edited November 18, 2020 by exitiumax

[dr. t]

General advice: each sentence needs to do something. You do not have the space for signposting that does not also move your narrative forward. Also: you must have a narrative.

NB: a list of your accomplishments is not a narrative.

[kchistory]

As we're getting closer to application deadlines, I wanted to check in with everyone applying this cycle. Which schools did you end up applying to? How are you all feeling about the process and yourselves?

I'm applying to all California schools: UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and USC. I'm feeling overwhelmed (still haven't finish all my applications), but also really proud of myself for going through this process during such a stressful and uncertain time. While I know that this is going to be a particularly competitive application season, I am thankful I didn't get discouraged and give up. 

I hope everyone is able to acknowledge the awesome thing that we've done. It is not easy to put yourself out there and we have certainly done just that. Congrats! 

[crunchyfallleaves]

Maybe this is a stupid question, but is it standard when applying to PhD programs to also apply for financial aid? Or are fellowships/teaching assistantships as a rule different and administered separately. Like those things are different from work-study, yes?

[dr. t]

Generally, no. If a program does not offer full tuition remission and stipend support upon acceptance, it is not a program worth attending. 

[Sleepless in skellefteå]

16 hours ago, kchistory said:

As we're getting closer to application deadlines, I wanted to check in with everyone applying this cycle. Which schools did you end up applying to? How are you all feeling about the process and yourselves?

 

I am applying to Georgetown, Columbia/LSE, British Columbia, Toronto, Harvard Divinity and Chicago Divinity. So far, the process has definitely had its ups and downs. For a moment, I felt like I kind of ''overread'' on advice regarding the Statement of Purpose which created a lot of writers block, but now I am back on track again and all my deadlines are in early January, so I have time. I am also working on my bachelor thesis and is trying to divide my time appropriately. But similarly to you, I am proud that I am going through with it and I am feel like I have learnt a lot! What is your main field of interest? 

[d1389jjch]

I have attend a session held by MAPH and they have provided a application fee waiver code. Feel free to dm me if anyone is intrested. 

Good luck for everyone's application!

[coffeehum]

Is it advisable to write an abstract or some kind of introduction to your writing sample if it is a portion of a larger thesis/article? I've received conflicting advice from my professors and I'd appreciate additional perspectives. I feel that the sample I'm using stands on its own, but it is a portion of my thesis and I wonder if it'd be good to explain how it fits into that larger project. Apologies if this matter has already been addressed.

Best of luck to everyone finishing up applications this month.

[aluminum_moonbeam]

Hi all, I've just found this thread but have spent the past few days reading through and it's been very insightful.

A few weeks ago I had a call with a professor at a school that I'd been considering applying to. I contacted him over email and he suggested talking over Zoom. However, now that I'm working on my applications more and looking at other professors in the department more in depth, I'm realizing the number of professors working in his historical field is very small in the history department but that there are others who are also working on these topics/this subfield in other departments (particularly anthropology). Is it a faux pas to mention interest in other departments (or even a specific professor in a different department) at a university when applying to a history program? I would imagine interdisciplinary studies are always good and that fit with an overall school (and not just a specific program) is important but I also know it'll be the history professors who review my application.

[HRL]

On 11/16/2020 at 8:41 AM, AP said:

We are overwhelmed with figuring out how our departments will look like next year, with burned out undergrads also struggling with mental health issues, with domestic responsibilities, with re-structuring entire courses (no, teaching online is not easier), with isolation, with the uncertainty of our research (i.e. our production, i.e. our job security). So, I'm sorry to tell you that an email from a potential student is not a top priority right now. 

I'm actually quite surprised at how many professors I've heard back from, all things considered. 

That said, I do have a number of schools with fast-approaching 12/1 deadlines where I would not apply if certain POIs would not be taking students (and have some calls I'm really not sure about in the absence of confirming whether certain profs are taking new students - at one such school, my 2 main people are in their early 70s). 

Given everything on faculty's plate right now, would you advise even sending a follow-up a few weeks after the original email (and about a week and a half before the deadline)? If so, how would you recommend wording the email to be least invasive/obnoxious? 

Is this...too direct?: 

 

Dear Professor ____, 

 

I hope this email finds you well and anticipating a restful holiday break. I just wanted to quickly follow up on my email from a few weeks ago. I am hoping to confirm whether you are taking on new students next year before I submit my PhD application to _____ to work with you. 

 

Best, 

____

[AP]

3 hours ago, HRL said:

I'm actually quite surprised at how many professors I've heard back from, all things considered. 

That said, I do have a number of schools with fast-approaching 12/1 deadlines where I would not apply if certain POIs would not be taking students (and have some calls I'm really not sure about in the absence of confirming whether certain profs are taking new students - at one such school, my 2 main people are in their early 70s). 

Given everything on faculty's plate right now, would you advise even sending a follow-up a few weeks after the original email (and about a week and a half before the deadline)? If so, how would you recommend wording the email to be least invasive/obnoxious? 

Is this...too direct?: 

 

Dear Professor ____, 

 

I hope this email finds you well and anticipating a restful holiday break. I just wanted to quickly follow up on my email from a few weeks ago. I am hoping to confirm whether you are taking on new students next year before I submit my PhD application to _____ to work with you. 

 

Best, 

____

My response was to someone asking why professors hadn't responded, I wasn't saying that no one is responding. (I am answering emails, for instance). 

Re: follow-up emails, absolutely. I think the wording is fine, and I'd recommend attaching the original email as well. 

[Sigaba]

On 11/21/2020 at 7:46 PM, coffeehum said:

Is it advisable to write an abstract or some kind of introduction to your writing sample if it is a portion of a larger thesis/article? I've received conflicting advice from my professors and I'd appreciate additional perspectives. I feel that the sample I'm using stands on its own, but it is a portion of my thesis and I wonder if it'd be good to explain how it fits into that larger project. Apologies if this matter has already been addressed.

Best of luck to everyone finishing up applications this month.

Were I in your situation, I'd make an effort to write an efficient introduction that contextualizes the writing sample both within the relevant historiography as well as the larger thesis/article.

For examples on how this task has been done in the past, I would grab one or two very influential works by historians and see how they went from doctoral dissertation to featured article in a journal to published work.

(J.C.A. Stagg's Mr. Madison's War (1983), may be worth a look if you're an Americanist.)

[Dogukan93]

Greetings!

I hope all the community members are fine and well in these difficult times.

I am thinking about applying to Berkeley and Michigan's history phd programs. To write a catching and striking sop, I thought referring to a book that has highly influenced my area of interest and previous master's thesis would be a good idea. So, in the very first sentence I wrote:

"While I was researching for my master’s thesis last summer, I ran into a book, “Export Empire”[1] that made me ask new questions about the historical issues in which I am interested. The author explains how..."

 

I continue by explaining what the contribution of this particular book is, the way it inspires me and how the area that it opened inspires me to contribute to this recently-emerged area.

My aim is to directly catch the readers' attention and keep their interest in reading my material alive until the end. And I just wanted to find out what you guys think of such an opening in the sop. If you interested, I can also send you the entire text via dm. Thanks in advance!

 

[Sigaba]

On 11/25/2020 at 10:48 PM, Dogukan93 said:

"While I was researching for my master’s thesis last summer, I ran into a book, “Export Empire”[1] that made me ask new questions about the historical issues in which I am interested. The author explains how..."

I continue by explaining what the contribution of this particular book is, the way it inspires me and how the area that it opened inspires me to contribute to this recently-emerged area.

BLUF: I would not recommend discussing this specific work  as you propose unless you are confident enough to center your "chances" of acceptance around your understanding of the book's value to ongoing historiographical debates.

Based upon a cursory glance, Export Empire seems like an enviable work of scholarship that moves the needle. However, what's fashionably called "soft power" has a concept often explored and hotly debated among historians studying diplomatic, military, and naval history for decades--particularly (but far from exclusively) Americanists.

If you're going to mention this work, I recommend that you make clear that it raises questions that are new to you and, maybe, a contingent of scholars studying modern German history. (I would be especially careful if your intention is to work with Ogle or Connelly at Cal. 

I would also recommend that you extend the breadth of your research on "soft power" so that you have a working understanding of ongoing historiographical debates on both sides of the Atlantic and their relationship to contemporaneous discourse on policy, especially if "soft power" broadly conceived is not the forest you want to roam.

As an alternative, your discussion of Export Empire could be very constrained: the book caught your attention and, for the moment, offers a provisional roadmap of the territory you want to explore and how you want to travel and, in the right program, you may be able to move the needle in a debate of enduring importance in modern history.

Which ever course of action you select, I think it is imperative that you absolutely nail your summary of the Export Empire by providing no more than two sentences that answer the questions: what is the book about? and why is it important?

$0.02.

 

Edited November 27, 2020 by Sigaba

[Dogukan93]

Dear Sigaba,

Thank you sooo much for your detailed comment. Albeit knowing that the term has long been used in the American historiography, it has never been utilized in my field of study,i.e. Turco-German Relations in the 1920s and 1930s. I actually benefited from the term a lot when writing my ma thesis as it enlightened my way about what to look at. So, I thought this concept can still be drawn on in this field of investigation, but , of course, there are other main theories that my work drew on.

 

Similarly, the book is essential for my study not only because of soft power's implementation into the context that I would like to work on, but also that it shows the Balkans played a crucial role in suppliyng Germany with required raw materials, which enabled Nazis to equip the German army well enough on the eve of WW2. Hence, by starting from the author's claim, I try to show that Turkey was also part of this German "large economic zone" (which the book does not investigate as its scope is limited to Yugoslavia and Romania). And aside from saying what it discusses and how it made me suspect Turkey's probable involvement in all these, I do not discuss the book in my entire SoP. Of course if you have time and are interested, I can pm you the entire text. But you have already helped me a lot, so thank you

[Sigaba]

11 hours ago, Dogukan93 said:

Turco-German Relations in the 1920s and 1930s

Be careful. Unless your German is excellent and you know the historiography like the back of your hand, using a word like "never" can be a costly mistake, all the more since it is an avoidable one.
 

[TsarandProphet]

44 minutes ago, Sigaba said:

Be careful. Unless your German is excellent and you know the historiography like the back of your hand, using a word like "never" can be a costly mistake, all the more since it is an avoidable one.
 

I agree. Also, adding my two cents as a Balkanist: none of what you wrote here strikes me as very new. Sure, it is not the "classic" narrative, but Balkanists have been working along these lines for at least the past few years. 

[Sigaba]

3 minutes ago, TsarandProphet said:

I agree. Also, adding my two cents as a Balkanist: none of what you wrote here strikes me as very new. Sure, it is not the "classic" narrative, but Balkanists have been working along these lines for at least the past few years. 

And also... 

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sanantonio/obituary.aspx?n=michael-william-rollin&pid=194224408&fhid=5701

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/5202/

 Keep in mind that you've got the nucleus of a strong statement of purpose. You've identified the needle you want to move (at least provisionally). Overstating the "newness" of the needle may not be as beneficial as you indicating that you have a sense of where that needle fits on a branch on a tree in a forest.

[TMP]

5 hours ago, Sigaba said:

Be careful. Unless your German is excellent and you know the historiography like the back of your hand, using a word like "never" can be a costly mistake, all the more since it is an avoidable one.
 

Indeed... just because Germany was immediately demilitarized after it collaborated with the Ottomans during the Great War (including witnessing the genocide), Germany had other ways of maintaining ties with Turkey and that's where "soft" power comes in. Make sure you're asking questions that are interesting to you drawing from what you've been learning. No one needs to know more than a sentence or two about a book that was influential to you.  I'd just want one line and if I was particularly interested, I'd look it up myself but in general, readers in your field will *know* about a lot of scholarship that has been published, even if only cursory. They are the ones who are going to make the case for your admissions to the general committee if they want you.

[bakeseal]

Some eleventh hour application anxieties: I ended up cutting back on the number of schools I'm applying to, largely because many schools near the top of my list (NYU, Penn, and Minnesota) aren't accepting applications this year (my interest, FWIW is in late nineteenth century US history of food and nutritional advice, esp during disease outbreaks. My recent focus is on Irish immigrant communities, but I'm not applying as an Irish historian). I felt like it wasn't worth applying to respectable but lower ranked schools I was less interested in if I felt I even had a chance at acceptance into one of those programs next year. So, right now I'm planning to submit applications for four top programs (Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley, and JHU), figuring that I could live with rejections from those programs because they're so competitive, but have as good a shot as any dedicated student with a decent CV. I'm also applying for some long-shot funding for a masters in Irish History abroad, though I was already rejected this year from the Marshall and Mitchell so I'm trying to keep my expectations in check.

I have spent the past several months trying to stick to my plan and not get bogged down by depressing stats. Now that I'm really staring down these deadlines and looking towards next year, I am increasingly freaked out at the prospect of potential unemployment+a slate of PhD rejections. Have I made a terrible mistake? Is it worth throwing another application or two out there, or should I focus on another batch of revisions to my existing SOPs and writing sample? 

Would love to hear any last minute advice/commiserations/etc, if anyone has any thoughts. 

[coffeehum]

1 hour ago, bakeseal said:

Some eleventh hour application anxieties: I ended up cutting back on the number of schools I'm applying to, largely because many schools near the top of my list (NYU, Penn, and Minnesota) aren't accepting applications this year (my interest, FWIW is in late nineteenth century US history of food and nutritional advice, esp during disease outbreaks. My recent focus is on Irish immigrant communities, but I'm not applying as an Irish historian). I felt like it wasn't worth applying to respectable but lower ranked schools I was less interested in if I felt I even had a chance at acceptance into one of those programs next year. So, right now I'm planning to submit applications for four top programs (Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley, and JHU), figuring that I could live with rejections from those programs because they're so competitive, but have as good a shot as any dedicated student with a decent CV. I'm also applying for some long-shot funding for a masters in Irish History abroad, though I was already rejected this year from the Marshall and Mitchell so I'm trying to keep my expectations in check.

I have spent the past several months trying to stick to my plan and not get bogged down by depressing stats. Now that I'm really staring down these deadlines and looking towards next year, I am increasingly freaked out at the prospect of potential unemployment+a slate of PhD rejections. Have I made a terrible mistake? Is it worth throwing another application or two out there, or should I focus on another batch of revisions to my existing SOPs and writing sample? 

Would love to hear any last minute advice/commiserations/etc, if anyone has any thoughts. 

Sorry to hear about the recent rejections. I am also finding the end of this application season to be fairly miserable. Most of the programs I'm applying to will be accepting fewer students this year, my recommenders and other mentors haven't been able to provide much feedback on my materials (understandably so), and I am finding problem after problem every time I review my SoPs. Like you, I'm also beginning to panic at the very real possibility of getting rejected from all of my programs.

I've also contemplated throwing in a few additional applications (applying for 5 programs), but I think our best shot at this point has to be focusing on in-progress applications. I have found throughout this cycle and other application processes that the last-minute adrenaline is best channeled into honing what I *really* mean and achieving as much clarity in structure/word choice as is possible.

Just my 2 cents, and I apologize for being a complete downer.