2021 Application Thread

[Historyman217]

4 hours ago, scarletwitch said:

So I guess those of us who haven’t heard from Berkeley (or don’t hear in the next week) should consider ourselves counted out? I have previously been in contact with around 4-5 faculty members via email several months ago, so I think they have a good idea of my project but if interviews are now a formal part of the process I guess I’ve been counted out. Thanks and best of luck ?

Edit: I realise that it is only mid-January, but it seems the bulk of interview offers have gone out. 

My interviewer told me they were an application reader for my field (modern Europe). I think interviews are going to depend on field and the timeline of the faculty in those fields. According to grad cafe (which is of course not exhaustive) it seems like less than ten interviews have gone out. Keep up the hope! 

[Maguire]

19 minutes ago, Historyman217 said:

My interviewer told me they were an application reader for my field (modern Europe). I think interviews are going to depend on field and the timeline of the faculty in those fields. According to grad cafe (which is of course not exhaustive) it seems like less than ten interviews have gone out. Keep up the hope! 

Thanks - this is helpful! I’ve corresponded with another person on here who’s been interviewed in that same field as yours, so it may be that the Americanists assess their applicants differently. Best of luck to you. 

[kleio]

1 hour ago, scarletwitch said:

Thanks - this is helpful! I’ve corresponded with another person on here who’s been interviewed in that same field as yours, so it may be that the Americanists assess their applicants differently. Best of luck to you. 

I’m an Americanist too ? and also still hopeful for an interview request! What are your interests? 

[Maguire]

9 minutes ago, kleio said:

I’m an Americanist too ? and also still hopeful for an interview request! What are your interests? 

I’ll send you a DM ☺️?

[bakeseal]

3 hours ago, scarletwitch said:

Thanks - this is helpful! I’ve corresponded with another person on here who’s been interviewed in that same field as yours, so it may be that the Americanists assess their applicants differently. Best of luck to you. 

FWIW, I'm a late nineteenth century americanist and I was interviewed over a week ago. But my interviewer made it sound as though an interview wasn't an essential part of the admissions process, just a process they're formalizing a bit more this year.

I wouldn't try to predict the future based on what other people have experienced, just wait until they send out decisions. Graduate admissions in the humanities is far from an exact science, and this year has thrown everything off, so I would not stress about this or make assumptions based on historical patterns. Also, no matter what happens for any of us with Berkeley or any other school, we will be fine! PhD admissions are really not the be-all-end-all, so I wouldn't worry about something that is completely out of our hands. 

 

[Maguire]

5 minutes ago, bakeseal said:

FWIW, I'm a late nineteenth century americanist and I was interviewed over a week ago. But my interviewer made it sound as though an interview wasn't an essential part of the admissions process, just a process they're formalizing a bit more this year.

I wouldn't try to predict the future based on what other people have experienced, just wait until they send out decisions. Graduate admissions in the humanities is far from an exact science, and this year has thrown everything off, so I would not stress about this or make assumptions based on historical patterns. Also, no matter what happens for any of us with Berkeley or any other school, we will be fine! PhD admissions are really not the be-all-end-all, so I wouldn't worry about something that is completely out of our hands. 

 

You're definitely right in what you say about trying to predict! (I think this has just been a tough and overly-anxious week for me TBH - a family member has had major surgery and I've been trying to help them recover) Hopefully we'll start hearing back from some places from the end of this month/early February onwards! Best of luck! 

[wfchasson]

hey all. i'm wondering if anybody knows how your language training factors into the decision process, what language training phd programs expect coming in, etc, particularly if you aren't doing American/British hist. anybody care to share their experiences with language abilities and the application process?

[Thucydides34]

On 1/12/2021 at 1:33 PM, AP said:

No. If you send a second email it should ONLY be to thank them.  

Just wondering whether it matters one way or another if we send a thank you email at all. Is it impolite not to? 

[sonnybunny]

Any new users that are applying to CU Boulder?

[AP]

29 minutes ago, Thucydides34 said:

Just wondering whether it matters one way or another if we send a thank you email at all. Is it impolite not to? 

That's a great question and I'll answer it this way: I didn't (culturally, I was not aware Americans are big on thankyous) and I got in. 

No one will stop admitting if you don't send a thank you email, it's just nice. 

If you decide to send a thank you email: just one line. 

[AP]

1 hour ago, wfchasson said:

hey all. i'm wondering if anybody knows how your language training factors into the decision process, what language training phd programs expect coming in, etc, particularly if you aren't doing American/British hist. anybody care to share their experiences with language abilities and the application process?

That's a question best answered by each program because different programs (and different professors within each program) has different expectations.

The question of languages is important because you need to be able to relate to others beyond your field, especially if you are not an Americanist. Learning a language takes time, and some languages take more time than others. 

If you haven't asked this to your POI, I suggest contacting them. Though the question to them should be: What level of expertise should I show command as a graduate from this program? That way, you don't disclose that you are anxious about admissions  or if you are lacking the training. 

[TMP]

1 hour ago, AP said:

That's a question best answered by each program because different programs (and different professors within each program) has different expectations.

The question of languages is important because you need to be able to relate to others beyond your field, especially if you are not an Americanist. Learning a language takes time, and some languages take more time than others. 

If you haven't asked this to your POI, I suggest contacting them. Though the question to them should be: What level of expertise should I show command as a graduate from this program? That way, you don't disclose that you are anxious about admissions  or if you are lacking the training. 

This. You'll be amazed how the lack of languages among many Americanists really, really irks non-Americanist graduate students. It's a political minefield.

[missamericana]

Just a quick question - I noticed the results showed that someone was waitlisted from Ohio State University. Is it normal for waitlist notifications to come this early in the new year? 

[eh1688]

Hi, I'm planning on applying for next year, is it still okay to ask questions in this thread? Quite unfamiliar with the US way of doing things...

[wfchasson]

23 hours ago, AP said:

That's a question best answered by each program because different programs (and different professors within each program) has different expectations.

The question of languages is important because you need to be able to relate to others beyond your field, especially if you are not an Americanist. Learning a language takes time, and some languages take more time than others. 

If you haven't asked this to your POI, I suggest contacting them. Though the question to them should be: What level of expertise should I show command as a graduate from this program? That way, you don't disclose that you are anxious about admissions  or if you are lacking the training. 

Thanks for the response! Yeah I'm not really worried about my own language training--I exceed the minimum language requirements for all the programs I applied to. I'm more interesting in how language ability factors into decisions, i.e. if faculty will look at an app and say, for example, oh this person can read 4 languages rather than the required 2, this makes them more desirable, etc. I guess what I'm getting at is how is this weighted relative to other criteria when departments are making their decisions? Obviously SOP, letters of rec., and writing sample seem to be the primary elements of the application, I'm just curious whether or not anybody has insight into some of the secondary considerations and how they factor in. 

[AfricanusCrowther]

24 minutes ago, wfchasson said:

Thanks for the response! Yeah I'm not really worried about my own language training--I exceed the minimum language requirements for all the programs I applied to. I'm more interesting in how language ability factors into decisions, i.e. if faculty will look at an app and say, for example, oh this person can read 4 languages rather than the required 2, this makes them more desirable, etc. I guess what I'm getting at is how is this weighted relative to other criteria when departments are making their decisions? Obviously SOP, letters of rec., and writing sample seem to be the primary elements of the application, I'm just curious whether or not anybody has insight into some of the secondary considerations and how they factor in. 

Leaving aside the languages that are central to doing work in your field, the important thing is not how many languages you know, but what you want to do with them. If you can show the historiographical value of using novel sources in a language that most people in your field don't know, that's a strong asset.

[QuarantineQuail]

5 hours ago, eh1688 said:

Hi, I'm planning on applying for next year, is it still okay to ask questions in this thread? Quite unfamiliar with the US way of doing things...

It's never too early! What questions do you have?

[QuarantineQuail]

Can't remember where I saw it, but I saw a tweet last night from a Harvard professor saying that they were only accepting six applicants this year and had hundreds of applications. Just further reiterating that if you don't get in to the school you want it's not a personal failing on your part!

[eh1688]

Well, by way of an introduction/a profile, I'm from the UK. As an undergraduate, I read single honours History at the University of Warwick. I graduated in July. We don't use GPA here, but my marks were high and would (I think) translate to 4.0/4.0 GPA in America, probably top five in a large cohort. I'm starting a one year (as is typical in the UK) MPhil at the University of Cambridge in Economic and Social History in October; I took this year off because there's no way I'm paying for zoom classes and no access to archives. Trying to keep myself busy.

The reason that I'm interested in applying to American universities for a PhD is that I want to study modern Korean history, which is quite honestly not offered much in Britain. You could go to SOAS I guess, but I refuse to do that for personal reasons. I did look at Leiden (in the Netherlands) for Master's courses, but their Korean Studies course didn't offer the sort of History I'm interested in.

I did my year abroad at Seoul National University in Korea, where I learned the language very intensively and took a fair number of Korean history classes on the side. I'm confident I am at the level I need in Korean for a PhD program, and I will be taking the TOPIK late this year and expecting either Level 5 or Level 6 (6 is highest) depending purely on how the writing section (my weakest by far) goes. I'm working my way through Heisig's 'Learning the Kanji' so I can read Chinese characters* and I should be done with that by later this year. I've also started learning Japanese, though I'm still mostly a beginner - I'm planning to spend some more time on that though and hopefully should be much better by the time I start my PhD if I'm accepted. 

I've not taken the GRE yet but I took a practice test and scored 169 in the verbal, so I should be fine though I might(?) need to practice the quantitative section. But in any case it doesn't sound like they care very much about GRE scores for PhD programs, and they especially don't care about quantitative scores.

I don't have any publications and I haven't attended any conferences. This sort of culture doesn't really exist in the UK at undergraduate. It's plausible I could develop my final year dissertation (equivalent of a senior thesis in the US) into something publishable before I apply later this year, but I can't really do much work on it until things like archives start to open up again. Maybe I'll think about getting on with that. Either way, I'm curious about how much weight these sorts of things play in an application.

I'll need to develop a bespoke piece of writing for the applications which uses primary sources over the summer, which might be challenging given the difficulty of accessing this sort of material in the UK. This is necessary because I didn't have any real opportunity to do this kind of Korean language primary source work as an undergraduate. I've got a vague idea of the topic but it will be naturally limited by the sort of primary sources I'll have access to here in London.

In terms of programs, I'm thinking about applying to Harvard's HEAL program (my Chinese history tutor last year got her PhD from there, so I'll ask her more about it). I've also been looking at some others; Chicago seems to be good for Korean history but I really don't want to live in Chicago for years and years (maybe I'm overthinking how bad it is). I'm looking at the other 'top 10' programs too, but I've got plenty of time to think it over for now.

My main problem I suppose is that my direct experience of Korean history outside of Korea is quite limited. My undergraduate university offered courses on Chinese history, which I took, but nothing on Korea (or even Japan - though they recently hired a historian of Japan). What I've been studying in modern British and European history is directly related to what I want to study in Korean history (the idea of economic 'planning' in capitalist countries) - indeed, I actually came to studying that sort of stuff in Britain from my study of Korean history! But I'm not sure how much this would count against me in the US - in the UK, for an equivalent program (if it existed) I probably wouldn't be competitive for the simple reason that we are expected to specialise a lot more a lot earlier (even before we go to university!), while in the US it seems to be not uncommon to change majors entirely for your PhD! Perhaps the key is how I will need to justify the 'switch' from British to Korean history in my statement of purpose.

I'll also be applying without any grades at all from my Master's course, since it's a one year course, and like most history courses in the UK, it's almost entirely graded through coursework or exams towards the end of the year. So that might be a problem, though of course a Master's degree isn't required in the US to move onto a PhD.

I was wondering more generally whether from this sort of profile I'd be competitive for top programs in the US, so long as I polished a nice writing sample and a coherent statement of purpose. Of course, the key is your statement of purpose and your writing sample, but there are still some boxes to tick I imagine.

Anyway, thanks for reading my long post! Good luck to everyone applying for this year.

 

 

 

(* I'm aware that Hanja and Kanji are not identical and are read differently but it provides a structured way and order to learn the characters.)

 

[HRL]

1 hour ago, QuarantineQuail said:

Can't remember where I saw it, but I saw a tweet last night from a Harvard professor saying that they were only accepting six applicants this year and had hundreds of applications. Just further reiterating that if you don't get in to the school you want it's not a personal failing on your part!

Wow. Similarly, in my chat with my UChicago POI last week, I was told that the department is only admitting max 2-3 Americanists. 

[OHSP]

4 hours ago, HRL said:

Wow. Similarly, in my chat with my UChicago POI last week, I was told that the department is only admitting max 2-3 Americanists. 

That's relatively standard. My program has admitted max 3 Americanists in the past four years. 

[bakeseal]

5 hours ago, HRL said:

Wow. Similarly, in my chat with my UChicago POI last week, I was told that the department is only admitting max 2-3 Americanists. 

My POI at Berkeley said they were hoping for 2-4 Americanists in their 8/9 person cohort this year, so that seems fairly consistent at most schools this year. What has been somewhat unclear to me about the news I've seen out of Harvard (I heard they were aiming for 2 or maybe 3 Americanists from their cohort) is whether they are admitting 6 people, or are aiming for a cohort of 6 people. Are schools assuming, due to the competitiveness of apps this year, that almost no one-- or fewer students-- will turn them down?

A related question to these small cohort sizes: do any current grad (or former) students here feel that a covid cohort of 6-8 students (which seems to be the norm, at least where I applied) would've impacted their experience in their departments in any way, for better or worse? This is probably a matter of personal preference, but I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts.  

[Boarskin]

13 hours ago, QuarantineQuail said:

Can't remember where I saw it, but I saw a tweet last night from a Harvard professor saying that they were only accepting six applicants this year and had hundreds of applications. Just further reiterating that if you don't get in to the school you want it's not a personal failing on your part!

I saw that too. They are accepting 6 out of 400 applicants this year. 

[Maguire]

I wonder what that more mid-Western schools like Wisconsin and Michigan - which usually have larger intakes, especially Wisconsin - are reducing their numbers to this year? Perhaps 12-15 students? I think in past years they gave out 20/30+ offers. They look like such fantastic programmes. 

Edited January 17, 2021 by scarletwitch

[AP]

On 1/16/2021 at 2:58 PM, wfchasson said:

Thanks for the response! Yeah I'm not really worried about my own language training--I exceed the minimum language requirements for all the programs I applied to. I'm more interesting in how language ability factors into decisions, i.e. if faculty will look at an app and say, for example, oh this person can read 4 languages rather than the required 2, this makes them more desirable, etc. I guess what I'm getting at is how is this weighted relative to other criteria when departments are making their decisions? Obviously SOP, letters of rec., and writing sample seem to be the primary elements of the application, I'm just curious whether or not anybody has insight into some of the secondary considerations and how they factor in. 

Unless reading those four languages is very desirable (like for medievalists), I don't think language is an issue in the way you describe it. At least I haven't heard of being an issue. 

On 1/16/2021 at 5:18 PM, eh1688 said:

Well, by way of an introduction/a profile, I'm from the UK. As an undergraduate, I read single honours History at the University of Warwick. I graduated in July. We don't use GPA here, but my marks were high and would (I think) translate to 4.0/4.0 GPA in America, probably top five in a large cohort. I'm starting a one year (as is typical in the UK) MPhil at the University of Cambridge in Economic and Social History in October; I took this year off because there's no way I'm paying for zoom classes and no access to archives. Trying to keep myself busy.

The reason that I'm interested in applying to American universities for a PhD is that I want to study modern Korean history, which is quite honestly not offered much in Britain. You could go to SOAS I guess, but I refuse to do that for personal reasons. I did look at Leiden (in the Netherlands) for Master's courses, but their Korean Studies course didn't offer the sort of History I'm interested in.

I did my year abroad at Seoul National University in Korea, where I learned the language very intensively and took a fair number of Korean history classes on the side. I'm confident I am at the level I need in Korean for a PhD program, and I will be taking the TOPIK late this year and expecting either Level 5 or Level 6 (6 is highest) depending purely on how the writing section (my weakest by far) goes. I'm working my way through Heisig's 'Learning the Kanji' so I can read Chinese characters* and I should be done with that by later this year. I've also started learning Japanese, though I'm still mostly a beginner - I'm planning to spend some more time on that though and hopefully should be much better by the time I start my PhD if I'm accepted. 

I've not taken the GRE yet but I took a practice test and scored 169 in the verbal, so I should be fine though I might(?) need to practice the quantitative section. But in any case it doesn't sound like they care very much about GRE scores for PhD programs, and they especially don't care about quantitative scores.

I don't have any publications and I haven't attended any conferences. This sort of culture doesn't really exist in the UK at undergraduate. It's plausible I could develop my final year dissertation (equivalent of a senior thesis in the US) into something publishable before I apply later this year, but I can't really do much work on it until things like archives start to open up again. Maybe I'll think about getting on with that. Either way, I'm curious about how much weight these sorts of things play in an application.

I'll need to develop a bespoke piece of writing for the applications which uses primary sources over the summer, which might be challenging given the difficulty of accessing this sort of material in the UK. This is necessary because I didn't have any real opportunity to do this kind of Korean language primary source work as an undergraduate. I've got a vague idea of the topic but it will be naturally limited by the sort of primary sources I'll have access to here in London.

In terms of programs, I'm thinking about applying to Harvard's HEAL program (my Chinese history tutor last year got her PhD from there, so I'll ask her more about it). I've also been looking at some others; Chicago seems to be good for Korean history but I really don't want to live in Chicago for years and years (maybe I'm overthinking how bad it is). I'm looking at the other 'top 10' programs too, but I've got plenty of time to think it over for now.

My main problem I suppose is that my direct experience of Korean history outside of Korea is quite limited. My undergraduate university offered courses on Chinese history, which I took, but nothing on Korea (or even Japan - though they recently hired a historian of Japan). What I've been studying in modern British and European history is directly related to what I want to study in Korean history (the idea of economic 'planning' in capitalist countries) - indeed, I actually came to studying that sort of stuff in Britain from my study of Korean history! But I'm not sure how much this would count against me in the US - in the UK, for an equivalent program (if it existed) I probably wouldn't be competitive for the simple reason that we are expected to specialise a lot more a lot earlier (even before we go to university!), while in the US it seems to be not uncommon to change majors entirely for your PhD! Perhaps the key is how I will need to justify the 'switch' from British to Korean history in my statement of purpose.

I'll also be applying without any grades at all from my Master's course, since it's a one year course, and like most history courses in the UK, it's almost entirely graded through coursework or exams towards the end of the year. So that might be a problem, though of course a Master's degree isn't required in the US to move onto a PhD.

I was wondering more generally whether from this sort of profile I'd be competitive for top programs in the US, so long as I polished a nice writing sample and a coherent statement of purpose. Of course, the key is your statement of purpose and your writing sample, but there are still some boxes to tick I imagine.

Anyway, thanks for reading my long post! Good luck to everyone applying for this year.

 

 

 

(* I'm aware that Hanja and Kanji are not identical and are read differently but it provides a structured way and order to learn the characters.)

 

Yes, your most important task at hand is to do graduate work in Korean history. If you come to a PhD with an MA in a different field, you won't be as competitive, even if it's from Cambridge. From my understanding, that MPhil is British-oriented? or can you tailor it towards your interests? 

As you research doctoral programs, check current graduate students in your fields. Sometimes you can see where they got their degrees, sometimes you can contact them to ask questions informally, and those that are more advanced usually have their own webpages, so you can check their CV. This might help.