Rejected Everywhere -- Advice?

[bleistift]

Short story: Applied for 7 Ph.D. programs in East Asian/International history. Sort of got ahead of myself and only applied for 1 safety, which wasn't really a safety at all in hindsight. Rejected from all but 2, and I'm sure those 2 will be rejections as well (Harvard and Chicago...not easy pickings).

I just finished undergrad and I will be starting a sweet job (salary wise, but it's completely unrelated to history or graduate studies), so I'm definitely re-applying next year. The question is, how do I improve my chances of admission? I've brainstormed some possibilities and was wondering what everyone else thought.

- Apply to lower-tier schools (obviously).

- Apply for an MA program. I'm hesitant about this one because I get the impression few Ph.D. programs give a lot of credit for MA coursework, and also I'd likely have to fund 2 years myself. So I see it as sacrificing 2 years and 60k in exchange for a better admissions chance, and I'm not sure this is a good bargain.

- Network. My TA told me this over and over, but I was so swamped my last semester I could only reach out to professors at one school (aside from my own undergrad institution). I'm not much of a natural networker, so now that I have a year I was wondering if anyone had any particularly effective strategies? My enthusiasm and credentials are strong in my opinion, I just need a chance to show them.

- Improve my hard skills. For a history candidate this pretty much means language. Unfortunately my language skills are already past the level available at my local community college, and I lack the funds to study abroad or attend an intensive language program again.

- Change jobs to one that is relevant to history graduate studies. Ideally I'd like to work for a top 10 history program, in an administrative position (good for networking?), but these jobs are hard to find. Any ideas here?

- Others? I'm open to any suggestions.

[Historylover]

Well there's a whole other forum devoted to that topic that you could check out. It sucks being rejected everywhere and you seem to have a good grip on what you need to do. There are scholarship programs/grants for intensive language study and not to mention as noted on the languages discussion you could google the forgein service institute for free language training stuff or check to see if your local library has the rossetta stone program for patrons. With all these online courses, there may be a chance to study language at an affordable price. Good luck to you!

[jaw17]

I'm really sorry to hear about your dilemma. I'm not a history person myself, but have been haunting (ok, stalking) these boards on behalf of my husband, who is just finishing the MA in Global, International & Comparative History program at Georgetown. With that in mind, I can mostly speak to your second idea. Since he wasn't a history undergrad, the MA degree allowed him to demonstrate that he could succeed in grad-level coursework, get strong LORs, prepare advanced writing samples, and take more language classes. I think these really came into play given his incredibly small and somewhat "homeless" subfield - beat modern Central Asia! - where there was added pressure to be a strong all-around candidate in the absence of an obviously perfect fit with any one professor.

Since it's a 3-semester program, you could apply for entry in Spring 2009 and then still be able to apply for the PhD admissions cycle for Fall 2010 - e.g. you'd only effectively "lose" one year, not two. And Georgetown was very clear from the beginning that all of the credits transfer should you subsequently be admitted to their PhD program. In effect, that means that you'd only have 2 classes left before beginning your comps and dissertation. (Depending on the school, most other places will accept some credits but still require another 1-2 years of additional coursework.)

Financially, Georgetown ended up paying for 4 of the 10 required courses (1 in the 2nd semester, and 3 this term). So overall, it cost us about $24k in tuition, of which $17k was in subsidized Stafford loans. On the one hand, that's a lot. On the other, it led to his acceptance to Princeton, whose annual stipend is nearly $10k more than your average school's and so he'll "make up" the money in the very near term.

Update: I should note that while I'm mostly familiar with Georgetown, there is a similar joint program that's just been launched by Columbia and LSE. They extended the application deadline until April 1, so you could still apply for the fall.

[luvalicious]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your situtation, and I hope I can give some helpful advice. I chose to get an MA first, then decide if I waited to go all the way for a PhD. Although I took out loans in my first year of my MA program, for my second year I got a fellowship which paid my tuition and gave me a stipend -- so don't necessarily rule out the MA on the cost, because although there is less money out there for MAs, there is some out there.

Many of the programs I looked at gave some credit for past degree completion, but you're right that you will not recoup those courses for an MA on an hour by hour or course by course basis. However, it can knock off some of the requirements that would be met in your first couple years, speeding your process towards candidacy.

Good luck with those last two -- I'm waiting on Chicago, too.

[rising_star]

I just wanted to say that not all MA programs will require you to fund yourself. There are plenty that offer funding to MA students through TAships or RAships. Check out the large state universities for these opportunities, if you're truly interested.

As for languages, maybe try and find a native speaker to be your penpal / practice partner. Meet up for coffee once a week and converse in the language. Read newspapers in the language. Listen to podcasts. Do anything you can to keep your skills up.

[bleistift]

Thanks for all the advice. An MA program looks a lot more attractive now. I'll try to hedge my bets by applying for outside fellowships as well. And jaw, thanks very much for the Columbia/LSE program link. I'm definitely going to apply for that.