2023 Application Thread

[emeraldsapphire]

FYI to any Berkeley applicants: The timeline for decisions will be later this year than it was last year. So if you're looking at the timeline on last cycle's forum thread or the results page, it probably won't be a good indication. The AdComm isn't even meeting until early February this year. Current Berkeley student so happy to answer any questions. 

Edited December 17, 2022 by emeraldsapphire

[bxl_whitepaper]

3 hours ago, emeraldsapphire said:

FYI to any Berkeley applicants: The timeline for decisions will be later this year than it was last year. So if you're looking at the timeline on last cycle's forum thread or the results page, it probably won't be a good indication. The AdComm isn't even meeting until early February this year. Current Berkeley student so happy to answer any questions. 

Thank you! I assume this is at least partly due to the ongoing strike?

[emeraldsapphire]

Actually, no, this is one of the few things the strike seems not to have upended. It has something to do with the fact that last year, they had to make decisions early for some kind of fellowship deadline (I'm not clear if it was an external or internal fellowship), but that pressure isn't there this year so they want to give faculty and the AdComm more time to review. That's what I understand at least. 

Edited December 17, 2022 by emeraldsapphire

[cladthecrab]

I didn't think that waiting for decisions this year would feel as drawn out as they did for MA apps, since I'm actively writing my thesis, but I'm already feeling restless about it! Is there anything productive I can do while waiting to hear back, or is it just sit and wait?

 

[ladydobz]

19 hours ago, cladthecrab said:

I didn't think that waiting for decisions this year would feel as drawn out as they did for MA apps, since I'm actively writing my thesis, but I'm already feeling restless about it! Is there anything productive I can do while waiting to hear back, or is it just sit and wait?

 

You're not alone. I'm checking app statuses daily, which I know is pointless, since one of my Universities I applied to (Purdue) said they wouldn't even end up meeting until mid-end January. I'm still in my Masters program, so, I'm already reading for next semester. Best of luck on your decisions! 

[Rekhmire]

What do you guys think my chances are? I know the GRE isn't as important for my subject area, but my verbal is bad, and I bombed my MPhil.

 

Applying for PhDs in Near Eastern Studies: Harvard, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Chicago.

GPA: 3.9 in MA (Big 10 school), 3.5-ish in MPhil (in the UK, but during a COVID year with some extenuating circumstances), 4.0 in UG (not a very well known school).

GRE: 6.0 writing, 74th percentile for verbal, 30th for quant (lol).

Experience: 2 years of teaching, 2 years as a research assistant for a show on Near Eastern history, scholarships and prizes every year since UG, upper elementary or above in 6 languages.

 

 

[CheckYesJules]

So, I just found three typos in my writing sample...how screwed am I? They were a typo, a missed citation, and a comment of "unpack" I forgot to take out. It's a pretty long sample; any chance they won't notice?

Edited December 20, 2022 by CheckYesJules
Typo

[OHSP]

1 hour ago, CheckYesJules said:

So, I just found three typos in my writing sample...how screwed am I? They were a typo, a missed citation, and a comment of "unpack" I forgot to take out. It's a pretty long sample; any chance they won't notice?

This is not a big deal at all. Unless someone's a serious stickler, the typo and missed citation are extremely likely to go entirely unnoticed, and the "unpack" might get a lol, but that's it. I'm now in a position where I read applications and trust me no one has time to trip over little things like this. 

[OHSP]

On 12/20/2022 at 6:46 AM, Rekhmire said:

What do you guys think my chances are? I know the GRE isn't as important for my subject area, but my verbal is bad, and I bombed my MPhil.

 

Applying for PhDs in Near Eastern Studies: Harvard, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Chicago.

GPA: 3.9 in MA (Big 10 school), 3.5-ish in MPhil (in the UK, but during a COVID year with some extenuating circumstances), 4.0 in UG (not a very well known school).

GRE: 6.0 writing, 74th percentile for verbal, 30th for quant (lol).

Experience: 2 years of teaching, 2 years as a research assistant for a show on Near Eastern history, scholarships and prizes every year since UG, upper elementary or above in 6 languages.

 

 

The most important things are your writing sample and SoP -- grades, prizes, and "big 10 school" don't tell us what you think they might. GRE is next to meaningless. 

[Rekhmire]

21 hours ago, OHSP said:

The most important things are your writing sample and SoP -- grades, prizes, and "big 10 school" don't tell us what you think they might. GRE is next to meaningless. 

 

Sorry - I'm new to this so I had no idea.

[earlycalifornia]

On 9/5/2022 at 11:51 AM, dr. telkanuru said:

This is a thing I struggle with, particularly being on the staff of an organization that's in a position to advocate but not to dictate. I can list off so many things that would fix academia, if only everyone would just magically agree to do them. At work we get tons of these. "You should mandate that..." (we have no enforcement power). "You shouldn't accredit..." (we don't accredit). "You should unionize..." (we're a 501c with a charter from congress). 

This is the Bernie Bro approach to academic policy, and the reality of the situation calls for a Liz Warren to actually get shit done.

does this mean that AHA can’t unionize? 

[dr. t]

18 hours ago, earlycalifornia said:

does this mean that AHA can’t unionize? 

As I understand it, the existing finances and infrastructure of the organization could not legally be used to establish a trade union, no. 

[CheckYesJules]

My last recommender uploaded her letter for my January deadlines, and now all of my applications are officially complete! Any advice from the seasoned pros on how to make it through the next two months of waiting? I feel like I'm Mark Zuckerberg at the end of The Social Network, but instead of refreshing the page to see if an ex accepted a friend request, mine is my application portal.

[kimedieval]

Hello, hello! 

Decided to throw my hat in the ring for PhD programs this cycle. I'm applying to Notre Dame's History and Medieval Studies PhD programs. 

Some things about me:

• BA in History & Italian Studies ('19, cum laude) 
• MA in Premodern European History ('21, had full tuition scholarship) 
• Fulbright Semi-Finalist 
• 2 years of secondary teaching experience
• Italian, Latin, German, French languages
• 3 publications (1 in undergrad, 1 in my grad school's journal, 1 in a national medieval graduate student journal) 
• 2 research grants awarded
• 1 conference paper, which won an award 

 

I don't know if anyone else is applying for the history program at ND, but I have heard from a good friend in that program that the department is in need of more medievalists (they had to cancel a medieval history class because they simply didn't have enough people to take it), so that's just a heads up. 

[orcinusorca]

Hi everyone! I hope everyone's having a great application season  

I was wondering if anyone has heard back from these schools yet:

Northeastern

Northwestern

UNC

Yale

Princeton

Stanford

Cornell

UPenn

Georgetown

 

I was checking the thread for last year's applications and noticed several people talking about interviews, etc. Has anyone received any interview requests from the universities above? 

[CheckYesJules]

2 hours ago, orcinusorca said:

Hi everyone! I hope everyone's having a great application season  

I was wondering if anyone has heard back from these schools yet:

Northeastern

Northwestern

UNC

Yale

Princeton

Stanford

Cornell

UPenn

Georgetown

 

I was checking the thread for last year's applications and noticed several people talking about interviews, etc. Has anyone received any interview requests from the universities above? 

To my knowledge, Northwestern does not do formal interviews. Your PI might do an informal one with you but that varies depending on subfield and the professor. Fingers crossed you hear soon! What is your research area?

[orcinusorca]

30 minutes ago, CheckYesJules said:

To my knowledge, Northwestern does not do formal interviews. Your PI might do an informal one with you but that varies depending on subfield and the professor. Fingers crossed you hear soon! What is your research area?

Thanks! I'm checking my inbox every 3 seconds these days  My field is MENA and I'm an international student. Forgot to mention that I'm applying to Princeton NES, not History. 

[bxl_whitepaper]

On 12/17/2022 at 7:47 AM, emeraldsapphire said:

FYI to any Berkeley applicants: The timeline for decisions will be later this year than it was last year. So if you're looking at the timeline on last cycle's forum thread or the results page, it probably won't be a good indication. The AdComm isn't even meeting until early February this year. Current Berkeley student so happy to answer any questions. 

Actually just received an interview invite from Berkeley for the coming week. Based on below and my chat with my POIs, it seems the process works like each individual field will interview and nominate candidates and then AdComm will review and decide?

Berkeley website: "Applications are read by faculty in the applicant’s selected first field during the first round of application review."

[emeraldsapphire]

2 minutes ago, 50CentParty said:

Actually just received an interview invite from Berkeley for the coming week. Based on below and my chat with my POIs, it seems the process works like each individual field will interview and nominate candidates and then AdComm will review and decide?

Berkeley website: "Applications are read by faculty in the applicant’s selected first field during the first round of application review."

Ah, ok. They must be moving faster then. Which subfield are you in? Feel free to DM if you'd rather. 

[TheWitWitch]

4 hours ago, 50CentParty said:

Actually just received an interview invite from Berkeley for the coming week. Based on below and my chat with my POIs, it seems the process works like each individual field will interview and nominate candidates and then AdComm will review and decide?

 

Same thing here, just got an interview invite.

Edited January 9, 2023 by TheWitWitch

[historyneaonnim]

Hi Everyone! Anyone got any news from Harvard and Emory?

Edited January 9, 2023 by historyneaonnim

[TheWitWitch]

Hi everyone, I as mentioned in another post... I was invited for an interview that will be happening later this week. How to best prepare for it? What should I be expecting?

[PhDApplicant23]

37 minutes ago, TheWitWitch said:

Hi everyone, I as mentioned in another post... I was invited for an interview that will be happening later this week. How to best prepare for it? What should I be expecting?

Hi, I am interviewing with an EALC department later today. I will let you know what the interview is like.

I prepared by creating a "cheat sheet" that had some prepared questions for the department about resources I would like to use during my program and if they have experience with other students who engage with those resources (basically trying to make the prepared questions intellectual in nature rather than pragmatic), and thinking about how my project relates to the trends in the field. I think this is a good way to prepare but like I said I will let you know later today how this goes.

[TheWitWitch]

1 hour ago, PhDApplicant23 said:

I will let you know what the interview is like.

Thank you so much!! 

[PhDApplicant23]

1 hour ago, TheWitWitch said:

Thank you so much!! 

So I think preparing a cheat sheet for the interview was important.

- Listing specific information about the University that you can mention in the interview (resources, study groups, courses, faculty, etc) and connecting it back to your research. 

- Preparing to talk about how you see your research fitting into the field, and how you arrived at some of the questions you have

- Thinking about historiographic issues pertinent to your work

I obviously haven't been admitted yet, but I was able to go on for a little bit about problems I saw in my own disciplines and the trajectory of how I came to be aware of certain problems, and how my project is engaging with those problems and dematerializing them, this was met with the response that it was fantastic that I was able to talk about those things.

Fingers crossed for the next two weeks, but I think I did well. If you DM me with anything specific about interview questions I'll be happy to help if I can.