2023 Application Thread

[Historylover23]

Hi all, 

I am wondering if anyone has information on Harvard History of Science and HOS programs in general. Should we have heard back by now? Did anyone get an informal or formal acceptance or rejection? 

It's been silence for me...

 

[porcelainruby]

1 hour ago, histsci22 said:

Hi all, 

I am wondering if anyone has information on Harvard History of Science and HOS programs in general. Should we have heard back by now? Did anyone get an informal or formal acceptance or rejection? 

It's been silence for me...

 

I'm waiting on a bunch too (Harvard's, Yale's, UPenn's) and haven't heard anything yet. 

[nightiey]

19 hours ago, ladydobz said:

Historically, in years past, this is the week for decisions for Purdue and IU Bloomington. So, anyone waiting on those, I hope this is our week! ??

I'm not sure whether to be nervous or excited... maybe nervo-cited?

[greenlandsharki]

I did it, everyone. I got my first decision and thankfully it was an acceptance. I can actually stop stressing about grad school as no matter what the other schools say I am getting my Masters. Binghamton was not my first choice, but it was one of my choices so I am very happy. I wish you all the best and hope everyone else who is still waiting hears soon. 

[ladydobz]

2 minutes ago, nightiey said:

I'm not sure whether to be nervous or excited... maybe nervo-cited?

Not going to lie, I'm sitting here with all my portals up at work hitting the refresh button every so often on them, as well as on the results page on GradCafe so I can see if/when anyone gets notice. So, yeah. I'm there too.  Good luck!

[ladydobz]

Just got the rejection email for IU Bloomington. Over 100 applicants for 10 spots. 

[nightiey]

33 minutes ago, ladydobz said:

Just got the rejection email for IU Bloomington. Over 100 applicants for 10 spots. 

10 spots is brutal... I'm sorry to hear that though. You still seem like a great applicant. Best of luck for your other choices ❤️

[swimmingymnast]

17 hours ago, porcelainruby said:

I'm waiting on a bunch too (Harvard's, Yale's, UPenn's) and haven't heard anything yet. 

I haven't heard from Harvard or Yale, but I know that Penn's HSS interview invites went out a few weeks ago.

[porcelainruby]

3 minutes ago, swimmingymnast said:

I haven't heard from Harvard or Yale, but I know that Penn's HSS interview invites went out a few weeks ago.

Thank you, I'm assuming rejection from Penn's HSS since no interview invite, but "technically" haven't heard anything personally. I appreciate the info! 

[jordan12]

I'm seeing rejections posted from IU Bloomington -- has anyone received acceptances? 

[nightiey]

1 minute ago, jordan12 said:

I'm seeing rejections posted from IU Bloomington -- has anyone received acceptances? 

No, none that I've seen, just rejections so far. Just checked my portal and it still hasn't changed either.

[ladydobz]

41 minutes ago, nightiey said:

No, none that I've seen, just rejections so far. Just checked my portal and it still hasn't changed either.

Even with the rejection email, my portal hasn't changed yet. Hopefully you guys were either wait listed or will be accepted!

[OHSP]

On 2/10/2023 at 8:14 AM, SpiralJetty said:

wondering if I am prematurely mourning Rutgers and NYU? any thoughts? 

Yes to NYU. They make their decisions later than most schools. 

[orcinusorca]

Hey everyone! I got waitlisted at Georgetown. Do you know how long the waiting game usually takes? I'm hoping not to wait until April 15 lol 

[ladydobz]

Is the person who posted that they are wait listed with Purdue in here? How did you find out? I've seen nothing else come out of Purdue yet, so, I'm just curious about their process. 

[Bubfun]

6 hours ago, orcinusorca said:

Hey everyone! I got waitlisted at Georgetown. Do you know how long the waiting game usually takes? I'm hoping not to wait until April 15 lol 

Hey! Would you mind sharing your subfield?

[parallaxview]

If anyone has been accepted to either Harvard or Cornell and doesn't plan to attend... Please let them know - a humble request from the waitlisted. 

[libralatte]

Has anyone heard from SUNY Buffalo? There was a single acceptance posted on Jan. 26, but it's been radio silence since then...

[PhDApplicantAnon]

2 hours ago, parallaxview said:

If anyone has been accepted to either Harvard or Cornell and doesn't plan to attend... Please let them know - a humble request from the waitlisted. 

You heard back from Cornell? I applied but have not heard anything. Waiting on them and a few others. This whole process is killing me - if anybody going through this can talk, let me know. I am just not OK. 

[ladydobz]

1 hour ago, PhDApplicantAnon said:

You heard back from Cornell? I applied but have not heard anything. Waiting on them and a few others. This whole process is killing me - if anybody going through this can talk, let me know. I am just not OK. 

So, I was talking to one of my professors tonight about this. She is a Purdue grad, and she has been through this whole process (and not too long ago- she graduated in 2021). She said if you have not gotten a rejection yet, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It means you were not given the desk rejection, and you could either be on a waitlist, headed for a waitlist, or they're trying to secure funding for more positions, etc. This waiting is killing me too, as now I've found out that that's where I sit with TWO of my schools, and I got the desk rejection from my third. Hang in there. 

Edited February 15, 2023 by ladydobz

[Rekhmire]

Clean sweep of interviews/waitlist, with one post-interview rejection so far, for a mixture of programs in NELC and history more generally.

 

Johns Hopkins - scheduled interview

Chicago - waitlist

Harvard - awaiting decision, interviewed

UCLA - told that acceptance will be coming shortly

 

And my UK schools:

A - rejected post-interview

B - awaiting decision, interviewed

C - scheduled interview

[porcelainruby]

I'm curious whether anyone with rejections or waitlists this year has gotten feedback from their POIs that committees are more and more looking for applicants with a History Masters already, and, who essentially have their "topic" picked out already from their Masters experience? Help me kill time waiting for Harvard HOS news! ? 

[sciencehistorian]

I can't think of a single POI who has ever indicated that they want an applicant to have a determined topic already selected.

You should be able to articulate questions you're interested in, yes, as well as things like time period and approach. And you should be able to speak about projects you *could* imagine doing at an institution. But from the conversations I've had, professors seem to recoil at the idea that applicants have a prefigured sense of what exact singular thing they'd like to study in the PhD, for at least two reasons — 1) if the applicant already has everything figured out, why do they need to obtain the PhD? and 2) the majority of students will change and mature their interests over the course of the pre-quals years; some programs even almost have an expectation for their students' interests to change between application and the dissertation prospectus. Recognition of this latter fact is itself, I imagine, one of those more subtle indicators that an applicant has a realistic understanding of what graduate school is like, and is not entering without false impressions.

[bxl_whitepaper]

25 minutes ago, sciencehistorian said:

I can't think of a single POI who has ever indicated that they want an applicant to have a determined topic already selected.

You should be able to articulate questions you're interested in, yes, as well as things like time period and approach. And you should be able to speak about projects you *could* imagine doing at an institution. But from the conversations I've had, professors seem to recoil at the idea that applicants have a prefigured sense of what exact singular thing they'd like to study in the PhD, for at least two reasons — 1) if the applicant already has everything figured out, why do they need to obtain the PhD? and 2) the majority of students will change and mature their interests over the course of the pre-quals years; some programs even almost have an expectation for their students' interests to change between application and the dissertation prospectus. Recognition of this latter fact is itself, I imagine, one of those more subtle indicators that an applicant has a realistic understanding of what graduate school is like, and is not entering without false impressions.

Absolutely agreed with this. 

But in my field (Modern China; not including late imperial China), a lot of POIs told me to treat the SOP as a research proposal and they'd like to know what kind of sources and/or archives I prepare to use (they asked me very specific questions re sources/archives in my POI meetings before I submitted my applications). This is a result of 1) China's zero-COVID policy (non-Chinese citizens very hard to get into China after the pandemic) and 2) deteriorating archive access during the past decade (a useful comparison would be pre-1989/1991 Soviet history). Hopefully other fields don't have similar expectations!

[orcinusorca]

Hey Cornell admits! Did you receive your official letters of acceptance?