New Here - Sorry for questions

[one_voice]

OK, so I know I'm about to ask a serious of silly questions but I've only recently decided that I may want to apply to a History grad school program w/ the intention of teaching History -- I don't want my Ph.D though, so I assume I'd be teaching in a high school or community college? (Is this right?)

Anyway, a few questions -- for one, do you think it's still possible to apply this cycle if I've only just decided what I want to do? I'm a senior in college. Ideally I would like to go to grad school next year (was planning on law school but am rethinking that decision). If it's too late for me to get everything together to apply this cycle, I may take a year off and then apply.

Secondly, are (history) grad school applications assessed on a rolling basis? I know law schools are. Or is it more like undergrad, when applications are all reviewed at the same time?

And finally, would anyone be able to give me any sort of guidance on what sorts of schools I could realistically be accepted at? I'm an undergrad now at UPenn with roughly a 3.7 GPA. Since I've only recently decided to apply for non-law grad schools, I am gonna try to take the GRE soon. When is the latest I could take it to count for this cycle? Late November? And what sort of scores would give me a realistic chance for a "top school"? (As far as "soft" factors, they're mediocre -- I have leadership roles in 2 activities on campus, work experience over the summer and during the school year in random areas, and letters of recommendation would probably be good.)

I would REALLY appreciate any guidance you guys can give me! I had a breakdown today and just want to stay levelheaded about what my options here are. Thanks.

[Kitkat]

I'm not entirely sure about this, I'm running purely running off people I know who are going into this, but if you want to teach, it depends on where you want to teach. Many schools K-12 want at least for you to have a BA in teaching, if not a masters in teaching, but like I said I'm not sure about this. If you want to go for a masters of history, then you can teach at a community college. Now, for college itself, in 99% of cases you do need your Ph.D. if you want to teach at that level. But with the k-12 bunch, I would say look at the school districts that you might want to teach in and see how much/ what type of grad education you might need.

[one_voice]

Yeah, at least where I'm from (Long Island), many teachers begin w/ just their bachelor's and go to night schools to obtain their master's. I'd prefer to just get my master's now. And yes, I know to teach at a university I'd need a PhD haha but I don't want to teach at a university so that's fine.

What do you think about the other part of my post? B/c it's hard to find GRE ranges, I don't know what sort of "score" on the GRE I'd need to be competitive for "top" master's history programs.

[Pamphilia]

It sounds as if you have a lot of thinking and work to do just to figure out the basics of your application strategy. Given that it is already October, I would encourage you to wait until next year to apply in order to give yourself adequate time to prepare a solid application. If you're trying to do it all now (when most other applicants probably began at least two months ago) AND you're still in school...well, yikes. I would advise you to sit the GRE this year if you're up for it, because you're still in school/test mode so it may be productive for you. But instead of actually applying this round, I'd encourage you to do some serious research on the field and the application process.

[strokeofmidnight]

Yeah, at least where I'm from (Long Island), many teachers begin w/ just their bachelor's and go to night schools to obtain their master's. I'd prefer to just get my master's now. And yes, I know to teach at a university I'd need a PhD haha but I don't want to teach at a university so that's fine.

What do you think about the other part of my post? B/c it's hard to find GRE ranges, I don't know what sort of "score" on the GRE I'd need to be competitive for "top" master's history programs.

I'm not in history, but from what I understand, the application process is similar to my field (English). Humanities applications work *very* differently than law school apps. For law apps, your GPA and your LSAT score constitutes the bulk of the application. It's the reverse for humanities grad school. Let me put it this way: my GRE score and GPA were so unimportant that PhD programs in my field accepted me even though my transcripts and GRE scores never arrived. You can have a 4.0 coupled with a 1600 GRE score and still get in nowhere. I have peers (in a top-flight PhD program) who got in with abysmal scores and grades. The application process is far less predictable based on the "hard" stats. It really depends on your writing sample and statement of purpose (which, I should note, looks nothing like an law school personal statement). Talk to your professors and the grad students in your program. I'm guessing that they will ask you to think long and hard about what kind of work you'd want to do in grad school...what sort of questions, which subfields, what methodologies...etc. It's a totally different approach.

Pamphila is very right in that you should take at least the year off to think long and hard about what sort of work you'd want to pursue in grad school. The reason that that pesky SoP takes FOREVER to write is because you need to actually think through these questions first.