Asian Studies 2011

[IMN22]

Who is applying to M.A. or Ph.D. programs in Asian Studies (East Asia, South Asia, South East Asia)? Application season goes into full swing as the first December deadlines approach.

Degree: ?

Schools Applied To: ?

Fellowships Applied For: ?

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: ?

Experience in Asia or in Field:?

[yatto]

Degree: Applying to some Canadian M.A.s, and American M.A./Ph.Ds and Ph.D.s. in Japanese literature.

Schools Applied To: M.A.—Toronto, Mcgill, MIT (in Comparative Media). Ph.D.—Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Chicago.

Fellowships Applied For: SSHRC Doctoral.

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: East Asian Studies.

Experience in Asia or in Field: A summer in Japan—this, of course, is the big weakness in my application, but here's hoping.

[Craigciosk]

This is not 100% relevant to this thread as I am not currently applying for a PhD yet but...

Would like very much to apply for

Degree: PhD in East Asian literature

Fellowships: I am from the UK and am poor so need a big one!

Undergraduate: Soka University of America, major in East Asian Lit

MA at St John's College in Eastern Classics

Experience in Asia or field: Spent 5 months in Japan, can speak it maybe ok when I apply myself!

Would LOVE to speak to people interested in a similar field...the months since I graduated from St. John's go on and on and I'm moving further from my goal!

[graduator]

ok, this may not be the most relevant, as I am asking a question, but its somewhat east asia related>

MSC/MA degrees

If you had to choose between these degrees, which would you choose and why?

LSE MSc Management - 2 years in London, 65k

LS-PKU Msc International Affairs - 1 year Beijing, 1 year London, 38k

Columbia - Masters in Regional Studies East Asian Studies - 1 year, around 40k

for working later in business consulting/US government focusing on China economic related events

Thanks

[fumblewhat]

Degree: East Asian Studies / Japanese Studies MA programs

Schools Applied To: UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, University of Washington (Seattle), University of Michigan, Duke University, University of Illinois, and University of Hawaii.

Fellowships Applied For: None...

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: Mid-sized liberal arts school, Anthropology and History double major.

Experience in Asia or in Field: One semester studying in Japan and 3 years working there.

I felt pretty good about my application until my GRE scores came back. I got a 690 Verbal (97th percentile), but the writing section kicked me in the face. I got a 3.5. I've always been told that writing is one of my strong points, so. . . here's hoping I manage to make it past the initial admissions screening. Sigh.

[IMN22]

With your career goals, I am surprised you are not looking at more U.S. based programs.

ok, this may not be the most relevant, as I am asking a question, but its somewhat east asia related>

MSC/MA degrees

If you had to choose between these degrees, which would you choose and why?

LSE MSc Management - 2 years in London, 65k

LS-PKU Msc International Affairs - 1 year Beijing, 1 year London, 38k

Columbia - Masters in Regional Studies East Asian Studies - 1 year, around 40k

for working later in business consulting/US government focusing on China economic related events

Thanks

[kyjin]

Degree: PhD/MA in Japanese History

Schools Applied To: MA:UAlberta, UIllinois; PhD: Columbia, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, WashU

Fellowships Applied For: None

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: Dual Major in History and East Asian Studies

Experience in Asia or in Field: Majored in EAST in college, studied Japanese for 4 and 1/2 years, currently living in Japan attending the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies

[IMN22]

Degree: East Asian Studies (China) MA programs

Schools Applied To: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, UCLA, University of Washington, OSU, Indiana Bloomington, University of Pittsburgh

Fellowships Applied For: School specific FLAS and a couple outside ones

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: Top 15 national liberal arts college, International Relations-History dual major.

Experience in Asia or in Field: two study abroad programs and 5 years working in China

[graduator]

Degree: East Asian Studies (China) MA programs

Schools Applied To: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, UCLA, University of Washington, OSU, Indiana Bloomington, University of Pittsburgh

Fellowships Applied For: School specific FLAS and a couple outside ones

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: Top 15 national liberal arts college, International Relations-History dual major.

Experience in Asia or in Field: two study abroad programs and 5 years working in China

which are the best/most rep China focused programs in the US for grad school? prob is east asian studies doesnt have too much econ and business in it..which I am aiming for.

thanks

[WaitingImpatiently]

I'm currently doing a 1 year MA in eas at yale if you have any questions.

Degree: East Asian Studies (China) MA programs

Schools Applied To: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, UCLA, University of Washington, OSU, Indiana Bloomington, University of Pittsburgh

Fellowships Applied For: School specific FLAS and a couple outside ones

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: Top 15 national liberal arts college, International Relations-History dual major.

Experience in Asia or in Field: two study abroad programs and 5 years working in China

Edited December 11, 2010 by waldrop

[WaitingImpatiently]

I'm in the process of completing a 1 year ma at Yale in EAS and hoping to make it into their EALL phd program.

Also applying to Harvard, Columbia, UIUC, Chicago and Oregon.

Fellowships: FLAS

Undergrad: Ind. Major in Chinese lang, lit and area studies.

Spent a semester in China and a summer at Middlebury Chinese school.

[IMN22]

Do many Yale MA students receive funding?

I'm in the process of completing a 1 year ma at Yale in EAS and hoping to make it into their EALL phd program.

Also applying to Harvard, Columbia, UIUC, Chicago and Oregon.

Fellowships: FLAS

Undergrad: Ind. Major in Chinese lang, lit and area studies.

Spent a semester in China and a summer at Middlebury Chinese school.

[WaitingImpatiently]

On 12/11/2010 at 3:35 AM, IMN22 said:

Do many Yale MA students receive funding?

It depends. Most years I think only the top few receive funding, but I think other years they have a little more money to go around. This year I think they gave full funding to the top 4 out of 15 or so students.

[gradwoes]

Degree: PhD, South Asian History (History depts)

Schools Applied To: Columbia, Princeton, Chicago, Tufts, Harvard

Fellowships Applied For: Soros, Javits, FLAS (maybe)

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: History, South Asian Studies

Experience in Asia or in Field: Archival research in India (National Archives, NMML, and a university collection), founded an international undergraduate journal for South Asia, currently getting my Master's in the UK (means easier access to UK archives, hooray!), language training in a handful of languages.

[Turian27]

Degree: MA in East Asian Studies (Comparative)

Schools Applied To: Stanford

Fellowships Applied For: FLAS

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: B.A. in International Studies & Japanese

Experience in Asia or in Field: 1 year study abroad in Tokyo, 3 years in Japan on the JET Programme

Also applying to...

Tufts - Fletcher school; MALD focusing on East Asia

U of Denver - Korbel School; MA international studies

UCSD IR/PS; MPIA focusing on International Politics and Japan

Washington University in St. Louis - MA East Asian Languages and Cultures

Seoul National Uni GSIS - MA Korean Studies

[c_n]

I'm applying to Ph.D. programs in East Asian studies. I'm so nervous...I wonder when we will hear the results...

Degree: Mostly Ph.D., some M.A. in Japanese Literature

Schools Applied To: Yale, U Chicago, WashU, U Minnesota

Fellowships Applied For: FLAS

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: Public University, B.A. Major: English and Japanese

Experience in Asia or in Field: JET Program for 1 year. 4 years studying Japanese in college

Do you think we'll hear any results in January?...I keep checking my email, just in case!

[Aroma Black]

A pretty quiet thread compared with last year, eh? This is my second time applying for programs in Japanese literature. Last year I received various unfunded offers, but I turned all of them down and tried again. I'm a little leery of making it too clear who I am, so I'll be a bit vague:

Degree: PhD/MA, Japanese lit.

Schools Applied To: eight

Fellowships Applied For: FLAS and other smaller ones

Undergraduate School (or school type) Major: BA from an Ivy, middling GPA, quite a while ago

Experience in Asia: several years abroad after school

[c_n]

I'm hoping that this thread will pick up once the results come in.

This is my first time applying for Japanese lit., and I pretty much know that I'm probably gonna fail this time around. I don't think I did enough research into what programs I want to attend, and while I scored in the 600s on both sections of the GRE, from what I've gathered on this board, it isn't nearly good enough to get accepted with financial support.

Good luck to all of us Asian Studies applicants! I hope we all get into our top choice schools! (Nothing wrong with optimism, right? )

[Aroma Black]

I'm hoping that this thread will pick up once the results come in.

This is my first time applying for Japanese lit., and I pretty much know that I'm probably gonna fail this time around. I don't think I did enough research into what programs I want to attend, and while I scored in the 600s on both sections of the GRE, from what I've gathered on this board, it isn't nearly good enough to get accepted with financial support.

Good luck to all of us Asian Studies applicants! I hope we all get into our top choice schools! (Nothing wrong with optimism, right? )

Well, last year I didn't get financial support with over 750 on both sections of the GRE. I say this not to discourage you, but to point out that the GRE isn't a good predictor of success in grad school applications. They will be much more interested in your statement, letters, and writing sample. In my own case, I think I've improved these three this year--but I never thought about taking the GRE again.

Should only be about two more weeks before the earliest batch of results....

[kyjin]

A pretty quiet thread compared with last year, eh?

I assume people will start posting once results come in. Still probably a month before we start hearing official offers.

[kyjin]

This is my first time applying for Japanese lit., and I pretty much know that I'm probably gonna fail this time around. I don't think I did enough research into what programs I want to attend, and while I scored in the 600s on both sections of the GRE, from what I've gathered on this board, it isn't nearly good enough to get accepted with financial support.

The GRE is not the only factor for financial support. I scored under 600 in verbal and over 600 in quantitative, but I have an unofficial offer with full funding for an MA already. (Prof in the department let me know early; I'll get the official offer next month.) Don't worry, you'll be fine!

[c_n]

Thanks for the support, Aroma Black and kyjin! Hopefully when this is all over, we'll have received several sweet offers, and maybe we'll even be classmates! (Best case scenario here....I don't even wanna go to the worst case...)

That is so cool that you already received an unofficial offer, kyjin! I think we'll start hearing from the schools soon....at least, I hope we do!

I think I've just been getting really depressed over my applications lately after reading this board. There are so many people with stellar profiles that get rejected! I know they say to shoot for at least a 1200 - 1300 GRE if you want to be competitive, but I guess I interpreted that to mean that I needed to get in the 700s....which just didn't happen in the real exam, despite consistently getting around 1500 on practice exams. I used to be proud of my 6.0 on the writing section, but then people said that adcomms just consider the awa a joke and that you can only get a 6 if you write like you do in Jr High....Which made me feel pretty upset because I've always considered myself to be a good writer. Also, I didn't write my personal statement with the standard academic tone that is recommended for writing SOPs....I wrote in a very unconventional, personal, and somewhat quirky style. (I also noticed that I had a typo in the SOP that I submitted to U Chicago...I feel like such an idiot.) I can't beat myself up too much over this, though, right? In the end, I guess it's hard to tell what the adcomms are looking for....

Does it seem to anyone else that you almost can't predict who is going to be accepted? I mean, I know they are looking for a good "fit," but I' think most of us aren't sure what we are going to specialize in during grad school. I think the they just throw darts at a board and only the few lucky students get admitted. Especially with our field...they usually only have 3-5 students entering per year....they probably don't even accept most of the applicants.

[Aroma Black]

Also, I didn't write my personal statement with the standard academic tone that is recommended for writing SOPs....I wrote in a very unconventional, personal, and somewhat quirky style. (I also noticed that I had a typo in the SOP that I submitted to U Chicago...I feel like such an idiot.) I can't beat myself up too much over this, though, right? In the end, I guess it's hard to tell what the adcomms are looking for....

If the schools would base their decisions on something as minor as a typo, is that really a place you would want to study? Asian studies programs aren't huge like business programs or even English programs; there should be few enough applications that they can give each one the attention it deserves without resorting to such things. (Off the top of my head, I remember that last year at Chicago there were a little over 100 apps and Washington had about 75. Of those, Chicago took less than 5% of applicants and Washington accepted more but ended up with 5 commits. You should be able to find other statistics like that if you search around.) Anyway, it is not uncommon to find typos in the published work of professors.

Having said that, if the typo in your Chicago app was telling them you want to go to Minnesota, that probably hurts.

Edited January 19, 2011 by Aroma Black

[kyjin]

Does it seem to anyone else that you almost can't predict who is going to be accepted? I mean, I know they are looking for a good "fit," but I' think most of us aren't sure what we are going to specialize in during grad school. I think the they just throw darts at a board and only the few lucky students get admitted. Especially with our field...they usually only have 3-5 students entering per year....they probably don't even accept most of the applicants.

I've talked to a lot of current graduate students in East Asian Studies (the program I'm in right now in Japan is mostly graduate students), and they've said it really depends on your luck in any given application cycle. Even if you're a highly qualified applicant, if there isn't a professor who's really interested in your research and/or has funding for you, you won't get accepted. Don't worry about the numbers and the stats comparing yourself to other applicants; when it comes down to it, it's really in the hands of the departments and what kind of students they want to have. I don't know your specific stats, but I'm sure you're more than qualified for one or more of your potential programs. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Everything happens for a reason, right?

[Aroma Black]

I wish there was more to say in this thread. Has anyone been contacted by the programs, aside from acceptances/rejections? I don't know of any schools that do interviews, but some do "conversations"...