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2024 Application Thread


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7 hours ago, ndoco2024 said:

Duke waitlist decisions are out! Not sure about admission/rejection decisions because I got waitlisted lol. Only schools I have heard from have been waitlists so I'm trying to stay at least a little bit positive..

Hey, Don't give up hope! I was on the Duke waitlist last year and got off it in mid-March, and I am now attending there. 

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26 minutes ago, CheckYesJules said:

Hey, Don't give up hope! I was on the Duke waitlist last year and got off it in mid-March, and I am now attending there. 

This is actually really encouraging to hear!! Duke is one of my top 2 programs (along the other one that waitlisted me) and I need to be reminded not to give out hope

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1 hour ago, theliteraryhistorian said:

Congrats to the Santa Cruz admit! Can you please post more details about your acceptance? Thanks!

Thank you so much! I got an email from my POI, who I spoke with informally in October. I didn't have an interview or any other correspondence with people in the program since that meeting. From what he said, formal acceptances won't go out for a little bit. Happy to share any other info!

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4 minutes ago, belladonna said:

Thank you so much! I got an email from my POI, who I spoke with informally in October. I didn't have an interview or any other correspondence with people in the program since that meeting. From what he said, formal acceptances won't go out for a little bit. Happy to share any other info!

Thanks so much for the info!! Congrats again on the acceptance. :)

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2 hours ago, anhistorian said:

Hello! Wishing everyone the best for this decision cycle. 

Would anyone happen to have any tips/advice for UPenn interviews? Would greatly appreciate any information at all. 

Hi! Mine was in Ancient History (Classical Studies department) and I am waitlisted, so take my advice only so far, but, I'd be prepared to succinctly restate what you have in your SOP (Research interests, why this school, etc). Also, be prepared to defend/ discuss your writing sample. I was very thrown when they GRILLED me about my methodology, and why I hadn't cited 'so and so' and how my work fit into the field. UPenn was definitely the most intense on that front, but again, slightly different department, so no guarantees.

Best of luck!

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11 minutes ago, Tommmmm said:

Does anyone know to what extent Kenneth Griffin's withdrawal of his endowment could affect Harvard's funding offers for this year's incoming PhDs? 

Probably won't affect it this year. They weren't planning on using that money right away—it was to be invested. 

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11 minutes ago, historianmusicologist118 said:

Is it reasonable to worry if you haven’t heard anything back, informally (from POI) or formally, at this time? 

It really depends on which program and subfield. Many departments, especially larger ones which receive 300+ applications, have no communication until the decision. In some subfields, there are faculty members who reach out to applicants and others who don't. Unless you know for a fact that your POI has been reaching to other applicants, I wouldn't draw any conclusions from silence. 

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Hi all, just had my interview with Penn and wanted to outline how it went for anyone who's curious (for this or future seasons!).

It was a 30 minute interview with four professors, one of whom was the head of Latin American studies (my area) in the department, and the other three had thematic interests specifically overlapping with my own (mine are early modern and trans-Atlantic in scope, so there were specialists on early modern Europe there.) The professor whose research interests most closely overlapped with mine led the meeting, but all professors had a chance to ask me questions.

They first asked the basic questions pretty quickly about why I want a PhD, why at Penn, and how I arrived at my interests. I was also asked about my background with both primary and secondary sources in my field (e.g., "Have you read [X primary source]?" or "Can you tell me about the historians who have most influenced your approach and interests?"), as well as some of my plans for further study (I'm interested in Indigenous history & Indigenous language sources, so I was asked about how I would go about learning Nahuatl and Dzaha Dzavui, for example, and quickly asked if I was confident in my Spanish skills).

The thirty minutes went by FAST, and I didn't have really enough time to say everything I'd been prepared to or to ask all the questions I wanted to, though I was given about five minutes at the end to ask them some things. I'm not sure I did well on that last part -- I meant to ask about the future directions their research was heading in and how I & my research might fit into that, but I think it came off as me asking about their past research, which might've made it seem like I didn't do my research on them (not ideal!). The adrenaline is still getting to me, though, so I don't think I have the clearest retrospective view of it yet. Overall, though, everyone was friendly and I didn't get the sense I was being grilled or anything, though it could be hard to read people over my crummy Zoom connection. Wishing everyone luck with their future interviews & admissions!

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35 minutes ago, ray525 said:

Has anyone heard anything from Brown? I just saw one result on GradCafe for this year.

 

18 minutes ago, historyprincess said:

No! I haven’t either. I was actually quite surprised that person had heard so early especially because no one else had posted anything. 

I also have not heard, and during my interview he said it would be early-mid February, so I think whatever that one poster got, it's not a sign of what's in store for the rest of us. (That said, tomorrow is early February, right? So I can panic now?)

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1 hour ago, confusedmedievalist said:

 

I also have not heard, and during my interview he said it would be early-mid February, so I think whatever that one poster got, it's not a sign of what's in store for the rest of us. (That said, tomorrow is early February, right? So I can panic now?)

 

 

Edited by ray525
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How many UChicago applicants were rejected from the PhD but referred to the MA? The results page has quite a few specifying this. Is that a standard practice for most/all applicants that were not accepted, a waitlist type decision, or exactly what it sounds like - referring competitive applicants that perhaps weren’t as qualified for the PhD but could get into the MA. I imagine it is less of a financial commitment to admit considerably more MA students with varying funding offers than admitting a fully funded PhD candidate. I guess I’m simply asking if it’s a scam or something competitive that is worth considering? 

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50 minutes ago, PhdtoDig said:

How many UChicago applicants were rejected from the PhD but referred to the MA? The results page has quite a few specifying this. Is that a standard practice for most/all applicants that were not accepted, a waitlist type decision, or exactly what it sounds like - referring competitive applicants that perhaps weren’t as qualified for the PhD but could get into the MA. I imagine it is less of a financial commitment to admit considerably more MA students with varying funding offers than admitting a fully funded PhD candidate. I guess I’m simply asking if it’s a scam or something competitive that is worth considering? 

I wouldn’t call it a scam, but it is obviously a cash cow for the university. Some candidates undoubtedly do go on to Ph.D programs. Depending on which MA it is, I would inquire with former students about their experiences. An MA program that allows you to take courses and seminars alongside Ph.D students could be worth doing. A program where you mainly take special MA ‘proseminars’ usually taught by untenured or clinical faculty is not worth going into debt for. I almost enrolled in an Ivy MA before contacting faculty of interest and being bluntly told that they only accepted Ph.D students in their classes.

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On 1/31/2024 at 9:24 AM, ndoco2024 said:

This is actually really encouraging to hear!! Duke is one of my top 2 programs (along the other one that waitlisted me) and I need to be reminded not to give out hope

 I was on the Duke waitlist last year as well and but didn't get off haha. so this year I come again. there was eight people on the Duke waitlist last year, and two people get off. good luck for you!

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On 1/25/2024 at 1:40 AM, ndoco2024 said:

I think it really varies by subfield, I would wait it out and email if you didn't hear by mid-Feb. Don't lose hope yet, most departments have not made final decisions and most acceptances have been unofficial! Edit: Also, I am not in the subfield you mentioned.

thanks for your kind words. i got interview before and asked my poi last week, no headcount for British History this year...look forward for other programs now

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