Take only offer or try again?

[Beckalex]

I applied to many Ph.D. programs in history and I was only accepted to my bottom choice school. At this school I'd be able to work with a professor who researches my interests and I'd be able to design my major focus in pretty much the exact way I want. However, the school does not offer secondary and minor fields in my interests. I was not offered funding. The town is extremely isolated and far from my home in a completely different climate. I had crappy GRE scores, so I'm pretty sure that was a major factor in all those rejections.

The ultimate question:

Do I accept the offer despite the above reasons or do I turn it down, improve my GRE/application, and do a second round of Ph.D. apps? My friend thinks I should attend AND apply again so I won't get screwed either way, but I don't know if I could be happy doing that.

Advice?

[rising_star]

God. I've now seen this post *three* times. You could wait and see if you get a response in one place before just posting it over and over.

There's no reason to do a PhD without funding, unless you just like being massively in debt.

[truc]

I applied to many Ph.D. programs in history and I was only accepted to my bottom choice school. At this school I'd be able to work with a professor who researches my interests and I'd be able to design my major focus in pretty much the exact way I want. However, the school does not offer secondary and minor fields in my interests. I was not offered funding. The town is extremely isolated and far from my home in a completely different climate. I had crappy GRE scores, so I'm pretty sure that was a major factor in all those rejections.

The ultimate question:

Do I accept the offer despite the above reasons or do I turn it down, improve my GRE/application, and do a second round of Ph.D. apps? My friend thinks I should attend AND apply again so I won't get screwed either way, but I don't know if I could be happy doing that.

Advice?

Don't take this offer and then reapply. Pick one. IMHO, take the GRE again before it changes and apply in the fall.

[Lymrance]

Don't take this offer and then reapply. Pick one. IMHO, take the GRE again before it changes and apply in the fall.

I would ask the schools that rejected you for their reasons. Usually schools will have no problem giving you some indication of why they had to deny your application. And if they all mention the GRE and you truly believe it was your only weak area, then re-take it and improve your score.

However, if the GRE is only part of their reason for rejecting you and you can't get funding from the one school to which you were accepted and the school is a low-ranked institution from which it would be hard to go on to find employment, then I would consider changing my plan -- period.

[DisneyLeith]

For history programs it's really unlikely that your GRE score is what killed your applications. It's all about Writing Sample, Personal Statement and Letters of Recommendation.