History Admissions 2009

[Cornell07]

Summer is about halfway done and by now everyone who applied for 2008 admissions has heard back, for better or for worse. As for me, it feels like last year's admissions never really ended as I tried to get into a last ditch MA program, was waitlisted, and thus the process didn't really end until mid-to-late May. It suffices to say that I don't know if I am hitting the ground running for 2009 admissions or just being thrust forward with inertia.

Whether you are new to this game or are just coming back, feel free to post a little bit about yourself, what you want to study, and where you want to apply. As things get moving, join in the angst and hand wringing as we complain about professors who never respond to our emails, admin offices that lose our files (Repeatedly. I'm looking at you BU.), and rumors from a friend of a friend of an advisor of an email contact that the adcoms might, are just about to, are eventually planning to release their decisions.

Just remember, if at first you don't get in, apply, apply, apply again! Or you could go out into the real world and get a real job that offers decent pay, benefits, 9-5 hours, vacation... Oh what am I saying!? Screw that! We want to be GRAD STUDENTS! :wink:

[Minnesotan]

admin offices that lose our files (Repeatedly. I'm looking at you BU.)

I'm beginning to wonder why people bother applying there. You're probably the sixth or seventh person who mentioned to me that their BU application got mishandled at least once. Granted, I speak to people in many different programs, but most of my regular contact comes from the humanities (English and History).

[anese]

Didn't University of Pennsylania have similar problems last year with missing files/lack of communication?

There should be some kind of graduate school black list--I know I have heard things from current PhD/graduates at University of Chicago/Columbia University that make me never want to go to either school.

[Louiselab]

I'm gearing up for round 2 this year.

Super excited, I have a whole team of recommenders (all have a habit of checking and reading email!), a senior thesis, and straight As in history my senior year, plus some work experience and graduate history classes, and a GRE score that's 100 points than last year.

bring it on bitches, I love applications. I keep telling myself, the 2nd time around it should be a lot easier.

[rising_star]

Louise, your attitude is absolutely perfect! Plus, I'm so jealous of you peeps in history. i regret not majoring in history as an undergrad.

[hbehrens5]

This is round 2.5 for me.

I applied for the 07-08 year for a PhD in medieval history. I had no idea what i was doing and as a consequence had a terrible SoP and applied to only 4 schools, all ivy. Silly silly history girl. Last year i applied only to NYU and didn't change anything about my application because of sheer apathy. THis summer i have been working tirelessly on a new SoP and i am set for a fight! Only applying to one PhD program and about 6 MAs.

Good luck everyone, and remember to have a backup plan!

[rising_star]

hberens, why only one PhD program? Have you done anything else to strengthen your application (kept up with languages, taken grad classes, etc)?

[thelowendhz]

hbehrens -

I'm asking this because of your signature, but is UMass one of the programs your applying to for medieval history? I just finished my undergrad there and can confidently say (also as a fellow medievalist) that I would not recommend trying to do medieval history there. The History dept. just hired a tenure-track medievalist this past year (their only medievalist) and other humanities departments are lacking in medievalists.

[pawnee68502]

Hi everyone,

This fall will be round one for me. I'm applying mostly PhD programs in Modern Middle Eastern history. After lurking on this board late last spring, I think I *may* have a taste for what I'm in store for this upcoming fall, and am equally terrified/excited. I think I'll have a strong application with a high GPA, honors thesis, research experience, and great letters. That being said, my mediocre GRE scores still keep me awake at night......

My current list of applications include: UPENN, Georgetown, Rutgers, UT Austin, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCSB, UC Santa Cruz, and UMinnesota.

Good luck everyone, and let the worrying begin!

[Cornell07]

So, what's new with Cornell07?

Surprise, surprise. Thanks to the economy, I'm having an early taste of post-grad school life and am now unemployed. Woo for layoffs! No matter. I am (I hope) able to jump ship from my temporary field of corporate law and start working on applications and other things related to my long term vocational prospects. As my interests still lie in US foreign policy and international relations, I've been applying to a number of research assistantship/internship positions at think tanks and policy institutes. I hope that real work experience in my field of study will give me the leg up to apply directly to PhD programs again, rather than leave me to throw most of my apps into the terminal MA ring.

Here are some ways I am improving this year (if you are new to the game, hopefully this will help you learn)

1) Contact Profs You Want to Work With Has anyone started writing to professors who they would like to work with? Too soon? Of course, one wants to get them before they are too swamped with the semester, but one does not want to contact them so early that they forget you come January/February. What to talk about? I always assumed you point out why you contacted them in particular (say, a book of theirs that you read), tell them you are interested in applying to their school's History MA/PhD program in X-subfield, ask if they will be taking on new graduate advisees next fall, and, of course, say a little about yourself and your interests to pique their own interest.

2) Write a 1000 Word Personal Statement Draft by the End of September, Let it Rest, then Revise, Revise, Revise Should be obvious, but it isn't. Your personal statement is so hugely important for humanities people that it must be in-freaking-credible.

3) Have as many people as possible read your personal statement

4) Find 10, 15, 20 and Extra Long Research Paper Snippits and Edit them to Death

5) See if your interests fall into any other fields, besides history proper I may apply to a few fields related to my research interests that may not be "history" exactly, such as government, international relations, and public policy. "Woody Woo", anyone?

[canadiana]

Just a question for all the history re-applicants: I was told by adcoms that my SOP was actually quite good, and that other factors held me back last year. Now that I'm reapplying, should I write a new SOP, or simply tweak the one that I already have? (I intend to apply to many of the same schools that I did last year.)

[anese]

Just a question for all the history re-applicants: I was told by adcoms that my SOP was actually quite good, and that other factors held me back last year. Now that I'm reapplying, should I write a new SOP, or simply tweak the one that I already have? (I intend to apply to many of the same schools that I did last year.)

Whoa hold on. You were told it wasn't your SoP and you are re-applying this year to the same schools without any changes?--do you know what they thought was weak in your application? Was it research experience? coursework? GPA? LORs?

If you have not made adjustments already, it is really important that your cv has some marked improvements before you re-apply to the same schools.

Also--you can keep your SoP with a few changes to adjust for any new relevant information that might improve your chances or paint a better picture of your research aspirations. I had a similar situation this past spring, and that was the advice I was given by a professor.

[canadiana]

Thanks, anese! That's good advice. It was a lack of language experience, and lack of academic experience in medieval history (my field) that supposedly held me back. I'm hoping that advanced language training and a graduate degree (MA) in medieval history will make my application stronger this time around.

[anese]

Thanks, anese! That's good advice. It was a lack of language experience, and lack of academic experience in medieval history (my field) that supposedly held me back. I'm hoping that advanced language training and a graduate degree (MA) in medieval history will make my application stronger this time around.

Awesome! Sorry if I sounded like I was nagging--I'm glad everything is in order for you I just finished walking around the Byzantine/Medeival History library at NYU after cruising Columbia's...pretty neat stuff. I wish I had the language work/tenacity for that field! It's always fascinated me.

[bleistift]

I'm writing my response as sort of a "lessons learned" and future "action items" in hopes that others can read and learn from my experiences. Being a part of this forum has helped me through this process immensely, as it has given me both a dose of realism and a glimmer of hope as well. Without further ado --

For those unfamiliar, my previous year in a nutshell: I was rejected from all PhD programs last year and received 2 late MA acceptances, either of which I would have gladly taken had they offered even a minutiae of financial aid... Alas, I ask too much. Crestfallen after months of gung-ho pre-grad excitement (or call it naivete), I transitioned into 6 months of "soul searching" as I did the 9-5 (actually quite a bit more than that), testing my resolve to pursue a life in academia while slowly accumulating a little nest egg should I receive the same results this fall and need to supply my tuition entirely out of pocket.

Now: In many ways I have not improved my application and even digressed in application strength relative to my age just by the fact that I have almost no time to improve my credentials outside my already busy professional life. With this in mind, I will need to focus on what is within my power to improve.

• [*:wfuh36jy]I will begin with my SoP. My original was weak to begin with. "Mundane" is the best description I have for it. Half a year has given me a better idea of what drives me to academia...and what life on the other side is like. I hope to apply some of this perspective in this application.
  
  [*:wfuh36jy]I am quite a bit more realistic about my "targets" and "safeties" (I'm embarrassed to say I considered my undergraduate institution as my safety, thinking "oh my undergrad professors loved me, why wouldn't they take me?"). I had applied with the intention of "making myself fit the faculty interests" instead of the other way around. I realized the true gravity of my error when the response I received from one of the schools I applied to was a blunt "we really have no professors who specialize in your field of interest." I could not have experienced a greater feeling of stupidity after reading that email, especially since I paid $75 for a one sentence statement I already knew. I'll focus less on reputation and more on schools with a number of professors who would actually share my interests.
  
  [*:wfuh36jy]This time around I will apply for a wider range of PhD programs, and leverage the $@*~! out of any financial offer I receive against schools who don't offer me anything. I've seen how ruthless financial aid offers are, and I don't plan on being the one on the receiving end this time.

[Highfructose]

Howdy all,

I am a History Senior at UW Seattle. Looking to apply for 20th century American at Columbia, NYU, CUNY, UPenn, Stanford, UCLA, UC Berk, Brown, Yale, Cornell, UNC ChapelHill, Boston U, UW. Yep after seeing terrifying stories of mass rejections on forums I have decided to mass produce my app.

[rising_star]

Highfructose, have you considered applying to some funded MA programs? Or maybe some less highly ranked programs? Have you made sure you're a solid match with the faculty at each school?

[Highfructose]

Rising_Star,

Yeah I am sort of mass producing my app, so it's a mixture of me being a good match with faculty at some of them and a somewhat less solid but still plausible with others. I am interested and have the most experience in Labor history, but I think thats a good background for most kinds of social histories of 20th century.

I'd like to apply to some funded MA programs to have some more options this spring, but I have found that most do not seem to offer much funding. UW is a terminal MA program and so far the only one I am going for. Let me know any other places you'd suggest.

[technocat]

What ARE some good fully-funded MA programs?

[sra08]

I'm a current college senior applying to History PhD programs this year, more specifically American history. I took the GRE today and am feeling a bit antsy. I do not want to take the test again. Will a 670 verbal/630 math keep me out of top programs? I have high grades from a well-respected liberal arts college and feel that the rest of the application will be strong. From what I gather, GRE scores don't mean much past a certain threshold. I just want to feel as though I can reasonably accept these scores and not regret it later.

[rising_star]

Rising_Star,

Yeah I am sort of mass producing my app, so it's a mixture of me being a good match with faculty at some of them and a somewhat less solid but still plausible with others. I am interested and have the most experience in Labor history, but I think thats a good background for most kinds of social histories of 20th century.

In my opinion, mass producing your application is a terrible idea. Admissions committees can tell if someone is just cut-and-pasting the same thing to each school. If you don't seem interested in them, why should they seem interested in you? If the match is "somewhat less solid" as you say, I'd think about saving your money and not applying to that school. Especially for a PhD, you're going to need to demonstrate that you are a good, if not great, match for the faculty at the school. If you can't/don't, you're unlikely to get in. (And don't think you can fake it. They can usually see through that too!)

As far as funded MA programs, I think a lot of larger universities have them because they use MA students as TAs, especially for grading in lower-level courses. For example, I have heard that the University of Georgia funds MA students.

[skeeterjo]

Listen to Rising Star about not mass producing your applications! This is 5 star advice. If you are not a good fit for a school, don't waste their time and your money. Research your schools, read books written by potential advisors, and submit an intelligent SOP.

[technocat]

.

[skeeterjo]

Of course you can edit the last two paragraphs of your SOP. However, you do run the risk of not presenting your "case" adequately for admittance into a specific program if you self impose such limits. I would instead impose a limit on the length of the SOP-2 pages of extremely meaningful dialog would be great. Look at it this way, you are asking x university to provide you with tuition and support for 6-7 years. There are hundreds of applicants for the top programs out of which a very small percentage will be accepted. Your back up school may be someone else's first choice. Keep in mind that due to our country's recession, funding may be more limited in 2009 than last year.

Just do your best Technocat so that you have no regrets. By the way, schools have a backup plan too-the dreaded waitlist.

[rising_star]

Ok, but even when you research a school, you're still not going to craft an individualized app just for them, are you? You're going to edit the last 1 or 2 graphs of your SOP to say "...and this is why I am applying to School X, so that I can study with Profs In, My, and Field, whose research relates to my interests. Their Center on My Specific Area will help me interact w/ other scholars in this field, and their Other Thing That is Particular to this School is also rockin'." I think that's all Highfructose means by "mass producing" his/her app, not that s/he is planning to send in an SOP that reads, "This is what I want to study. Make way!" It strikes me as totally reasonable, since only a couple schools are likely to be *perfect* for any applicant, and everyone's gotta have some back-ups, which are back-ups precisely because they're less than perfect.

I did seven applications last year. They are surprisingly different, having just taken a glance at each of the seven SOPs. They vary by more than just the last few paragraphs. I play up different aspects of my past experience or future goals, depending on the school. I connect to other units on campus throughout, rather than just at the end. I didn't change my research interests but I did stress particular aspects, methodologies, etc that fit with particular faculty. I truly believe that doing more than just doing some cut-and-paste changes in the final paragraph is necessary to do well, but that's based on my experience with what I did and how it worked for me (accepted with full funding everywhere).

I think skeeterjo's note about funding is quite important. State governments are trimming budgets and this does and will continue to have an impact on the funding and resources available to graduate students. My former university's library has a $1.7 million budget shortfall and is going to cut journal subscriptions dramatically in order to not bankrupt itself. My current university will probably offer fewer students funding in the upcoming year, just because the university has already mandated 10% budget cuts and may demand additional budget cuts in the next few months. Now, I'm not saying that you should therefore focus your attention solely on private universities. My point is just that it's something to make sure you're aware of when comparing offers, particularly since many will make future funding conditional in some way.