Some Stats via History Progams!!

[GreatMix]

Hi. Does anyone know if Northwestern is done accepting? Only saw a few posted.

[StrangeLight]

for anyone waiting on pittsburgh, here's what the grad secretary told me:

112 applied. they have no minimum or maximum number of students that they enroll. if you fit with a professor and the department, and your grades/GRE/etc. are where they need to be, you're in. they are currently making the second round of cuts, but no one has been notified yes or no yet. the department won't send out any decisions until they've all been made, which should be some time in early march.

(this makes me breathe a lot easier, since pitt is my best "fit" for any school i've applied to, and my grades and scores certainly meet the standard).

[habu987]

UNC-Chapel Hill (History): Very friendly staff there by the way. The department received 436 applications, 11 in the field of ancient. They will be able to offer admission to 2, maybe 3 in the field of ancient. Again, as in the case of UChicago, they will be doing waitlisting this year due to the poor economy. They, as of Feb. 13th, are still reviewing applications, and final decisions are not due from the department to the graduate school until March 15. So... this is probably a late notifying school. Expect to hear in the last weeks of March.

I posted in the thread on UNC, but thought I'd post over here, too. I've been in contact with Dr. Wayne Lee, the head of the military history department there. They had 440 applicants for 17 spots. Anyone who applied for military history--they had 50 applications for 4 slots, 2 of which have been filled already by military guys with military funding. That leaves the other 48 of us competing for the remaining two slots. Dr. Lee also said (yesterday) that, although he's not the one who writes the letters, they should be sending out notifications very soon, so I would presume that's within the next week or so.

[psychomachia]

Hi. Does anyone know if Northwestern is done accepting? Only saw a few posted.

Looks like it's done -- there's a bunch of rejections posted today, including mine

[misterpat]

Looks like it's done -- there's a bunch of rejections posted today, including mine

Mine too. 0/5! :shock:

[psychomachia]

misterpat said:

Mine too. 0/5! :shock:

I'm so sorry to hear. What a bummer of a year. How many more schools are you waiting to hear from? I've got at least another week or more until I find out whether I've been accepted to U of T or not. Argh!

[riss287]

Mid March? What the heck!! Can't they just do it now? I know, very insensitive their time, but still...

[cambrai2009]

UCLA Stats :

US field (only field I have info on) : 100+ applicants, 18 spots, only 3 with guaranteed funding...

[synthla]

UCLA Stats :

US field (only field I have info on) : 100+ applicants, 18 spots, only 3 with guaranteed funding...

Interesting. UCLA seems to be particularly bad about funding people, which is ironic given the expense associated with living in L.A. I don't know whether their assumption is that people will pay their own way for the name/prestige or what. I'm not American History but was admitted without funding; with funding already guaranteed elsewhere, it seems unlikely I'll go.

[cambrai2009]

About UCLA :

Apparently it's easy to get TAship or research assistantship (but you can't get any during your first year).

[Highfructose]

UCLA Stats :

US field (only field I have info on) : 100+ applicants, 18 spots, only 3 with guaranteed funding...

I got a UCLA acceptance today for US field without funding. So I'm having a mix of excitement and and disappointment about funding. Someone above said it's easy to get TAship or RA after 1st year which seems like it would help, but still to enter into a 6 year commitment without funding would be nerve wracking. Hopefully I get funding somewhere else.

[sra08]

Count me in as someone else who got into UCLA without funding. I'm thrilled, as it's my first acceptance after five rejections and UCLA is a good fit for me. But the funding situation is rather nerve-racking. I need to find out more about how funding gets decided after the first year, and how the department predicts its funding situation changing in subsequent years. (Yes, if only we all knew where the economy is going.)

[synthla]

That is good to know that assistantships are generally available after the first year, but that first year is still a big problem for me. I already live in L.A., and though my lifestyle will be downgraded a bit wherever I end up as I've been working for a few years, I would have to really downgrade to stay in L.A. with no funding, even assuming taking out a decent amount of loans to cover living expenses. It would be tough to move from my nice place to a less-desirable place, etc., in the same area. That probably sounds odd, but for whatever reason it's not as psychologically big an issue when the downgrade also involves a change in city... it's not as obvious, I guess.

[cambrai2009]

I also got in UCLA without funding and what is very unclear to me is how the first year works : apart from living expenses, would we have to pay for tuition + non-resident fees which is smthg like 15,000$(at least for those who don't live in CA this year)? I heard that during the years you do have TAship, the tuitions fees are covered.

Does anybody have more info? I'm not really planning on taking the offer but I just want to understand what the whole deal is before turning it down.

[psychomachia]

If anyone is interested, Toronto's history department is apparently sitting next week to make their admission decisions.

[misterpat]

That's rough UCLA offered so many people admission without funding. It's almost like a tease.

[synthla]

That's rough UCLA offered so many people admission without funding. It's almost like a tease.

Yeah, from what I understand it's not that different from past years though... but I'm happy to have someone correct me on that.

[misterpat]

Yeah, from what I understand it's not that different from past years though... but I'm happy to have someone correct me on that.

Yeah, I didn't reall read the whole thread until I posted. I was going off of the results page and the bottom few posters. They remind me of Wisconsin-Madison, at least the Sociology department. A bunch of people on here were admitted to WM without funding for the first year, but were told they would probably be able to get it after the first year. I suppose it's a way of only getting die-hard people, but I personally wouldn't take the chance.

[feisty]

Chicago used to do that when my UG advisor was there (late 90s?), right?

I was strongly advised against getting into such a situation, unless I had some cash saved away and was guaranteed funding after the first year. It's a humanities graduate degree, it's not like there's a job in thoracic surgery at the end of the money pit.

[synthla]

Yeah, I didn't reall read the whole thread until I posted. I was going off of the results page and the bottom few posters. They remind me of Wisconsin-Madison, at least the Sociology department. A bunch of people on here were admitted to WM without funding for the first year, but were told they would probably be able to get it after the first year. I suppose it's a way of only getting die-hard people, but I personally wouldn't take the chance.

I think the danger the UCLA method creates is that you wind up with a bunch of people who are willing to finance themselves for a year and take the risk thereafter because UCLA is the best school they got into; now, that doesn't mean UCLA students are not still among the brightest out there, but I don't see how UCLA competes with its peer institutions (at least per the much maligned USNWR rankings, which put it in the top 10), when most of those peers (and even some "lesser" schools) guarantee funding for 5 years as a matter of course.

[sra08]

A few more things I've found out about UCLA funding and recruitment: After a year, you're automatically classified as in-state if you weren't already. All students are eligible to apply for jobs as readers/graders for undergraduate courses. The website says there are 60 anticipated openings for that and the grad counselor who I talked to on the phone made it sound as though these positions aren't terribly competitive. Still, I'm not sure as to the pay for that, and there are no guarantees. The department also is not having a special recruitment weekend like many other schools are doing. Not really a problem for me, as I can visit most Fridays, but it does seem as though they make less of an effort to recruit people as many other schools. Probably a combination of the state budget being in crisis and not having the funds and them assuming that a lot of acceptees will want to go there even without funding and recruitment events.

[synthla]

Re UCLA, I get the exact same impression sra08; not that it would necessarily stop me from going if that was my top or only choice, because otherwise I wouldn't have applied, but it seems like a department where you have to forge your own way even more than in most Ph.D programs. It is the biggest program in the country so probably a bit crazy like that, but 60 openings doesn't sound like a lot compared to the fact that I think they had 270 grad students in Fall of 2005 according to the AHA website, and 47 students started in Fall 2004... these figures are several years old, but I have to think that more than 60 people out of 200+ would be wanting funding. And on your point re recruitment, I also agree - but I value feeling wanted, at least during the admissions phase - one of my other schools (also a state school) is covering airfare and a couple nights hotel so I can visit, though they don't have an official admitted students weekend.

[sra08]

Yeah, I definitely understand why someone would pick good school + funding over UCLA with no funding. I also share many of synthla's concerns about the size about the department. I'm coming from a school where there are five tenured faculty positions in History and twelve senior majors, so going to the largest History department in the world (I think) will be quite the shock. At this point UCLA is the only acceptance I have, and there are only a few places I have left to hear from that are comparable to UCLA in terms of fit and program quality. And I'm probably rejected at Columbia, which leaves one. So, I will probably be matriculating at UCLA in spite of no first-year funds, but I'm lucky enough to have some family financial support for that. I've also been able to talk to one of Prospective Adviser's former grad students, and she sounds like a great adviser in addition to being a top scholar in my field. If it weren't for my family's willingness to juggle things around to make this work, and if I had a funding offer from a comparable institution, I'd definitely feel differently, though.

[synthla]

If you have a really good fit with a professor, then I'd think you might be able to overcome some of the disadvantages of a large department - you'll have an easier time getting the mentoring relationship you want if it's easy to make a close connection over shared research interests. I'd probably be more at risk at UCLA - there are people doing work in the same general area, but no one with a professed set of interests that really matches up perfectly. I actually didn't think my odds of getting in were all that high because of that. I'm afraid I'd have a higher chance of falling through the cracks because of it though.