Seeking a bit of perspective

[Lemminkainen]

So, I've plunged headlong into the graduate admissions process in History, and I'm realizing that terrifyingly, unlike in undergrad, I have almost no clue about my prospects for admission, apart from the assurances of my recommendation-writers (one of whom, who has a PhD from Princeton, runs my school's graduate admissions, and taught me in a grad-level research seminar, told me that he thought I would thrive at a top program and that my background gave me an interesting hook).  

 

So I figured I might seek some commentary from the more knowledgeable folk here.

 

I'm a senior at a top-20 undergrad institution in the South.  I'll be graduating with Bachelor's degrees in history and mathematics.  My GPA in the former is above 4.0 (my school gives an A+), and my overall GPA is around 3.95.  On the GRE, I scored 99th percentile in Verbal, 96th in Quantitative, and 92nd in Writing.  I've taken five research seminars, one at the graduate level, and plan to take two more my last semester.  I speak French and Spanish quite well, and can basically read them fluently.  I've just begun to learn Arabic.  I have three letters of recommendation from accomplished professors who love me and are enthusiastic about my candidacy and taught me in research seminars.

 

I want to do a comparative, post-Orientalist imperial history of the US and Britain with a focus on their involvement in the Middle East.  My personal statement discussed both this and the extra assets that I would bring to history research because of my mathematics background-- and my writing sample (which is a seminar research paper thoroughly grounded in primary sources, and makes use of secondary sources) is outside my planned field of study, but intended to be demonstrative of my special intellectual virtues.

 

I've already applied to Ohio State, Harvard, Vanderbilt, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and UT-Austin.  I'm also planning to apply to Cornell and Oxford.

 

Should I be concerned about the prospect of not getting in anywhere/find some lower-tier schools to drop a line to/think about picking up a master's/work harder to look for a job?  Or am I probably okay?  Thank you for your guidance.

[Thumbelina]

You seem like a top contender in all aspects of the application (SoP, GRE scores, language requirements, LoR, etc), and there don't seem to be any "red flags" so I'm sure you will get in to most of the schools. Best of luck!

[Simple Twist of Fate]

Yes, it does appear that you're a very competitive applicant, but that doesn't guarantee anything. Every school you listed will have scores of highly competitive applicants like you this cycle. It sounds like your application will likely survive the first cut at most of those schools. After that, it's a bit of a crap shoot. Who knows what will happen? You have a lot of reasons to be optimistic, truly, but it's impossible to predict how things will shake out. 

 

The best "perspective" I can provide is that you should try to embrace this uncertainty. After decisions start rolling in, you may find that your expectations don't match reality. The school you felt like you had the best chance of being accepted into might reject you outright. The "reach" school might accept you. Frankly, there are so many variables at play that the best thing you can do at this point is relax and accept that things are out of your hands. If that terrifies you (as it did me) then continue cultivating post-graduation plans on the assumption that you'll be rejected across the board. Hopefully that won't be an issue, but it might prove psychologically helpful in a few months. I wouldn't recommend trying to apply to "lower-tier" schools at the last minute, especially if you don't have a strong, natural fit there. 

 

Best of luck and happy holidays. 

[Lemminkainen]

Thanks for your compassionate and thoughtful advice!  I guess that at this point, all I can do is wait.

 

I forgot to mention this in my first post, but my biggest anxiety was about languages-- I was a bit worried that my Arabic isn't good enough to satisfy the programs I'm applying to.

[hanbran]

  On 1/13/2013 at 10:33 PM, Lemminkainen said:

I forgot to mention this in my first post, but my biggest anxiety was about languages-- I was a bit worried that my Arabic isn't good enough to satisfy the programs I'm applying to.

Did you address this in your SOP?  Did you contact any POI?  I know that some schools recognize that many undergraduate institutions do not offer courses in Arabic, so they often place less emphasis on previous knowledge of Arabic when evaluating applicants who wish to focus on Middle Eastern history.

[Lemminkainen]

The reason why I just started taking Arabic is that for a lot of my undergraduate career, I was planning to enter a PhD program in mathematics.  I only fully acknowledged to myself how powerful my need to go for history was last year, and, unfortunately, my school only offers starting Arabic courses in the fall semester, so I could only start in the fall.  I gave this explanation in my SOP or in some supporting document for every school that I applied to.

[hanbran]

I had an undergraduate professor who got into Michigan to study Middle Eastern history, and he had no experience with Arabic at the time, so it probably won't kill your chances.