Results

[Roy_Baty]

Yesterday, I received an offer from Tufts in the mail. I honestly didn't think I would get in.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Roy_Baty

[spellbanisher]

Rejected by Rutgers. I'm going to Davis!

[kippen]

Did anyone apply to the program at University of Kansas? I haven't heard from them, but they sent out decisions a couple of weeks earlier last year.

[tenguru]

So, these ongoing results from University of Oregon are killing me. My website status is still "pending" although lots of people have been dropping like flies (and getting different forms of admittance?).

 

Also, I see a ton of MA admits. Did you guys apply for MA or did they reroute a lot of PhD applicants?

 

Thanks!

[kdavid]

So, these ongoing results from University of Oregon are killing me. My website status is still "pending" although lots of people have been dropping like flies (and getting different forms of admittance?).

 

 

I was told decisions were finalized on Feb. 28. I received my snail mail acceptance today.

 

FYI: I'll be rejecting the offer in case anyone is waitlisted.

[tenguru]

Thanks, kdavid. I wonder why my status on the application is still pending as they have obviously made decisions. I imagine I will get a letter tomorrow.

 

I really like the looks of the courses they offer at U of O, but I may just go for a MA first to see if I can get myself into a top ten or twenty program. But, before I make any decisions, I would like to have all offers in front of me.

[orangepeel]

I have a question about wait lists. I'm on a wait list at my top choice program. Is it wise to tell the program that it's my top choice? Or will that seem desperate?

[levoyous]

I have a question about wait lists. I'm on a wait list at my top choice program. Is it wise to tell the program that it's my top choice? Or will that seem desperate?

 

Absolutely. It may not change the waitlist situation, but it certainly won't hurt.

[tenguru]

RE my query about U of O: I got the letter today. I was accepted but to the MA and waitlisted for funding. Decisions, decisions.

[awells27]

RE my query about U of O: I got the letter today. I was accepted but to the MA and waitlisted for funding. Decisions, decisions

Do you have another acceptance offer?

[tenguru]

Yes, Stanford but no funding. And that is for a MA in East Asian Studies.

[awells27]

Well, waitlisted for funding is better than waitlisted for admission, so there is moderate hope at Oregon.  I would be thinking hard about who my primary faculty would be at each college.  

[RevolutionBlues]

If anyone has any questions about UOregon feel free to PM me. But in answer to some of the general questions, in the vast majority of cases, save maybe one a year, BA-PhD applicants are routed through the MA first. The downside to this is that you have to do an extra year of coursework. The upsides to this are that you get an extra year of funding and can reapply to other places if you so choose. But it is a nice program and I'd bet that you'd be able to get funding. Good luck!

[sQuizzknows]

I know someone is wait-listed at Northeastern, so I wanted to let you know I will definitely be accepting their offer for the PhD program. I posted a result a few weeks ago about being on the wait-list for a week. I do Modern Europe in case you are around here and wanted to know. 

[Ahtlatl]

I was accepted into 3 MA programs (I think I have too little research experience to go for a PhD, so I'm doing an MA first): U of Utah, U of Oregon (both in history) and UCLA (Latin American studies). My tentative interest is early colonial/conquest-era indigenous Central Mexican history. I am particularly interested in the Nahua (known popularly, and incorrectly, as the "Aztecs"), which is to be expected, since they've left far more written documents than any other indigenous group in all of the Americas. All three of these schools have highly successful scholars who specialize in that area, so I think I'm faced with a tough decision.

U of Utah is probably not going to be my choice though, because their one Nahuatl specialist says she won't be able to help me much over the next two years, and their one mesoamerican anthropologist mostly specializes in very early mesoamerican demography, rather than in late Nahuatl codices. Still, they do offer, in the language department, courses on modern spoken Nahuatl, which could be helpful. But I'm mainly interested in older, written Classical Nahuatl which can be vastly different from the modern form.

UofO has, on the contrary, 2 specialists in that area, one of whom is working on an online dictionary of the language and an online database of Nahuatl texts. My POI has told me that she has shown interest in having me help her with those projects, which would be an invaluable learning experience for me. Both of them seem to be very eager to have me there, and my POI asked me to please take his offer of admission seriously. One problem though: their history dept. is very modern-oriented, and the two professors I spoke of (one of which isn't technically in the history dept) are the only historians there with an early-colonial focus. In fact there aren't even all that many Latin Americanists there; the dept is mostly focused on European, E. Asian and American (as in US) history (like every other history dept it seems).

UCLA has the advantage of being a huge school, with an abundance of Latin Americanists, in and outside of the history department. There I would be exposed to all kinds of research. In addition, Kevin Terraciano works there, who is no doubt among the greatest living historians of indigenous Mexico. Yet he specializes more in Mixtec history, although he is very well-versed in the Nahua side of things. The downsides are that 1) the degree is in "Latin American Studies" rather than history, and I'm not sure if history PhD adcoms would take it as seriously as an actual history degree, and I don't know if it would limit me more and 2) the program length is only 4 academic quarters (so a year and a half). I'm not sure if That would give me enough time to write a great thesis.

With regards to funding, I am #4 in line for a fellowship at UO, which would fully-fund my studies for at least a year; do you all think the odds may be in my favor, or is fourth place probably too far down the line? UCLA only offers limited fellowships for the LAS program, and I am being considered, although they have not decided yet. Kind of doubt that I will get any from UCLA considering my mediocre stats. I live in California, however, so the in-state tuition at UCLA would be drastically lower than at UO.

Sorry for the verbosity, and I'm sorry if this should have been its own thread; I'm fairly new to this forum and I saw that others were soliciting decision advice on this thread so I figure I'd give it a shot. Thanks for reading.

[Bactrian]

I was accepted into 3 MA programs...

<snip>

I'm fairly new to this forum and I saw that others were soliciting decision advice on this thread so I figure I'd give it a shot. Thanks for reading.

 

I don't think having an MA in LAS would hurt your chances at admission to a PhD program in history as long as your thesis (or whatever it is you use for a writing sample) clearly shows you off as a historian, you can get at least one or two historians to write letters for you, and you apply with a proposal that is clearly historical in nature.

 

If I were in your shoes and would wait until the funding situation becomes more clear. If you can avoid taking on significant debt for your MA then I think that is something that should be taken seriously.

[awells27]

If this helps at all, I got my MAs in Jewish Studies and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, since these had the best language training, and then got accepted in UCLAs History program for the ancient emphasis.  Your SOP and writing sample, along with whatever academic activities you partake in outside of school, will demonstrate your ability to do historical research.  I would be most focused on which program will give you at least two stellar LORs, research method training, and required language training.  If you decide on UCLA, let me know, although if you get funding at Oregon, that would be hard to turn down.

[czesc]

Ahtlatl - unless you get full funding from Oregon that'd make it more attractive for in-state tuition at UC for your whole time in a program, I'd go with UCLA. Having a masters in LAS will actually help you be more flexible on the job market if you do get a PhD (and may be a better thing to have at the top of your resume if for whatever reason you don't). You can most likely still do a lot of historical work within the LAS framework and gather useful recommendations from it. And UCLA is a brand that will benefit your CV throughout your career.