Decisions 2015

[dr. t]

Hi all.  I just got back from a recruitment weekend at Colorado and was quite impressed with the program.  I wanted your opinion on how much the collegiality of the current graduate students themselves should impact your decision?  I met a cohort of really excellent, driven scholars while there that would be very nice to work with as well as had wonderful encounters with faculty.  

 

The advice I got from others is that this is a (if not the) major deciding factor, even more than adviser fit. After all, you're going to see your fellow students much more often than your professor.

[ashiepoo72]

Agreed. Although the extremely collegial grad students I met told me to follow the funding above all else, as have several of my profs. Only one prof said rank above funding.

The people in your cohort are the ones you really want to get along with, IMO. You'll be closest to them for the first years of coursework, after that everyone disburses to work on research and writing dissertations. I did make sure to ask if there is interaction between cohorts and with the wider graduate community at every place I've visited, which I think is good to know (and take advantage of).

Wait for your other visits. I didn't expect to like Davis as much as I did (being from the Bay Area, Sac and the general environs get a bad rep), especially after my amazing trip to MSU that nearly had me sold. Now I'm leaning toward Davis more and more. Give yourself a chance to love some other programs too

[Heimat Historian]

Oh I absolutely will.  I'm working on coordinating work leave/ funds to get out to Iowa and Kansas.  If Brandeis still comes through (they haven't seemed to announce anything this year in history), I'll probably go up there as well. 

[TMP]

It does make a difference to one's happiness to have nice people to work with.  After all, you are going to be taking classes with them and having your work reviewed by them (and vice versa).  But I wouldn't rank it over everything else.  IMHO, your adviser/potential committee and funding remain on top as those do affect you long-term (after all, you do need letters for fellowships and fellowships to carry out your research and finish your PhD).  You're with your cohort (and one above you) only for the first few years.

 

If anything, my cohort was so big (19 of us) that I didn't really get to know at least half.  Now in my third year, only three or four and I still keep in touch and the rest of my grad colleagues stretch across the years.

 

Might be a different story if your cohort is a lot smaller than mine.

[merivo]

Hi,

is anybody here who is accepted to WUSTL's history and is going to turn down their offer? For now this is my only possibility to get to a decent PhD this year... 

[Heimat Historian]

Anyone know about a University of Iowa visit weekend?  I'm trying to plan out my trips. 

[HistoryMystery]

Wait for your other visits. I didn't expect to like Davis as much as I did (being from the Bay Area, Sac and the general environs get a bad rep), especially after my amazing trip to MSU that nearly had me sold. Now I'm leaning toward Davis more and more. Give yourself a chance to love some other programs too

 

Davis just had such a great community. You could really feel the love between the grad students and professors.

[czesc]

Hi all.  I just got back from a recruitment weekend at Colorado and was quite impressed with the program.  I wanted your opinion on how much the collegiality of the current graduate students themselves should impact your decision?  I met a cohort of really excellent, driven scholars while there that would be very nice to work with as well as had wonderful encounters with faculty.  

 

I'm going to contradict some of the advice given here and say this doesn't matter as much as it may seem. Grad students are a transient population. By the time you get there, half the people you met may either be gone in the field or on their way out as postdocs. And within a year of your being there, a group of new recruits will flood the scene and change the nature of the grad student community. Plus, your closest colleagues may not even turn out to be the ones in your specific department, but formally study different fields. So it's very hard to predict what your social/collegial circumstances will be like, especially on the basis of a visiting weekend when everyone's trying hard to recruit you.

[czesc]

But what I wanted to say is something one of my professors told me when I said I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to grad school in the US at all: You can always switch! She reminded me that PhD students transfer out of/between programs all the time for a variety of reasons, and starting at a certain program is not the same as signing away your soul forever. If you start a funded doctorate and find out your advisor/committee is not the best fit for you personally or academically, it would be reasonable and relatively easy to apply to other programs as a transfer student. T

 

 

This is not at all true. Transferring is next to impossible. It can be done in exceptional circumstances, but those are circumstances like your chair moving to another university and happening to care enough to negotiate a spot for you (in which case you have no say in where you might go) or your chair dying and no one in the department possessing the expertise to train you anymore. Very possibly there are also circumstances in which professors facilitate a transfer because of a change of interest, but those are far from easy to arrange. 

[ashiepoo72]

Davis just had such a great community. You could really feel the love between the grad students and professors.

Yeah! And the people in what would be our cohort weren't half bad either

[Sigaba]

This is not at all true. Transferring is next to impossible. 

 

I think it depends upon how you define "transfer." Does it count as a transfer if one starts at School A, decides that one would be better off at School B, gets a master's degree at School A and then goes to School B?

[czesc]

I think it depends upon how you define "transfer." Does it count as a transfer if one starts at School A, decides that one would be better off at School B, gets a master's degree at School A and then goes to School B?

 

I haven't really heard of this happening so I wonder if it's really common...though I can see how it would happen if someone wanted to pursue it as a strategy. I wouldn't advise anyone to go into a PhD thinking they might do this, though; s/he is looking at a lot of wasted time given that not all the coursework (if any) will count toward the second school's requirements.

[HistoryMystery]

Yeah! And the people in what would be our cohort weren't half bad either

 

Can't argue with that!

[Bellerophon]

Well, at this point my choices are Chicago's MAPSS and Penn's Post-Bacc, but I'm heavily leaning towards MAPPS. Can't wait to visit Chicago and check out the city. Any Alumnit of the program here care to comment on it?

[mvlchicago]

I didn't do MAPSS, but I was at Chicago for my undergrad and had a number of friends in the grad programs. If you have any questions about specific history faculty, happiness of students, and/or Hyde Park itself, feel free to shoot me a PM!

[Heimat Historian]

Anyone seen this study?  I think it's pretty interesting.  I thought it may help people make some decisions. http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~gillum/rankings_paper.pdf

[Chiqui74]

Anyone seen this study?  I think it's pretty interesting.  I thought it may help people make some decisions. http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~gillum/rankings_paper.pdf

That's over seven years old though.  A lot has changed since then.

[Heimat Historian]

yeah I suppose that's true.  You dont' think any of it stands up? 

[mvlchicago]

Post 2008 is a pretty different ballgame in terms of employment and application opportunities, I would think. 

[evilpeter]

Greetings! First time posting on Gradcafe. I'm an international student from Pakistan working on comparative British imperial history and colonial South Asia. I was admitted to the PhD program in History at the University of Chicago in early Februrary. Since it was my top choice, I accepted the offer in early March. I was rejected by my other three applications for a PhD ( Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton) and accepted into a fully funded MA at Georgetown.

 

Obviously, it was too difficult to arrange for a visa (and too expensive) to attend the campus visit on time (History Day?) which happend this past weekend. I was wondering what the two gentlemen quoted below made of the event, if they attended? Specifically, how the departmental culture is, etc. A friend of mine who is reading for the MA at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UChicago says great things, but I guess that related more to CMES and NELC. Any and all thoughts would be appreciated on the campus visit.

 

More generally, my question to all the fine folk here is this: Should I be worried about missing out on the chance to meet up with my POIs and how do I approach them about a lot of the issues people here have already thought of discussing at campus visits given that they havent asked to Skype because I couldnt make it to the campus visit?

 

Between the offer and my acceptance, I heard from one of my POIs saying that he "sincrerely hopes" that I choose to come to Chicago. After accepting, I wrote to my other POI and a congratulatory sentence welcoming me to the department. I'm not really worried whether I made the right decision, the program is a great fit. Just curious, how to open up a more substantive line of communication if you cant visit or Skype?  Both of my POIs are really big names in post-colonial and subaltern studies, so its probably nothing to worry over about not hearing from them at length during an active academic quarter.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

I'm also visiting Chicago and Berkeley! I have to turn down another visit day because it conflicts with one of those (and doesn't pay for travel). I'm likelier to choose a different program, but I don't want to write anything off right away. Is anyone else skipping a campus visit day but still considering the program? I'm planning on talking to professors there anyway, but I'm not sure how to approach evaluating a program when I can't visit. Any suggestions?

 

 

I have two campus visits for Chicago and Berkeley (admitted to both), which were my top picks, and having to decide between the two is going to be agonizing. Berkeley gives better funding all around and will pay for my trip out though Chicago is only giving 2,000 less per year. However, the cost of living in both respective cities may tip the balance either way.

 

[ashiepoo72]

Why not take the initiative and ask for a Skype or phone chat? I'm sure they'd understand and want to provide you with whatever answers you need. One of my advisers wasn't at the campus visit so we set up a phone call later, and another school doesn't have funds for visits so I spoke with my adviser over the phone as well. I think it's pretty common.

[Annalistasaxo89]

I would ask for a Skype chat and see if you could chat with both your professors and the coordinator for the history dept. I was at the campus visit for Chicago, which solidified my decision for that program over Berkeley, and had a great experience all around. The fellow admits, grad students, and profs were all extremely friendly and helpful, while my interactions with the professors, whether in formal or non-formal settings, were all positive. 

[evilpeter]

I would ask for a Skype chat and see if you could chat with both your professors and the coordinator for the history dept. I was at the campus visit for Chicago, which solidified my decision for that program over Berkeley, and had a great experience all around. The fellow admits, grad students, and profs were all extremely friendly and helpful, while my interactions with the professors, whether in formal or non-formal settings, were all positive. 

 

That's excellent to hear! Hope to see you at Chicago in the not so distant future.

Edited March 12, 2015 by evilpeter

[ashiepoo72]

One of my programs offered me a super sweet first-year fellowship with no teaching obligations. I seriously have no clue how I'm going to decide! I spent some time talking to one of my profs, and she said it sounds like it'll come down to adviser--which is gratifying in that I approached this process applying to specific advisers and not specific schools.

 

I'm hoping that after I visit Minn in about two weeks, I'll be applying for an apartment in the city where my future PhD program is located...

 

How are y'all doing??

[Heimat Historian]

I am 99% sure that I've made up my mind for my school.  I'm visiting the school in a few weeks and barring any bad vibes, its where I'll be attending.  It's exciting to finally make a decision.  At the same time these next 4 and a half months are going to be absolutely brutal due to the waiting.