Russian History PhD

[JustChill]

I was wondering who else on here is applying to Russian History programs?

I'm going for late Imperial/Soviet history with an emphasis on politics and culture.

My application is pretty solid overall, with the exception of a low GRE quantitative score (500) and a 3.7 overall GPA. But I was born in Eastern Europe and lived there til I was 13. I am fluent in Russian, have some knowledge of a little-used Eastern European language, and some French. As an undergrad I double-majored in History and Russian and East European Studies, and received departmental honors in both majors. I have received a Fulbright-Hays grant to study abroad in Moscow, and an Undergraduate Research Award for my History Honors thesis (which I will be presenting at a regional conference this weekend). One of my LORs is going to come from a well known editor of a major Russian studies journal, but the other two from mediocre professors (relatively speaking). My SoP is pretty polished by now, but I feel like my writing sample is fairly choppy because I pulled out a couple of sections from my thesis for it.

I'm applying to the usual suspects, so nothing new there. I've had particularly positive contacts with professors from Penn, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and brief pleasantries with the rest.

I'd appreciate any suggestions/comments/ideas.

[swissmiss]

Looks like you are in pretty good shape. Did you get a decent verbal score? What kind of undergrad school did you go to?

[JustChill]

Looks like you are in pretty good shape. Did you get a decent verbal score? What kind of undergrad school did you go to?

I got 720 on the verbal and 5.5 on the writing, which I guess is decent considering that I'm not a native English speaker. My undergrad school is top-50 public, which has a fairly well known Russian studies department (one of the few Title VI-funded research centers), but it's definitely not an "elite" university.

[swissmiss]

I got 720 on the verbal and 5.5 on the writing, which I guess is decent considering that I'm not a native English speaker. My undergrad school is top-50 public, which has a fairly well known Russian studies department (one of the few Title VI-funded research centers), but it's definitely not an "elite" university.

I think you have a great track record and should do really well. Good luck!

[misterpat]

Looks like you have solid stats. I loved my Russian history seminar, though I am an americanist. Are you applying to Indiana?

I'd wish you luck if you weren't a dirty, dirty jayhawk.

[JustChill]

Looks like you have solid stats. I loved my Russian history seminar, though I am an americanist. Are you applying to Indiana?

I'd wish you luck if you weren't a dirty, dirty jayhawk.

haha, that's right, I went to KU. No, I'm actually not applying to Indiana, even though I spent the last summer in Bloomington at their SWSEEL program for Russian. Seemed like a nice college town and the school was pretty good.

[tourist]

Are you applying to Chicago, Stanford, Princeton? Those three schools seem to have some of the best resources for Russian/Soviet or East European History. The Hoover Institution and the library of U of Chicago (and even U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) comes to mind. Also, they have some outstanding faculty in Fitzpatrick at Chicago, Naimark and Weiner at Stanford, and Kotkin at Princeton. I'm sure you've already considered those schools. I'm applying for East European history and the pool of schools seems limited at around 10-15, but with some great programs in there. My focus is Romania, which is usually grouped with Russian/East European history.

Edited November 8, 2009 by tourist

[JustChill]

I'm applying to Stanford and Princeton, but not Chicago because they don't have an imperialist. Also, Fitzpatrick is widely rumored to be retiring within the next two years, so I don't want to be stuck without an advisor or an advisor from a different field. Illinois has the largest Russian library in the States, and the third largest out of American universities overall, so it's definitely on my list. I'd have to say that my contacts with Dr. Crews from Stanford have been a bit more positive than with Dr. Kotkin, but we'll see what happens in March.

[TMP]

*jealous* I used to be all crazy about Russia and Eastern Europe! Then I switched geographical fields (but not broad topic). What about Zipperstein at Stanford? He could be a good person to consider on the committee. He's still doing 19th century work, I believe.

Romania... wow, that's so...exotic. How did you even learn the Romanian language?

[tourist]

*jealous* I used to be all crazy about Russia and Eastern Europe! Then I switched geographical fields (but not broad topic). What about Zipperstein at Stanford? He could be a good person to consider on the committee. He's still doing 19th century work, I believe.

Romania... wow, that's so...exotic. How did you even learn the Romanian language?

Haha. I'll take that as a compliment. But to answer your question, it helps being Romanian born and Romanian speaking all at once. After all, it's not such a difficult language, being the one Romance language everyone likes to forget. It's much like Latin and Italian all at once, with Dacian, Slav and even German influences. For a truly "exotic" East European language, see Hungarian. But, like rockchalk, I immigrated when I was still a kid. Now I just need to become fluent in German and start a Slavic language........ Argh.....

[JerryLandis]

Kind of interesting that some of you seem to be applying to work under the same people, and as such are technically in direct competition with one another! I'd like to see the stats of some of the other people applying to work with the same professors as I am, although then again that could be pretty terrifying at the same time. Fortunately your field appears to be somewhat popular, at least gauging from my inexpert observations from looking at millions of history department websites on the prowl for relevant medievalists.

[Sovetskaya]

I was wondering who else on here is applying to Russian History programs?

I'm going for late Imperial/Soviet history with an emphasis on politics and culture.

My application is pretty solid overall, with the exception of a low GRE quantitative score (500) and a 3.7 overall GPA. But I was born in Eastern Europe and lived there til I was 13. I am fluent in Russian, have some knowledge of a little-used Eastern European language, and some French. As an undergrad I double-majored in History and Russian and East European Studies, and received departmental honors in both majors. I have received a Fulbright-Hays grant to study abroad in Moscow, and an Undergraduate Research Award for my History Honors thesis (which I will be presenting at a regional conference this weekend). One of my LORs is going to come from a well known editor of a major Russian studies journal, but the other two from mediocre professors (relatively speaking). My SoP is pretty polished by now, but I feel like my writing sample is fairly choppy because I pulled out a couple of sections from my thesis for it.

I'm applying to the usual suspects, so nothing new there. I've had particularly positive contacts with professors from Penn, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and brief pleasantries with the rest.

I'd appreciate any suggestions/comments/ideas.

You definitely sound like you're in good shape! I'm applying to similar programs, although I am not concentrating on Romania and am instead doing Central Asia and the Middle East. My own issue seems to be that I am not a Sovietologist by training, my background is more in cultural and social history. I hope that this will make me methodologically interesting, but who knows. At this point I'm preparing for the worst.

[JustChill]

Thanks, I'm excited for March to roll around. I find that not having a real top-choice helps to ease the anxiety.