History 2010

[Sparky]

Well, okay, we've already passed the first two major deadline clusters (Dec. 1; Dec. 15), and rockchalk has already been ACCEPTED somewhere (!). So it's probably time for the History applications/nerves/decisions thread.

So. All you history, and history-slash-somethingelse people.

Who are you? What's your subfield? Your background? If you want to share (I for one I am too chicken), where are you applying?

[C-Money]

My intended subfield is American legal history; I am currently a practicing lawyer. I am applying to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, UCLA, UNC, Wisconsin, Duke, Virginia, Maryland, Glasgow (in the UK) and Georgia... I probably overdid it.

[LifeIsGood]

I'm applying for19th century American. I'm only applying to a couple of places, and while I'd like to share which ones, I'd probably blow my cover. If I don't get in, I'll just keep on with my current job, or maybe take my MA and try get a job teaching at an independent school. I've been having the hardest time focusing on anything but the waiting. It doesn't help that this is a busy time for my current job and my kids are about to get out of school for the holidays. Chaos! I'm not going to get anything academic done until early January. This is not good. I have a seminar paper draft that's already late and comps to study for.

Best of luck to everyone.

[JustChill]

yes, sparky, i've been accepted to Oxford, but not for history, so I'm also waiting (and probably will until March or so) with all of you guys. i didn't really expect to be accepted to Oxford for their MPhil in Russian and East European Studies program, so now i have to wait and see how the history applications work out for me and whether i want to pursue a history phd or a REES master's.

[Sparky]

rockchalk, that totally counts. I figure that acceptance rates for history programs are so miserable, we as a collective need all the help we can get. Quick, everyone, apply to lots of part-time MBA programs!

Oh, and as for me, I'm a medievalist...Christianity in the late Middle Ages, mostly, although I am nuts about the era in general. Only 2 out of my 5 apps are actually to history departments; I would be thrilled to teach history OR religion. Heh, you'd think I could have found more than five places to apply...

[longshanks]

I too am hoping to study 19th-century American history, and I also did not apply very many places, so hopefully LifeIsGood and I don't overlap.

[JerryLandis]

Another medievalist, I posted my whiney "will I get in anywhere" info on this board already! Applying to 3 PhD programs and 5 MA's. I probably have a slim chance at this round of PhD spots since I've applied to so few places, but I didn't want to apply to a million places where there was no real fit with my interests, and I'd have to lie and pretend to be interested in something else in the SOP. The 3 places listed are the only ones that I really seem to fit with at all - hopefully they'll have the same sentiments about me!

I'm finishing my undergrad in the UK. My grades and experience and all that are excellent. I'm one of those people who cries about an A- (or whatever the equivalent to that is on the grading scale here). Hate to brag, but like some other people on this website I'm one of those people who has wasted the past four years of my life in the library and will probably have a permanent hunchback as a result. HOWEVER, the major blow to my application is that I only speak one foreign language, which does not happen to be the all-important Latin, whereas most people applying to medieval programs are very strong in languages. Gee, would've been nice if one of my advisors had bothered to inform me that you have to be at least trilingual to get anywhere in this sub-field!

I'd really like to hear whats up with the other medievalists that may be applying, so I can get an idea of who the competition is and where I stand in comparison with people from American undergraduate programs. Basically, I just want some confirmation that wasting my youth in the library has been worth it, because I'm tired of hearing people I know to be huge slackers report to me about the awesome graduate job they've just been offered. Gah!

[LifeIsGood]

Longshanks, I'm not applying to any of those in your sig, so I think we're good.

[cooperstreet]

Me: Modern Middle East History, applied to Columbia, Penn, UCSB, UCLA, Stanford, NYU, WUSTL and Georgetown.

We'll see.

[bertilak]

I'm currently an assistant professor in a different field, but I want to do a second PhD in History. My focus is medieval and renaissance history, material studies, chivalry, knighthood, and sexuality. I've applied to Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, NYU, University of Toronto, and York.

[JerryLandis]

A second PhD? Thank goodness you're not applying to the same programs as I am! I am curious though - doesn't a PhD act more as an introduction to the academic world, as in, can't you just develop new and different interests by writing a book as part of your current employment? I would just think that going back to the PhD stage would be weird, since technically you could be supervising such a student yourself.

[JerryLandis]

Oh right, sorry, I didn't notice that you had said you are currently in a different field. What are you doing now?

[Nikki]

Field: Military History (20th century US)

Schools: Chapel Hill, Duke, Temple, GWU, OSU, UNT, Kansas State, Texas A&M, and ECU

This is round two for me, so fingers crossed! :oD

[Billy Rubin]

Hello everyone, new member here. I am toying with the notion of applying to a phd program next fall (I was going the law school route until a month ago when I got my LSAT results!), and was wondering what kind of backgrounds you guys have. I guess the underlying question is 'do I have a chance!' in this seemingly ubercompetitive world!

So, I'll go first! I graduated from San Diego State University in 2000 with a BA in History, 3.8 average in the major and 3.5 overall. My senior thesis' general theme was the real estate development and boosterism of San Diego County (I tried to prove through census records that the boosterism campaigns of a certain individual did, in fact, bring people to San Diego). I had a great time writing it and was one of the highest graded papers in the class. I was named the top undergraduate for that year and was cum laude, and graduated 'with distinction'. (All of this is with a grain of salt since I went to SDSU!). I am a Phi Alpha Theta member and presented this thesis at their regional meeting that year. I still have an excellent professor who will write me a stunningly good LOC, or so I hope. hehe

Anyway, after I graduated, I abandoned the idea of teaching high school (which was why I initially got into the history major) and went to work in commercial real estate - I have been in that world world ever since - 10 years. I have been the regional research director/manager at a few of the large firms, which involves a lot of work in statistics, market trends, writing analyses, etc. I have also done some continuing education work and am a candidate for a CCIM designation, which is very important in our industry.

So, all that said, with all the time between graduation and my application (2011), my lack of recent work directly IN history (though my career has prepped me for what I want to study - history of real estate, development, urbanization, etc), my alma mater's less than stellar reputation, etc.....what kind of schools should I be shooting for? I will likely apply to all the UCs (I am a CA native) and maybe USC, Stanford, etc. To try to mitigate my lack of a CV, I will be resurecting my thesis and submitting it for publication in the local journals next year, as well as any other history related stuff I can get my hands on.

whew! Long first post. So what are y'all bringing to the application process? I'm very interested in interacting with others who have the same goals as me. I appreciate your responses in advance!

BR

[JerryLandis]

While I'm sure it's better to have come from a more highly ranked university, I don't think it's really the be all and end all of admissions. I'm not speaking from personal experience, since I'm currently applying, but I'm sure that attending a less prestigious university, as you say yours was, won't ruin your chances since you performed so well there. It's great that you have an entire year to prepare your applications, and I suggest working on it as soon as you can. I started well in advance (summer before applying), but definitely could have done more. Spend a lot of time preparing for the GRE, for example - it's only once you're cramming a day or two before the test that you realize just how much you can improve your vocabulary and math skills by doing practice exercises. If you do a little bit every day or so, you'll be well prepared when you take the test. Also, you can use this time to read works by potential research supervisors. If the departments you are applying to have language requirements, perhaps you can take an evening language class in the coming year and a half?

[Billy Rubin]

While I'm sure it's better to have come from a more highly ranked university, I don't think it's really the be all and end all of admissions. I'm not speaking from personal experience, since I'm currently applying, but I'm sure that attending a less prestigious university, as you say yours was, won't ruin your chances since you performed so well there. It's great that you have an entire year to prepare your applications, and I suggest working on it as soon as you can. I started well in advance (summer before applying), but definitely could have done more. Spend a lot of time preparing for the GRE, for example - it's only once you're cramming a day or two before the test that you realize just how much you can improve your vocabulary and math skills by doing practice exercises. If you do a little bit every day or so, you'll be well prepared when you take the test. Also, you can use this time to read works by potential research supervisors. If the departments you are applying to have language requirements, perhaps you can take an evening language class in the coming year and a half?

Thank you very much for your post. I have 3 years of German instruction and 1.5 years of college German, so I need to get cracking on that.....good point. And having a chance to research all potential instructors' works is also a very valuable point.

This is all so similar to doing the law school application process, except the entire kit and kaboodle isn't based on ONE single number - your LSAT. After studying every day for 4 months for that, the GRE experience will hopefully be a cakewalk. I can hope can't I?

[JerryLandis]

I think the GRE becomes a lot easier when you have time to prepare. I took it right after finishing a very labor-intensive summer internship, and right before the start of the new semester (actually, I missed my first week of classes in order to fly down to the test center). I was only able to focus on my preparation for about a week, and I'm distinctively average at taking standardized tests, and I wound up getting a 1210. Not great, not terrible. I think that if I had given myself more time to memorize silly vocabulary and all the little formula's I'd forgotten, and to do more practice tests, my confidence going into the test would have been much higher and my performance would have been much improved. So I imagine that if you put the kind of dedication into preparing for the GRE that most people seem to put into preparing for the LSAT, you'll wind up with a high score. Take it relatively early though, so you have time to re-take it if you do horribly!

[LifeIsGood]

Am I the only one obsessively checking my application status on the school Web sites? As if anything's going to happen before February.

[BCHistory]

Am I the only one obsessively checking my application status on the school Web sites? As if anything's going to happen before February.

If it helps, you're definitely not the only one. I was doing it non-stop for several weeks. I think I'm going to take a month off from visiting the status websites, and I'll check again around mid-January.

[Sparky]

Am I the only one obsessively checking my application status on the school Web sites? As if anything's going to happen before February.

Ugh, wow, I can't even bear to check the e-mail address that I used for the apps.

I think I must be going by the "until I know that they've rejected me, my life has purpose" rule.

[jessabee]

I'm doing 20th century US/military history. Applied to 15 programs (only have 3 more to complete! I'm so tired).

[soleprovider14]

I'm doing Third Reich history however looking at the role of religion within the Nazi movement and state.

[TMP]

People.

I have news.

It is officially a new decade in history. Who's looking forward to seeing what 2010s will bring?

I'm still complementing how would I describe 2000s to my grandkids and students years from now. As usual, full of history-making news.

And.... SIX WEEKS TO GO! Until the bulk of admissions results come in, that is!

[Caligula]

I'm almost positive that future historians will say this last decade began in 2001 (September 11) and ended in 2011 (?) or whenever the first major withdrawal of troops comes.

[africanhistoryphd]

It's irresistible for us historians to try and construct/influence the production of the history in our own time, but its doubtful too many monks sat in their cloisters, wondering why they had the poor luck to live in "the dark ages".

Edited January 2, 2010 by africanhistoryphd