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History 2010


Sparky

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Being in school AND waiting for application results is just wrong. I don't want to do stuff, I don't want to listen to people, I just want ANSWERS!

I'm graduating this May, and that isn't even on my mind. It will only be a stopover, not a real accomplishment.

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I am wondering about the Johns Hopkins acceptance. Would anyone care to comment?

Little late to the forum party here, but one of the JHU acceptances was me. Sub-field: Medieval.

I also saw somebody asking about Duke -- one of my colleagues got into Duke, and as far as I know, she isn't on this site.

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Mr. Zipper- Congratulations on your acceptance! What an achievement! Is it fair to assume that JHU is done making offers? Any info would be greatly appreciated :)

Thanks! I'm totally thrilled! For other offers, honestly, I have no idea. I got personal emails from my potential advisor and the DGS, but I'm still waiting on the official acceptance letter. With the weekend in between those emails and now, it could probably go either way.

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Being in school AND waiting for application results is just wrong. I don't want to do stuff, I don't want to listen to people, I just want ANSWERS!

I'm graduating this May, and that isn't even on my mind. It will only be a stopover, not a real accomplishment.

I know what you mean. I've always taken great pride in my coursework, and usually am always thinking about the next assignment right after I hand in the old one (as in, that same day, after completing an all-nighter...). However, I'm no longer quite so enthused. Today I got back two outstanding grades from last semester for a year-long class I'm taking, which put me at a higher average than I've ever had in any class. But when I got them, I wasn't even that excited, just glad I didn't do badly. I guess that no matter how proud I've been of my grades, the fact that they haven't impressed any admissions committees makes me feel like I'm a generic student, and having a 1st class undergraduate degree is an average accomplishment. I'm afraid that when I get rejected from all the PhD programs I've applied to, my family will assume that I'm just not very smart (i.e. not as smart as my top tier PhD/MD/JD cousins.. grr!), and my accomplishments as an undergraduate will go unnoticed. What a downer!

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I know what you mean. I've always taken great pride in my coursework, and usually am always thinking about the next assignment right after I hand in the old one (as in, that same day, after completing an all-nighter...). However, I'm no longer quite so enthused. Today I got back two outstanding grades from last semester for a year-long class I'm taking, which put me at a higher average than I've ever had in any class. But when I got them, I wasn't even that excited, just glad I didn't do badly. I guess that no matter how proud I've been of my grades, the fact that they haven't impressed any admissions committees makes me feel like I'm a generic student, and having a 1st class undergraduate degree is an average accomplishment. I'm afraid that when I get rejected from all the PhD programs I've applied to, my family will assume that I'm just not very smart (i.e. not as smart as my top tier PhD/MD/JD cousins.. grr!), and my accomplishments as an undergraduate will go unnoticed. What a downer!

I have a similar problem, but the reverse. I am the first person in my family to go to college, and I'm finishing my Master's now at a very good school, so my family is just mystified as to why I am too good to stay at this school for my PhD. They don't understand that getting into a top doctoral program is about as likely as winning the lottery.

But, because nobody understands how competitive this is, I feel like I will look like a failure if I don't get into a real "name brand" place because that is all they will recognize.

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The issue I'm dealing with is that on one hand, I want the days to go by fast so that I can learn all my admissions results and, you know, figure out what my life will entail next year. But at the same time I need to be writing my honors thesis and I dread every day it gets closer to my deadline. So, I am hoping for time to speed up AND slow down depending on what I am concentrating on at the moment. Ugh. It's also a lot harder to concentrate on writing when I know that decisions are impending. At least in November I knew they were months away.

Edited by bmr716
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Those of you in your senior year of college... I was in your shoes two years ago! I do remember being very nervous and distracted but good god, I had an amazing advisor who just somehow had me totally focused on my senior honors thesis that by the time the third week of February caem around, I was like, "What? It's already the end of February?" Of course, that's when I stumbled on GradCafe... really don't make yourself go crazy with this site.

I never had senioritis. My adviser would NOT permit that to happen to me as long as I was writing my honors thesis!

Honestly, the best advice I can give is truly make the most of your last semester of college, finish as strong as you can, and do your thesis justice- don't skimp on the quality. Make your adviser proud. (Also you might...need to use it for *knock on wood* second round of apps) The time doesn't stand still so don't forget to keep up with your readings! And enjoy your friends... you all will go off to different places and it will be tough to be apart. I'm in Midwest and all of my friends are on East Coast so I don't get to see them all that often. They've been sending their love through e-mails and IMs which I really ended at times while doing my MA program. :)

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I have a similar problem, but the reverse. I am the first person in my family to go to college, and I'm finishing my Master's now at a very good school, so my family is just mystified as to why I am too good to stay at this school for my PhD. They don't understand that getting into a top doctoral program is about as likely as winning the lottery.

But, because nobody understands how competitive this is, I feel like I will look like a failure if I don't get into a real "name brand" place because that is all they will recognize.

This echoes something I read earlier today on The Chronicle of Higher Ed:

"The myth of the academic meritocracy powerfully affects students from families that believe in education, that may or may not have attained a few undergraduate degrees, but do not have a lot of experience with how access to the professions is controlled. Their daughter goes to graduate school, earns a doctorate in comparative literature from an Ivy League university, everyone is proud of her, and then they are shocked when she struggles for years to earn more than the minimum wage. (Meanwhile, her brother—who was never very good at school—makes a decent living fixing HVAC systems with a six-month certificate from a for-profit school near the Interstate.)Unable even to consider that something might be wrong with higher education, mom and dad begin to think there is something wrong with their daughter, and she begins to internalize that feeling.

Everyone has told her that "there are always places for good people in academe." She begins to obsess about the possibility of some kind of fatal personal shortcoming. She goes through multiple mock interviews, and takes business classes, learning to present herself for nonacademic positions. But again and again, she is passed over in favor of undergraduates who are no different from people she has taught for years. Maybe, she wonders, there's something about me that makes me unfit for any kind of job."

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Big-Lie-About-the-Life-of/63937/

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The issue I'm dealing with is that on one hand, I want the days to go by fast so that I can learn all my admissions results and, you know, figure out what my life will entail next year. But at the same time I need to be writing my honors thesis and I dread every day it gets closer to my deadline. So, I am hoping for time to speed up AND slow down depending on what I am concentrating on at the moment. Ugh. It's also a lot harder to concentrate on writing when I know that decisions are impending. At least in November I knew they were months away.

You could take this and literally apply it to me. I've gotten to the point where everytime I get an email (because they get routed to my phone) I check to see if its something. Even scarier, all my honor's thesis has made me do is be more efficient in working on it while freaking out.

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Princeton's already notified their rejects. My classmate from college just got rejected from Princeton. His app was moved to another department at Harvard. And is still waiting on fellowships at UCLA.

So for those of you waiting for P-ton, keep your hopes up!

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Princeton's already notified their rejects. My classmate from college just got rejected from Princeton. His app was moved to another department at Harvard. And is still waiting on fellowships at UCLA.

So for those of you waiting for P-ton, keep your hopes up!

How did he get notified? Email, website, snail mail?

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Me too. The wait is slowly killing me. I'm in medical history and I haven't heard a word since they asked me to re-supply my writing sample...

more duke rejections posted today....i'm living on the motto "no news is better than bad news"

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Princeton's already notified their rejects. My classmate from college just got rejected from Princeton. His app was moved to another department at Harvard. And is still waiting on fellowships at UCLA.

So for those of you waiting for P-ton, keep your hopes up!

Really? Haven't seen anything on the results page about Princeton's History department.

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