History Admissions 2008

[canadiana]

Wow! Two rejections already from Brown, and both through contact with a professor...so does that mean that accepted students have already been notified?

[dubitocogito]

I haven't seen an acceptance from Brown on any site. I haven't heard a word from them.

[amanda1655]

I really wish that Michigan would reply soon.... they keep make little changes to my information on their grad admission page like changing my information to read History Doc instead of History PhD, fixing the name of my undergraduate school, and taking away the information about when prospective students can check for financial information. Now, all I have is information about continuing students. I know they have looked at my application. They e-mailed me about a month ago to let me know that my Master's Degree Transcripts had never arrived and that they could start reviewing my application with an unofficial one as long as I sent them an official one if I was accepted.

Can't they just accept or reject me instead of playing with my information? Although all of my interactions with Michigan have been positive so far, I keep imagining that someone on the adcom has a kid who has hacked into the system and is sadistically playing with my information. Is it psychotic that I notice these small changes?

[Cornell07]

Well, BU has lost one of my professor's recommendations twice. I just had him re-fax it over the weekend.

[amanda1655]

Maybe it's the city. I had a similar problem with Boston College.

[groundball]

totallyfreaking out...thank you for expressing some of the same sentiments that I have had regarding these boards. I am re-applying to grad programs after a family issue forced me to withdraw from a great program. It's not all roses for some of us going through the process for either the first or second time. Between shady contact with professors, difficulty in gauging whether or not a professor will support you during the admissions process, lost GRE scores, LOR's, transcripts, etc. some of us will end up attending choices that we aren't satisfied with. It's especially frustrating when you try to contact either a program or a professor and cannot receive an answer. It's tough, the competition is cutthroat, and after awhile it gets everyone upset, angry, and frustrated.

[cso162]

For some solace:

I have often found the choices of my

department's graduate admissions committee utterly

incomprehensible. And sometimes unjustifiable. On one occasion, it

led me to resign from the committee.

---Now emeritus professor of History at a Big Bad Top 10 program

[Cornell07]

I am fairly annoyed by schools who call or send out early emails to people who get in, because it leaves the rest with the churning uncertainty of rejection looming over their heads while they wait for those thin envelopes. Hence, we now have people in the past few days ramping up the

[arthistorian]

I couldn't agree more. Back when I was applying to colleges, most schools had definite notification dates--that made the whole process a lot easier. In February I didn't have to worry about a surprise notification email in my mailbox every day because I knew I'd find out on April 1.

Good luck everyone!

[el217]

I agree, and I think the issue is that schools don't realize there is so much communication about admissions online. Back before the internet, they could notify in their own sweet time and almost no one would be the wiser. Welcome to the 21st century, guys. Sheesh.

I know that I had completely given up hope on Stanford, and then I got in. So I'm just trying to stay positive--yes, even about Berkeley. You never know!

[canadiana]

I know what you mean....the waiting is absolutely nerve wracking, and I'm not dealing with it too well. I just walked out of a test halfway through, because I'm so discouraged at this point that I've been thinking, "Why bother?" I don't know about other undergraduate applicants, but I'm at that point just a few months away from graduation, where I wonder whether all the effort over the past four years even matters.

[dubitocogito]

Congratulations to the person who posted the Yale acceptance. Good luck to everyone else who applied!

[Cornell07]

I remember undergraduate applications being so easy.

1) Nov. 7 - Applied ED and sent out the app

2) Dec. 10 - Email from Dept. of Admissions at 5 pm saying to check out back at the admissions website on Dec 11 at 5 pm

3) Dec. 11(afternoon) - Out of school early, watched a movie to keep my mind off the admissions info

4) Dec. 11 4:55-4:59 - Frantic pressing of reload button

5) Dec. 11 5:00 - Absurd animated gif's of dancing bears and fireworks flash across monitor announcing my acceptance.

Present:

1) Mid-December: Sent out apps

2) Feb. 1 9 am: Check email

3) Feb. 1 9:10 am: Check email

4) Feb. 1 9:15:00 am: Recieved phone call from unidentified caller

5) Feb. 1 9:15:01 am: Heart begins beating 10x faster

6) Feb. 1 9:15:15 am: Say something very nasty to a telemarketer

7) Repeat steps 2->6 until ...?

[Cornell07]

DON'T READ IF YOU APPLIED TO YALE AND DON'T WANT YOUR WEEKEND RUINED

... YOU WERE WARNED!

Yale update: I called the department registrar and she said that they have just made all decisions this morning and will be sending out a mass email VERY soon, Monday at latest, but probably sooner. Sorry if I just ruined all other potential Yalies' weekends.

[groundball]

I didn't have high hopes for Yale anyway they are notorious for weeding people out with mid-low scores and I am sure my 620 v score didn't get me to first base.

[dubitocogito]

Thanks, Cornell for making the call. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. I applied for Af-Am/History, so I don't know how this all works for me. But I'm sure I'll be staring at my e-mail all weekend, nonetheless. As usual.

[dmh26]

I didn't have high hopes for Yale anyway they are notorious for weeding people out with mid-low scores and I am sure my 620 v score didn't get me to first base.

Do you really want to go to a place that weeds people out like that? All schools do to an extent, but my advisor told me that Yale is so rigid that you'll barely have room to conduct innovative research that will get past the old school tenures. He said he wouldn't send his best students there anymore because of the attitude. Sure getting into Yale is great, but do you want to be in that environment for 5- 7 years?

[groundball]

I believe the whole "weeding-out" aspect of graduate admissions is ridiculous. At this level, everyone's application deserves a thorough look because, I would hope, that most applicants are going into this field with the intention of staying in it for life. I think it's a shame that some top-schools simply disregard applicants because of a single performance on a single day to satisfy statistics and perhaps inflate their own egos. Not to mention that some of admissions committees are oftentimes looking for applicants expressing interests in "hot" areas of historical scholarship. It's a tough road to hoe in some of the more traditional sub-fields and I think most applicants would be less frustrated if they knew they had a fighting chance.

[rising_star]

I believe the whole "weeding-out" aspect of graduate admissions is ridiculous. At this level, everyone's application deserves a thorough look because, I would hope, that most applicants are going into this field with the intention of staying in it for life. I think it's a shame that some top-schools simply disregard applicants because of a single performance on a single day to satisfy statistics and perhaps inflate their own egos. Not to mention that some of admissions committees are oftentimes looking for applicants expressing interests in "hot" areas of historical scholarship. It's a tough road to hoe in some of the more traditional sub-fields and I think most applicants would be less frustrated if they knew they had a fighting chance.

I think they have to have some criteria to help weed people out. Lord knows, no professor has time to read the 200+ applications they receive. They still have to teach, grade, attend faculty meetings, advise students, etc and admissions can take a lot of time. I know in my current dept, it was even harder because of a job search occurring at the same time as application review... It's made it impossible, as a student, to get quality face-time and advising since everyone has been so ridiculously busy.

[Historylover]

think they have to have some criteria to help weed people out. Lord knows, no professor has time to read the 200+ applications they receive. They still have to teach, grade, attend faculty meetings, advise students, etc and admissions can take a lot of time. I know in my current dept, it was even harder because of a job search occurring at the same time as application review... It's made it impossible, as a student, to get quality face-time and advising since everyone has been so ridiculously busy.

While that is true to a certain extent,I keep thinking of those expensive application fees. I mean if you paid $75+ for your application only to have it be cut for some petty criteria like you received 599V instead of a 600V is ridiculous and a waste of everyones' time and money. You deserve to have someone read over your whole application. If graduate programs wish to be that way, I wish they would instead put right on their website, "we do not consider applicants with scores and gpa less than. . . . unless a professor in the program or program director agrees to review the application otherwise." It saves them time, it saves us time and money.

[nomadism]

I just posted my results from Yale at the results section.

After being interviewed 10 days ago with 2 Profs. from Yale, I finally got an email from my potential advisor, and also one of her Ph.D students that I had known personally.

I'll post more details later, but for now I'm just adding some follow-up information to the posting I wrote at the results section.

Good luck to all.

ps.

My GRE scores weren't that great, in fact, my verbal was less than 700, and the my writing score were only 4.5. Well, maybe my background as not being and American was also put into consideration (I'm a South Korean), but still I think it would be worth to share this information.

[dubitocogito]

While that is true to a certain extent,I keep thinking of those expensive application fees. I mean if you paid $75+ for your application only to have it be cut for some petty criteria like you received 599V instead of a 600V is ridiculous and a waste of everyones' time and money. You deserve to have someone read over your whole application. If graduate programs wish to be that way, I wish they would instead put right on their website, "we do not consider applicants with scores and gpa less than. . . . unless a professor in the program or program director agrees to review the application otherwise." It saves them time, it saves us time and money.

Amen, amen, amen.

[dubitocogito]

Nomadism, congratulations! I'm so happy for you - what fantastic news!

By the way, did your applyyourself status change - just wondering if that's a good way to keep track of my status.

[rising_star]

While that is true to a certain extent,I keep thinking of those expensive application fees. I mean if you paid $75+ for your application only to have it be cut for some petty criteria like you received 599V instead of a 600V is ridiculous and a waste of everyones' time and money. You deserve to have someone read over your whole application. If graduate programs wish to be that way, I wish they would instead put right on their website, "we do not consider applicants with scores and gpa less than. . . . unless a professor in the program or program director agrees to review the application otherwise." It saves them time, it saves us time and money.

Do you think faculty receive any part of that application fee? Sure it helps people who handle the administrative things (application processing, paying to have an online system, etc), faculty members don't necessarily get a pay increase for serving on the admissions committee. Often it's the assignment that you get for drawing the short straw because it means you have to go through all those applications. I can understand wanting someone to read your application. But, have you ever graded papers? Can you imagine having 200 30 pg papers to read and grade for all your students and having a week or so to do it (in addition to your other responsibilities)? Given those time constraints, wouldn't you start to seek out shortcuts to help you sort through the papers and grade them more expeditiously? Using GRE scores is just one way to do that.

P.S. You can't get a 599 on the Verbal. It goes by 10s.

[dubitocogito]

Do you think faculty receive any part of that application fee? Sure it helps people who handle the administrative things (application processing, paying to have an online system, etc), faculty members don't necessarily get a pay increase for serving on the admissions committee. Often it's the assignment that you get for drawing the short straw because it means you have to go through all those applications. I can understand wanting someone to read your application. But, have you ever graded papers? Can you imagine having 200 30 pg papers to read and grade for all your students and having a week or so to do it (in addition to your other responsibilities)? Given those time constraints, wouldn't you start to seek out shortcuts to help you sort through the papers and grade them more expeditiously? Using GRE scores is just one way to do that.

But I think HL's point was that, if such cut-offs exist, then why not post them, so that we waste neither time nor money on an application that gets cut during the first round (before things like "fit" come into play).