History Admissions 2008

[el217]

I just found out this morning that I'm officially in as well! The funny part? Status webpage still says no decision! This perversely amuses me. :twisted:

Do you think you'll be at the Open House? I'm basically tickled pink that it's over my spring break. That was thoughtful of them!

Geeze, schools really need to get their acts together. I'm glad my status changed because I got to be excited last night instead of waiting for the e-mail this morning!

Yeah, I'll be at the Open House, but it's the same week at Stanford so I'm still trying to figure out the logistics. Changing my flight will cost $400-700, so I might have to miss the second day at Rutgers Either way, I have to miss an entire week of school. I hope my profs/GSIs understand... Anyway, see you there!

[cso162]

okay stop feeling sorry for yourselves.......start reapplying or improving your apps.

The only real solace can be found in a few areas...

1)These schools have dwindling number of places to appoint you, so they arent in the business of producing unemployable Phds.

2) they desperately need women and minority applicants! Even with heavy emphasis on recruiting underrepresented groups into the fields, it isnt working and women aren't getting tenure and minorities aren't applying to the programs.

Great article about Princeton's grad school's lack of diversity:

http://prince-web1.princeton.edu/archiv ... 9741.shtml

3) Your field is dead. They are falling all over themselves to recruit into certain "fields of the future" and have no interest in Russian history (largely), standard British and French history, military history, ancient Rome.

If you do Gay and Lesbian slave diaries in antebellum Texas--maybe they can find a place for you.

As an undergrad at one of the top (graduate) history programs I remember sitting through graduation and hearing the PhDs theses' titles---I almost fell over laughing......

From a top notch faculty member at another program:

So, if there's another person applying in (your field) who seems like the perfect fit for a senior faculty member, speaks 12 languages, has walked across Siberia or paddled a canoe around Indonesia, and won every major national and international prize, etc. etc., there is little one can do.

whoever is working for min wage...you are nuts. You had to have gone to a top school---go get a consulting job or go teach high school history in the inner city (at least you'll get benefits). Life doesn't end at grad school admissions.

[el217]

I just got a waitlist offer from Brown in the mail. They don't admit anyone without a fellowship, so basically they're just waiting to see if they have money to give me. I already have two great offers with funding, so I'm not sure it's worth it to ask to stay on the Brown waitlist. The prof I want to work with there is great, but doesn't have tenure yet. What do you guys think?

[crossedreality]

I think I'd kill to hear anything from Brown at this point

[missycari]

I just got a waitlist offer from Brown in the mail. They don't admit anyone without a fellowship, so basically they're just waiting to see if they have money to give me. I already have two great offers with funding, so I'm not sure it's worth it to ask to stay on the Brown waitlist. The prof I want to work with there is great, but doesn't have tenure yet. What do you guys think?

Well, it doesn't cost you anything to stay on the waitlist, does it? Guess it depends on whether or not you think you'd really go with Brown if you got in. Or if you really just can't stand the suspense... If you really might want to go there, I'd say, see what happens.

[amanda1655]

okay stop feeling sorry for yourselves.......start reapplying or improving your apps.

I don't think everyone who has engaged in this discussion is feeling sorry for themselves. I, for one, think there is value in offering comfort and advice to people who may not have had as successful an application season as they would have hoped. How is someone supposed to improve their app if they engage in these types of discussions, where we talk about the admissions process and how it works. If you don't agree, don't engage in the conversation but don't insult those who do.

P.S. I have taught in the inner city and also object to anyone going into it just because they don't get into graduate school. It is tough work, and no one should do it who isn't one hundred percent committed to working 50 - 60 hours a week to improve the educational opportunities for those kids.

[NSGoddessQ]

CSO, I think your post is a bit harsh. Moreover, I would question some of your points.

First of all, college teaching employment, according to the US government's labor projection website, is expected to grow. Tenure is another question, of course, but as more people go to college, they need more people to teach them!

Secondly, while I agree that departments get kind of "buzzy" about new and interesting ways of looking at the field (history of science and tech seems to be one of these) -- people are still interested in some of the more traditional types of history. At my institution, you can't get a language degree without having had at least one history/culture-type course related to that language. Our CAMS (Classics and Medieval Studies) department is growing too. So while there are certainly fads and phases of research bursts, people still have to be able to master, teach, and reinterpret "old" knowledge dominions.

Third of all, there is something to be said for the idea that most programs in the top twenty or even THIRTY are going to do you pretty well for finding a job and giving you good research support. Personally, I am trying to scrub the USNews rankings out of my head -- what is most important is how you fit with your department, the kind of support that you're getting from your advisors and the faculty there, and your quality of life in these places. Being happy and supported seems as important for grad school as it does for undergrad -- and most importantly, for LIFE. In the end, you're going to be doing the research and writing, not your advisors. So go where you can be most productive!

Also, I think the idea that you had to have gone to a top school is crap. My undergrad institution is somewhere in the top 50 -- but I've gotten wonderful support from my profs, who've thrown both money and engaged feedback at me. Working minimum wage, if combined with good grades, recs, writing, etc, is only going to raise your estimation in the eyes of the reviewing committee. Louise, I really hope that this year's round of admissions doesn't make you lose faith in the whole process. I hope that you find something for this year that you enjoy doing -- check out museum or archival work, or try an MA program! And next year give yourself a range of reach, midline, and safety schools that you could see yourself being happy at.

Anyway, I may have something of a middle-class chip on my shoulder, but I really don't think you have to get into the top program in your field in order to make a niche for yourself in the academic world. I think it's ultimately wise to temper ambition with contentment, and to balance your professional life and aspirations with your personal life.

[NSGoddessQ]

P.S. I have taught in the inner city and also object to anyone going into it just because they don't get into graduate school. It is tough work, and no one should do it who isn't one hundred percent committed to working 50 - 60 hours a week to improve the educational opportunities for those kids.

I know this isn't the forum for it, so I'll just say quickly: OMFG YES. Teach for America and the like are wonderful, but you have to have a vocation for it. And I honor those that do.

[Louiselab]

Just to clarify: i get paid minimum wage because i'm an undergrad and i work at my school... Yeah. I just had to pay my app fees out of that money and thoreau wrote about how you think about buying things in terms of how much of your life had to go into purchasing it and so that's generally how i think about things I pay for.

I'm not bitching, I honestly don't care, I just made the comment about Penn to point out that they don't actually read the whole application in everyone's case. It wasn't meant as bitching or whining, I just thought I might contribute something I found interesting. I didn't want to apply to half the schools i applied to, except the people i really wanted to work with happened to be concentrated at Penn and Harvard. I could care less about ranking, i didn't care about it as an undergrad and i don't care now.

I probably would've have had slightly better results had any of my professors helped me or given me advice, but that's life. I have a promise of a job offer for Goldman Sachs' training program and I got accepted to law school, so no graduate school is not going to kill me. I was researching in archives before I majored in history, and no grad school is not the end of my life. The only difference is now I'm just a weirdo with a postwar us history fetish as opposed to a grad student with funding. But one of my high school teachers has told me about some serious Civil War re-enactments and wants help making costumes...

Anyways, my life will go on, and this is not the end and I swear this is the last comment.

[TMP]

CSO

No way do I feel sorry for myself (except maybe I'm sorry that I don't have a 3.5+ GPA but damned that grade deflation at my school). Rather, this all was a huge learning process! I'm already working a bit franatically to find MA programs with late deadlines and figuring out if that doesn't work... then what to do... And of course, not giving up on my thesis!

Honestly, if you didn't get in anywhere and this whole process makes you feel terrible for yourself that you're not sure why you're bothering with all of this, then you need to leave the academia for a bit. I'm not letting the academia kill my dreams. Good luck with law school and Goldman Sachs, you'll be earning lots of moolah.

[jaw17]

Re: MA programs - in addition to identifying ones with late deadlines, it can't hurt to contact other departments and ask if they ever consider late applications as well. I suspect that they've all been so busy sorting through the pile of PhD apps that they haven't even started on the MA ones...

[missycari]

Louiselab

[TMP]

Re: MA programs - in addition to identifying ones with late deadlines, it can't hurt to contact other departments and ask if they ever consider late applications as well. I suspect that they've all been so busy sorting through the pile of PhD apps that they haven't even started on the MA ones...

That's exactly my plan once I definitely hear from Michigan and NYU since those are the places that I'd really like to get my MA in Jewish Studies. The Jewish Studies department secretary at Michigan doesn't seem to think it's possible to move the application through the grad school but didn't say no! C'mon official rejections, I'm waiting for you!!! :wink: Thank god these programs offer zero funding otherwise i'd be in dilemma on whether to suck it up and find money or wait until next year. I'm actually in the same situation as your husband- I may be a History major but I don't have a major in Jewish Studies (as a professor at Brandeis was *so* nice to point out my major weakness) so I will definitely need this. I'm glad to hear that it all worked out for him- I feel better!

[Louiselab]

who do you want to work with at nyu? I took a bunch of hebrew/judaic studies classes and I have some good grad student friends in that department.

[abc]

In general, I think what you write is true, except I'm not sure about taking time off. I took three years off and believe I am a much better candidate because of it. I am much more certain about what I want to do as a 24 year old than I was at 21.

I had good stats - a 3.94 undergraduate GPA (albeit from an unknown liberal arts college), a 4.0 in a Master's degree I earned while working 40 hours a week, and a 670 Verbal on the GRE (6.0 Analytical Writing). So far, I have gotten into two top 10 programs (Michigan and Wisconsin) and the professors at Yale turned me down for the PhD but were at least interested enough to ask me to move my app to an MA program with the possibility of full funding. I have been down from several schools. My professors warned me from the beginning that I might have a difficult time because I don't exactly mirror the ideal candidate.

In short, I think people who don't match your profile can get into top programs (as my history professor put it, Michigan is an extraordinarily good place to be) but they may have more rejections than people who fit it more closely. Perhaps randomness is the wrong word. There are people who are more likely to get in than others BUT we have an imperfect knowledge of admissions decisions and there are too many variables to be able to predict who will get in where. A lot depends on the individual preferences of adcomms. Saying that something is random is a way (perhaps slightly inaccurate) to say that your rejections may have nothing to do with your scholastic ability and that people may get rejected from a third tier institution only to be accepted to a first tier one (Look at my own stats. In at Michigan, top 10 or top 5 depending on your subfield. Out at Illinois, ranked 20 - 25).

I don't think we disagree. My point was that fitting the type would help you and not fitting would create extra hurdles. In some ways our profiles are similar -- I went to a SLAC (more well known but no faculty directly related to my interests and no one really familiar with graduate admissions at this point in time), I also had a 670 verbal and 6 writing, a 3.9 GPA, and I have a master's degree. But it's been 7 years since I graduated from college and my MA (GPA 4.0) falls in that nether world of area studies such that I took history classes but if you don't look at the transcript, you don't know that from the label. My area of interest is vastly understudied and very few people in history departments work on it (for a variety of reasons most who study it end up in other departments). I knew this going in and thought I had made a compelling case for drawing on the work of multiple faculty. I guess not.

And CSO my point is not to complain but to vent, I think there's an important difference. When we vent, we know all can expect to get is sympathy (if that) and maybe some relief by expressing our feelings. It's not like I think my comments here are going to change anything. I think many of us who haven't gotten in are sharing a frustration about having put our best foot forward only to find that it's unable to take a step. There's something to be said about the vet school rejection (keeping in mind there are only 27 vet schools in the U.S.) that tells candidates how they can improve their application in the future (more zoology classes, more time with animals, better interviewing, whatever). It's pretty common for people to apply to vet schools 2-3 times before they get in. The difference between that and grad school is that they have information to work with. It's not a guarantee of a better outcome but knowledge they can use to strengthen their application.

[eternallyviolet]

There is hope on Saturdays!

I just got a letter inviting me to recruitment weekend at UC Irvine because I've been accepted. Formal letter to follow!

I'm going to school! That's all that matters! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[missycari]

What an unexpected surprise for the weekend! Many congratulations!

[Minnesotan]

Nice job!

Things like this make the weekend more bearable.

Let's hope for more good news for everyone.

[crauson]

There is hope on Saturdays!

I just got a letter inviting me to recruitment weekend at UC Irvine because I've been accepted. Formal letter to follow!

I'm going to school! That's all that matters! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Congrats!

And to give people more hope for the weekend, my Rutgers acceptance came via email Friday at midnight. So there is definitely hope of being notified outside of normal business hours M-F!

[TMP]

Haha congrats to all!

I'm not holding out any hopes. Let them surprise me.

[abc]

There is hope on Saturdays!

I just got a letter inviting me to recruitment weekend at UC Irvine because I've been accepted. Formal letter to follow!

I'm going to school! That's all that matters! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

That's wonderful. Congratulations.

[rising_star]

Re: MA programs - in addition to identifying ones with late deadlines, it can't hurt to contact other departments and ask if they ever consider late applications as well. I suspect that they've all been so busy sorting through the pile of PhD apps that they haven't even started on the MA ones...

Has anyone identified some of these programs? I'm interested...

[Minnesotan]

With or without funding? I doubt there are many funded options left.

[Cornell07]

I'm just starting to look into MA programs as a back-up. I thought that MA's as a general rule do not offer funding. Am I wrong?

[amanda1655]

Yale has funding available for some its MA programs in the humanities but most of the programs I saw were not funded.