Fall 2018 Applicants

[ltr317]

1 hour ago, TheHessianHistorian said:

@khigh and @ltr317:

I'm 31 and will be 32 by the time I start grad school. My mother was about 40 when she earned her Master's (at Uni of Iowa), and about 50 when she earned her PhD (at Uni of Colorado), and she managed to find a tenure-track faculty position several years ago (in the humanities no less). My grandfather was 40 when he did his Master's degree (at UMN-Twin Cities) and 42 when he finished his PhD (at UMN-Twin Cities)...he worked as a school principal for 4 years, worked as a non-tenured college instructor for 10 years, and got a tenured faculty position at Uni of Wisconsin in 1997 at the age of 56. Granted, people in my family never retire (my great grandmother clerked at a store until she was 99 years old, was diagnosed with cancer and passed away 2 months later), so getting a job in our 50s means probably a 40-year career ahead of us. Point being: you are NEVER too old, as long as you feel like you've got the drive and the energy to go for it.

Bust your butt, do ambitious research, fight and claw for those awards, be better than everybody else, meticulously plan how you're going to get from point A to point B, and there will be no age limit to achieving your goal.

Wow, you have a family of middle-age overachievers.  You must be proud of them all.  I hope to gain membership in that company. 

[ltr317]

1 hour ago, Qtf311 said:

I’m 41.  This is my second career...or will be hopefully.  My uncle is a professor at UMass and he didnt finish his Phd untill his mid-40s.  Age means little.  

Good for you and your uncle.  I almost applied to UMass but decided I didn't want to stray too far from home.  

[ltr317]

3 hours ago, VladL said:

Anyone heard from CUNY Graduate Center? I noticed one fellow traveler posted about being wait-listed earlier today. 

I'm surprised to see a decision so early, especially a waitlisted one.  I'm currently an MA student at one of the CUNY colleges and all my professors teach at the PhD level at the GC.  Based on what I heard and from past practices, I wasn't expecting to see decisions for a couple more weeks at least. 

[derHistoriker]

4 hours ago, khigh said:

Well, you don't have to worry about me posting about it anymore. Denied admission.

I got the same rejection notice. 

[Averroes MD]

1 hour ago, khigh said:

I'm 31, but the boyfriend turns 40 this year. Sometimes I wish I hadn't taken 10 years between high school and undergrad, but then I wouldn't have met my boyfriend, so I have no regrets waiting. He's the best part of my life and I would give up 100 PhD opportunities for him. 

That is a seriously sweet statement. 

Count your blessings, and sorry to hear about the suboptimal result. But sometimes life has something better in store... Good luck!

[kotatsumuri]

Sorry to hear about your rejections @khigh and @SFischer I haven't really been posting here, but been following along. I came to join the party and say that I received a rejection from USC's History PhD today! It looks like a lot of history results went out today. I would have been suprised to get an acceptance since I don't already have an MA, but it was a disappointment nonetheless.

At least we all have other plans or options to consider! I remain confident that something cool is waiting for us around the corner

[RazzDazzle]

I'm anxiously waiting my results from NU. It's the only program I applied to (I'm currently enrolled at one of their graduate schools, e.g. MD/JD/MBA), and I attended NU undergrad. I'm going to be crushed if I don't get in, because I think I'm a great fit and the rest of my application checks out. For all of you also anxiously waiting to hear back from NU, here are the days when people were first accepted in previous years (crossed off the dates we are past). Based on this data and the interviewee's + NU grad student's postings, decisions have to be 99% next week and no later. 

2017: January 29

2016: January 30

2015: February 4

2014: February 1 

2013: January 29  

2012: February 4 

2011: February 9 

 

May the odds be ever in your favor. 

 

 

[niohesektu]

@lordtiandao I am the one who reported admission to the UCLA Chinese history program. Currently I am in China now so still thinking about whether to visit in early March. My husband is there and I have booked a flight ticket to visit LA in late March.

Are you planning to visit?

[TheHessianHistorian]

I was just officially wait-listed for the PhD program at Washington University in St. Louis. Honestly I'm honored I wasn't flat-out rejected from WUSTL, seeing as they are a very rigorous and high quality program. The email I got from DGS was pretty nice about it:

"I am writing as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of History to inform you that you have been named an alternate for admission to the doctoral program in history here at Washington University. I realize that this is likely to produce mixed emotions. Please do take it in a positive sense: we were very impressed with your application and think that you are fully qualified for admission. However, due to tight restrictions on the size of our entering class, we are unable to offer you admission at this time. That may well change between now and April, so I encourage you to keep in touch with us in the coming weeks."

[Averroes MD]

On 2/2/2018 at 10:15 PM, TheHessianHistorian said:

I was just officially wait-listed for the PhD program at Washington University in St. Louis. Honestly I'm honored I wasn't flat-out rejected from WUSTL, seeing as they are a very rigorous and high quality program. The email I got from DGS was pretty nice about it:

"I am writing as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of History to inform you that you have been named an alternate for admission to the doctoral program in history here at Washington University. I realize that this is likely to produce mixed emotions. Please do take it in a positive sense: we were very impressed with your application and think that you are fully qualified for admission. However, due to tight restrictions on the size of our entering class, we are unable to offer you admission at this time. That may well change between now and April, so I encourage you to keep in touch with us in the coming weeks."

That's a very well written email on their behalf. I'm sometimes surprised about how heartless and tone deaf some rejection emails can be, so it's nice to see something like that. Anyways, congrats!

[khigh]

My undergrad advisor just sent me this quote. Those of you that were also rejected today might also like it. It's from Field of Dreams.

"The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that was once good and what could be again." 

[ltr317]

On 2/2/2018 at 10:15 PM, TheHessianHistorian said:

I was just officially wait-listed for the PhD program at Washington University in St. Louis. Honestly I'm honored I wasn't flat-out rejected from WUSTL, seeing as they are a very rigorous and high quality program. The email I got from DGS was pretty nice about it:

"I am writing as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of History to inform you that you have been named an alternate for admission to the doctoral program in history here at Washington University. I realize that this is likely to produce mixed emotions. Please do take it in a positive sense: we were very impressed with your application and think that you are fully qualified for admission. However, due to tight restrictions on the size of our entering class, we are unable to offer you admission at this time. That may well change between now and April, so I encourage you to keep in touch with us in the coming weeks."

I agree with @Averroes MD that the email is well written, with an encouraging tone.  Sending you good vibes for a positive outcome. 

[ltr317]

14 minutes ago, khigh said:

My undergrad advisor just sent me this quote. Those of you that were also rejected today might also like it. It's from Field of Dreams.

"The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that was once good and what could be again." 

I really enjoyed that movie when it first came out, saw it twice in the theater. 

Looks like Minnesota is sending out rejections in batches, saw several more a few minutes ago.  Doctoral programs are a crap-shoot, so many qualified applicants for so few places. 

 

[psstein]

5 hours ago, khigh said:

I won't make a hasty decision. I just know that Dutch history is dying on this side of the Atlantic. 

It really depends on what you want to do. Some approaches to everything are dying out (some of which rightfully so!), but others just need a new generation to reinvigorate them.

[TheHessianHistorian]

7 minutes ago, ltr317 said:

Doctoral programs are a crap-shoot, so many qualified applicants for so few places. 

 

It really is in large part a numbers game. You can be as qualified as they come, but there's dozens of other equally qualified applicants. You've got to submit enough applications to beat the odds, even if it means your POI isn't a 100% dead-on perfect fit.

[ltr317]

14 minutes ago, TheHessianHistorian said:

It really is in large part a numbers game. You can be as qualified as they come, but there's dozens of other equally qualified applicants. You've got to submit enough applications to beat the odds, even if it means your POI isn't a 100% dead-on perfect fit.

Totally agree.  If I was younger and willing to move away, I would have cast a much wider net and probably would have applied to at least a dozen programs, even to a few top ones.  But the reality is my age at the present, and I had to stretch the geographical limit to include Temple and UConn.  If I don't get accepted to any of the four programs closer to home and were admitted to either Temple or UConn then going home on weekends is quite doable.    

[cocakolakowski]

Hey all, happy Friday! Just curious if anyone knew if acceptance emails or decisions had been sent out yet for Washington University in St. Louis (WashU). Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[TheHessianHistorian]

On 2/2/2018 at 11:24 PM, cocakolakowski said:

Hey all, happy Friday! Just curious if anyone knew if acceptance emails or decisions had been sent out yet for Washington University in St. Louis (WashU). Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I just got a wait-list email from WUSTL tonight, so I'm guessing other decisions aren't far behind.

[cocakolakowski]

3 minutes ago, TheHessianHistorian said:

I just got a wait-list email from WUSTL tonight, so I'm guessing other decisions aren't far behind.

Right after I posted I saw your post; thank you for the quick reply. This may be a silly question, but was there a separate portal we can check? I just have the ApplyYourself login and I do not see an area that would change to reflect admission status. Thanks!

[TheHessianHistorian]

3 minutes ago, cocakolakowski said:

Right after I posted I saw your post; thank you for the quick reply. This may be a silly question, but was there a separate portal we can check? I just have the ApplyYourself login and I do not see an area that would change to reflect admission status. Thanks!

Just the ApplyYourself portal is the only I've seen, and that still says "Ready for Review" for me, so I think you'll probably hear via email before the status changes in the portal.

[khigh]

53 minutes ago, psstein said:

It really depends on what you want to do. Some approaches to everything are dying out (some of which rightfully so!), but others just need a new generation to reinvigorate them.

I'd love to reinvigorate the phenomenological approach, which seems to be happening elsewhere, but I don't know about around here. I've done a few phenomenological investigations of "great men," but I don't think they are anything I would ever submit as a writing sample. The boyfriend loved the one I submitted for his class. I looked at Goebbels "as he was" and applied Nietzsche and Kant's concepts of humanity to show how he approached the world. I watched all of his home videos, listened to all of his speeches, read everything he wrote (from Michael to his journal) to get inside his head to see how he experienced the world around him without presentism or personal bias.  My advisor was disturbed by my phenomenological approach to Robespierre. That was for a simulation and I may have defended the guillotine a little too much, but it was what it was. Boyfriend and I are talking about writing a phenomenological paper on women in Berlin in 1945. I would love to do one on Magda Goebbels or Jenny Marx, but both of those would be difficult.

We, the boyfriend and I, say that history can be one of the most depressing fields to study because you are forgotten. You may be a data point in a paper or you may not really have existed unless you can tell your own story through a researcher. One act may overshadow everything else you did or everything you did might not matter. 

Just thought I would include a short passage from my defense of the guillotine. This was a simulation arguing for or against the formation of the Committee of Public Safety, so we each played a part and were supposed to view it through the eyes of a Revolutionary. I was the only one to actually defend the Committee. Everyone else in the class either looked at it as we would today or took it out of context and couldn't forget what actually happened to the followers of Robespierre. 

"I beg of you, my fellow revolutionaries, to support this law.  I wish it had not come to this, but this revolution will not progress if the rabble is not cleared from our ranks in a timely manner.  Forgive me and this committee if these words do not ring true, that this great revolution will bring peace by the sword and liberty by the jury.  Denounce your neighbor and spurn your friend if he cuts the heel of the revolution.  Accuse your child and bring forth your wife if they cannot agree to the values of this great revolution.  As the king betrayed us and was sentenced as an enemy of this revolution, so too must your friend, neighbor, child, and wife. We are a lawful and obedient people and through this law, we will bring about a great and lasting peace.  Viva la révolution! "

Edited February 3, 2018 by khigh

[ltr317]

26 minutes ago, cocakolakowski said:

Hey all, happy Friday! Just curious if anyone knew if acceptance emails or decisions had been sent out yet for Washington University St. Louis. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Coca, it's already Saturday EST.  How are you doing? 

Edited February 3, 2018 by ltr317

[ltr317]

Someone posted this on another GC subforum.  Thought it was pretty funny.  Think it's time for a little levity to assuage our waiting anxiety: https://legogradstudent.tumblr.com/

This is one of my favorites: " Leading undergrads in a discussion about readings that he barely managed to skim, the grad student flagrantly abuses the Socratic method."

 

Edited February 3, 2018 by ltr317

[kindkw123]

2 hours ago, niohesektu said:

@lordtiandao I am the one who reported admission to the UCLA Chinese history program. Currently I am in China now so still thinking about whether to visit in early March. My husband is there and I have booked a flight ticket to visit LA in late March.

Are you planning to visit?

Congratulations. I did my MA at UCLA a few years ago. I mostly worked with Andrea Goldman. Who are you hoping to work with?

[idoitchicagostyle]

54 minutes ago, kindkw123 said:

Congratulations. I did my MA at UCLA a few years ago. I mostly worked with Andrea Goldman. Who are you hoping to work with?

Im currently a UCLA undergraduate. And I cant have a higher praise of Goldman.