Fall 2018 Applicants

[Neist]

If I'm briefly given a moment to reminisce, it seems only yesterday that I was in everyone's situation. I just thought I'd chime in and say that no matter where you end up, I want to assure everyone that if you don't get the acceptance that you hoped for, it's not necessarily because you're inadequate for graduate school. To be honest, as I sit here writing a book review for a course tomorrow, I've concluded, now after several years in graduate school, that everyone is both inadequate and adequate.  

This graduate school thing is rough. Lots of reading. Lots of writing. Nowhere near enough time for either if one wishes to do them well.

[pepe.s]

Anyone heard anything from Harvard or Princeton? I believe during this week last year Harvard had sent out decisions already. 

And congrats to the one that has recently been accepted at Yale! Not sure if he/she is on this forum, but it'll be great to know his/her focus. 

[Averroes MD]

12 hours ago, khigh said:

Just an FYI if any of y’all are thinking about Law School as a backup, I turned in my application on Friday and got a response today. They don’t mess around!

Acceptance?

[Guest345]

50 minutes ago, pepe.s said:

Anyone heard anything from Harvard or Princeton? I believe during this week last year Harvard had sent out decisions already. 

And congrats to the one that has recently been accepted at Yale! Not sure if he/she is on this forum, but it'll be great to know his/her focus. 

Have not heard from Harvard or Yale yet. 

[Tigla]

I have a colleague who applied to Harvard's East Asian Studies PhD. Her recommender, who also works at Harvard, said that the department is finishing the decision-making process this week. Some letters of acceptance have been sent, but not all. Good luck to those that have applied to Harvard! May the odds always be in your favor.

[Siswa]

Any news from Cornell? They are my last hope > <

[Imenol]

3 hours ago, Tigla said:

I have a colleague who applied to Harvard's East Asian Studies PhD. Her recommender, who also works at Harvard, said that the department is finishing the decision-making process this week. Some letters of acceptance have been sent, but not all. Good luck to those that have applied to Harvard! May the odds always be in your favor.

You mean that some letters have been sent for East Asian or for History? Have not heard anything from the history department yet

[Guest564]

35 minutes ago, Siswa said:

Any news from Cornell? They are my last hope > <

I believe someone has already posted that they would not be releasing final decisions before early March. 

How about Brown? Any info on that front?

[dr. t]

18 minutes ago, LV0991 said:

How about Brown? Any info on that front?

Grad school has approved admits; expect formal notification by early next week.

[pim81590]

Anyone receive any further info from Berkeley? I saw there was something like one admit and a couple rejections, but it seems like they all came from inquiring w/ POIs, rather than official correspondence from the department/grad studies. Thanks!

[Imenol]

Given that professors already know... how bad does it look to just go ahead and email your POI about the status of your application?

[fortsibut]

1 hour ago, Siswa said:

Any news from Cornell? They are my last hope > <

Per the past few years' survey results, acceptances started rolling in between Feb 21s and the end of the month.  Once you get past the first few days of March, things look pretty grim.  I'm also a Cornell applicant, mind sharing your area of focus?

[TheHessianHistorian]

Got an acceptance email from Northern Illinois University's DGS at about 10 am this morning (it broke the streak of all my previous decisions coming in late at night). Excited at the prospect of possibly working with Vera Lind. Her emphases on social/cultural history, marginalized people, gender, and religious history in early modern Germany are so perfectly aligned with mine!

[dr. t]

1 hour ago, Imenol said:

Given that professors already know... how bad does it look to just go ahead and email your POI about the status of your application?

If you've already been in contact with them (exchanged a few emails) then it's fine, but don't just email them out of the blue.

[khigh]

6 hours ago, Averroes MD said:

Acceptance?

Got accepted, but I am going to decline and reapply in September because of funding. They had already given out their big scholarships and I should get a full waiver for the next cycle. It seems to be all about the numbers. They don't really care about anything other than your LSAT score.

[gsc]

1 hour ago, Imenol said:

Given that professors already know... how bad does it look to just go ahead and email your POI about the status of your application?

Extremely bad. Do not do this. 

[Qtf311]

Patience.   Before you know it February will be over and we will all know what the immediate future holds.

[TheHessianHistorian]

Well, I inquired with the University of Arizona as to how I might improve my application as I was curious why I got rejected for their Master's program. They responded: " The Departmental Graduate Committee found that you lacked the foundational preparation needed for this highly competitive program. You might consider enrolling in graduate level classes in this field as a non-degree seeking student, so as to develop a stronger track record and foundation in Early Modern European History."

Still surprising, to say the least! An entire Bachelor's degree in European History, a senior thesis that involved translating/transcribing/cataloging every church record in an entire German town (from 1650-1900), and 7 years experience as a professional genealogist writing over 50 reports for clients with European ancestry qualifies as lacking a "track record and foundation in Early Modern European History"?

Compare that with the University of Alabama DGS quote: "Our Graduate Committee was certainly impressed by your ability to work with early modern German sources in their original language."

Or compare with the Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) DGS quote: "We feel you are fully qualified for admission."

So Arizona's comments sting a bit, but I've already got 2 acceptances to equally good Master's programs and have been wait-listed for WUSTL's PhD program. I'm not going to fret about Arizona at this point.

[Account6567]

1 hour ago, gsc said:

Extremely bad. Do not do this. 

Just adding on to this, keep in mind that (depending on your plans) it may be a good idea to email a bit after decisions come out asking what held your application back. If you do so, I feel like you're more likely to get a thoughtful/honest response if you haven't already emailed about the decisions themselves.

[fortsibut]

58 minutes ago, TheHessianHistorian said:

Well, I inquired with the University of Arizona as to how I might improve my application as I was curious why I got rejected for their Master's program. They responded: " The Departmental Graduate Committee found that you lacked the foundational preparation needed for this highly competitive program.

 

This is absolutely not a shot at Arizona, but...they have a highly competitive history MA program?  Is that true of that specific subfield, or?

Sorry you got that response.  From the sound of it, you have a pretty solid background that should get you into a few good programs you're aiming for!

Edited February 8, 2018 by fortsibut

[TheHessianHistorian]

3 minutes ago, fortsibut said:

This is absolutely not a shot at Arizona, but...they have a highly competitive history MA program?  Is that true of that specific subfield, or?

I don't know, but I had the same question... I have never heard Arizona's Master's program mentioned as "highly competitive". Not a bad program by any means, but... hmm...

[fortsibut]

On 2/8/2018 at 2:41 PM, TheHessianHistorian said:

I don't know, but I had the same question... I have never heard Arizona's Master's program mentioned as "highly competitive". Not a bad program by any means, but... hmm...

Yeah, no doubt.  If you made it onto WashU's PhD wait list, I'm pretty pretty skeptical that you're not more than qualified for a middle-of-the-pack MA program.  That's pretty baffling.  But hey, as we all know, admissions is a total crapshoot.

[ltr317]

On 2/8/2018 at 1:43 PM, TheHessianHistorian said:

Well, I inquired with the University of Arizona as to how I might improve my application as I was curious why I got rejected for their Master's program. They responded: " The Departmental Graduate Committee found that you lacked the foundational preparation needed for this highly competitive program. You might consider enrolling in graduate level classes in this field as a non-degree seeking student, so as to develop a stronger track record and foundation in Early Modern European History."

Still surprising, to say the least! An entire Bachelor's degree in European History, a senior thesis that involved translating/transcribing/cataloging every church record in an entire German town (from 1650-1900), and 7 years experience as a professional genealogist writing over 50 reports for clients with European ancestry qualifies as lacking a "track record and foundation in Early Modern European History"?

Compare that with the University of Alabama DGS quote: "Our Graduate Committee was certainly impressed by your ability to work with early modern German sources in their original language."

Or compare with the Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) DGS quote: "We feel you are fully qualified for admission."

So Arizona's comments sting a bit, but I've already got 2 acceptances to equally good Master's programs and have been wait-listed for WUSTL's PhD program. I'm not going to fret about Arizona at this point.

Did the DGC confuse you with someone else?  Did they not want to give the real reason?   Did they not want to be bothered because too many other rejected applicants are asking for an explanation?  Maybe they thought you would probably go somewhere else because of your qualifications, but what they wrote is nuts based on your application.  

[TheHessianHistorian]

On 2/8/2018 at 2:55 PM, ltr317 said:

Did the DGC confuse you with someone else?  Did they not want to give the real reason?   Did they not want to be bothered because too many other rejected applicants are asking for an explanation?  Maybe they thought you would probably go somewhere else because of your qualifications, but what they wrote is nuts based on your application.  

Haha, thanks. I had all these same thoughts. It's okay though, I'm already pretty excited about possibly working with Dan Riches at Alabama or Steven Zwicker at WUSTL, and I've still got 11 more programs to hear back from, so "the night is still young."

[fortsibut]

You should totally send Arizona a "YOU CAN'T FIRE ME!  I QUIT!" style message.