What are my chances?

[LeraK]

Hi all, 

I recently applied to both Harvard and Chicago's history PhD programs, and of course, now I am wondering about my chances. I am currently on a Fulbright ETA in my country of interest. I speak Russian and Ukrainian at intermediate high levels. My GRE was not amazing (158V, 155Q, 5AW), and my gpa was a 3.48 from undergrad (a semester with 5 classes and mono really messed me up). I did an honors thesis and used it for my writing sample, and almost every citation was in the original Russian. One of my letter writers got his PhD from Harvard, and my POI knew him well, and seemed to respect him, so I am hoping that works out in my favor. I have also begun working with a Harvard professor outside of the history department as a copy editor for a relevant journal to my intended field. Thanks for any input  
 

Edited December 15, 2017 by LeraK

[ashiepoo72]

It's impossible to answer this. There are tons of factors going into a program's admissions decisions. Grades, GRE, language proficiency, breadth and depth of coursework all play a role. Strength of primary source-based research, writing skills, strong recommendation letters, statement of purpose exhibiting fit with the program are even more important imo. Whether or not the potential advisers you list in the statement are accepting students, whether or not a bunch of people with better profiles or better conceived projects applied to work with the same people as you, whether or not the department has limits on how many people to accept within your subfield also play a role. All you can do at this point is wait it out. If you don't get in this round, you should consider doing an MA or some sort of history related work and then reapply to more programs. I would suggest you apply to at least 5 if you have to reapply. Good luck!

[Imenol]

Who are you hoping to work with at Harvard?  I have also applied for a PhD there, with a focus on medieval Europe. Harvard is extremely competitive -it is impossible to assess your chances based solely on grades. Quite simply, I am sure that some people get accepted with worse stats that you, but I am also sure that people are routinely rejected with perfect or near-perfect scores, great linguistic skills, and outstanding recommendation letters. I imagine that living in Russia is an asset, but I don't think anyone would apply to a PhD with a focus on Russia without having spent some time in the country and without mastering the language first. 

[TMP]

None of us have sat on admissions committees of idiosyncratic professors with plenty of departmental politics so we can't properly assess your competitiveness  

[LeraK]

7 hours ago, Imenol said:

Who are you hoping to work with at Harvard?  I have also applied for a PhD there, with a focus on medieval Europe. Harvard is extremely competitive -it is impossible to assess your chances based solely on grades. Quite simply, I am sure that some people get accepted with worse stats that you, but I am also sure that people are routinely rejected with perfect or near-perfect scores, great linguistic skills, and outstanding recommendation letters. I imagine that living in Russia is an asset, but I don't think anyone would apply to a PhD with a focus on Russia without having spent some time in the country and without mastering the language first. 

Im hoping to work with Serhii Plokhii and Terry Martin 

[AP]

I'm usually the devil's advocate when it comes to these type of posts.

Your chances depend on your SOP, LORs, and WS, so it is hard for anyone here to give you a good answer. I think that you want to be reassured that you are strong candidate, and I'm sure you are sure you think that because otherwise I doubt you would have applied for Harvard and Chicago. Still, our scanty experience cannot speak to your chances. 

I do hope you get in!

 

[urbanhistorynerd]

As I've learned from my own thread on here - it is dependent, as the person above my post said, on your SOP, LORs, and WS. Good GPA and GRE are important, but when it comes down to acceptance - fit, research abilities/experience, and all that jazz is what matters the most.

Honors are important, from the professors and grad students I've talked to, and a good honors thesis demonstrates your independent research ability. It seems like you have good language abilities as well. GPA is very low for those two. But, again, it is all about the SOP, LORs, and WS.

Also, as you probably know, admission to those programs are cutthroat. I think I remember reading that Harvard accepts something like 4-5% of applicants. Uchicago is a little higher, 10% or something. I don't remember where I read those, but if they are wrong, the actual rates are somewhere along those numbers. If you don't get accepted, it is certainly not a reflection of you as a scholar, but a reflection of the intense competition. I hope you applied to other school as well. A Ph.D. at a school like University of Minnesota or some other mid-tier program is still a Ph.D.

[urbanhistorynerd]

 

Harvard is 6% (higher than I thought). 

https://history.fas.harvard.edu/admissions

Uchicago said they admit 30 students annually- and a Ph.D. student I've talked to has confirmed this.

[psstein]

1 hour ago, kenalyass said:

 

Harvard is 6% (higher than I thought). 

https://history.fas.harvard.edu/admissions

Uchicago said they admit 30 students annually- and a Ph.D. student I've talked to has confirmed this.

Chicago is able to admit 30 a year because it funds about half of them, from what I'm told. I think UCLA does something similar, but they may have stopped.

1 hour ago, kenalyass said:

A Ph.D. at a school like University of Minnesota or some other mid-tier program is still a Ph.D.

This is not a good mindset to have. Maybe that's true for undergrad, but it's not true for graduate programs. A mid-tier PhD will close doors further down the road.

[khigh]

4 minutes ago, psstein said:

Chicago is able to admit 30 a year because it funds about half of them, from what I'm told. I think UCLA does something similar, but they may have stopped.

This is not a good mindset to have. Maybe that's true for undergrad, but it's not true for graduate programs. A mid-tier PhD will close doors further down the road.

I don't know about OP's ambitions, but I know I would be happy, ecstatic even, to teach at a regional university (Minnesota State Mankato, Cameron University in Lawton, Ok, University of Alaska-Anchorage and the like). From what I can see, there, a PhD from a "mid-tier" program is as good, if not better than, an Ivy education. Cameron, my alma mater, has 5 history professors. They are from OU (3), UMN, and Texas Tech. We had a guy from Vanderbilt for a year, but he had a one year contract and they didn't extend it.  I was on the hiring committee for university positions and one of their concerns was the COST of hiring an Ivy grad. Ivy grads typically demanded more pay in their applications. They also don't think they have the one-on-one classroom training like the state schools.  My largest class was capped at 30 students and upper division classes are capped at 20 (I had a class of 4 for Mediterranean history, 3 for French II). The hiring committee, and I, believed that there is a difference between a "research professor" and "teaching professor." How happy is a "research professor" going to be when the split is 75% teaching, 20% service, 5% research? Are they going to be happy sponsoring History Club and hosting movie nights? What about serving on a dozen university committees outside their field?

[psstein]

2 minutes ago, khigh said:

I don't know about OP's ambitions, but I know I would be happy, ecstatic even, to teach at a regional university (Minnesota State Mankato, Cameron University in Lawton, Ok, University of Alaska-Anchorage and the like). From what I can see, there, a PhD from a "mid-tier" program is as good, if not better than, an Ivy education. Cameron, my alma mater, has 5 history professors. They are from OU (3), UMN, and Texas Tech. We had a guy from Vanderbilt for a year, but he had a one year contract and they didn't extend it.  I was on the hiring committee for university positions and one of their concerns was the COST of hiring an Ivy grad. Ivy grads typically demanded more pay in their applications. They also don't think they have the one-on-one classroom training like the state schools.  My largest class was capped at 30 students and upper division classes are capped at 20 (I had a class of 4 for Mediterranean history, 3 for French II). The hiring committee, and I, believed that there is a difference between a "research professor" and "teaching professor." How happy is a "research professor" going to be when the split is 75% teaching, 20% service, 5% research? Are they going to be happy sponsoring History Club and hosting movie nights? What about serving on a dozen university committees outside their field?

When were these professors hired? Teaching universities also often have different requirements for their professors.

I went to a well-known small state university. Almost all of my professors were from the top 15-20 history PhD programs. The one who wasn't was a Western specialist. 

[khigh]

Just now, psstein said:

When were these professors hired? Teaching universities also often have different requirements for their professors.

I went to a well-known small state university. Almost all of my professors were from the top 15-20 history PhD programs. The one who wasn't was a Western specialist. 

Department chair and his wife were hired in 1999, the other OU grad was 1970 (she's retiring this year finally!), my advisor was 2001, and the Tech grad was 2008 (he is ABD). The Vanderbilt grad was there for the 2015-2016 academic year.  

My university is basically an ROTC program (top 10 in the nation) with a university attached to it.

[dr. t]

1 hour ago, khigh said:

From what I can see, there, a PhD from a "mid-tier" program is as good, if not better than, an Ivy education.

Alas, the numbers simply don't back this up. And I know you've seen the numbers, because they're in nice graphs in that other thread.

I've heard the "Ivy grads want too much and can't teach" line before, always from people trying to recruit me to come to a state school and trying to convince me that the fact that I'll have a 1/2 load and be IoR from my second semester is a good thing  I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now.

(All Ivies aren't created equal - HYPr > BPnCD)

Edited December 18, 2017 by telkanuru

[khigh]

21 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

Alas, the numbers simply don't back this up. 

I've heard the "Ivy grads want too much and can't teach" line before, always from people trying to recruit me to come to a state school where I'll have a 2/2 load as IoR from my second semester. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now.

Have you sat on a hiring committee? I did for two years as an undergrad as a student representative (along with 15 other university wide committees from Academic Appeals to Going Green because I was Vice President and then President of the Student Government Association). It may not be what you perceive, but it is the reality of the conversation in regional universities. The budget is beyond limited in many of them- we're talking cutting departments and programs, closing buildings, restructuring administration, and raising tuition.  The hard reality is that they fear that Ivies are going to take up too much of the budget and then leave as soon as they find a better position, which means starting the expensive recruiting and hiring process again. The money isn't there for ivies. 

A 2/2 load is nothing for a regional.  They're at 4/4 or 5/5.  The department chair carries a 3/4 (Military History is offered in the spring and he is our military historian). My advisor is the only Europeanist, so he teaches Western Civ I and II, Early Modern World, Modern World, and 1-2 upper divisions each semester. Modern/Early and the Civs are also offered online. We have one person that is able to teach Oklahoma History and it is a requirement for almost every major. She's the one that's retiring after 37 years of teaching. Do you know how much they earn? $34,000 a year. What ivy is going to stay in that job when something better comes along?How many ivies want to move to International Falls, MN or in the middle of nowhere Montana? Heck, the university president got his PhD in mathematics from UC-Boulder. 

https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1266-applying-to-a-public-regional-university

Edited December 18, 2017 by khigh

[dr. t]

29 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

Alas, the numbers simply don't back this up. And I know you've seen the numbers, because they're in nice graphs in that other thread.

Just to drive this home, the top-10 schools for placements granted PhDs to 52% of the assistant professors (i.e. junior faculty) as of 2015. The distribution goes down hill rapidly from there - schools 11-20 account for 21%, 21-30 for 12%, 31-40 for 5%, and the remaining 10% divided up between 46 schools. 60 PhD-granting institutions have no junior faculty placements whatsoever. The institutional hiring curve is quite literally exponential.

Edited December 18, 2017 by telkanuru

[psstein]

1 hour ago, khigh said:

Department chair and his wife were hired in 1999, the other OU grad was 1970 (she's retiring this year finally!), my advisor was 2001, and the Tech grad was 2008 (he is ABD). The Vanderbilt grad was there for the 2015-2016 academic year. 

Take a look at the AHA's number of PhDs granted vs. positions advertised chart. There are problems with it (some positions are never advertised via AHA), but it'll help put your professors' hiring in its own context.

[dr. t]

16 minutes ago, khigh said:

Have you sat on a hiring committee?

Yes.

16 minutes ago, khigh said:

A 2/2 load is nothing for a regional.  They're at 4/4 or 5/5.

I was talking about my teaching load as a graduate student. 

16 minutes ago, khigh said:

The money isn't there for ivies. 

And yet they keep getting the jobs. Feel free to keep arguing general trends from particular circumstances if you want, but it's not a particularly sound way to think about structural problems.

Edited December 18, 2017 by telkanuru

[khigh]

2 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

Yes.

I was talking about my teaching load as a graduate student. 

And yet they keep getting the jobs.

I should have specified.  Have you sat on a hiring committee for a regional university? I'm looking at the faculty lists for even larger state universities that you would call "mid-tier" or possibly lower.  There are three chairs for the department at the University of Oklahoma.  One got his PhD from University of Toledo. One from Chicago. One from Illinois. Oklahoma State? 3 ivies out of 25 faculty members.  They were all hired prior to 2005. Their youngest faculty members are out of Washington State, Minnesota, and Illinois. 

[dr. t]

Again, particular instances don't really have much to say to aggregate data. I'm not saying that many lower-tier schools don't look askance at Ivy applicants. I'm saying it doesn't matter in the big picture.

Look, one of the places I heard that sales pitch was from Ohio State. Now, as I said in that other thread, Ohio State is actually really good at placing its students at lower-ranked institutions. Circa 2015, they had a grand total of 8 junior faculty placements, but they're taking cohorts of 25. If we do some rough math and say that it's unlikely that any hire remains at the assistant professor rank for more than 7 years (the standard for tenure, and assuming associate rank comes with tenure), then OSU - which targets the exact type of jobs you're talking about - has managed to place 1 student a year, more or less, out of 25. 4% of each cohort lands a TT job at something above the community college level.

Doing the same calculation for Harvard, which has been taking cohorts of about 15-20 (let's say 20), sees 10 of that 20 placed in junior faculty positions, or 50% of each cohort. That's still terrible odds for 6-8 years of your life.

The numbers are brutal, and you're kidding yourself if you think they aren't, or that you can do better if you just set your sights lower.

Edited December 18, 2017 by telkanuru

[khigh]

8 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

Again, particular instances don't really have much to say to aggregate data. I'm not saying that many lower-tier schools don't look askance at Ivy applicants. I'm saying it doesn't matter in the big picture.

Look, one of the places I heard that sales pitch was from Ohio State. Now, as I said in that other thread, Ohio State is actually really good at placing its students at lower-ranked institutions. Circa 2015, they had a grand total of 8 junior faculty placements, but they're taking cohorts of 25. If we do some rough math and say that it's unlikely that any hire remains at the assistant professor rank for more than 7 years (the standard for tenure, and assuming associate rank comes with tenure), then OSU - which targets the exact type of jobs you're talking about - has managed to place 1 student a year, more or less, out of 25. 4% of each cohort lands a TT job at something above the community college level.

Doing the same calculation for Harvard, which has been taking cohorts of about 15-20 (let's say 20), sees 10 of that 20 placed in junior faculty positions, or 50% of each cohort. That's still terrible odds for 6-8 years of your life.

The numbers are brutal, and you're kidding yourself if you think they aren't, or that you can do better if you just set your sights lower.

The numbers are brutal.  There is no question about that.  I thought our disagreement was on how lower-tier schools look at ivy applicants. I'm not exactly worried about my future if I get into the U.  I'm nomadic as so is the boyfriend, so if we have to move every year or two, we are okay with that.  Tenure isn't necessarily either of our dreams. We won't die without tenure. 

[dr. t]

9 minutes ago, khigh said:

I thought our disagreement was on how lower-tier schools look at ivy applicants.

Our disagreement was over, and I quote, that

2 hours ago, khigh said:

From what I can see, there, a PhD from a "mid-tier" program is as good, if not better than, an Ivy education.

This remains false.

It may help to clarify matters if I were to say that I would certainly count places like UChicago and Stanford as Ivies, despite the fact that the lack the technical classification.

Edited December 18, 2017 by telkanuru

[psstein]

59 minutes ago, khigh said:

I should have specified.  Have you sat on a hiring committee for a regional university? I'm looking at the faculty lists for even larger state universities that you would call "mid-tier" or possibly lower.  There are three chairs for the department at the University of Oklahoma.  One got his PhD from University of Toledo. One from Chicago. One from Illinois. Oklahoma State? 3 ivies out of 25 faculty members.  They were all hired prior to 2005. Their youngest faculty members are out of Washington State, Minnesota, and Illinois. 

This really isn't a good way to look at hiring.

My larger department hired someone from Duke this year. She had previously had a TT job at another university. She adjuncted for several years in between finishing the PhD and moving here.

Bluntly, the majority of people who graduate with history PhDs do not have realistic opportunities at TT jobs.

[psstein]

1 hour ago, telkanuru said:

Doing the same calculation for Harvard, which has been taking cohorts of about 15-20 (let's say 20), sees 10 of that 20 placed in junior faculty positions, or 50% of each cohort. That's still terrible odds for 6-8 years of your life.

I agree with your overall point, but there's been a downward trend in cohort sizes the last few years, even at massive universities. My cohort has 11 and it looks like next year's is going to be smaller.

HoS has really fallen off here in the last few years and the merger may not help. The last two years in HoS have yielded a grand total of three people, of whom one is on leave.

Edited December 18, 2017 by psstein

[dr. t]

2 hours ago, psstein said:

I agree with your overall point, but there's been a downward trend in cohort sizes the last few years, even at massive universities. My cohort has 11 and it looks like next year's is going to be smaller.

Yeah, a lot of state schools in particular have gone from 40+ to ~25; I think 10 for a full (40+ tenured) department is about where it should be.

[lordtiandao]

How do the numbers look if we break it down into areas of focus? It seems that East Asian history has a slightly better placement rate than European and American history. Within East Asian history, I've been told by a professor that Japanese history has the highest, followed by Chinese history. Any truth to this?