a piece of bread

Hi Morgan, I think when we are talking about that GRE matters a little we mean in case you get a low GRE it does not kill all your chance. Similarly, a low GPA alone does not make you out of the competition. However, your high scores and grades of course will impress the admission committee. I skip the second question because I am not an Americanist. As for your third question, everybody says that you better should contact Professors by early September so that they can recall your name when they see it. If you start sending e-mails today, you will probably receive many "away from..." type e-mails. As you know, almost all prospective students contact Professors. What is critical here is how they approach you and what you told them. So just try to impress them! Best.

Hey everyone again, I've been absent for a while and may not look here regularly anymore. Nevertheless, I'll try to check from time to time. I just wanted to say that anyone interested in Middle Eastern History (of course the others who want to) may contact me through the message box here so that I will be notified by the system. Best, Bread.

as an international applicant being admitted to my top choice, i wanted to write something that seemed important to me. i thought a bit what i was doing when i was a sophomore. i was really confused, looking for a way to escape from economics which was my major. i could not find anything since i asked this question to myself: "what interest me the most?" i was spending my whole time reading history books. so the answer was simple i mean it is really good for you to start early. making this decision is not that simple, of course. after this basic one, you need to ask some other questions as well. your undergraduate GPA shows that you've shown a certain level of success... is it enough for you to go on? do you like to go out? would you be satisfied with a lesser income just for some intellectual reasons? reading books? hanging out with friends? classes? night life? not that bad of course, i was just exeggarating when it comes to your questions, considering your gpa is an excellent one and you will be graduating from a good school, there is no reason not to be accepted if you keep being that successful. in my case, my low undergrad gpa was not so critical because i had an MA degree and my major was not in history. even though i don't think alarm bells will start to ring unless your gpa goes down below 3.5, keeping your performance at the same level undoubtedly will increase your chance of being admitted. doing an MA is a great experience. but you have time for anything. -two summers at least. if you decide where you must be applying to, you will get to know what materials they want, whether they have cutoffs. You'll have time to request profs check your papers. Do find the answers for these questions: what kind of history? social, economic, cultural, intellectual? which period? modern? early modern? colonial? who wrote the best books in your area? contact them if possible read those books. try to establish good relations with your profs who are well-known in the area you want to work. you'll need their letters in future . don't forget that your papers will be more important than your scores. -and of course just by learning languages, you'll step ahead of others who don't know any. do have a good piece of paper (about 20-25 pages) until the time is right for you. you are not shooting too high in case you do the things above if you do, you don't have to do an MA, and go straight from BA. bread

I just say "don't lose your hope!". I got a below 3 undergraduate GPA that seems to be terrible for any schools. I would not say it does not matter at all. I had a 4 GPA in my MA program and have been admitted into 4 schools including Princeton that I headed to. Undoubtedly, without doing an MA, it seems really difficult to get in. But you have something else now, an MA degree. Undergrad GPA is only one part (even not the most important one) of your application and you don't have to be punished with this during your life You can explain the reasons for a low GPA in your SOP. Given you have a high MA GPA, strong letters, strong SOP etc, I don't think it will hurt much.

I've received 4 acceptances and 5 rejections out of 11 so far. In fact, I stopped waiting and decided on going to Princeton. To be honest, it was not the best fit considering my interests of area. I talked to a Prof. in the department and was encouraged to go there. It seems that I ended up with Princeton just for ranking and peacefullness of the city compared to NYC. Time will show us how correct my decision was. Good luck to everyone!

As you said, it heavily depends on in what specilization you want to move on. If you plan to focus on Middle East in your PhD, then you can go to Arizona. The title "Near Eastern Studies" might help you get in doctoral schools. If you want to study something like "Ottoman political and military history", you can better go to Georgetown considering you will probably have an option to stay there and work with Prof. Gabor Agoston. Overall, I say "Arizona". P.s. I have just realized that you want to study Modern Iran. Since I am also writing my MA thesis on Ottoman and Safavid states, I know how it works for history of Iran. I still think that Arizona's MA program in NES will provide you a better understanding of not only Iran but the whole Middle East. They have faculy members dealing with your topics too.

Very happy for you Bukharan! Congrats on Stanford! With whom at Stanford you want to work with? I did not apply there.

بله Bukharan I think History and NES departments at Princeton are independent from each other.

Did anyone hear from Princeton's Near Eastern Studies department? Still nothing!

Congrats on Northwestern! If I am not wrong, Northwestern funds all students admitted. Don't worry!

By e-mail. It was from the Joint program in History and ME studies though.

Got a rejection from Harvard!

Redraider, I thought my experience can encourage you. My GPA was a 2.96 in Economics. Yet I had lots of F's in my transcript . In MA applications, I made the admission committee believe that I have potential to do graduate study. Like the others said, the knowledge of a language, Persian which is essential to my area played a crucial role in getting into an MA program in History. I got a 4.0 GPA in this program. And last week I got an acceptance from NYU for PhD in History. So I can understand you that things sometimes may not go as you expected. My warning to you would be not to be lazy anymore. Anything is possible if you really want. If you cannot get in anywhere in the US, let me know so that I can recommend you some schools in Europe in which you may have more chance.

Thank you all for your supportive comments and recommendations! I appreciate them. I did not like sitcoms much, but started watching the first season of Friends last night, and it is fun And I have already met someone from the same cohort so that I can talk with him. As Chuianne said, the biggest problem is dialects and colloquial statements. We'll see how Friends works I agree with those saying that I am lucky because I am going to New York. And Bukharan, you are right that even many of my friends in Turkey have also applied to American schools, and their English is not better than mine One way or another, we will handle this problem. Thanks.

Hey all, Yesterday I received an e-mail from a Professor saying that I am unofficially admitted to NYU's joint PhD program in history and middle eastern studies with a funding by Henry MacCracken program for five years. I met and told this Professor my research topic at a talk she gave last year in Turkey. It means I will come to the US anyway. I don't know if I can receive any other acceptances but living in New York already seems fantastic. NYU was among my top-three picks. The main problem of mine is that I have never been in the US. Although I study at an English-speaking university, I speak English only at class and when I meet international students. I don't write in English without having an obligation to write an academic paper. Getting a good score on TOEFL or GRE, I think, means nothing. To be honest, I did nothing for TOEFL, and only summarized lots of words that I now cannot remember for GRE. I got good scores, even in the verbal section of GRE. I feel like a Chinese Anyway, I need your advice on improving my linguistic skills. I have been learning English for a long time but I feel like I am not moving forward fast enough, at least not faster than the other languages I am still in learning process. I always thought I will have a better English soon after I went to the States, then realized this is not going to happen like a miracle! The good news is that the program structure requires students to work as TA only in the last two years of funding. I don't want to read comments on ratemyprofessors.com like "he has a heavy accent, don't take him" . Are you making fun of people who have a thick accent? Tell me the truth . Actually my American friends think that my accent is easy to understand. But I want to speak English more fluently even though I don't know how. And how to improve writing skills? Do you have any experiences on English or other languages you learnt? Any comments will be appreciated!