Volatile Feelings is a collaborative History graduate school application guide. I named it as such over the conflicting emotions of excitement and anxiety I experienced when producing my application materials for history departments across the United States in 2018.
I welcome any comments (ctrl+alt+m or “insert” and then “comment”) that might improve this text. These comments will be incorporated into the guide or left on the sidebar for future readers. If you are applying for graduate school and have a question about any section of this handbook, feel free to add your query.
As a throughline, this text follows my 2018 journey applying to seven History programs. I share all of my application materials, my correspondence templates, and my recommendations for future PhD applicants. Before this project’s publication, a handful of other PhD candidates and PhD-holding individuals acted as co-authors. They read, edited, and added to this work. Their unique contributions are expressly identified in a footnote or in the sidebar of the guide.
Although I have completed unique interviews with department heads, directors of graduate studies, and other history faculty members, most of the information in this guide can be found scattered across the internet. Volatile Feelings’s value is that all of that knowledge is centrally located, community-sourced, and easy to comprehend.
Authors
Tim Seiter, Austin Miller, Rashida Shafiq, Ashton Reynolds, Walter Coleman, and Phillip Bax.
Table of Contents
Sections In Need of An Author 5
Is Graduate School Right For You? 6
Should I Apply for a Master’s or a Ph.D.? 6
A Caution on Job-Market Oversaturation (Austin Miller) 7
The Value of a History Ph.D. Degree Outside of Academia (Walter Coleman) 8
Going to Graduate School While Having Children (Ashton Reynolds) 10
Contacting Potential Advisors 14
Speaking on the Phone with an Advisor 16
Contacting the Director of Graduate Studies 17
Contacting Graduate Students 19
The True Heart of a History Program: The Administrative Assistant 21
Should You Apply To Your Undergraduate Institution? 21
How Many Programs Should You Apply To? 22
Elements of a Graduate School Application 24
What Does the Graduate Application Portal Look Like? 24
In What Format Do Graduate Admission Committees See My Material? 25
Statement of Purpose Organization 28
Do You Have a Non-traditional Path or Background? 28
What to Avoid When Writing a Statement of Purpose 29
Don’t Take Kisses of Death Entirely to Heart 31
A Kiss of Life: Frame Everything Positively 31
Should You Justify a Poor GPA or Academic Record? 32
Did I tell my first choice university that they were my first choice? 34
How long did it take to write the SOP? 34
How many different sets of eyes did I get on my SOP? 35
Tracking When Committees Read Your Application 35
Other Sample Statement of Purposes 36
Other Resources for Statements of Purpose 36
Should You Write a Brand New Paper for the Writing Sample? 40
Is It Okay to Turn in a Writing Sample From a Different Field? 40
Three Letters of Recommendation 43
The Three Types of Letters of Recommendation 43
Before You Ask for a Recommendation, Create a Cheat Sheet For Your Writer 47
Your Letter Writers Should Be Your Guides—Meet With Them 48
Viewing LORs at a Future Date 48
When Did My Professors Submit Their Letters of Recommendation? 49
What to Do If Your Letter Writer Misses a Deadline? 50
The Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) 52
The Diversity and Personal Statement 54
Transcripts, What They Actually Want 54
Save Your Top Choices For Last 56
How Graduate Application Committees Function 57
What Happened With My Applications? 59
If You Are Denied, Should You Ask the Program Why? 62
Upon Being Asked For An Interview 63
Upon Acceptance with Funding 63
How to Refuse Other Offers on the Table 64
What Should You Wear on Visit Days 66Succeeding in a Ph.D. Program 67