[Rainbow Bridge on the Huangpu River] Application Season in the Storm

Since I ended my studies at the University of Chicago and returned to live in Shanghai in late June 2022, the core agenda of the whole year (2022-2023 academic year according to the college system, that is, from July 2022 to July 2023) is to conduct North American Application for Ph.D. in history. Of course, in fact, only the first half of the year (July 2022 to February 2023) is available for the application itself, and the arrangement for the second half of the year depends entirely on the application results expected to be announced in February 2023: The main agenda until July will be to prepare in all aspects to go back to North America to study for a Ph. , Behavioral patterns, social networks, and even views on public affairs are subversively adjusted, which also means that the path planning of the entire life will be completely changed.

After returning home from isolation in July, the first job I started was to contact the teachers of each target school, which is commonly known as "magnetism". My magnetism work follows the strategy of "casting the net widely and focusing on fishing", based on the understanding of relevant scholars in this field and their teaching institutions formed in the previous literature reading, combined with the tutors at the University of California and the University of Chicago Recommend and form a follow-up list of application targets. There are a total of 27 schools, 22 of which are in the United States and 5 in Canada; 26 are history departments, and 1 is an East Asian studies department. In the next month or so, I filled in the specific content according to the roughly fixed format, and sent letters to the professors I wanted to learn from in the history departments/East Asian studies departments of these 27 schools. The content of the email is roughly like this: the first paragraph introduces your name, your master’s degree in history at the University of Chicago, the name of your master’s supervisor, the title of your master’s thesis, your brief academic interests, and asks the recipient whether they plan to recruit doctoral students this year. The second paragraph first briefly discusses why your academic interests coincide with those of the recipient, often in combination with the recipient’s previous academic works that you have read; The conclusions drawn, and thus lead to the idea of the research projects that I am interested in during the doctoral period, as well as the relationship between the two; the last part is to propose other efforts I have made to apply for the doctoral program, such as my own Has already started the historical data collection work, or is also a member of a social network where the recipient is, and so on. The process of applying magnetism is actually a test of the applicant's familiarity with the academic literature in this field and the grasp of the latest trends in the academic circle. At least he must be able to accurately and clearly state which scholars are in the field of his research and its extension. North American universities teach, and what representative works have been written by these scholars, and what are their main points of view. These can only be achieved by accumulating and improving in the previous academic training, and expanding one's academic network in various academic conferences, workshops and even scholar activism. Some schools have a number of scholars related to their own research fields teaching, so I have sent out a total of about 40 sets of magnetic letters. It may be because my statement is relatively clear, and my academic background and qualifications of master tutors are also strong enough. Most of the recipients have responded in a long or short way. Although some scholars did not reply to my magnetic mail, at least one professor from each target school was guaranteed to reply.

The replies were long or short, mostly encouraging. Frankly speaking, the most valuable answers at the magnetization stage are often those questions that clearly tell me that I will not enroll/will not guide my academic interests this year, such negative answers. Because these negative answers can help me quickly eliminate candidate schools that I should not apply for, saving time, energy and financial resources. As for the words of encouragement, no matter they are sincere or polite, they are far from the final admission: there are a lot of variables between whether the professor has the intention of enrolling in July and whether he will enroll this year (the possibility of variables is often Professors who intend to enroll end up not enrolling in the year because there are no satisfactory applicants or because of departmental funding/capacity restrictions), even if the professor does intend to enroll and the department has enough places, the final admission of an applicant must be Composed of an admission committee composed of several professors from different fields, a single professor has a relatively limited right to speak even for applicants who are highly compatible with him. Teachers from several schools such as Duke, NYU, and McGill clearly gave negative answers, with different reasons, for example, I did not recruit students this year, or my research interests did not match, and so on. After the completion of magnetism, the target schools were reduced from 27 to 17, including 16 history departments and 1 East Asia department. The retained East Asian Department is at the University of Toronto, where Professor W, who I really want to study under, teaches there. The reason for applying to this department is that, under normal circumstances, if a professor who studies PRC History teaches in the Department of East Asia, he often holds a post in the Department of History, and most of his current positions are in the Department of History. However, the situation at the University of Toronto is a special case. Professor W only teaches and enrolls students in the Department of East Asia, so he applied for the program. In addition, three other professors from Cornell, Toronto, and UChicago invited me to have an interview in their reply letters. I call it a preliminary interview (I can’t find a suitable word to describe it in the Chinese context. In short, it means that as a professor’s private Behavioral and informal interviews are used to increase understanding of applicants and help professors judge the materials that applicants will submit. This is not a fixed process of the department, let alone a requirement, but being invited to a preliminary interview is often A positive signal, at least indicating that the professor is interested in the applicant's research). At the same time, I also started to conceive the first draft of the SOP (personal statement).

On September 8, I completed the first online communication with the professor of the target school, which was Professor S from Cornell. The conversation was expected to take 30 minutes, but it actually took an hour to cover everything. After the day’s talk, I went back to my alma mater for a visit as originally planned, and at the invitation of the principal, I took a school bus for more than an hour to the newly opened branch campus on Chongming Island, and opened a humanities event for the younger students as alumni. General lectures. After the preliminary interview for the Ph.D. application in history, I went back to my alma mater in high school to give lectures on general humanities. As the only ten-year consistent school in Shanghai, the high school alma mater has always emphasized the concept of "primary school focuses on interest, junior high school focuses on interest, and high school focuses on aspirations". I believe that I like reading and thinking since I was a child, but it is thanks to the three years of high school alma mater that I have transformed these interests into humanities and social sciences, and pursued long-term research in the higher education stage and established a career for it. Indulgence and enlightenment, especially in the environment of exam-oriented education that cannot be changed, I still try my best to protect the seeds of idealism in my heart. It has been many years since I graduated. I crossed the Pacific Ocean, from the coast of San Diego to the University of Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan. I have bumped and bumped and made continuous progress, and my hometown has long since changed. At the end of the lecture, when I said goodbye to the teachers who had been away for many years, everyone said that I wish me a smooth application. Oh my god, where will my next stop be? If, in case, it doesn't go well, what should I do?

In case of bad results, I dare not think about it. It is not just that I am unwilling to interrupt my academic path. The bigger reason is that in the few months after returning to China, I have been subjected to repeated nucleic acid testing, code scanning registration, and building closures. Toss exhausted. If my application is not successful, what kind of job should I look for in such an environment? How long can I tolerate this environment? How long will this environment continue? ...

I can’t think of any answers to these contents. When you are upset, force yourself to pull out and conceive the writing of SOP. SOP is one of the most important links in the entire doctoral application, and it is also the part where you have the most initiative. As important as the SOP, there may be a recommendation letter, but the initiative of the recommendation letter lies with the professor who wrote it, and the professor's evaluation of himself has been fixed long before, so there is not much room for revision. SOP is not the case. It is entirely up to you to show what kind of image you are through this document. Around October 15th, I took a break from my internship at the Rockbund Art Museum, completed the first draft of the SOP, and sent it to my two professors at the University of Chicago (Professor H who taught me methodology and My master's thesis supervisor, Professor R), and two doctoral seniors, please provide reference opinions based on their respective backgrounds. One of the two senior doctoral students (let’s call it B) is a native English speaker who is proficient in Chinese, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology, and has known each other for a long time in previous academic activities; the other is not familiar with East Asian issues , but a doctoral student in the Department of Philosophy who works in critical writing (let’s call it U) is also a very active student activist. We met and became friends in the school’s trade union activities and anti-racism campaigns.

In the following 2 weeks, on the one hand, I received detailed feedback from four readers, who were so careful about the choice of many specific words. I slowly polished the second draft of the SOP to the ninth draft, which is the final draft. In the process, I also asked several professors who taught in other North American universities but had established a good relationship with me during the previous magnetic training, and several humanities and social science students in other European and American universities that I met in various previous activities and exchanges. Doctoral students, and my classmate W at the University of Chicago helped me review the subsequent version of the SOP. Still the same as the magnetization stage, what I appreciate and look forward to the most is not polite encouragement and compliments, but pointing out potential problems straightforwardly so that I can improve in the next draft. After various outspoken criticisms and revision suggestions, it took about a month, and around November 15, the SOP was finalized in the ninth draft. From the 2400 words of the first draft, it was shortened abruptly to 1300 words. The cut part includes a large section of literature review that is inappropriate in the SOP, a slightly redundant description of UCSD’s graduation thesis, and a superfluous description of how my undergraduate political science training can make a difference at the level of combining politics and history. Become a better historian yourself (in fact, this may cause unnecessary doubts in the eyes of many professors who study cultural history and social history). While cutting and streamlining the content, the language of each draft is more refined than the previous version. In the words of Professor W of the University of Toronto, SOP must be a handicraft crafted with care.

During the month of polishing the SOP, another achievement was achieved, that is, my graduation thesis at the University of Chicago was accepted by AAS (Annual Conference on Asian Studies). As an MA student who has not yet entered the PhD project, being selected by AAS by submitting individual papers is undoubtedly a positive signal for the upcoming application. The submission deadline for AAS is August, and a proposal of about 500 words is required. I completed all the materials required for AAS submission before leaving Chicago when I was finalizing my graduation thesis, mainly extracting some core information from the introduction and conclusion chapters and straightening out the language. In addition, four professors from the University of Chicago who wrote recommendation letters for me: Professor H who taught methodology, two professors R and E who studied modern China, and Professor A, a master of Sinology who studied the history of thought in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, have all been in my Negotiated many details about the recommendation letter with me before leaving Chicago, without any more urging and worrying from me in November. Other application materials, such as cv (resume) and writing sample (writing sample), have also been settled before returning to China. In particular, the writing sample is my master's thesis and does not need to be reworked (the writing sample should represent the highest level of the applicant's field so far). However, my master's thesis is more than 150 pages long, and it is obviously impossible to submit all of them. Different schools have different requirements for the length of the writing sample, but there are no more than five specifications: 15 pages, 20 pages, 25 pages, 35 pages, and 50 pages, except that UC Berkeley only allows 10 pages to be submitted. Therefore, I spent a day in early November, based on the original text of the master's thesis, extracted, spliced, and customized the writing samples of the above six specifications.

From November 22nd to 27th, I stopped all work in the internship unit, solicited drafts for the media, and other external contacts, retreated at home, and delivered application materials. To actually fill in the application materials is nothing more than being careful in the face of lengthy forms. After studying in the United States for many years, whether it is applying for a grad school or applying for various grants, the forms are actually similar. I wrote some key information (such as the personal information of the recommender, email, title, etc. that all schools must fill in) in a word document in advance, just copy and paste, which reduces the risk of bad consequences caused by typing mistakes.

From December to January, the process of waiting for admission results always seemed long and exhausting. The humanities and social science doctoral programs in North America basically do not implement rolling admissions, and the admission results are generally announced from February to March. Admitted candidates may undergo interviews with prospective mentors and/or committees prior to formal notification. Such interviews are often not a fixed process listed on the project website, but will make an appointment by email for applicants who enter the process after the project has reviewed the application materials. Once invited for an interview, it at least means that the applicant has entered the very top shortlist. Since most of the active social circles are in North America, considering the time difference, the first thing I do when I wake up in Shanghai every morning is to check my email to see if there is anything overseas that I want to contact. Since January 10th, I look forward to receiving any kind of contact from my favorite project every day, and of course the best is an enthusiastic interview invitation. Anxiety, nervousness and irritability gradually occupy my daily life: the surrounding environment is bad enough. If I can’t follow my established academic path, then I will face the double failure of personal blueprint interruption and the inability to return to North America for development. solution dilemma. But what else can I do but wait?

On January 20th, the day before New Year's Eve, commonly known as the New Year's Eve, I received an email from Professor S from Cornell. The title of the email was marked with a red exclamation point representing an urgent matter, and he straight-forwardly invited me to have a zoom interview in three hours. The interview lasted forty-five minutes that day, and the specific content was very personal, so the details will not be announced here. Professor S made it clear that the purpose of interviewing me was that he was looking at the applicant's materials, and wanted to confirm with me some research methods, room for adjustment in the research field, personal handling of certain difficulties that may be encountered, and some issues related to the three perspectives. The views and attitudes of the questions are more of a confirmation nature. After the confirmation is correct, my materials will be listed first in the admission list submitted by him to the admission committee. Although the admission committee makes the final admission, the opinion of a professor on the admission of PhD students in his own field is also very important. The interview went very well that day, and I vaguely felt that the possibility of being admitted was greatly increased. I even wondered if this teacher, who is also Asian, contacted me on New Year's Eve, wanting me to spend the Spring Festival with more positive hints. Even so, before the admission is finalized, my apprehension cannot be resolved. After all, who knows what else will change? Since the financial crisis in 2008, the competition for Ph.D. admissions in liberal arts and social sciences in North America has become extremely fierce, and after the aftermath of the new crown epidemic in 2020, the shrinking of elite programs has become even worse. More than a dozen applicants are admitted out of hundreds of applicants. Such an admission ratio has long been the new normal.

This long repertoire came to an end on January 26. January 26th is also the same date that I received admission to my alma mater, UC San Diego (University of California, San Diego) many years ago. On January 25th, I set off from my hometown: Jinshan, a seaside town in the south of Shanghai, and drove to Wuxi with my elders. At 6:00 the next morning, I was awakened by the sound of firecrackers and received an email from Professor S, telling me that an admission committee meeting (caucus meeting) was held in the department yesterday, and my materials were successfully approved by all the professors of the history department. Admission as a PhD student, but the admission notice issued in the form of a document needs to be reported one step further, and it will be issued by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) of the school about 3 weeks later. It is common practice for admitted applicants to be informed informally by professors and/or departments before GSAS issues a formal letter of admission containing scholarship information. The moment I received the letter, my joy was beyond words. I obviously don't agree with the utilitarian thinking of result-only theory, but I say to myself at this moment: at least all the efforts are worth it after all. On February 14th, I received an official offer from Cornell, and the attached funding package was almost at the highest level of North American universities. This is not something to be gratified about, but rather a guilt of eating too much. Many public universities that are not necessarily academically satisfactory, because of the shortage of funds and the resulting practice of emphasizing science over literature, the funding package of their doctoral students majoring in humanities and social sciences is only about half of that of Ivy School, and many PhDs in humanities and social sciences Under the multiple oppressions of bureaucracy, capitalism, and racism behind the exclusionary regulations for international students and new immigrants, students, especially international students, have been in a state of extreme poverty for a long time. The general strike of UC (University of California) in the fall of 2022 is the result of such problems. Unfortunately, as a UCSD alumnus, I was not able to directly participate in the support on the spot. In the future at school, I will do my best to support and participate in the postgraduate union. After all, equality should be the basis of all values. I often agree with a sentence that I can’t remember the source of: the purpose of reading is not to be a master, but to eliminate a master. In short, starting from February, as several other Ivy Plus Schools that may compete with Cornell have successively sent non-admission results, the application season has entered a state of garbage time: although it is not over in name, the final result There will be no more changes.

On February 17th, the remote session of AAS2023 was held (the in-person meeting was held in Boston in March. Since I didn’t know that the immigration policy would be relaxed when I submitted the manuscript last year, I chose the remote session and missed this year’s offline meeting. ), I set the alarm clock according to North American time, got up at 2:30 a.m. Shanghai time, and shared my master's thesis and possible extensions during the doctoral stage in the zoom meeting room. AAS 2023 is also the first time after graduation to return to the familiar discourse system and community to participate in activities, and also met many familiar faces remotely. After the meeting, a strange question popped into my mind: when was the last time I woke up in the middle of the night with an alarm clock set, and had a big cup of venti coffee to refresh me? It should be June 27, 2022, the day when I finished my master's degree at UChicago, took a nucleic acid test, and caught a flight back to China. The distance between two early morning alarm clocks is the entire long and rewarding application season. It has been more than half a year since I left, it is time to go back to school and the community, and continue to do what I should do.