Brick & mortar Ph.D. after DL M.A. in History?

Hello everyone,

I am excited to be starting a master's degree in history at American Public University System. However, I would like to do a residential Ph.D. and will only be able to accept admission to Ph.D. programs with teaching assistantships or fellowships since I am a single mom.

Do you think that I can realistically have a chance of getting into a brick & mortar Ph.D. program with a M.A. in History from American Military University?

Any advice on how to accomplish this?

Thank you,
Colleen

 

Hi Colleen,

While I am only an arm-chair history buff, I would say as a general rule that you'll increase your chances of gaining admission to a B&M Ph.d. program by completing a thesis with your M.A. in History.


Tom

 

Colleen, what do you want to do with your PhD in History? What's your career experience to date?

The reason I ask is that getting a tenure-track history position teaching at a university is soooo competitive... it might make sense to check into that more before going this route.

 

I got into a B&M PhD (with assistantship) after a (mostly) DL MBA. So, I would say the chances are good, but History is a different beast. A lot of academic snobbery towards DL in that field.

Assistantships in History pay squat. 12k a year if you are lucky. What is your purpose of getting a PhD? If you want to teach at the CC level and you can read German, Latin, French, or Italian, you might want to consider UF's DL PhD in Classical Civilization. See http://www.classics.ufl.edu/graduate/graduatephd.html#3.

Another option, forget the MA all together and just go into a B&M PhD program directly.