What Do We Know about History PhDs?
Among the more frequently asked questions put to staff of the AHA is how many people apply to history PhD programs, and how many of them actually make it all the way through the program. To try to get a handle on these questions, this past summer we added a few more items to the list of questions we send to departments when we collect information for the annual Directory of History Departments, Historical Organizations, and Historians.
The results are a bit surprising. The average department in the United States received 74.1 applications and intended to matriculate 9.1 students (Table 1). The Canadian departments that responded to the survey (21 of the 26 PhD programs listed in the Directory) received an average of 31.9 applications and accepted 5.3 students.
The larger programs (based on the number of PhDs conferred) reported much larger numbers of applicants, but only a slightly smaller admission rate than smaller programs (Table 2). The largest programs received an average of 160.1 applications, and only expected about 10 percent (15.8 students) to matriculate. Smaller programs received an average of 30.3 applications and expected almost 17 percent of them to matriculate....
Read entire article at Robert Townsend in the AHA Perspectives
The results are a bit surprising. The average department in the United States received 74.1 applications and intended to matriculate 9.1 students (Table 1). The Canadian departments that responded to the survey (21 of the 26 PhD programs listed in the Directory) received an average of 31.9 applications and accepted 5.3 students.
The larger programs (based on the number of PhDs conferred) reported much larger numbers of applicants, but only a slightly smaller admission rate than smaller programs (Table 2). The largest programs received an average of 160.1 applications, and only expected about 10 percent (15.8 students) to matriculate. Smaller programs received an average of 30.3 applications and expected almost 17 percent of them to matriculate....