What is a good OLD (preferably New England) University for a guy to get his masters at?

Question

I am finishing up my Bachelors at the University of Central Florida. for my masters in history, I was hoping on going to a college out of state. I've seen so many movies and pictures and the like of colleges in new England and the Northern states that have really old incredibly cool-looking campuses. Assuming I can get a student loan I was hoping on going to one. Keep in mind, Harvard and Yale are pretty much out. I'm good but i'm not rich. Under these perameters, does any one have a suggestion?

Answer 1

It is crucial for you to realize that graduate schools are selected by FACULTY.

If your specialization is going to be in constructions of masculinity during the Civil War, then you MUST apply ONLY to programs with faculty with specializations in Civil War history, and faculty with specializations in constructions of gender.

Programs that cannot provide the guidance appropriate for your specific intended area of study will reject you out of hand. You are supposed to do this important research to find the right programs for you. Begin by speaking to your current professors about your specific field of interest. They can start you off with some beginning recommendations. And pay attention to the authors of the secondary literature in your field, and find out where they teach. Attend not only to their data (era, thematic focus), but also to their methodology. (Method is central to graduate level work.)

The fact that there are lots of colleges in the northeast with good history programs at the graduate level is in your favor, but you must select a group of programs that are appropriate for your work!

Oh, and one more thing -- you do NOT want to be paying for your graduate studies. The whole point is to get an assistantship of some sort, which will pay for your tuition, as well as provide you with a small living stipend. (Yes, even at the Masters level.) So do your best on those GREs, and weigh the offers you receive against the reputation of the programs to which you are admitted.

I wish you every success.

Answer 2

Don't make the mistake of focusing on the aesthetics of the college over the quality of the graduate history program. Grad school is not an extension of undergrad--it is a whole new ball game. Don't assume that any college will have the same type of offerings that UCF did--for me, UCF did not have the same quality program for grad study as it did for undergrad, so I learned this lesson the hard way when I had to transfer schools to take the kind of courses I needed for my specialization at the grad level.

Answer 3

Sure, there are lots of cool-looking colleges that are highly respectable and yet not quite as competitive as the top Ivies. Of course, the other Ivies are gorgeous - Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, and the top famous old lib arts schools like Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Also, consider Trinity College in Hartford, Wesleyan, Stonehill, Wheaton, Providence, Bates, Colby, Bowdoin, Salve Regina, Fordham, BC, and some of the older state colleges like UMass-Lowell, UNH, Framingham, or Keene. I'm sure there are 50 others that might meet your desire -- which I understand and sympathize with - for a college experience that has a little style and ambience to it!

Answer 4

You can apply for scholarships that arent loans for grad students, but apply early to them. Do a search on Google to see what school you want to consider since some of these small schools are usually not out there like Yale and Harvard are.