arthistoryvoe

I don't think this happens very often, as it would be illegal (by Federal antitrust law). What does happen is speculation on where else a candidate is likely to be admitted (are they likely to be admitted somewhere else which would be a better fit? offer a lot more funding? in the location they obviously prefer? etc.), which can have an impact on the outcome, though it doesn't always.

Correlation does not imply causation! Your visits obviously didn't hurt you, but you might have gotten in just as easily without them.

Try to find a chunk of the appropriate length that contains a sustained (hopefully creative and original) argument that you support with evidence. It is not so effective to create a patchwork of disparate pieces—I think people find that hard to read. Sometimes just taking the first 20 pages (or whatever) works OK. You can provide a short (perhaps italicized) introduction to what has come before if you start in the middle.

Well—I didn't know "b" + ")" = an emoticon!

From the point of view of serving on PhD admissions committees at a very competitive program I'd say: a) GPA does matter, but if grades show a lot of improvement that can make up for a somewhat lower-than-usual average. GRE matters only a little; a high GRE from someone who went to a less-well-known undergraduate institution may help; a low GRE doesn't take away from otherwise great application c) More and more — as the applicant pool has ballooned and spots are harder to come by — applicants with an MA are at some advantage, simply because they're better able to articulate why they want to study at a particular institution. If an applicant with a BA has a good sense of the field and its methodologies, and a solid and clearly articulated motivation, s/he is at no disadvantage. But the advice (often given) that an MA degree can put an applicant at a disadvantage is really no longer correct. d) Contacting potential advisors at extremely competitive programs (i.e. where there are a lot of people emailing) frankly harms applicants more often than it helps — because applicants so often contact potential advisors without having done their homework. It makes you look needy and unprepared. Do not write to ask if a professor is taking students; if you have some good reason to think they may not be, ask the department assistant instead. Do not write to ask vague questions about the program ("can you tell me about your graduate program?"); look at the website. Do not write to ask what a professor is currently working on; read their books/articles instead. Do not write to ask which paper to use as your writing sample; that's up to you to figure out with the advice of your own advisors. Do not write to ask about funding; this information should be available on the website (if it's not, ask the admissions office rather than a professor). You might write to ask for contact info of current students; you might write to ask if the professor could conceivably advise someone working in field X that's outside their main area of specialization; you might possibly ask about specific resources that will be important to your field of study. But generally speaking, the time for such questions is after you are admitted. I really don't mean to be harsh here — it just seems to me that people are getting bad advice. Probably the vast majority of the time, contacting a prospective advisor does neither harm nor good (so don't be nervous if you have done it already). But frankly, it hurts more often than it helps.

A bigger problem might be that it doesn't sound like you have much experience with ancient art. Do you have at least a start on the required languages, and some acquaintance with the field? If not better to get these things before applying.