ProspectStu8735

Obviously, if you have no interest in discussing the fundaments of your field, you have no interest in participating in it.

There's probably a reason why you're sitting on a pile of rejections.

See title.

I had a similar issue and went with the ivy. From my understanding, letterhead trumps advisor reputation in hiring, outside funding & post docs, basically everything that is material to making a career, because people in your specific sub-field might know that your advisor is the best, but that doesn't mean the Fulbright committee will, especially if you're working in a non-western field. Make life easier on yourself. Go with the bigger funding package and the bigger brand. But depending on the specific schools, I might advise you differently. If its Cornell v. UCLA, I'd go with UCLA, which is more well-regarded for art history. And who really wants to live in Ithaca anyways? Brown is sort of borderline, because of small department size, but it'd probably be worth attending just for the sake of getting paid more and having cross-disciplinary cache. But, unless the state school is Berkeley, any other ivy would trump any other state school. Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Princeton and Yale all have outstanding art history programs, so there wouldn't be any contest with any other state schools. People will look at your CV for longer if it has "Famous School That You Could Never Get Into U." at the top. You want to have that cultural capital in the hyper-hierarchical profession of academia. Sad but true.

This is NOT "a lot less". Consider doing a comparison of the cost of living in each location to determine the actual, day-to-day value of your funding packages.

He just means to say, "Sure, that other program wants your fabulous talents as well. BUT WE ARE BETTER AND PLEASE CHOOSE US." The ball is in your court for the next month-point-five So enjoy it and weigh the decision very carefully (and tactfully! for these people will likely be voting on your tenure 15 years from now, haha)

If the original paper was only 10 pages it was probably too short. Most programs give a length of 15-20 pages, which is the standard length of a graduate seminar paper (or the seed of a dissertation chapter). They might be trying to gauge how well you can handle a sustained argument.

I've now been admitted to several extraordinary programs, but one is the clear stand out based on the information I now have. I've got a round of campus visits coming up next month and don't want to make a final decision until I've met with my potential advisors at the various programs (and heard back from the other two programs on which I'm waiting). But, alas, the desire to declare my undying love for (and enrollment at) my current #1 program is nearly unbearable. Holding out is just so hard! Any coping strategies or co-commiserators out there?

If you want to do continental with an art historical influence, then what you're actually looking for is a visual studies program. They place much greater emphasis on theory. Also, some schools (UCLA comes to mind) have professors in Art History departments who are also involved in critical theory institutes. Irvine, Santa Cruz and Rochester are great visual studies programs. But, just a heads up, there are some departments with visual studies in the name that don't really practice visual studies (Duke, which seems to be a somewhat traditional art history department and Harvard, whose visual studies has a cinematographic bent). You might also consider the recent proliferation of interdisciplinary PhDs, if any have a willingness to work with visual material. For example, Stanford's program in Modern Thought and Literature, Santa Cruz's History of Consciousness or Princeton's Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program. All of the programs I've listed are very highly regarded and have strong placement records, from what I've been able to uncover.

I think in PhD programs it serves the same role. When my Profs of Interest at various schools called to inform me of my admittances they specifically said things along the lines of, "I know you're probably getting options from elsewhere, but we're trying to put together a fellowship package to match our competitors". This leads me to believe that it doesn't so much impact your chance of admissions, but lets the committee know who they are competing with to get you on their campus. So, I applied to a lot of programs known to offer luxurious funding packages. The less resource-rich schools to which I applied are now offering me more money because they still want to beat out the programs with greater resources. In sum, listing the other programs to which you are applying helps you with funding (given that the adcoms at various schools expect you'll be accepted not only by them, but other top programs). MAKE SURE TO FILL THIS PART OF THE APPLICATION OUT BECAUSE IT EQUALS $$$$$$$$$ Hope this helps!

You scores are very high and passable. Columbia's numbers are inflated. Admitted students don't have GREs that high, especially on the math section. A 160 Q on the new scale is supposedly a 760, or near perfect score, on the old scale. What art historian has ever scored that high? Hopefully none, because that means an excessive number of hours spent studying for the most pointless part of the test. Those hours could have otherwise been spent developing a component of the app that has real sway for your fate: getting to know some old profs, revising the SOP or rewording that one irksome sentence in your writing sample. The numbers you actually need to be in the running at a top program are more realistically something like 165 V (~700 old scale), 148 Q (~600 old scale) and a 4 on the writing (but if you have a writing score below 5 make sure to have a strong writing sample to make up for it). After that, its all gravy. I spoke a few years ago to the coordinator of admissions at Stanford and she told me I shouldn't study for the math section because I'd be wasting my time. They quite simply don't consider it. Columbia just converted the numbers incorrectly before posting to the website. Probably just a clerical error. Don't let it get to you and just apply.

Do you think there is a difference in hiring bias between top public and top private schools? For example, if one is accepted to both Harvard and UCLA, both top 10 programs, is there a benefit in going to one over the other? I only ask because I've noticed that some of the top schools on the east coast have NO public school grads on faculty. Perhaps this owes to Berkeley and UCLA grads being reluctant to leave the west coast, but Rutgers and CUNY are both quite close and seem to be relatively underrepresented, given the strength of their programs. Any ideas or am I reading too much into this?

What factors are most important to you guys when making the final decision of where to enroll? I have no idea how I'm going to choose!

Did undergrad at an Ivy as a Pell grant recipient. Just to echo what others have already said, there are some terrible, rich brats, but the majority of my classmates were too intelligent to debase themselves to elitism among peers. The jerks were rare and usually had more wrong with them than a lot of privilege and money could account for alone. More inter-peer tension probably arose from the fact that everyone was intelligent, passionate and driven. The result was that people were incredibly skilled rhetoricians, so debates got heated and no one ever backed down from an intellectual challenge in seminar. Sometimes people project more onto so-called elite schools than is deserved. Sure, the schools themselves are very rich and many rich kids go to them (about half of any given undergrad class is "rich" in the sense that they don't need financial aid), which can be alienating for a middle or lower class student who has just arrived to campus. But, ultimately, the schools are in America and in America its not polite to openly talk about class (everyone's too aspirational; the "American Dream" means an individual in poverty probably sees the condition as a merely temporary condition, so will likely take offense at anyone pointing out particular class characteristics, be they of high or low). Even though you can count on the fact that your friends will be spending long breaks and even the occasional weekend in South Hampton or Palm Beach, you won't have it rubbed in your face. If you ever do, its because you've been invited along, which isn't a bad thing. Also, any class based discomfort pays exponential dividends years down the road. Since graduation its been a real convenience to be friends with the kids of those who rule the world, especially when searching for a job in this market. Or in the case of academia, there's a certain sense of ease in knowing that a few members of any given selection committee will look at my application with a special twinkle in their eye because they either graduated from the same school or see that their most respected colleague wrote one of my rec letters. The long term perks far outweigh any initial culture shock. At the end of it you will be one of the elite you so fear, but find that nothing at all has changed in your person except for your ability to plow through a passage of Derrida. You shouldn't let stereotypes hinder your first-hand experience of ANY opportunity as significant as attending one of America's top educational institutions, for while the glamour may be overblown, the intellectual rigor is not.

Tulane is fully funded. UT Austin occasionally funds their top candidates if they want them to stay on for the PhD (so perhaps this isn't what you're looking for?). Its generally easier to get accepted to an MA than a PhD program, but my guess would be that funding is just as competitive, no matter the level. Sadly, business schools produce more wealthy donor alums than do art history departments. For all of our benefit, I'm keeping fingers crossed that the folks at the Gates Foundation are secretly art history fanatics!