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johndiligent

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johndiligent last won the day on October 21 2011

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  1. Well, this is going nowhere good. Saying that early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism share a common ancestry and that looking at the origins of Christianity can instruct about the origins of Rabbinic Judaism is saying something quite a bit different than Rabbinic Judaism has a Christian context. They emerge from the same context and influence one another, but one does not emerge from the other. It's a significant difference in wording. For what it's worth, I ran your statement by my best friend, who is a Rabbinic Judaism scholar, and he was just as disturbed as I was.This isn't just me, and I think it's a bit offensive to say 'But Jews like this' when I was just speaking to you as a Jew. Also, my field is late Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins and nothing in your phrase about, as you put it, Jesus' "Judaism" and the "Jewishness" of the New Testament required quotation marks, except maybe around the "New". There's nothing particularly "new" about the New Testament. There's plenty that's Jewish about it, though. You're right. It is a minefield. Kaboom.
  2. This isn't meant to be antagonistic but, as a Jewish woman, my alarm bells ring out with the phrase "rabbinic literature in the context of early Christianity", just so you know. If you've phrased it that way in your SOP, I wouldn't. It sounds a bit too much like trying to understand Judaism through the framework of Christianity or, worse, Rabbinic Judaism as emergent from Christianity. I am sure this is not what you mean.
  3. Due respect, I don't think this is good advice. Calling attention to low GRE scores in the SOP will just detract from the strength of the SOP. The SOP shouldn't include negatives or excuses. If the OP had an excellent explanation for the low GRE scores (say, ze had been in a car accident on the way to the exam or something) then I still wouldn't include it in the SOP, I'd add a short addendum somewhere in the application. In this case, the excuse seems to be that the OP didn't know that there would be so much geometry on the test. Honestly, I think the explanation would just make the scores stand out more and make the matter worse. Really, most profs know the GRE is useless and will focus on the more important aspects of the application. Don't use those more important parts to remind them about the GRE.
  4. 1) With regard to your first question, Canadian PhD programmes tend to have more domestic students than U.S. students, but this is usually due to funding reasons, and not necessarily because they intrinsically prefer domestic students, though that ends up being the consequence. A lot of the government-based or gov-administrated funding in Canada is for Canadian students only, and further some university money ends up being dedicated exclusively to Canadian students. This makes it effectively easier to admit Canadians. That said, as a general rule, there are fewer Americans applying to Canadian schools than Canadians, so there is money available for international students. Further, grad schools are concerned with their 'reach', which is getting applications from diverse places across the country and outside of it, so the fact that you're not local can benefit you 2) In contrast to the above, Canadian universities prefer to hire Canadians, as a rule. There are exceptions, of course, and plenty of Americans do work at Canadian universities, but almost every university in Canada (with the exception of private universities) is required to give preference to Canadian applicants, as they will mark clearly on job postings. This will greatly hinder an American's ability to get the job, unless he/she is without doubt a better fit for the position than any of the Canadian applicants. That said, if you're doing your PhD in Canada, establish roots in Canada, and become a Canadian citizen or even permanent resident, then you'll have the same fighting chance as the rest.
  5. It's bad enough to warrant concern if you have at least a few of the following: - a poor to middling GPA - a poorly written SOP with no clear research goals - indifferent letters of recommendation - little to no research experience - a poor fit with your departments of interest - applications going out to a small number of highly competitive schools As it stands, if you don't have any of those, you're worrying about nothing. Your combined score will be over 1200 no matter what, so you'll miss most of the Throw Out Before Reading Cut-Offs.
  6. I'd wait it out a bit longer and if there's no response, send a similar, but shorter e-mail, without indicating that they didn't respond the first time. My theory is that your e-mail sounds like it may have been long, it is midterm season in some places, and responding to your e-mail may have slipped through the cracks. That said, best if you don't chastise or annoy them for it and just pretend that you've assumed they did not receive it. Also, given it was all three of them, perhaps you should look at what subject line you're using, your e-mail address, e-mail service, or the name that comes up when you e-mail, just in case it's some kind of a spam filter problem.
  7. You have a hilarious definition of flunking. You did OK if not stellar on the least important part of your application. If you're worried, work on your SOP.
  8. I suggest a longer T-shirt: Friends Don't Let Friends Develop Unreasonable Expectations About the Job Market, No Matter How Much Easier It Is to Pretend That You and Your Friend Are the Exceptions to the Rule and You'll Both Get Jobs Because You're Both Brilliant and The Unemployed People are Just People Who Aren't as Academically-Gifted As You Are. Instead Friends Acknowledge to Each Other the Exceptional Difficulty of Getting an Academic Job, Call Bullshit on Each Other When Appropriate, and Help Each Other to Professionalize Early and Often. Further, Friends Will Also Remind Each Other that While Getting a Funded PhD, You are Actually Getting Paid to Live Your Dream, If Only for a Short While, So While Academic Jobs May Be Few, It Was Still Worth It For the Opportunity You Did Get to Engage With Academic Discourse on a Daily Basis.That Said, Friends Certainly Don't Let Friends Get Unfunded PhD's. Nor Should Enemies For That Matter.
  9. Unfortunately, emmm is right. Schools want as many applicants as possible, because it increases their stats regarding selectivity. These are pretty much automated, targeted advertisements. Not to say that you shouldn't apply to those schools if you find them to be good fits. But as always with grad applications, the leg work to find that out is done by you, not the school.
  10. Same here. Still narrowing down the application list, trying to talk to everybody I need to talk to. Applications are going more slowly for me this go-round, with having to also write an MA thesis at the same time.
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