ἠφανισμένος

Flybottle makes a good point. At the risk of appearing tendentious, however, I'll reiterate that the question is not only "how much Greek do I need to get in?" but "how much Greek do I need to do good work in a PhD program and beyond?" Someone who starts Greek from scratch as a first-year PhD student won't be able to use Greek for a couple of years at least (reading a page of the Apology per hour and checking every sentence against a translation doesn't count). This is not to discourage the OP, and again, I'm speaking from a language proficiency perspective, not from a philosophy admissions perspective.

Yes, CUNY's summer program is well-known. There are others at Berkeley and elsewhere. To the OP, I don't know offhand of classics departments strong in ancient philosophy that also offer postbacs. UCLA may be one. They have a postbac and several people working in ancient phil.

Don't do Rosetta Stone for Latin. Yes, classics admissions committees are looking for language work on the transcript. Self-study can be beneficial, but it probably can't replace graded coursework. What is sometimes possible, however, is to study the equivalent of one or two semesters of a language on your own, and then jump in to the next course in the sequence. I studied Latin for a while independently and then, after talking with the instructor, walked into a fourth-semester Latin course. Since I'd done the higher-level course, the absence of the lower-level courses didn't matter. The good news is that language standards for archaeologists are generally lower than those for philologists. How much Latin and Greek from undergrad do you actually have? Do you have any chance to take Greek or Latin as part of your MA? Hopefully an archaeologist will chime in.

Again, speaking as a classicist, I wonder how much of an advantage self-study (which is what you seemed to be suggesting) would actually confer. For classics departments, I can say that self-study doesn't count for anything: adcoms want to see graded coursework on the transcript. For philosophy departments, I don't know. Edit: And for someone like the OP, it’s worth noting that there are really two questions. The first is about the language experience necessary to get into a program. The second is what kind of language training, and how much, should one acquire in order to handle Greek and Latin texts competently in a PhD program and beyond. Someone serious about ancient philosophy who has no language training might consider a classics post-bac in addition to some summer intensives.

I'm a classicist, not a philosopher, so I can't comment about your chances with philosophy departments. Regarding language proficiency, I'll say that Infinite Zest's suggestion sounds rather optimistic. I'd encourage you to get some language coursework on your transcript with one of the intensive summer courses offered by places like CUNY or Berkeley, but it'll take more than a few months to comfortably read philosophical Greek or Latin prose.

There's a Feb. 3 PhD acceptance on the results board.

Yeah, there was speculation on the Lit and Rhet/Comp forum that decreased GradCafe activity in their fields could mean fewer applicants overall. That may be what Catria is referring to, or part of it. But I don't think anyone really knows aside from the people on adcoms, and even they only know the trends for their individual programs.

by someone who went there for philosophy talks about the financial aid situation, though I don't know if things are the same for the program you're interested in.

Decker's Koine Greek Reader includes selections from the Apostolic Fathers and Whitacre's Patristic Greek Reader has selections from a range of patristic writers (from the Διδαχή to John Chrysostom). Either would be a good place to start if you've only read the New Testament. If you want to dive straight into Attic prose, you could check out Geoffrey Steadman's free editions of Xenophon, Lysias, or Plato.

From your other post I gather you're applying to at least one MA program, which is what I did last season. In my personal statements, I first explained my academic background and how I had come to classics. I was applying to MA programs after undergraduate and graduate work in other fields, so I had to make a case for myself: what led me to classics and how was I prepared for graduate work in the field? If you're majoring in classics, you'll have an easier time of it. But you still need to show the academic reasons you're applying to a graduate program in classics. Then I had the usual "fit" paragraph, tailored to each program. I didn't name any names, but I described how my interests fit with each program's strengths in faculty and resources. I closed with a brief statement of what I hoped to do after the MA (either doctoral work or high school teaching or both, depending on the program I was applying to).

Unless the department does rolling admissions -- where they look at applications as they come in -- I don't think submitting early really helps. In most cases, adcoms have a set deadline for fall admissions and look at applications all at once after that deadline has passed. Of course, submitting at the absolute last minute can be risky: if you have any problems or questions, there may not be anyone available (if it's a Jan. 1 deadline, for example). So it's not a bad idea to submit before the university closes for winter break, so you could contact the graduate school or the department secretary if necessary.

You'll get useful advice here, but I would strongly recommend asking this at the Chronicle of Higher Ed forums as well. Most posters there are experienced academics with a good sense of the job market in various fields, including English. My own sense is that an online MA may or may not suffice for community college positions, and would probably not be the best preparation for a top PhD program if that's what you eventually want to do. Funded MAs do exist, but usually funding is available only for full-time on-campus students.

Yes, WashU's PHD program in Classics is newish, but I don't know anything about it beyond that.

I'm not an archaeologist, so take cum grano salis. Since graduate programs are most interested in your research ability, I don't think you need to spend much time emphasizing your activity in clubs. What is your language preparation like? Since a reading knowledge of French is generally required for classics PhDs, along with German, a bad grade in French might be cause for concern. By the way, it's not a big deal, but here on gradcafe "Fall 2014 Season," for example, usually means the application season for entry in Fall 2014. Application preparation and submission in Fall 2014 and Spring 2015, for Fall 2015 entry, would be the Fall 2015 season. That's why last year's thread was titled "Fall 2014 Season." The classics board is one of the slowest in the humanities forum; there usually isn't much activity at all until December/January.

That's not quite accurate for Yale English, which actually requires two languages: So the Old English sequence is one of three ways to pass the first language, but you'd still have one more. I don't mean to nitpick, I just thought I'd point it out since you're applying there.

I would never do an unfunded (full-time) MA in classics, even from Columbia. (There was a recent discussion about taking an unfunded Columbia MA offer in the literature forum, I believe; many of the points made there apply to classics as well.) A postbac is a little different. And it may also be different if you're an in-service teacher doing a part-time MA or MEd in Latin. But when I applied for standard classics MAs last season, I decided ahead of time I wouldn't go without funding.

Have you seen Anki? It works best when you make your own flashcard decks, so you do have to type both sides of the card, but it handles polytonic Greek just fine. The desktop client and website is free, but the iPhone app is expensive.

I wouldn't want to start Greek and Latin at the same time. But since I think you mentioned elsewhere that your Latin is further along than your Greek, I agree with the otheres that you should be fine.

Given your interests, I would suggest looking at Minnesota's (funded) MA in Religions and Antiquity.

I think the fact that it's an MA program makes it a lot clearer. For a PhD . . . I think your decision would have probably been the right thing, weighing your own interests against the programs'. For an MA, I think you definitely did the right thing.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that this thread is redundant. I just thought I'd mention it in case people hadn't seen it.

The religion subforum had a a while back that got a lot of good responses.

Keller and Russell is the first-year text at my university, though they finish it up early in the third semester. I think it's certainly possible to do what you propose and skip the entire second year, but I know my own Latin was aided considerably by taking a fourth-semester course (the first formal Latin instruction I'd had) before going to a third-year reading course. I realized that in my self-study, I had missed some of the finer points, and I'm glad I had a chance to acquire them before I moved on. (Of course, you very well might be a more thorough autodidact than I was, in which case disregard.) As far as materials, what usually happens in intermediate Latin is that you start to read (slowly and in small quantities) original texts. So if you can make it through something like 100-150 lines of Ovid in a week, you’re probably ready to make the jump to a third-year course. I’ve seen a variety of authors used for intermediate Latin: Ovid, Virgil, Catullus, Nepos, Suetonius, Cicero . . . Pick one of those or another “easy” author, find a good intermediate-level reader with notes and vocabulary, and see how it goes. Lingua Latina has a variety of additional readers for people who’ve finished Familia Romana. Dickinson College Commentaries have some free texts online with notes and vocabulary, as does Geoffrey Steadman. The Bryn Mawr commentaries are also good for the intermediate level.

I would recommend making the transition through the Atticizing church fathers. As RomulusAugustus mentioned, Koine tends not to use the optative, but it really depends on what you're reading. The style of Chrysostom and Athanasius, for example, is more Attic than the NT but still easier than, say, Demosthenes or even Plato. So maybe something like Acts -> Athanasius (Vita Antonii or De incarnatione) -> Chrysostom (any of the homilies) -> Basil (Ad adolescentes) -> maybe Plato. Xenophon is relatively easy, so he'd also be good for getting used to the optative and other differences from Koine. In addition to the resources RomulusAugustus mentioned, the Bryn Mawr commentaries are excellent for just getting through the text, as are the Oklahoma Classical Culture ones. Geoffrey Steadman has quite a few free commentaries on his website. I think some Homer is also on the MA reading list; Theodorus Gaza wrote an Atticizing prose paraphrase of the Iliad, which would be useful if you want to practice Epic or Attic by means of the other.

Well, my results are all in, so I’ll join the party: Accepted: Minnesota (MA-PhD, full funding), Kentucky (MA, full funding), Georgia (no word on funding). Waitlisted: FSU (MA) Rejected: Notre Dame (MA) Degrees: BA English literature with philosophy minor from unknown SLAC; finishing up an MA this semester in a social-sciency field. GRE: 1400, V/Q split down the middle; 5.5 W GPA: 4.0 at all institutions Professional stuff: instructor of record for several non-classics courses, one classics-related presentation, summer Greek teaching experience Languages: 3 semesters graduate-level Greek; fourth-semester undergraduate Latin, one semester advanced undergraduate Latin, one graduate Latin course in progress. Several college years of Spanish, 1 of French, 1 of Italian. Writing sample included sources in the latter languages. I noted German as "in progress" on my CV. Reading list (in my applications, I used an asterisk to indicate what was read for coursework): A few books of Homer The longer Homeric Hymns and a few short ones Some speeches by Lysias Some of Plato’s dialogues Several speeches of Demosthenes Some Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Sextus, and other Hellenistic philosophers All of the New Testament and some of the LXX Quite a few works by Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and other early Christian / patristic writers All the Catilinarians Several lives by Nepos Maybe half of Catullus Selections from Ovid Maybe half of Sallust’s BC A few New Testament books from the Vulgate Letters: Two from classicists with whom I’d done graduate work, one from my MA advisor. Advice: This is mainly for people in my position, trying to get into classics graduate programs without an undergraduate classics major or significant language experience. For financial reasons, I refused to do a postbac, and instead took as much Greek and Latin as I could while a (funded) MA student in another field. So when I submitted my applications, I had four semesters of undergraduate Greek and three semesters of graduate Greek. For Latin, I had finished fourth-semester undergraduate Latin and was in the middle of a upper-level undergraduate class; in my SoP I noted that I planned to take a graduate Latin class in the spring. For my writing sample, I revised a Greek seminar paper. My application wasn’t enough for Notre Dame, and it got me waitlisted at FSU, but it got me funded at Minnesota and Kentucky. If you go back through past posts in this subforum, you’ll find one of mine panicking about whether I’d have enough language work by the time I applied. I’m happy to report that it is indeed possible to get funded at a classics MA program without an undergraduate classics major and without a postbac, though I did have to find another way to get the language experience. And I am told by two of my recommenders that their letters were very strong. I didn’t mention any faculty members by name in my SoPs, nor did I contact anyone beforehand. My interests are broad enough at this point that I didn’t think it was necessary, and I didn't apply anywhere that had only one person working on something I was interested in. I followed the common strategy of boilerplate used for all SoPs plus a fit paragraph tailored for each school. A late letter won't sink your application; one of my acceptances didn't get two letters until a week after the deadline. Finally, I’ll echo the received wisdom regarding fit. Both of my funded acceptances were superb fits, and one was an even better fit than I knew when I applied.