ἠφανισμένος

Anyone want to claim the UGA acceptance? It's still pretty early for them, based on past years.

Apparently "Classical Philosophy" at Princeton is an interdepartmental program, with faculty from both Classics and Philosophy. Requirements differ based on the department one applies to.

The official deadline is actually April 15th, but this should be stated clearly in any offers you receive. You're within your rights to wait until then, but it helps out those poor souls on the waitlist if you can decide sooner. (Also not in philosophy, but I received several offers two years ago. I withdrew from one program when it became clear I would never make it off the waitlist, accepted my current program's offer, and declined the rest.) Edit: the April 15th deadline is not field-specific. It's a Council of Graduate Schools thing, binding for schools who have agreed to it.

They're not equivalent. At Edinburgh, for example, Our one year full-time masters programmes typically comprise 90 ECTS credits (180 Edinburgh credits). Two year full-time programmes typically comprise 180 ECTS credits (360 Edinburgh credits). So a module of twenty or thirty credits is more like one US course ("module" is typically used for US "course" in the UK).

Your mileage may vary.

Since I have no experience with this, I'll defer to other, more knowledgeable, posters. But there was a recent Chronicle thread that you may find useful. The OP there was asking about switching from one school to another in the same field, but some of the advice I think is applicable to your situation as well.

Furcifera, I'm glad you mentioned it too. I'd heard the same stuff about bizarre tenure denials; who knows! I may just stick with five, but I'm thinking of adding Kansas and/or WUSTL. The Jan. 15 deadline for the latter may be a problem, though, since they want hard copies of transcripts.

And if you philosophers will excuse the intrusion, I would note that Nietzsche's chair was not even in philosophy, but in classical philology.

Welcome, janeiro. Where are you applying? IHNI, the one school I'm reapplying to informed me that they still had my GRE scores on file from a couple of years ago. But as janeiro said, it could vary by school, so you'd want to double-check.

Wow, that is (unpleasant) news to me, and I'd already sent GRE scores. Seems like they could have notified people with applications in progress rather than simply posting one sentence on the website. Thanks for posting; I might have missed it otherwise. I guess procrastination pays off sometimes, since they're the one place I hadn't written an SoP for.

Furtivemode, my suggestion was limited to the narrative sections of the Septuagint, in particular Genesis. It's plenty "Greek" enough to be useful for a beginner, I think, as long as no one takes it as a stylistic model.

The results search is probably the best way to find out what specific schools have done in the past. In general, though, I think February is as early as it gets. Depending on how first round offers go, waitlisted candidates can receive notifications as late as April 15th and sometimes later. The last time I applied for graduate programs (in a different field), I heard from schools from late February to late March.

It's true that going from the New Testament from Plato, or from the Vulgate to Cicero, is a bit of a shock. But I'm not sure that starting with the more difficult authors, in order to make later authors seem easier, is the answer. I'm not making prescriptions for Macrina here, but I think beginners do best with large quantities of easy prose as they acquire morphology and some vocabulary. Then the transition to more difficult, "classical" prose may be made gradually: in Greek, say from the Gospel of John to Matthew to Luke/Acts to Paul to Athanasius to Justin Martyr to Xenophon or Lysias and then on to Plato, Demosthenes, Thucydides, and comparable late antique authors like Gregory of Nazianzus. I think classics pedagogy tends to baptize students by fire with overly difficult texts, which isn't actually necessary. By the way, Starbuck, I'm musing here more than arguing against you; ceteris paribus, I certainly agree that the transition from classical Latin or Greek texts to later ones is easier than the other way around.

Since you're interested in late antiquity, I would add the following to the other suggestions already given. Of course this depends on what you mean by "beginning." Greek: besides the New Testament (most of which is about the easiest authentic Greek there is), there's the Apophthegmata Patrum (col. 71). The Greek is usually not too bad, although the meaning is sometimes obtuse. In addition, Justin Martyr and Athanasius are both fairly straightforward Greek prose writers. You might also look at the narrative sections of the Septuagint, such as Genesis. It would possible to read much more Genesis in one sitting, than, say, Plato. Latin: the Vulgate is also fairly easy, at least the narrative sections (the Gospels, Genesis, etc.). Jerome's De viris illustribus (which begins with St. Peter) is also fairly easy Latin. I second the recommendation for Eutropius, who's fallen out of favor, but used to be the first "real" Latin author students were given to read. Nepos' Lives is also a common text for intermediate Latin students; it's harder than Eutropius, but better preparation for Cicero, Caesar, Sallust, etc. if you wish to go that direction. Edit: I forgot to mention two excellent websites: Dickinson College Commentaries and Geoffrey Steadman's site. Both have free commentaries aimed at intermediate readers of Latin and Greek. As far as later authors, Dickinson has Severus' Life of St. Martin and Steadman has The Passion of Perpetua.

GRE scores aren't sent immediately. The GRE website says it takes 10-15 days after the test day for scores to be reported. So testing on Jan. 1 for applications due the same day would certainly result in late scores, but that may not entail automatic rejection.

If I may, I'd like to revive this thread to ask if anyone has simply omitted the diversity statement for Minnesota. Do the departments read it at all, or is it used only at the graduate school level to determine eligibility for certain fellowships?

I'm hoping someone else who's in a modern language field will chime in, but I'll respond to some of your points. First of all, I really am not trying to discourage you from your "dreams." Bear in mind that my own field is classics, which is as bad or worse as German in terms of academic job prospects. Second, you say you're interested in German literature, but on your own admission, you're not sure what that means. To write a good statement of purpose, and ultimately to be reasonably happy in a German literature PhD program, you need to know what, specifically, you're interested in and how your interests align with faculty members' interests where you're applying. If you write a dissertation about German literature, that will prepare you to apply for faculty positions at universities in German literature. The job prospects are bleak. I don't say that to discourage you; it's simply a fact. As I mentioned, I have already decided to go into a field whose job prospects are just as bleak if not worse. Third, I'm well aware that it's hard to move across the country. I've moved a couple of times myself. But unfortunately, especially in this academic job market, it's important to go to the programs that are the best fit for you. If the absolute best fits for you are Minnesota and Wisconsin, great. But depending on your interests, which seem very vague at this point, there may be other excellent fits for you, even without leaving the Midwest. Finally, do consider a gap year. You can maintain and even improve your German in the meantime -- it won't wither away and die -- and you can do more research on grad programs and on the Fulbright ETA so you can have stronger applications when you do apply.

Since no one has responded, I'll jump in, though my field isn't modern languages. It's troubling that you say you don't have a "clear idea" of what you would do with a PhD in German, but you're planning to apply for one anyway. Generally, the PhD is a professional degree: the PhD in German prepares you to apply for jobs teaching and researching in German, primarily at universities. If you don't have well-defined research interests in some area of German (literature, linguistics, culture, etc.), the PhD is probably not a good idea right now. Also, why only two schools? If you're set on pursuing the PhD in German, you should choose schools based on faculty who are working on areas you're interested in and based on the placement rates of recent PhDs from the department. You might consider applying for a Fulbright to Germany or Austria (either a study grant or an English teaching assistantship; the latter is less competitive). If you got one, you'd live in a German-speaking country for a year, probably get a better idea of what you'd like to do with German, and your PhD applications would be that much stronger. Also, check out this (fairly negative) piece from a recent German PhD. It may give you a better idea of why a PhD in any humanities field is potentially a bad idea.

I wouldn't count on the EU tuition rate if you haven't been resident in the UK/EU for the past three years.

It's also what the professor's office hours are for.

I believe there are several ECS alumni now working on PhDs in the theology department at Notre Dame (among them LateAntique). You could probably contact one of them by means of the classics department ECS page, which lists the names of recent alumni. I'll probably be doing that myself, since I'm trying to figure out whether to apply to the ECS program or the MA in classics.

Since you're asking this, I'm guessing you haven't lived in the south. Keep in mind that Nashville is a city and Vanderbilt is a major research university. It's mainstream academia -- nothing to worry about, whatever your worries might be.

What are your interests? Where are you thinking of applying?

Furcifera, that's essentially what one of my recommenders suggested for MA SoPs, so that's what I'm doing. I'm also not naming names. And regarding Klingon, I learned yesterday that this exists -- but perhaps I am behind the times. Clelinare, I'm applying to six MA programs (no PhDs). It may be too few, but I don't want to spend too much on application fees, and I'm not terribly interested in programs other than the ones on my list anyway. What about you?

Kdavid, you may find this post helpful. Bear in mind, though, that's written for people applying for faculty positions, not grad school applicants, and read the comments for differing perspectives. I think a great deal of it is still useful, though.