Therewillbeluke

UNC-CH notifies very early.  I remember in my year, my phone rang in the first week of January, my wife picked it up and told me that Bart Ehrman was on the phone. 

I've heard from a reliable source that many of PTS's faculty double as CIA undercover ops....weird.

If applications don't work out, here is a 40k a year job many of you would be qualified for: https://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/wrg/4244720190.html

Nope, this is a sign: 
 

Hello All,
 
To keep it short and simple, I went through this process a couple years back. By standards of the admissions game and academia I did well, I applied to only three schools (HDS, YDS, and Duke) and ended up completing an MAR at Yale.
 
The advice I want to give is not about admissions though, there are a lot of people on the boards that can do that, this pertains to vocation. You see, when I applied I went strictly for big name schools. My motivations for study at the time were murky (do I want to teach, preach, do some sort of culturally-religiously aware NGO work?) and I figured big names would open the most doors. If I wanted to pursue ordination, I could fix my deficiencies at a denominational seminary later. 
 
Unlike most professions though, you really only need one door to open. That door is your church's ordination process OR an acceptable PhD program, depending on your path.

The pit fall for "big name" Divinity schools though is that depending on your ordaining body and/or academic focus a big name may not be beneficial beyond simply the name. When I studied at YDS, I was a newly converted Greek Orthodox Christian among a predominately Episocpalain/Lutheran/Liberal-Catholic student body. "Culture Shock" would be an understatement of my experience (though I will add that on a personal level I found the student body largely accepting and supportive of theologically conservative minorities). If you have a desire to get ordained, even if your church body will accept an M.Div from your school, ask yourself whether you want your seminary years to be defined by spiritual warfare, because even among a friendly crowd, theological divides will force you to ask yourself some really uncomfortable questions about your faith that may better be left to a Th.M/D.Min/PhD than your first spiritual formation degree.
 
As to PhDs, name is not as important as you may think when it comes to your MAR/MTS prep program. Relevant language study, a strong core curriculum in your intended focus, and *****studying with the right faculty who can provide you with good LORS***** are all more important than "the name". The name of a school can give you access to these things, but often times so can a denominational seminary.

After seminary, it took military service and a near death experience to pull me back to faith. I've changed gears as well. I am applying to public policy schools with a human rights focus. This time the correlation of the curriculum with my future goals is more important to me than name. So, with humility, I warn you to consider your application list thoroughly. Add a denominational seminary to it if you have specific needs. Best of luck to all.

 

And about the most boring things ever. For fuck's sake, you guys, you're arguing about the GRE and undergrads. 

This thread has more drama than Downton Abbey 

Now I've upvoted you and you have no idea where I'm coming at you from.

Haha -- everyone else kind of pussyfooted around it, but Kuriakos just said what we were all thinking.

Two things: 1) Luther Rice is basically a diploma mill 2) Christian Apologetics degrees are not worth the paper they are printed on. Do yourself a huge favor and go with something on the Philosophy of Religion end of things. Your future is far less limited then. 

Princeton Theological Seminary is excellent with funding, most people get 80% funding or more, and even if you got NO funding full tuition is still lower than what you'd pay if you received a 50% offer from many comparable school. The downside is that you'll have to do an M.Div, however there are many students who are here getting the M.Div whose aim is Ph.D work, at the least its more time for languages.

Just came in my mailbox. Call for papers here: http://www.academia.edu/3347575/2013_Call_for_Papers
 
Hope to see some of you there, perhaps.

Like Abrasax, I have heard from a number of professors that the degrees are not as marketable as the North American 5 year PhD. And of course they are known for garbage funding. This is unfortunate given that may of their programs are excellent. I'm planning on applying, for instance, to Cambridge and possibly KU-Leuven, though I very much doubt I would be able to attend. And even if I could, I'm not sure if it would be a great idea if you want to teach at an American school. Then again, I know at least at Duke there are professors who have European PhD's and they seem to be doing fairly well. So, I guess, my thoughts are mostly hearsay, too.

I have not done any of these things, but have a number of friends who have, and by far the largest issue that people run into seems to be funding.  A lot of the scholls give little or no funding to American students, and as such the programs end up being very expensive.  The programs themselves are very good and generally well-respected, though the shorter 3-year model that most work on sometimes is looked upon less favorably by US institutions in terms of hiring in terms of TAing and other duties that the 5-year model in the US affords.  This is not absolute though, as I know a number of schools of a more evangelical bent go for the foreign PhDs.  This is mostly hearsay and secondhand reporting on my end, so if someone on here has more direct experience they could speak to it better.

Develop some bad habits (drinking, smoking, too much caffeine, too little sleep). The rest really just comes together as you go.

This little treasure keeps me going with German. It contains short passages from the Bible and from important German theologians, with vocabulary on the opposite page and a dictionary in the back. I'm able to keep up with only a year of German. Definitely worth getting for Religion students who've done German.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Theological-German-Reader-Dictionary/dp/0801021448/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366162550&sr=8-1&keywords=modern+theological+german

This little treasure keeps me going with German. It contains short passages from the Bible and from important German theologians, with vocabulary on the opposite page and a dictionary in the back. I'm able to keep up with only a year of German. Definitely worth getting for Religion students who've done German.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Theological-German-Reader-Dictionary/dp/0801021448/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366162550&sr=8-1&keywords=modern+theological+german

Thank you to everyone who has helped and offered advice!

After hearing back from the offer at Duke (the standard ~22% that people said it was on here), I have decided to go to Princeton Seminary.

I'm going to Princeton Theological Seminary.
 
We can talk about future doctoral admissions for at least a while. 
Hopefully we'll just get in heated theological/religious/philosophical/textual debates to occupy our time.

I am about 90% sure I'm going to accept the offer from University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology.

Seton Hall University ICSST. I'm doing the research option, concentration in systematics. Already trying to dream up thesis ideas.

I'm going to Princeton Theological Seminary.
 
We can talk about future doctoral admissions for at least a while. 
Hopefully we'll just get in heated theological/religious/philosophical/textual debates to occupy our time.

I'm 95% sure I'm going to Vanderbilt. Visited today and met with my POI, and it seems like an excellent fit. My wife also interviewed today at the medical center for a nursing position. She is the only hitch, she has to get her first nursing job before I can quit my career and we can move.

Do it! Visiting was what did me in. Learned so much about the school that you just can't on get from the website.