auvers-sur-oise

In other words, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieUEHtzVUgs. Best of luck at H, ProspectStu8735. I can only assume you mean Harvard.

Agreed, but undergraduate text books aren't art - they are books. Go to museums as often as you are able, and engage with actual art objects. You'll have 5+ years to be weighed down by the canon, the counter-canon and the counter-counter-canon. Beef up on the basics, like runaway suggested, if you feel so compelled, but insufficient familiarity with Saussure will not be a deal breaker. Read what interests you, and read what has been published by the scholars and potential mentors/advisors that interest you. Don't be swayed or guilted by anonymes who might describe a list like that one posted above as "coming to mind immediately." Look at art, think about objects, practice your languages, and read what interests you. Žižek? That's like recommending Neil deGrasse Tyson to an aspiring astrophysicist... except the book recommended above is outdated, largely useless and wholly unenjoyable.

Don't worry ProsStu - you didn't offend me. While I disagree with two of your three "controversy" points, I think they're fair. They're just inconsistent with your relentlessly positive outlook, as quoted above. Re: the original topic, I think that once adcomms have sorted out the best students, fit and departmental need are the strongest factors.

This is total garbage and reads like sour grapes about your own undergraduate transcript. It's also presumptuous and offensive, but God knows you didn't hurt my feelings, so I won't belabor that particular point. An undergraduate GPA above a 3.5, particularly within the major, shouldn't be to difficult for any prospective graduate student. While there are obviously exceptions, it's a good baseline, and graduate programs agree - that's why programs recommend or require applicants to meet certain cutoffs. I think that once you cross that threshold, the difference between a 3.7 and a 3.9 is negligible, but to suggest that a higher GPA necessarily means a duller candidate is petty and inaccurate. Reputable graduate programs also require their students to maintain a high average, and while coasting through undergrad Art History coursework on a string of B's before making the jump to A-quality graduate work is not impossible, adcomms tend to place their bets on students who already have a proven track record of academic success. They want innovative, evocative research, but they also want their students to finish. While I agree that "Being an interesting scholar with challenging ideas is much, much harder to fake," I am certain that the top programs have no shortage of candidates with perfect or near-perfect GPAs, and who bring insightful and challenging ideas. A lot of big talk about statistics and a "normalized sampling of students" for a Monday morning, ProspectStu8735 - let's see those stats.

"Yes, this all looks great. But how's your German?"

A suggestion for the group: if/when the results start to come in, can we agree to list our field in the comments section of each acceptance/rejection post? This will offer a better data set for future applicants, and might be helpful for current applicants, too!

I saw the Degas show at Boston, and it was to die for... I can only imagine at Orsay! The Manet: Portraying Life show was great - it's at the Royal Academy now, so if anyone's in London...!

I'll take it! Thanks!

This might be an obvious question, but how can you tell that eventual admits didn't go to the symposium through the results search?

I really doubt adcomms are checking in on us.

Just jumped on chat, but no one over there understood my art feelings! We should set up art history pow wow times.

Yeah, I've been in touch with the app coordinator, who writes: Unfortunately all applications have not yet been updated. Thank you for your patience! That was as of about a week ago. Hope this helps quell any anxiety.

I remember reading that, too! I have to admit - it was a huge help. Not that it gave me free reign to be sloppy, but it gave me the dose of good sense that I needed to let go of my applications, and to send them off without too much obsessing. I have since gone back and read over my statements, and I haven't found a mistake... but that doesn't mean there isn't one, and hey, what are you going to do.

What I've heard from adcomm members at my program, and at a few others (although none that I've applied to) is that decisions are made before profs go out of town for CAA. Whether they inform before or after CAA seems to be random... or is it? Let's look at the numbers! Culled from the GC results, I looked at earliest acceptance date to PhD programs. If the acceptance came a month or more after rejections, I noted WL for likely wait list admit. Those wait list admits as n/a when I looked at how many schools notify before CAA vs. after. I picked the 10 schools at the top of the "rankings" posted in the thread below as a sample group. 2007 - CAA Feb. 14-17th. Berkeley: 3/5 Chicago: n/a Columbia: 2/9 Yale: n/a Princeton: 4/4 WL NYU: 3/12 Harvard: 2/27 UCLA: 2/16 Northwestern: 4/4 WL UNC: n/a Notify before CAA: 1 Notify during CAA: 1 Notify after CAA: 3 2008 - CAA Feb. 20-23rd. Berkeley: 4/6 WL Chicago: 1/30 Columbia: 3/6 Yale: 2/28 Princeton: 3/4 NYU: 3/1 Harvard: 3/4 UCLA: n/a Northwestern: 3/3 UNC: 3/10 Notify before CAA: 1 Notify during CAA: 0 Notify after CAA: 7 2009 - CAA Feb. 25-28th. Berkeley: 2/11 Chicago: 3/3 Columbia: 2/14 Yale: 2/23 Princeton: 2/18 NYU: 3/12 Harvard: 3/2 UCLA: n/a Northwestern: 2/18 UNC: 3/17 Notify before CAA: 5 Notify during CAA: 0 Notify after CAA: 4 2010 - CAA Feb. 10-13th. Berkeley: n/a Chicago: 1/31 Columbia: 2/14 Yale: 2/23 Princeton: 3/2 NYU: 4/10 WL Harvard: 3/8 UCLA: n/a Northwestern: 2/18 UNC: 3/3 Notify before CAA: 1 Notify during CAA: 0 Notify after CAA: 6 (2 within a week) 2011 - CAA Feb. 9-12th. Berkeley: 2/23 Chicago: 3/23 WL Columbia: 3/4 Yale: 2/15 Princeton: 3/4 NYU: n/a Harvard: n/a UCLA: 2/18 Northwestern: 2/16 UNC: 3/1 Notify before CAA: 0 Notify during CAA: 0 Notify after CAA: 7 (3 within a week) 2012 - CAA Feb. 22-25th. Berkeley: 2/14 Chicago: 2/4 Columbia: 2/24 Yale: 2/20 Princeton: 2/2 (unofficially by call from POI - 2/8 was the more common acceptance) NYU: 3/9 Harvard: 3/2 UCLA: 2/9 Northwestern: n/a UNC: 3/14 Notify before CAA: 5 Notify during CAA: 1 Notify after CAA: 3 Range of first notification: Berkeley: Feb. 11th - March 5th; mid Feb. most common. Chicago: Jan. 30th - March 3rd; late Jan./early Feb. most common. Columbia: Feb. 9th - March 6th; mid Feb. most common Yale: Feb. 15th - Feb. 28th; mid - late Feb. most common. Princeton: Feb. 8th - March 4th; early March most common. NYU: March 1st - March 12th; early March most common. Harvard: Feb. 27th - March 8th; early March most common. UCLA: Feb. 9th - Feb. 18th; mid Feb. most common. Northwestern: Feb. 16th - March 3rd; mid Feb. most common. UNC: March 1st - March 17th; early - mid March most common. Conclusions: This was not a useful exercise. Programs tend to notify within a established date range <1 month, regardless of CAA. The years closest to 2013 regarding CAA timing are 2007 and 2011, and for both, decisions tended to come after the conference. Other conclusions: This was a welcome distraction. The most popular notification date was February 14th. Admissions committees are so romantic.