Samahito

Accepted to Colorado University, Boulder for the Religious Studies M.A. (Buddhist Studies) First acceptance from one of my top choices. I'm humbled and thrilled!

I'm interested in monastic/vinaya practices in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar. Also want to do Pali and Singhalese, and the history of early Buddhism and Buddhist Phil (esp the phenomonology of canonical meditation practices), and the recent controversy over Bhikkhuni ordination in Theravada.
 
Applied to IU Bloomington, CU Boulder, UNM, Long Beach, and now, Cornell! Still waiting to hear back from all of them. 

Accepted to Colorado University, Boulder for the Religious Studies M.A. (Buddhist Studies) First acceptance from one of my top choices. I'm humbled and thrilled!

Echoing @Laodiceans' advice above, I would steer clear of Liberty if you wish to pursue graduate education at a top-tier program. Surely there are better-regarded online undergraduate programs in religious studies/theology? Also, as you identified in your original post, Liberty's "conservative" politics are going to be quite a bit different than the "liberalism" of top theology programs in the US. Unless you can turn that into a compelling narrative, I would think that you'd be doing yourself a disservice by pursuing undergraduate training that will almost certainly be at ideological odds with the kind you aspire to undergo in graduate study. 
What makes you want to want to attend Liberty, specifically, in the first place? I would strongly suggest looking at a wider variety of online programs. ASU, for instance, has an online-only Religious Studies BA program (http://asuonline.asu.edu/online-degree-programs/undergraduate/bachelor-arts-religious-studies).
My .02

Echoing @Laodiceans' advice above, I would steer clear of Liberty if you wish to pursue graduate education at a top-tier program. Surely there are better-regarded online undergraduate programs in religious studies/theology? Also, as you identified in your original post, Liberty's "conservative" politics are going to be quite a bit different than the "liberalism" of top theology programs in the US. Unless you can turn that into a compelling narrative, I would think that you'd be doing yourself a disservice by pursuing undergraduate training that will almost certainly be at ideological odds with the kind you aspire to undergo in graduate study. 
What makes you want to want to attend Liberty, specifically, in the first place? I would strongly suggest looking at a wider variety of online programs. ASU, for instance, has an online-only Religious Studies BA program (http://asuonline.asu.edu/online-degree-programs/undergraduate/bachelor-arts-religious-studies).
My .02

Echoing @Laodiceans' advice above, I would steer clear of Liberty if you wish to pursue graduate education at a top-tier program. Surely there are better-regarded online undergraduate programs in religious studies/theology? Also, as you identified in your original post, Liberty's "conservative" politics are going to be quite a bit different than the "liberalism" of top theology programs in the US. Unless you can turn that into a compelling narrative, I would think that you'd be doing yourself a disservice by pursuing undergraduate training that will almost certainly be at ideological odds with the kind you aspire to undergo in graduate study. 
What makes you want to want to attend Liberty, specifically, in the first place? I would strongly suggest looking at a wider variety of online programs. ASU, for instance, has an online-only Religious Studies BA program (http://asuonline.asu.edu/online-degree-programs/undergraduate/bachelor-arts-religious-studies).
My .02

I, too, finally received my rejection letter from Harvard's CSR PhD (Buddhist Studies; South Asian Religions; & Religion, Gender and Culture subfields) via an email to check the application website. Though, happily, about 20 minutes later I was notified I had a paper accepted to a conference this summer in the UK. Academia, you crazy!

Also waiting on Harvard's CSR PhD (not ThD) program. I've heard back from everywhere else I applied to.
Re. Harvard, I applied to the Buddhist Studies, South Asian Religions, and Religion, Gender, and Culture subfields. I didn't receive a request to interview, though I met with several of the faculty members I'm interested in working with last November at the Atlanta AAR. Fingers crossed!

Ah, somebody said "last week" last week! This wait is excruciating. Anyway, I didn't get an interview, so I'm not optimistic. Then again, I may have read a post in this forum about Harvard not doing interviews. Any idea? You seem to have some inside info, theophany.

So far as I know, Harvard CSR did not conduct interviews. But I have it on good authority that decisions there will be announced next week.
Also, for what it's worth, I just moments ago received a generic rejection email from Princeton's dept of religion.

@hswg, I can't speak to the specifics of Princeton but this is a standard part of the process. Individual admissions committees recommend candidates for admission, and the process gets finalized a few days or weeks later when the graduate school makes the final determination. Except in unusual circumstances, a graduate school will almost always accept the decision of the admissions committee, provided you meet the minimum requirements (GPA, etc) set by the school. 
Congratulations, it sounds like you got in!

Congrats to the Berkely admit and the Wisconsin-Madison admits!!!!
does anyone know how important it is to attend an open house after admission? I'm supposed to go to one to (meet the cohort and find out more about the program) but it's the same day as a research conference I've signed up to do. I've spoken to the coordinator about getting in touch with faculty and grad students, but I'm wondering if it would be better to simply pull out of the conference and attend the open house. 

Thanks, @raleighheth. Good luck with your interviews! I hope good news comes your way. 

I was told by someone in my department that the faculty at Harvard is meeting this week to further discuss applications.  Take that for what it's worth.

You know, that's a fair point, and I appreciate you challenging me on this. Perhaps I'll have to think about this more seriously in the coming years.

A lot of this has to do with my personal history. I'm deeply and personally religious, but don't come from a religious family; I have constantly been the incognito Christian in philosophy departments; I have been the heretic in conservative theological circles; I've been more traditional in a largely progressive divinity school. In short, I'm passionate about an honest and critical approach to sophisticated topics in religion, philosophy, and psychology. My experience has been that the setting (seminary vs divinity school vs religious studies department) has not had a particularly strong effect on the ability to do this well. I should definitely respect the fact that, especially in seminaries, particular theological and creedal commitments are taken very seriously. Personally, I do too. In an academic context, however, I mostly care that people are willing to think and communicate honestly. This is why I have a pretty flexible approach to an eventual teaching setting.

Now I'm curious to hear more about this! Perhaps I should start another thread, though. 

i'd hope that a person entering graduate school would already the life skills of an adult

Ok you don't go to graduate school to build up your investment portfolio. You can definitely live fine on 21600 as a single person in southern california. There are people living on much less.

Don't live in Longmont. Boulder housing can be a bit pricey, but Boulder is one of the most interesting and beautiful cities in the country. Also, if you are at all interested in outdoor activities (hiking, rock climbing, backpacking, mountain biking) you have incredibly easy access. If you're not interested in any of those activities, you should become interested.
Longmont is boring and pointless, and public transportation between the two cities is not as convenient as one might expect.
Housing can be found - unless you are rich, you're not going to live in a fabulous house by yourslef. You will need roommates, possibly several of them. That's just how it is because of the price of housing in Boulder.
I used to live on Goss, and that is a fantastic location.

Yes, but do you HAVE HANDS?

Me! I'm actually already living here though. I relocated in December and love it. I am familiar with the area now, and my boyfriend and I are buying a house, so if you have any questions about the location, let me know!

I went out last weekend. It was really nice. I managed to get there on one of those beautiful "winter" Colorado days (sunny and in the 50's). Then I got to experience a rare cloudy day like one might see in Seattle, and on the last day I got to experience a snow storm as I flew out. It was quite an experience! The hotel I stayed in was quite nice with no problems to speak of. There seemed to be a lot of hotels on the eastern edge of campus presumably to accommodate lots of year-round visitors so I imagine they all have a pretty good system down. This is the hotel my department put me up in, might not be the cheapest though so look around.
 
I like to run, swim, do some rock climbing (I hope to get better!) and pretty much anything outdoors so I hope I will be right at home during the free time I can manage to scrounge up. Pearl Street was great, I suggest you take a walk down there one night. There are lots of fun things to do there/places to shop. The Boulder bookstore in particular might be my favorite bookstore of all time. It just has some magic about it.

Indeed, there's still hope for Grumpy cat yet!

Maybe if ETS ruled the world...all essays would be five paragraphs and everyone was known by a number between 200-800 rather than a name...

I think I'm probably responsible for 1000 of the 12000 views this thread has generated so far.

In my experience and in the experiences I've heard from friends, it is totally normal to have to "hound" certain professors a little bit for LORs. In fact, one of my best LOR writers submitted my LOR a week after the application deadline. (Fear not, I was still accepted at one of my two top choice schools and wait listed at the other which was a serious reach school for me, anyway!)
 
I know that seems crazy, but most schools are really sympathetic to the fact that LOR writers are typically very busy professors and so if things don't make it in on time, don't panic. Most schools even have clauses on their websites noting that they wait a few weeks after applications are due for any straggling LORs, transcrips, and GRE scores that might be slower to reach them before reviewing applications.
 
Most of the time, these professors are just super busy and forget the deadline, or other important deadlines come up. For me, it has always seemed like professors appreciate the kind nudge to get things done simply because it isn't their top priority and might not be the most immediate issue they have to attend to.
 
Assuming that you have wisely chosen your LOR writers and that they are professors who can speak to your capacities as a student and that want to see you succeed, I think even a simple reminder that the deadline is a week away and an offer to meet for coffee to catch up and talk about applications and future goals might be effective (assuming you are still at the same institution or live locally).
 
Just keep on top of your LOR writers and if one comes in a little late, take a deep breath and remember that it isn't the end of the world...which is way easier said than done.