drivingthoughts

@Laodiceans @Petros Logos is great, and I have it. but beware, the full version is $$$, seriously. And it can take a while to load. If you're just after something basic and don't need to do hardcore exegesis, I recommend a web-app developed my by alma matter: http://study.calvinseminary.edu/ You can do single language or side-by-side, and it has a few other features.

@Rrrrahner Sorry to hear! I wanted to go there too, but was told not to apply based on my stats. So, where do you plan on going now?

@eggfish I'm not sure what your living situation will be, but for us, a family of 4, that is not a substantial amount; I think, however, it would be totally doable if you are single, don't have kids, and/or don't mind an efficiency-style apartment. We haven't settled on a neighborhood yet, but it looks like most 3-bedrooms around between $1,000 and $1,800 /mo which would eat through your stipend real quick. Most of the 1 bedrooms that I've seen come in at under $800, some as low as $350s (depending what neighborhood you're looking at) - so on that budget, $4000 a semester could totally swing it if you live frugally. That's just my two-cents, and coming from someone not yet living in MKE, take it with a grain of salt. In general, Milwaukee's cost of living seems fairly low compared with some other options.

@fencergirl I'm in the same boat, will be commuting to school every day in the fall (as opposed to now, where it's across the street). I'm considering something like the Asus Chromebook Flip just because it's so much cheaper than replacing my ancient iPad. I have had several friends who use the little chromebooks in school and love them - the only folk I know who don't like them, bought them thinking that they would actually replace a laptop. Since I record all of my research in Evernote anyway, I don't see any kind of a problem using a Chromebook for libraries and note-taking, since it will automatically sync with my hefty macbook pro.

@sbeth I don't know about your particular field, but when my wife was doing her graduate work, she did a lot of stats (SPSS, etc). Her one non-negotiable requirement was that whatever laptop she had must have a real & functional 10-key on the keyboard (she doesn't want to haul around a separate keyboard and mouse). My wife still uses stats a whole lot in her field and is a master of excel - she uses a Dell Precision 17" because it has a giant screen and a real, full-size keyboard with number pad separate from the letters, and still costs less than the comparable Mac. I'm in the humanities and I love my Macbook so much, I've actually worn through some of the keys - but they don't come with a 10-key. Good luck.

@918Philosophizer The above comments are accurate. Track down Mounce & at least learn the alphabet and basic structures - he has lots of resources on his website and youtube. Getting a jump on vocab would also be really useful. Additional note: folk often find an affinity for either Greek or Hebrew, not always both. So if Greek is hard, maybe Hebrew will be "easy" (or they will both be hard). I got C's in Greek and A's in Hebrew.

@imnotcreative Similar to folk above, I think the key is just working your ass off in whatever program you get into, and spinning your background as well as you can. I completed my undergrad before taking about 10 years off, but my undergrad was a train wreck - my GPA in the first year was 1.01, I had no business being in college and graduated with a 2.5. Definitely a hindrance. BUT, I got into a mid-level M.Div program on "provisional" status and crushed it, studied hard for the GRE, and earned my professors' respect; from there I got into a fully-funded ThM program (rare) and also did well. I start a fully-funded PhD program next year. Again, just go for what is going to work best for you and your family and do really well at it. It's numbers and your writing that get you in the door, your SOP and letters of rec that get you the interview, where you come from is less important. Look at some top schools' phd candidates, some of them really came from No-Where-U. Best wishes.

@EdNeuroGrl I've done this a couple of times - moving across the country for love of academia and having to finance it myself. Now, like folk have said above, the less you move with, the better off you are. For me, I'm married and have children, so there is less stuff I can just sell on craigslist and buy elsewhere later. There are just some non-negotiables, like my books, my wife's piano, and the kid's toy boxes from grandpa. That said: First task: come up with a plan, budget, and a timeline. Know every date and deadline and how much money you need when. Like, when do you need your deposit, do you need to rent a truck/trailer, how much will it cost to hook up the internet at the new place, how much in groceries will you need in the first week, etc. Ebay worked great for me. Find all the little things in your house that you don't need that will sell for more than $10 (I don't eBay for less than minimum wage). Over the course of a year, I made a few thousand that way and it helped a lot. I mean everything, shoes and clothing, books, kitchen utensils, camping gear, tools - it really adds up. Personally, I hate dealing with craigslist, but it's good for things that don't ship well, like bicycles and furniture. For anything worth less than $10, if you don't need it, get rid of it - the less stuff you move, the more you will be happy. We're moving in 4 months and I have a huge stack in the basement that I keep adding to - it's the sell/give away pile. Be ruthless with yourself. Have a graduation/going away party and solicit gifts. I know it's looked at as being shameless, but we've done this twice and it really helped. Depending on where you are in relation to friends... only move what you need if you ever foresee yourself going back. When we first moved after undergrad, we left a ton of stuff in friends' basements and attics. On subsequent trips "home" we always took a car-load or small trailer's worth back with us. Remember, you're going to be moving again in a couple of years - so maybe just store anything you don't need for your PhD. We had friends who did this for grad work in the UK, when they came back, they opened their storage locker, removed a box of keepsakes, and then auctioned the whole locker for $3k. An odd-ball option if you're on a standard freight track, which I guess you would be on, is to go with a partial load service. There are a lot of freight companies (like ABF, etc.) who will move a pallet at a time on their own schedule for comparatively cheap. Freight companies hate to send trucks that are half-full across the country, so they often will sell the remaining space to folk who have "partial loads" If you can get your stuff to the shipper, put it on a pallet, and shrink wrap it, they can usually take it. I did this a lot at my old job and you'd be surprised what you can move. That said, when looking at my own situation, it was a financially better deal to go with a big truck from Penske and drive it myself. Best of luck, having to move cross-country while being poor sucks mightily.

Hey folks, we're moving to Milwaukee sometime late spring or summer. Not sure where we're looking yet - but I've got two little daughters and want to make sure we get a yard and a safe enough neighborhood for them to ride their bikes in. But since I've already been in graduate school for four years, we need inexpensive. Any chances of getting a single-family home with 3 bedrooms in a decent neighborhood & a fenced yard for under $1000? Maybe I'm just too used to Michigan prices (where we're coming from). I've had a couple students at the school (Marquette) tell me that Bayview is nice, but it seems a bit spendy up there. I found the Milwaukee reddit useful, but if there is anything else you know of, I'd love to hear it.

Greetings and Congratulations! Have you decided to come to Marquette? Let's take a moment and get to know each other. What is your field/program, what are you excited about, what questions do you have? Are you a local - what advice do you have for the rest of us? Myself - I'll be in the Theology department for a PhD in Ethics. I'm excited for the interdisciplinary opportunities I've been introduced to and I hear that one can get some great food and really good beer in MKE. I have no idea where we're going to live or where the kids are going to school - trying to figure that out right now.

Well Folk, Another season is wrapping up and decisions are being made. Who knows, maybe we'll be future colleagues in the same school, field, or neighborhood; we might see each other at AAR, SBL, or somewhere else. As such, once you know what you're doing, let this be a place to share it, and maybe we can encourage one another. For myself, I'll be heading to Marquette in Milwaukee for their program in Systematic Theology & Ethics. What about you?

And... it sucked for most of us. Well, at least decisions are easier when there are fewer doors to walk through.

@magicsana Im not sure of your field specifically, but for Christian theology, NT/OT studies, etc., it's not uncommon for applicants to have two masters. That's true for me, a friend at Baylor, another at Chicago, two at Harvard, and one at Yale, all in fully funded PhD programs. So ya, I would recommend an M.A.R. or a Th.M. or whatever is applicable to your study, and then apply again to some new schools and some of the ones you applied to last year that you still think are a good fit. To put things into perspective, I've been rejected from 15 programs during my journey and I know several people who got into programs after their second or third application.

Claremont's faculty particularly fit my interests, and I seriously considered them; even so far as visiting - but as echoed above, the financial situation is dire compared with other schools. Claremont and the surrounding areas are very expensive (why I turned down Stanford) and I know a handful of folk who started at Claremont only to quit because they couldn't take another day of living in a shoebox and eating ramen. Don't get me wrong - it's a beautiful area and a solid school, but if you're not independently wealthy, I wouldn't recommend it.

@chaosmosaic I earned an M.Div - three years of glorious unfunded academia. This was paid for with loans, my working as an editor and copywriter, and my spouse's employment. The one bit of advice that I have is get in and get out ASAP. The longer you take, the more it will cost, so in a way, taking a loan for the whole amount and powering through in a year and a half to graduate into a funded program will be cheaper than working/schooling/small loans over four years or something. Good luck, and if you find a magical source of money, I would love to know about it as well.

@fuzzylogician That's a great resource. Now I know what I'll be doing next week instead of writing my thesis - working on my website! Seriously though, that link has some great resources.

@HNV721 It's hard to find a real ranking, because as @theophany accurately points out, there are simply too many variables. I would suggest you find out what school is best for you. A good fit is more important than prestige: your spiritual well-being, emotional health, and family (if applicable) should be priorities. You would be surprised how far you can get from a no-name M.Div. Here's what I did, and it worked well for me. End goal: be a professor of theology. I like Excel, so - I made a table of every school that I would be willing to teach at figured out where their professors (in my field) came from made a smaller list of the most common 30 schools represented looked at those schools to see where their current graduate students (T/PhD) come from made another list of the 30 most common feeder schools (M.Div, MTS, etc) from there, I weeded out schools that would not have been a good fit (i.e. Billy Bob's School of Foundationalist and Unfunded Theology) and saw which had professors that I wanted to work with at this point, I narrowed it down to how many I could realistically afford to apply to (7, in my case, all schools that would be a good fit if I got in) when the results came back, I picked the school I would be happiest at and that made the most sense for where my life was at (i.e. selling the house, moving across the country, and having babies = Pasadena not a good idea). Making this tool was immensely helpful for further applications including my ThM and just culminating in my being accepted into one of the PhD programs I initially identified as leading to real jobs (which is also a really good fit). Another benefit of doing this - I now have a really good idea of who is at what school, what's going on in various departments, etc.

Well, at least in my case, for my ThM and PhD admissions, the directors told me that it was my faculty advisor's lengthy, detailed letter of recommendation that helped to float me into the pool for consideration. That said, if you don't have a strong relationship with your advisor, having them write you a short or impersonal letter would be bad. So, in my opinion, not having it would be a small red flag, but having a poor recommend would be worse.

Well, yesterday I got a surprise phone call from Marquette and was accepted with full funding! Anyone else going? I saw at least one other offer on the results page, I'm hoping to hear from a few others before I make my final decision, but I'm fairly excited. Field: Systematic Theology/Ethics with a focus in political theology and interreligious cooperation.

@Esei_John @Rrrrahner - FYI, I applied to U of C's Div School last year and I got my rejection letter on the 23rd of February. I've been told they run about the same every year.

@Rrrrahner Great! I hope you had a good experience, I did. However, it was a bit surprising to open the Skype chat and see, well, a table full of folk. First time I've ever had someone ask me questions about my writing sample too. Best wishes - we'll hear something soon, I imagine.

This thread is awesome. I'm 36, a father of two, and applying for a PhD after quitting my (good) job a few years ago and earning two master's degrees (full-time). I've had fun in school, especially as I found that I have a lot of life experience that many of my colleagues lacked and how often I've been able to connect with professors on more of a peer-level. I quit my job and started this whole crazy grad-school thing because, well, we all (my family) felt that I had to. Not going into details, I had a really cool niche job, one that I can go back to at almost anytime - but no matter what, I just wasn't feeling fulfilled in it. After talking with friends and family, consulting with some friends who are professors at other schools about whether or not I'm crazy/foolish, and listening to my mentors, we quit jobs, sold the house, and moved across the county for Masters #1, and haven't looked back since. That said, I'm not counting on definitely getting into a PhD program, so I have a solid set of plan "b" options that I'm excited about. Also, I have at least two friends who earned their PhDs after 50 (not exactly my plan) and have had an impossible task finding jobs due to age discrimination, as such, I have definitely considered several "plan c" ideas for if I do get a PhD and don't actually become a professor. Full disclosure: the hardest part of this whole adventure has been the loss of one of our two incomes. My wife has a great job that she loves and supports us with, but since I only bring in a paltry sum as a TA, life has in no way been easy financially.

@pmajor It might mean something, but I don't think that it does - several schools I applied to did something similar. Marquette even gives you an e-mail address and a login to the registration system shortly after you apply. I don't know about CUA specifically, but when I read your post, that is what I assumed. Either way, I hope it means something good is coming to you soon!

@_PATRISTICS_ I interview with them on Monday (15th), well, not Historical... but Systematics. How was the interview? Did you just have the Historical faculty or was it mixed?