dr. t

The downside is that OP's work is, as they fear, subpar, but the journal accepts and prints it anyway. This would not look good later on. I wouldn't recommend publishing in my field (history) without an MA, generally The best course of action if you do want to push through with publication is to find the best journal in your subfield and submit it there. You'll probably get rejected, but so what? Maybe there'll be some good feedback, and you can get a sense of how nice your adviser is being. You can always submit it elsewhere later.

You have clearly never worked in customer service

Eeeeh. Remember, applications are comparative, not absolute. There may be no clear best candidate (and with the competitive nature of admissions, I'd say this is almost universal), so those making the selection need ways to discriminate. One candidate having verbal GRE in the 50th percentile is a really cheap and easy way to do that. Heck, having one candidate with a verbal GRE below the 90th percentile works pretty well, too. All bets are off when the committee sits.

"Theory was invented mostly to reassure people in their forties, mostly men, who are worried." - Ursula K. LeGuin, "Introducing Myself"

Just FYI, this will vary from professor to professor. Some are looking for really close matches, others are looking for interesting topics that are generally near their own interests, so don't take this response as normative and keep asking. I'll leave off on the other bits because I'm, uh, opinionated about the state of the field of early Modern church history.

More degrees does correlate to being older, it's true. I mean sure, everything always depends on the person. When making generalizations, there will be exceptions. The rule, however, holds. Don't take my word for it---ask your professors.

I mean, there are topics and then there are Topics. Is this a topic like "maybe think about the question posed by the juxtaposition of X and Y", or is this a Topic like "Read A, B, and C, then apply method D to primary source E"?

I have to say I agree. The difference between new PhD students with an MA and those without is very noticeable. (sorry @mvlchicago )

Doesn't your adviser have an opinion on this?

It's a low GPA for graduate study, and the GPA requirement is a minimum baseline. Enthusiasm is fine, but let's stay in reality. OP, unless you have a cool turn-around story where you were a terrible freshman but pulled a 3.9 for all the other years, you're going to have substantial difficulty securing any funding for an MA, a degree which you will almost certainly need to get into a PhD program worth attending. My advice is this: have your professors write letters and stick them in their drawers. Go work for 3-4 years doing whatever. Build a war chest. If you're still pining for academia after that, you will be a much more attractive candidate.

Yep, if briefly. One week on "Orientalism and the Other" and another on "Colonial Narratives and Postcolonial Histories".

I think it's now my turn to accuse you of "reading what [you] want into the conversation". The best of luck with your future endeavors.

In R_S's very first comment, they said (my emphasis): I don't think it would stretch credulity to assert that this was an answer to your question, i.e. that not only grad schools, but "even employers" would look askance at the degree.

This question has been answered several times, I think, but maybe I'm "reading what I want into the conversation" That answer is: at best it won't help you, and at worst it will hurt you because, and I quote:

You asked how it would look. I told you how it would look. Resent away. No, I mean you really want us to confirm your clear belief that this program will be perfectly fine, which R_S and I are not inclined to do.

It will look like you're doing the least amount of work you can to get the credential. But you seem to already have the answer you want.

Erdős number is irrelevant - I want to know your Erdős-Bacon number.

This, too, is part of the test.

I can get to Hegel

No it always makes me really angry and bitter.

There was one woman who could "speak", by which I mean she sometimes could give me an English word. Otherwise, I was forced to rely on my Generic Romance Pidgin. I had made sure to contact the relevant department head at the archive (this was the Laurentian Library in Florence) well beforehand to obtain permission to see the document I wanted. She was not there when I was at the archive, but our correspondence was on file which made the whole process easier.

Sorry, Italian.

So I have about 10 years of Latin, 4 years of French, and 1 year of Spanish. I have found that I am able to read just fine without any additional coursework. Working in the archive is trickier, but I managed to get by. I found I could usually understand the gist of what was being said if I asked them to speak slowly, and they could understand me OK as I used my two months on Duolinguo to great effect.

Also, some schools look at your %ile scores, not your raw numbers, particularly for university fellowships.

@mvlchicago has your answers.