xypathos

As @runningit noted, Chicago's offer is financially better. Chicago's MDiv is also incredibly flexible. https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/imce/images/webcopyMinistry Program Handbook.pdf You likely have already come across this resource. If not, it lays out the required courses, of which there are few, and usual progression of students. Chicago will also let you take every available course in your tradition, rather than say having an Islamic focus and taking 20+ hours in Christianity. You can truly take almost exclusively Islamic-centric courses if they're available. At the end of the day you simply need to ask where you feel that you belong. Both have exceptional name recognition. Baring you being wealthy, Chicago will significantly reduce the loans you'll need in order to finish your degree.

tomorrow

Nope. In fact UVA's MA program is a common "last minute" app for students who washed out at schools whose deadline was earlier. In some cases, depending on focus, it's actually their top choice so their May 1st deadline is nice.

I have some other thoughts that I need to think on so I'll likely edit or reply in a another post. That said, Chicago's MDiv is very much seen as an academic degree. It's not seen in the same light as a MDiv from say Vanderbilt or Duke. Yes, some of Chicago's MDiv students go into traditional ministry but many, if not most, go into academic positions or further studies. I think the policy is still in place, it was circa 2015 anyway, but MDiv students could take doctoral courses and were expected to produce the same quality and quantity of work. If a MDiv student did this for at least two courses and had a professor willing to recommend them, they could petition internally to just continue straight into the PhD program. When I was corresponding with the dean ~2015, every MDiv student who applied for internal review to roll into PhD studies was accepted. Not all of them opted to stay at Chicago, but they were accepted and offered the same funding package.

It's not sent to everyone but schools like Emory, ND, Vanderbilt, etc that see promise in PhD applicants but don't find them strong enough, reroute them to a M* degree to keep them in house.

Vanderbilt releases in waves with the first waves favoring their preferred candidates. Generally 100% scholarships then descending accordingly. There's a spattering of average offers in between but preferred applicants are called by an Admissions or faculty member late January - mid-February and invited to a special weekend only for them.

Absolutely! They can't rescind the offer because you asked for more money. I would be honest with them about your desire to attend and go from there. I, and several people here, were offered more money when asked about it. I also had schools say that offers were final. Either way, no harm in asking.

Just about all schools have a ranking system but how it works tends to fall into two categories: 1) Church History (example) has two offers out and three waitlisted candidates. If one of the offers declines it goes to #1 for Church History. Often in these cases waitlisted candidates are ranked by the next professor to "get a student." If Professor Xavier does Reformation History and its been three years since they took in a newbie, they'll likely have a candidate that they made an offer to, and then a waitlisted candidate, just in case. This stacks the deck that they'll get a student. Often this simply rotates so everyone gets a new student every X-years. 2) Departments have 10 scholarships and they accept their 10 preferred students, regardless of discipline. If an Ethics applicant rejects their offer it might go to another Ethics applicant or it could very well go to Homiletics. In reality option #2 is #1, they just lie about it and say they accept the top applicant regardless of field. From personal experience, there's always some kind of rotation or faculty trading their slot so they can accept a specific student. I know a professor at VDS that passed on his turn in order to grab a former student they taught in undergrad that was applying the next year - it happens, there's nothing you can do about it.

Sorry about the bad news @rejectedndejected, I don't recall over the last five pages but were you able to get an acceptance somewhere? We can chat over PM but I'm glad to talk about the schools you applied to, look over your Personal Statements, etc. If it was a complete shutout I suspect there's some red flags that scared them.

I almost always agree to this but as someone formerly well acquainted with YDS - they strongly encourage prospective M* students to visit campus and/or interview with Admissions or a faculty member. By strongly, I know for a fact that good, strong applicants were only denied because they did not have an Adcom/faculty interview on file come review time and didn't feel that the applicant wanted YDS hard enough. YDS is probably the outlier on this but since they stress the importance of campus visits and an Adcom interview several times on their site, I always encourage applicants to tread lightly in opting not to make themselves known to Admissions folk. To be fair, I've seen a handful of students admitted without visiting but they had strong applications that there was no real use debating.

No, it's a pretty standard email from UCSB. I got similar letters from Yale, Union, and Vanderbilt way back when too. Some schools are known to try and "encourage" applicants to accept before April 15th. Schools like UCSB which may not attract students locked on the east coast particularly suffer from some of these tactics.

I think HDS has generally released on the Monday or Tuesday of the week having the 15th in it. This hasn't always been the case, sometimes the Friday before, and sometimes the Mon/Tue after the 15th. Either way, almost certainly next week but unlikely to be beyond the 19th.

Their argument is that if you were denied you need two years to show that you've bettered yourself to warrant a change of their opinion. Specifically they want you to have taken graduate-level coursework. Presumably you've been taking those courses in a program that you applied to Yale for, therefore making a transfer rather pointless but ?‍♂️

That's a great question and depends on if the applicant is a ministry or academic applicant. If academic: poor grades, low GRE, and little to no language preparation. Ministry is a little more complicated and will vary from school to school and even among scholarships being considered for.

Harvard doesn't technically have a ThD anymore but they don't have less doctoral slots to consider. ThD was just condensed into the PhD program since they found the distinguishing between ThD and PhD trivial since they had the same requirements and ThD students suffered on the job market b/c so many schools went "What's a ThD? Nah, we'll take the PhD from Harvard applicant instead." There's more at work there but that's neither here nor there. Also, Yale is looking at closing their Theology subfield per theology faculty there but that's a different matter. At two other schools I've worked at, we didn't know how many M* students we could actually take (by way of dole-ing out scholarships) until early to mid-February. Acceptances extended beyond us knowing were to two groups: 1) Top applicants and 2) Those we have no intention of extending any decent scholarship to, so we're expecting them to pay significantly. We also occasionally waited on releasing decisions to weak applicants that we expected weren't going to fair well anywhere else and certainly not get a scholarship. This way, our hope, is that they were desperate and would take our offer and the loans that it would require. It's certainly unfair and cruel but divinity school admissions is becoming more and more cutthroat so Provost/Chancellor-level offices are forcing us to play by unfair rules. On the flip side of a March 15 release - everyone finds out together. If they're anything like my current place, they start reviewing apps on a certain date and make decisions ASAP. The decision sits in a database until a certain time (sometimes for months) and then get sent out in batches. H&Y simply wait until 3/15 and hit Send for everyone.

There's a reported M.Div rejection from Notre Dame on 2/4 but that doesn't really tell us anything. Other than that, some schools simply don't report before 3/15 so we'll have to wait.

The FAQ could be helpful, provided it's stickied. Otherwise people will resort to ignoring it and there should be a general expectation that a lot of people will opt to ignore it or ask anyway. I know some Moderators active in History that are far less frequently active here. That said, perhaps they could still sticky such a FAQ. I'm not sure if they're limited to certain threads. There are a handful of subs on Reddit pertaining to seminaries and divinity schools but A LOT of them are set to private and you have to request access to them. As such, they're often fragmented and divided among denominations or academic interests. There's a much larger network of communities centered around graduate school admissions though again these tend to be somewhat fragmented. There's some cool subs on academic discussions on Second Temple Judaism and rabbinic literature, others on orthodox theology, etc -- if you're looking for schools in these areas, I'd absolutely hit them up! I know the Academic Biblical Studies sub has a nice community of PhD students and younger profs that use it for more "off the cuff" discussions. There use to be a handful of Facebook groups pertaining to admissions for graduate school. Unfortunately I think these have largely gone away/collapsed. That said, if you're looking for conservative bible colleges, there's quite a few communities left for those.

I'm also a fan of video games, habitual user of Reddit, and a rather prolific baker. Really I just do sourdoughs and things with sourdough starters (pretzels, pizza, cinnamon rolls, etc). I've developed a solid following at the local farmers' market and word of mouth.

I dug up my old post from last year. HDS' median GRE for M* applicants was 158V 157Q 4.0W. I'd need to find the forwarded information but I think this was 2017 data. I don't specifically recall if it was applicants or accepted.

Last year or so HDS' GRE scores for M* applicants was leaked and I shared it here, I think (maybe it was the Reddit sub, I'll check). They were holding an admissions event in China to recruit wealthy students and GRE scores were on some staff material that was left laying around. Through a friend of a friend a screenshot got forwarded to me. In short, GRE V scores for M* students is/was in the mid to high 150s from what I recall. Q scores are largely ignored unless you're interested in something rather analytical or heavy interests in philosophy. Writing scores are rather important but I can't recall what their guidelines were. MAR/MTS applications are more competitive but not by a huge margin. YDS' was sitting in the 40s, admitted wise, last time I made any hard checks. Chicago admits about 12 for their MDiv, which seems like it would mean significant competition but as the Director once told me - on a heavy year they get 20 applications. Not that long ago they maintained a near 100% acceptance rate. Then again, applicants to elite M* programs in Religion tend to be self-selecting and there's a bit of a poor perception of them (I can't afford it, I'm not smart enough to get in, don't have the pedigree, etc...) among applicants. In reality, they tend to be well funded, not that competitive, and they favor more whole-person analysis than their respective UG schools.

Syracuse's Religion "long list" has been finalized. In short: there's candidates that they accept outright and won't bother interviewing, a group they interview, those that go on a waitlist, and then rejects. Officially university policy says they can start sending out notifications on the third Monday of February but that doesn't mean anything - every department breaks it. They set this deadline because really competitive applicants are kicked up to the university level for fellowship consideration. If the applicant is chosen they get get funding from the university and it frees up the department to admit an additional student. So, most departments tend to wait to see how that jockeying game plays out. If they got a fellowship last year then their chances of one the next year are about 0% unless it's Maxwell or one of the big name schools.

I cannot immediately recall ever coming across a PhD alum of JTS. That said, the language on their website, faculty, and current students suggests that it is still a very religiously oriented program. There is a heavy focus on Rabbinic literature and philosophy, with a showing of modern critical analysis. Just because a school offers a PhD does not mean that it's void of a religious bias. I know of someone that did an MA there and left. She mentioned that all classes, at least her's, were taught fully in Hebrew and students were expected to converse in it while on school property.

Stats and experience, you're fine. Are you looking for ministerial training (primarily) or simply wanting to use this degree as a stepping stone into a PhD? That will help with deciding between some schools. You won't be accepted into any of these schools for a PhD without a M* in some religious studies/theology field. I think you already know this and are interested in a M* though. Another major issue will be finances. MDivs are largely better funded but some schools fund better than others. Harvard and Yale tend to fund very well, with graduates leaving with little to no debt. Duke and Union, you can probably expect something around 30-50% barring something in your app that you didn't tell us about. Princeton caps at 80% for non-PCUSA or at least did, I still believe that's the case. I imagine the rest would fall in line with Duke and Union but I can't be sure. Of your list, only Harvard requires the GRE. It's waived if you already have a graduate degree.

What are your career aspirations? Are you hoping to go on to a PhD or do you have other aspirations?

You were selected to present to your fellow students at the same school? I, personally, wouldn't bother with it. At this point in the application process initial, and likely final, decisions have already been made and you're likely to be seen as grasping at straws.