xypathos

I spent some time at Villanova in their theology department, glad to answer whatever questions you might have. They admit four (funded) spots but I've been told that interview slots can be as high as 2-3x that. Most of the students are self-funded - a lot of trust fund babies and military vets using their GI Bill to fund their PhD.

Yes they fund you but getting by on that is another issue.

Wouldn't Dallas' (Univ. of Dallas) program have to be fairly less selective by its nature? Maybe even borderline safety. IPS maxes an incoming student's stipend at $3,500 last I spoke with the director. Most second, and onward, students have to compete for living stipends from various foundations and scholarships. The students that I've spoken with have said they've taken jobs teaching philosophy and/or religion at local private schools in order to pay rent and not starve.

I concur with @Averroes MD - getting into a PhD program in Religious Ethics without specific coursework in that field, probably won't happen. If you want to study religious ethics at Harvard's Committee on the Study of Religion you'll need to look through their faculty and find one that has a field in relation to yours. Columbia doesn't have a divinity school but Columbia University has a very close relationship with Union Theological. The latter does have a PhD program where you can specialize in ethics, and you'll see Columbia and Union students taking courses at the other school. I will also add that Columbia University has their own program in Religious Studies with a strong emphasis throughout Asian religions so I know they'll have faculty that will be of interest to you. We just don't get a lot of posters interested in Columbia and I don't think I've personally met a Columbia grad (I think they're exceptionally strong in asian and broader ME studies and I'm just not in that arena so it's ignorance on my part). I think I agree with Averroes MD's comments regarding your degree from Chicago's Graham School. Religious Studies, and the academy at-large, is largely still an old white man's club and part of that is pedigree and not intentionally misrepresenting yourself. People from Graham and Harvard Extension have gone on to great PhD programs, just be mindful of how you represent yourself.

It's going to vary depending on master's or PhD, subfield, etc. That said, "near-publishable quality" shouldn't be taken to literally mean that you tried to get it published. Rather, the paper should be research oriented, addressing a substantial philosophical argument or a paper that shows your ability to entice out nuances in extremely difficult material. Faculty don't want to read your book report or your glorified timeline of 20th C. French existentialism. The former works are quality that editors love to put in their journal. The latter faculty make themselves read after their fifth whisky. I think Brown's guidelines for prospective philosophy applicants is the best there is.

MDiv or MTS? I presume MTS given the more academic nature of interests but this is important to know. Knowing which degree you want, if helpful, would also help us craft your PS and topics to stay away from or ones not to spend too much time on. It's probably too late but double check that the schools you're applying to actually want the GRE. The vast majority of M* programs don't require it and some specifically ask you not to send them. That said, a 160V is a good score for master's programs. The reality is that you *might* need to retake it to get in the 163+ range but cross that bridge later. Outside of university "topping off" scholarships, no one cares about Q scores and these rarely go to people in the Humanities anyway. If you're wanting to really get into monasticism-proper and what's driving these pockets of resurgance I'd take a second look at this list. I haven't looked at Harvard's faculty in a hot minute but I know there are plenty of opportunities to engage Buddhist and Hindu monasticism, but other than the occasional Jesuit faculty member, I don't know what else HDS has to offer. That said, maybe there's someone over in CSR doing something. For me, as an episcopal priest, having access to SSJE in Cambridge would be great and BTI as a whole. My gut with Yale is more or less the same. I know Stephen Davis works in this area sometimes, and I know people over in the History department that do as well. My concern, probably minor, is that monasticism at either Yale or Harvard, if that is what you want to do, will be piecemeal. Why BU? BC would be great here too. Again, it also gives you access to BTI. CUA makes sense. I'd look at Notre Dame too. Unless you have an interest in material culture, I would mention it in passing - a sentence or two. It's unique and speaks to you but that's about it. My advice might change depending on what type of degree you want and a more refined research statement/interests. But, I'm not sure I'd spend real estate in my SOP on it. A quasi-economic study about the resurgence of contemporary monasticism could be interesting but nothing you've said says you're interested in economic research/history. Put it in your resume until something bigger comes along. I'd probably fancy this up and spin it into you talking about interests in digital humanities, archival work, etc. I don't know that I'd necessarily tie digitizing baptismal records to rose-tinted goggles of Catholicism. I would significantly narrow down your info on language experience ONLY to those languages pertinent to your interests (and those that you're willing to study further should your advisor and/or committee want it) and don't mention any of the others. Obviously speak to Latin, but very succinctly, speak to the various ways that you were involved. Under no circumstance should you write about where you attended high school. The only way this story comes across is you throwing shade and insulting Harvard, "You only exist because of my high school!" which is akin to "ergo, we're technically better than you!" It's made even more problematic due to the fact that you didn't attend Harvard or one of their rivals. HDS being a top choice is fine but it needs more justification than "You have this one course, you're willing to hire Catholics, and you're not too conservative." Regarding the course you want to take, I think Dr. Fiorenza teaches that to undergrads. I'm not sure on HDS' policy on students being allowed to take undergrad courses. Sometimes you can if you do extra work and sometimes it's an automatic no.

For Hindu Studies, that's about it in the US. If you're open to going abroad, Oxford has a strong reputation.

I'll second @sacklunch here in that your focus needs to be on the M* degree. The PhD application is going to be 2-3 years away, at best. My second bit of advice, if you want to be in a PhD program and make that as easy as possible - attend a school with a PhD program. On that end, you're on the right track. I'd look at Harvard, Yale, Duke, Chicago, and Princeton. Backups to that, Vanderbilt and Emory - not sure about anywhere else. As already noted, you need a backup plan. Theology professor jobs in mainstream colleges/universities are rare, and I do mean exceptionally rare. Even schools like Yale, Harvard, Princeton (PTS), etc are struggling to place PhD graduates in theology. There is an increasing belief, rightfully so I think, that theology has limited/no place in Religious Studies departments. As such, most are being hired by divinity schools and seminaries, where an increasing number of faculty are working into their 70s and 80s, reducing jobs and schools are cutting those positions.

My question to you is what do you hope to change/effect by disclosing it? Your PS is about the only place that this would fit and I'd keep it short and simple. Again, address why you're bringing it up. As someone that worked in admissions for religious studies departments though, if it doesn't impact your abilities and it's not directly pertinent to your research, we saw it as the applicant trying to milk pity points. If it's something you need accommodations for, most universities don't allow, or discourage, students from going to professors directly. Your location says Ontario so I can't speak to Canada specifically.

Duke tends to take about six weeks to respond so I'd say expect something by mid-December. Princeton, I don't recall, the results listing seems to signify a lot of responses coming out in February but I don't know when they all applied. Duke's financial aid is either really good or really bad. I don't hear of there being much middle ground with them. Princeton funds PCUSA members at 100% and everyone else generally at 80%.

I’d also add FSU and Yale, though I don’t know what their admissions look like this fall.

Could you say more about wanting a Bible-based program, yet not fundamentalist? Also, why not Catholic? On the latter, you'd be hard pressed to find a reputable seminary/divinity school that doesn't have a number of catholics on faculty. Catholics have often lead the way in regards to public theology and activism so I'm not sure about writing them off. Unless your GPA is absolutely atrocious, I would absolutely not write off ANY of the schools you listed at the bottom. I spent my freshman year of college on academic probation and sophomore year barely above it. While my next two years were a near perfect 4.0, I also had extensive courses from other schools, nine schools in fact! Standard BAs are 120 credits and by the time I started at Vanderbilt I had just under 300 undergraduate credits and they were all over the damn place. If you look at retention rates supplied by the federal government, most students take 4.5-5 years to graduate college. Graduating in four is increasingly becoming rarer and a sign of privilege, even for middle class families. Do not write yourself off! The acceptance rate for Mdiv programs, even competitive ones like Harvard and Yale, is 30-50%. Schools like Vanderbilt, where I did my Mdiv, has an incoming class of about 100 students! Rather than thinking of transferring and five years as a deficit (they aren't!), frame these experiences in a way that speaks to what you learned about yourself, things you pursued, etc! Union Theological is a great school and I almost went there but their financial aid is bad. There's no way to sugarcoat that. So, unless you're independently wealthy, it's something else that you need to consider. Harvard and Yale have generally been generous with aid. I believe, on principle, that everyone at Princeton gets an 80% offer? I'd look into that, I know PCUSA gets 100%. Also, if you're serious about chaplaincy, Princeton really calls the shots when it comes it practical theology and the offerings they have for students. It's also an easy commute into the wider NYC area. Vanderbilt's aid is bad and living in Nashville-proper is out of reach for most people, even with a full-time job. Most of my classmates lived 20-60 minutes from campus and were taking out 20-40k in loans EVERY year, I personally know of about two dozen of my cohort that left VDS with graduate loans in excess of 100k. They're fucked. Chicago would be great but the Mdiv program is small, 20-30'ish students I believe, but they're very generous with aid!

It can be. It can also hurt you - it's all about how you go about it. It also comes down to why you're unhappy. Admittedly though I'd say that most of my cohort, old and new school, were unhappy with a great deal of doctoral life. I transferred several years back from a conservative catholic program to a mainline program in the southeast. It required my old advisor reaching out to programs on my behalf and he referred me to who would become my advisor in the new program. If you're already a candidate, I would seriously consider NOT leaving. Almost universally, when leaving one program to go to another you repeat ALL coursework. Reach out to your advisor if you want this to be successful. They will be hurt and maybe it's something they can help alleviate but if not you don't want them angry. Any potential new advisor is going to reach out and see WTF happened so word is going to get out - control it. If you want to talk specifics we can, shoot me a PM.

That'll come but for the time being a number of former consulting colleagues have said some of the top private universities are looking hard at Disaggregated Faculty Models of operation. In these systems you have a faculty member responsible for teaching and then a different person who is responsible for evaluation of student's work. The obvious downside to this - not much need for a TA. While grading is often a TA's responsibility, this system generally relies on someone only doing grading and not needing mentoring, training, etc along the way. There's a lot more downside too but that's a longer post. A major university in the northeast has this system rolled out to their part-time/non-traditional students already but they've taken it a step further. The instruction is done via prerecorded lectures and then grading done via, at a minimum, master's level educated examiners. Faculty are paid a royalty per student so some have really focused on quality while others have opted for quantity. Its been at work now for two years and slated to be rolled out to the wider undergraduate body for online courses by 2025. I know of another 10-12 universities that have working groups working on various models of this system, most of them actively talking about phasing out a number of PhD slots as a result. Simply, it's cheaper to pay someone at a laptop to grade than to train up another faculty member.

USC has had a PhD in Religion at least since the 70s but become increasingly constricted over the years in what you can study. Being where they are and their funding package, the only way you can survive there is being independently wealthy, a partner working, or student loans. As such, they're a small program and largely focus on Asian religions and Islam. If their current graduate student list is up to date, it looks like they take a Christian-focused student every other year. I've never met anyone from USC but that doesn't mean anything, I don't work in Asian religions or Islam. UGA is super new, I think they took their first cohort in 2017/8? If that's right, they haven't graduated anyone yet. My concerns there is that UGA relies heavily on instructors (non-tenure eligible faculty) and a number of their faculty have doctorates from conservative theological schools and they're working in a public university. For me, that raises a serious red flag. Also, a number of their research interests that they're capable of supervising don't have faculty listed with any expertise in that field. Also, a number of their faculty haven't even built a faculty page so you don't know what they're working on unless you go digging for publications - maybe a yellow flag but it's lazy on their part. Given the state of the job market in religion, I was shocked when they announced they were opening a program - I don't think the market will be kind to their graduates.

French children's literature is probably going to be a bit too specific - in that you risk your application pool potentially being too small. That said, I'd look at Pitt's Critical and Cultural Studies PhD. They have a good sized graduate certificate in Children's Lit. I'd also encourage reaching out to Courtney Weikle-Mills, she's on faculty at Pitt and Director of the Children's Lit program. She'd probably be the best person to recommend other programs too!

I noticed even before replying but it's something that comes up every year, so I think it's useful to have it closer to the top. That's to say that your advice is useful so don't feel bad!

Rivera didn't go to HDS directly from Drew though, which is important to note. The prestige of your school (more so your specific faculty) is helpful in getting your first appointment but the more you're removed from that, it's on you. The fact is though the vast majority of Drew graduates languish on the job market at lower end schools, cobbling together adjunct work until, hopefully, they land a TT-eligible position some number of years down the road. This isn't a problem specific to Drew though, it's everyone - even schools like Yale and Harvard have graduates going onto second and third rate schools b/c that's all that is available with the market the way it is. With RS/theology degrees at a large number of schools taking 7+ years to do, departments downsizing, etc it will only get worse. Anyway, ranking schools in such a diverse and interdisciplinary field like Religious Studies (inc. of theology) is just plain stupid. That said, I have contemplated a consolidated directory of programs and an easy enough sorting list based on broad faculty expertise that could be updated within seconds. I know from my own application time that there were schools I missed with solid 1-2 faculty simply because I didn't know the school had a graduate program in RS or related field.

I don’t know TST’s policy but generally if you took NT1 as an undergrad and it was relatively recent, schools will let you skip it. Generally I encourage people to accept these kind of opportunities. The only real downside that I see is that these foundational courses are where incoming students really get to know one another. Well, more so the study groups and coffee meetings between classes. So, still try to take advantage of these and be a face that people know!

Even if you rate yourself a workaholic, I'd never encourage someone to take more than three courses their first semester. The work expected of you is going to be higher than as a M* student. On top of that, and this is school dependent, but you're going to be encouraged to take on administrative responsibilities too - sitting on a committee (mostly), and probably other small things. All of this is in addition to balancing social and personal responsibilities. Start at three and see how you feel in the spring. Keep in mind though that as you get settled into the program they tend to ask more of you.

I’m assuming as a master’s applicant? Did you apply specifically for an online program? Anyway, master’s programs at seminaries generally have very high acceptance rates so presuming your background isn’t completely atrocious, probably about 100%. I think Fuller still advertises as the largest seminary in the US. If so, you don’t get there by being selective.

Chicago isn't a confessionally Christian school but of their Div student, most would tell you that they identify as "Christian" - whatever that might mean for them. You're going to have Roman Catholics studying alongside various persuasions of Baptists, to those nominally Christian but say they're still figuring out what that means for them, etc. All this is to say is that you (IMO!) want this in a student body. If your classmates come in saying "I am 100% [this]" and they leave having never struggled with that, had long and hard conversations with students and faculty about their doubts, etc - stay away from the school and/or you're not ready. I know Duke offers a M.Div and MPP (Public Policy). Yale, I think, would let a student propose such a study. HDS students could do the same. Vandy has a number of students dual enrolled in other programs, including law or taking graduate courses in government/poly sci/etc. If you're really wanting to focus on the German, I know a number of Lutheran schools have arrangements for students to spend .5 a year, to a full year, in Germany.

Getting your M* and PhD at the same institution is perfectly fine, don't worry about it! The only concern is people who get their BA, M*, and PhD at the same school. Having your MA advisor potentially be your PhD advisor would be great. On the one hand, it can literally personally vouch for you come Admissions. Second, y'all already know each other really well. Yes, he can absolutely write your LOR and advocate for you. Every department/school does it differently. Some are so small that everyone essentially sits on the Admissions Committee whereas others have faculty rotate. He'll be able to tell you how they do it. Just ask him! "I've really come to enjoy having you as an advisor and I'd love to consider staying on as a PhD student. By chance would you be able to take on a student and potentially be my advisor? By chance do you have any advice for me as I look to apply?" Something like that, short and sweet!

Regarding succession, it depends on how technical you want to get. Anglican historians contend that Matthew Parker's consecration as Bishop of Canterbury fulfilled all of the "mechanical/manual" requirements, which the Roman Catholic agreed with. But, Rome contended that there was a problem with "form" and rendered it null and void on this premise. Keep in mind that Parker's consecration happened in the 16th century and it wasn't until the 19th century that Rome drafted a resolution opposing Parker's consecration. The theory is that someone in attendance kept meticulous records, which Rome conveniently obtained, but unfortunately were unable to share. Anglicans just laughed and ignored them. A former professor once shared a pithy saying about it but I don't fully recall it. In short, it's a rebuke that apostolic succession is not actually about literal laying on hands but instead commitment to the Church's original teaching. Per England, yes - episcopal priests ordained within TEC are capable of serving anywhere within the Anglican Communion. That said, it's not easy but not exactly hard! The big issue that you're going to face is the country's immigration laws but fortunately the UK is fairly lax when it comes to clergy. The second issue is justifying why you need/want to serve in the UK rather than the US, where you were ordained. If you're willing to serve in an area that Anglican priests consider less desirable - Liverpool, far upper northern England, etc., it's generally easier to find a diocese or parish willing to go to bat for you. By policy though UK bishops require that you interview in person though. So that can be a heavy expense! Regarding academics in the UK: several times a year UK schools open up fellowships for priests ordained within the Anglican Communion to come to a UK school (usually Oxford, Cambridge, or Durham) and study for a DPhil (completely free with room and board), in exchange for working as a college chaplain for 3-5 years. These positions are extremely competitive but fortunately they rarely take a EU citizen. Also, you still have to go through the normal process of applying and finding a faculty member to sponsor you so it's not a shortcut at all.

No worries on the Covid-19 front. It'll be interesting to see how this all impacts discernment processes for people. That said, it'll give you a glimpse of liturgy at least. Something I want to stress though is that TEC is a wide tent. We have your low church parishes that your Methodist and Baptist would find to be very familiar, and we also have very high church parishes that are virtually indistinguishable from Catholic parishes. So don't be afraid to go church shopping. Apostolic succession is still live and well in The Episcopal Church (TEC). If they're genuinely your friends, they'll understand that you're seeking out something that feels authentic to you. I tend to not get engaged with people that want to fight over orthodoxy. It's a losing battle when you consider the full scope of history and what orthodoxy entails. No one calls themselves heterodox - it's only used by people that want to create a fake litmus test to what it means to be Christian. Simply, it's a move that values power over relationship.