11Q13

I have an offer at a university in the OKC area to be an assistant professor and I'm wondering, since the last reply to this was from 2017, if anyone can update me about life around OKC in the post-Trump era. First, I would have a salary of 50k (pre-tax), is that enough to live comfortably in a one-bedroom apartment (in unit washer/dryer) in a nice part of town? What are the cool places of town to live in if I want to be social? Should I try to move to the OU neighborhood even if that's not where I will be working or would downtown OKC be better? I wouldn't mind commuting 30 minutes or so to work.

I got into Harvard with a messy transcript and taking six years for undergrad. It all depends on why. Also, most schools will have application fee waivers, so look into that if the expense of applying is a concern.

As the only single guy (who wasn't a priest) for a couple years, this is very true in the PhD. My solution to it was that I made friends with the philosophers, English folks, and engineering grad students who are mostly single. Just meant that I spent time with the family oriented theology PhDs in other contexts like church picnics and bbqs.

I don't know what kind of tour you took or if it was decades ago, but it sounds like you're really misinformed. The area around campus is really posh if anything, nothing but brand new townhouses and apartments. The adjacent town of Mishawaka is also fairly affluent. Going to ND, within a fifteen minute drive you have your choice of anything from a McMansion to the ghetto, and there's also the on-campus housing somewhere in between.

It's cheap to live there because of steel and auto manufacturing collapse of half a century ago meant more housing than people needed and problems with poverty. Nothing to do with Notre Dame. I suppose it really depends on your interests, but I lived there for five years and was never bored. There are a ton of intellectually stimulating events going on constantly, including a steady stream of Theology events, Notre Dame has fantastic sports obviously, there's a great local craft beer scene, and plenty of nature around. If you really need to get away, you can take the train to Chicago. You also need a major reality check if you think you'll have a lot of time on your hands, though. You have two years. You will spend most of your time in the amazing library.

I'm biased perhaps, but I think your first move should be to follow the money. Notre Dame is offering you more, and it's also very cheap to live there. There is also a strong theology community at ND as well, and the department is looked up to and highly respected across the rest of the university, unlike Yale where they will think of you as those weird wizards up on the hill.

You won't know if you don't try. You can compensate for the GPA in a couple obvious ways: Do really well on the GRE "For my last 96 credits, my cumulative GPA is at a 3.97." Put this very early on in your application essay, and point out that your abysmal GPA happened in a past life. Don't dwell on it, though, move on quickly.

Oof

April 15 is the official "s*** or get of the pot" day, regardless of when the offer was made. It's an official policy that virtually all US programs abide by.

The QS world rankings for 2020 puts Harvard I think at #4 in Theology and Religion, no idea where BC is, but definitely not close.

This was basically my experience and also my reasoning. I was moderate/traditional and felt rather out of place there among the student body. There will be Catholics there, but they will also likely be very far left. That said, my relationships with the faculty (some of whom are more traditional) were fine. I certainly have no regrets going there though and your viewpoints will contribute to the diversity of HDS.

You should look at Harvard Divinity if these are your interests. Claremont in particular is horrible for funding, even if they do specialize in process stuff. Harvard will pay much better and open more doors.

The Harvard MDiv may be better suited to you and it is easier to get into than the MTS. The MDiv (unlike the MTS) does not expect any previous work in religious studies. Harvard is not a Christian seminary, so you should not be concerned about that with the MDiv.

Harvard and probably other schools have joint programs in law and Theology. I think you'd be a very attractive non-traditional applicant to many PhD programs in the US.

With a crappy GPA like that, the last thing you want to do is waive the GRE. You should take the GRE, and get a very high score, ideally close to perfect (except for the math). You would then explain your circumstance regarding your poor GPA, and say, "look, I am actually very bright, as you can see by how well I did on the GRE." I'd say that's your best chance for success.

Bazzana is great. I was his RA years back. He's not going anywhere anytime soon as far as I know.

Harvard would open a lot more doors for you, though KU Leuven would honestly probably be just as good if not better for NT and EC. In a NT class at Harvard, you may only have a couple people who are Christians or actually studying the NT, simply because Harvard is a pluralistic place. Nasrallah is also leaving, so their NT faculty is kind of empty. All that said, Harvard is still the correct professional decision.

You haven't told us what you're studying, so we can't help you. They are very different or the same, depending.

BC shouldn't really be in this picture if you have ambitions for doctoral work. It's not the same level as the other two, though you may be right that you might feel out of place at Harvard. I'm a fairly moderate Methodist and I felt out of place there almost ten years ago. I'm sure I'd be branded a Nazi within 5 minutes these days. Yale has a similar climate. From the interests you describe, Harvard sounds like the best fit. FWIW, I also matriculated without a full scholarship, and pleaded to the appropriate parties and received a full scholarship my second year.

It's simply the most competitive MTS program there is, and they also give a certain preference to Catholics. Back in the day I was accepted to the MTS at Harvard, Yale, Duke, Emory, Vanderbilt, etc... and was rejected by ND.

Sounds like you've got a much better head on your shoulders than I did when I was undergrad. One route you might not have though of is to do a Fulbright after you graduate, somewhere in the Middle East. It will help on applications for certain, and is fully funded.

Actually I think that there is perhaps more risk in writing a book review than about anything else and that graduate students should avoid writing them like the plague. They count for nothing and can only do you harm. There are none of the benefits of peer review or getting familiar with the publishing mechanics and if it's a good, very positive review it will do nothing, which is the best case scenario. If you are critical in your review all that will be accomplished is that you will have made an enemy of a scholar more senior than you, and you will risk coming off as an upstart, which is a major problem for some graduate students. Your time would be better spent reading more books, and even if you do write one, it will probably serve you best to save it for your own reference rather than publication.

I would counter that publishing is a bad idea. During my MA I published some dictionary articles and it was super helpful for giving me an opportunity to sort of learn the ropes of publication and make all the mistakes there in a low stakes publication. Alternatively you could wait until you're in a PhD or finished to publicly embarrass yourself...but I'd not recommend it. Other advice, find a mentor in your first or second semester at the latest. You want someone to root for you to get in to a PhD, that will feel a little bit of shame if you don't succeed. With a lot of the top schools your letter of rec from scholar A, so-and-so's buddy at school B, will be what gets you in. The other benefit is that you won't need to rely on the grad cafe for advice.

I did an MTS at HDS in Jewish Studies back in '12 Even if you're not particularly interested in studying early Christianity, having other students with interests in Christianity and the Bible generally I'm sure would help in terms of the overall academic environment. At HDS only a small part of the student body has any interest in anything to do with the Bible or Judaism or Christianity. I knew it wasn't a Christian seminary going in, but it didn't hit me that most of the people at HDS, including a lot of people in my classes would not know much about these subjects that I took for granted. I wouldn't worry too much about Levenson leaving if your interest is Second Temple. Andy Teeter and Shaye Cohen are the two you should work with in Second Temple anyway. That said, I would caution against focusing too much on "Second Temple Studies" as though focusing strongly on that will prepare you for a PhD or a job. There aren't jobs in Second Temple studies, and PhD programs would rather you focus on, say, Hebrew Bible or early Christianity and show that your emphasis is in the Second Temple context with your language prep and coursework. I say this as someone at Notre Dame, where Second Temple is still a big deal. We reject applicants every year because they are too focused on Second Temple Judaism or DSS to the exclusion of either HB or NT.

I had 5 or so Ws, a 3.72 GPA, and major in Bible. I attended HDS. If you say your Ws were due to health issues, you'll be fine if the rest of your app is strong.