Statianus

Right, so your problem is more with the discipline than the departments themselves. It seems that those who chose UT and UC, irrespective of final placement outcomes for this programs, have made a good choice for their area of interest. This is probably a issue of translation-failure. In my country, classics and archaeology are generally grouped together as 'the school of classics and archaeology'. Archaeology students may complete their training with minimal classical background (I would never have called a Bronze age archaeologist a classical archaeologist). Undergraduates go on digs in Israel as well as in their own region. The archaeology school generally has little relationship with the school of anthropology, but has a happy friendship with classics. The problem you describe seems more of a US problem. I have no idea why a Bronze age archaeologist would be suspect to classicists.

Ok, I think I will add my information now that the dust has settled. Accepted at Yale, Colorado. Waitlisted at Harvard. Rejected at Princeton, Michigan, Cornell, Chicago, Toronto, Illinois (or so I assume). GRE: 162 (V), 154 (Q), 5.5 (A) GPA: I am an international student and do not have a GPA. I generally just made it up in my applications. Other stuff: year and a half of teaching experience in beginners Latin, intermediate Latin, Classical mythology, Roman history. 1 publication. 2 book reviews. A few conference presentations. Hold an MA and BA. Languages: 1 year of German. Four years of both Latin and Greek coursework Reading list: comparable to what actual_entity has with more Latin than Greek. Advice: contact professors whom you are interested in first. Find out if they are moving, retiring, interested in your proposed projects, etc.

Reading this article, it seems that US graduates have a lot of power negotiating their offers. One of the people interviewed actually said they allow ten days for negotiation. The issue here seemed to be twofold: 1. the accepted candidate did not negotiate in an appropriate way; 2. the college rescinded the offer rather than reply to queries. It seems that the accepted candidate did not understand that this was primarily a teaching institution (wanting a research sabbatical, deferred commencement to complete post-doc, capped teaching load, etc) It seems that your issue is related to the discipline rather than UT and UC themselves. Sure, there simply aren't many jobs available in bronze-age archaeology, but if a graduate student does decide to pursue this area, these are probably the best institutions to attend. (And why wouldn't a Bronze-age archaeologist be considered an archaeologist? There are many dig-sites directed by Bronze-age archaeologists. Why would you even say that?)

As I understand, Yale has offered so many places with the expectation that only four to five will accept. This is not a new practice. It has done it before. If, however, more than four accept, the school will be penalised the next year and be forced to admit fewer applicants. As an incoming Yalie, I can say that I know what the stakes are. I am fully apprised of the fact that not all graduates make tenure-track positions. This information is easily accessible on their website and the DGS and head of department also went over this with me. To be honest, I am not alarmed. I am an international student and from where I come from, very few PhD graduates obtain a senior lectureship because there is a preference for UK and US graduates. Most of our graduates continue in casual positions for years or else reapply their training to other careers - teaching, editing, curating. And I would be happy with those non-academic jobs.

I have to say that this application process is weird and surprising and agonising. I am interviewing with Harvard and Yale, but not Michigan, Illinois or Chicago. It doesn't even seem about fit. It's just random. Congratulations to all who have received good news; to the rest, just take note that the selection process can be unpredictable.

It's a stressful time for everyone here. I think the best course of action is patience and waiting.

Thanks Chelone. I think I will go but will need to check with my faculty whether they can give me three days off. I am definitely interested.

Invited to visit Yale. I will need to seriously consider this because I am teaching Latin at the moment and missing three days is quite a financial loss. I feel very privileged for this opportunity and very very excited to meet the faculty, but it does come at an inopportune time for me. Does anyone know how important these campus visits are? Professor Bakker said they were inviting 16 people and I assume they need to narrow this down quite a bit.

People do get into top programs with only two years of Greek and nearly all programs explicitly say that they require two years of the weaker language as a minimum. I have a friend who got into Cornell with only two years. So your language preparation is by no means a deal-breaker.

Working through the Odyssey (ah, so many intricate descriptions of wool making and parts of ships) and Lucan's BC (nothing like graphically violent civil war).

That genie is a jerk.

No! Silius is amazing. But yes, more Greek tragedy. And definitely comedy. Will anyone come out and ask for the lost books of Livy?

One of my lecturers once said that he was asked in a job interview what three texts he would wish did not survive and what three he would wish to replace them. That could be a fun game to play here. I'll start with what I wish survived, 1. Ovid's Medea. 2. The rest of Callimachus' Aetia. 3. The rest of Petronius' Satyricon. What to do away with... 1. Frontinus. All of it. 2. Vitruvius. Ok, I give up. I couldn't wish anything to go, not even if they wrote about architecture or military strategy. Congrats to everyone who has heard good news! All the best for the coming weeks!

Sorry, I didn't have anyone in mind when writing that. I hope it didn't come across as aggressive. As I said, I can't give a verdict myself on what languages are needed in philosophy or to what extent. I suspect it varies between different areas of philosophy. I just wanted to give my own experience and be part of the conversation. And anyway, I never accused anyone of saying that language requirements are worthless or that google translate gives perfect translations. Everyone had very thoughtful responses.

Not disagreeing with you. I have only ever taken classical philosophy; I couldn't comment, and certainly didn't want to comment, on all philosophy. I was just writing earlier in response to a few comments that language requirements are redundant because of google translate or other technologies. If there is frequent publications in a foreign language in a given field, I don't think google translate is practical or reliable.