Epaphroditus

There's another recent thread on this board about reaching out to potential PhD supervisors, which is relevant for your question. Meeting up with profs in your field (NT) will not increase your chances, if by that you mean it will make them more likely to accept you. Meeting with faculty can help your chances by helping you discern whether you'd want to work with them and whether you're a good fit for the school. Meeting with them could also help you refine your statement of purpose based on how they respond to your proposed research focus. However, it's not worth it to go to SBL just to do that. You could honestly ask them the same questions by email.

Duke (GPR) decisions are out. Unfortunately, I was waitlisted.

For those of you with multiple offers. Be ruthless in your evaluations. Don't let POIs sweet talk you. Don't assume that because your POI is famous they are good at helping their students get jobs. Check track records. Look at their last 7-10 supervised dissertations and see how many of those people got jobs. You'd be surprised how many slightly less famous professors have a better placement record because they go out and do work for their own. Ask for department placement statistics. Also, don't pick a school just for a POI. You have to take classes with a lot of people and you never know what the internal politics are like. Pick the school that is most likely to land you a job. The reality is that the quality of the education is essentially the same at tier 1 and near tier 1 schools and everyone knows it, but the name of your school matters a lot in the job hunt. If you have a POI you love at a near tier 1 and a POI you just feel pretty good about at an elite place, (assuming there aren't other factors) you should go with the more elite school. Don't worry about anyone's feelings. They didn't give a shit about yours until they decided they wanted you. 

Just got into Baylor (NT)! Also, Yale decisions are out. I was waitlisted - did anyone get accepted into Yale for NT?

I just re-read the email from Baylor and the email specifically says business casual will be fine for all activities, so I don't think you need to wear a full suit (I know I won't).

Accepted to UT Austin (Ancient Mediterranean Religions)

I asked Carol Rush at Duke and she said all interview invites have already gone out.

All Duke ThD interview invites have gone out, and I think what the admissions person is referring to is the fact that the Duke Div admissions committee is meeting next week to make decisions after all interviews are finished. Then, acceptances will go out and those on the waitlist will be notified.

That doesn’t apply to Baylor. They invite more people to their interview weekend than there are spots in their programs, so the students are competing.
I really think the idea of a “non-competitive” interview weekend only applies to Duke’s PhD program.

That doesn’t apply to Baylor. They invite more people to their interview weekend than there are spots in their programs, so the students are competing.
I really think the idea of a “non-competitive” interview weekend only applies to Duke’s PhD program.

All ThD interviews, which are competitive, are by Skype (even for local candidates) and happening this week.

Thanks for the update! My guess (hope?) would be later this week, since next week wouldn't give a lot of time to plan for the interview weekend. Carol Rush told me 8 people would be invited to the weekend, which is the weekend of Feb 16.

Thought I was out of the running, but just got invited to interview at Emory for NT! I guess I'll be seeing some of you there.

Thought I was out of the running, but just got invited to interview at Emory for NT! I guess I'll be seeing some of you there.

Thought I was out of the running, but just got invited to interview at Emory for NT! I guess I'll be seeing some of you there.

I saw in the results that someone posted an interview invite for HB at PTS.

Congratulations!!!!! See you in Texas soon!

No worries. As it so happens, I just received notification that I was invited to Baylor's preview weekend! 

Thought I should post an update since I started this thread. I got an email yesterday afternoon for a Skype interview at Princeton Seminary! Finally, some news. I'm applying for NT.
Related to this - any advice on these kinds of interviews? I was told it would be short, maybe 10 minutes.

I'm pretty sure you're required to wear no pants during a Skype interview and hope you never have to stand up. I think they call it "Business on the top, Party on the bottom."

Even though some of this is straightforward, I'll say it anyway. 
1. Dress like it is an in person interview. 
2. Make sure you have a clean room, a wall without anything distracting, and good lighting where you sit. If possible, use a room where you can have an ethernet connection rather than WiFi; better to have faster more stable internet than to freeze up during your interview. 
3. Work on your answers to typical interview questions. Read everything you can on the program and tailor them to the school. Make them concise and brief. If you ramble, you waste time for other questions or substantial answers. If you get answers down from two minutes to one minute, even with ones like research focus, why you are interested in their school, and influences in your scholarship, you will almost double the amount of questions you can answer/the information they learn about you. 
4. Have at least one or two good, substantial questions about the program. 
5. If you have a smaller laptop, it may be helpful to set it on a couple books or a box so you don't look slouched or hunched over but are looking straight ahead. 

I say turn it in "late." I think what happened is the department website listed Jan 2, but the graduate school website had the official Dec 15 deadline. Since they probably can't change the grad school app system this late in the game, they're accepting apps until Jan 2, even though the grad school system will mark them as "late." I don't think it will affect your chances. A less polished writing sample would, though.

I think last year the deadline was Dec 16, but the GDR website said the 28th, which they updated a day before the Dec 16 deadline to the 16th.

The first of my apps are due Dec 1st and I keep second guessing my qualifications and app materials. "The SOP isn't quite good enough, or my LORs might not be the greatest, etc. etc."
January can't come soon enough...

I know I'm a) old-fashioned about this and b ) just a pre-candidacy graduate student, but I think it's weird when people don't have undergraduate coursework in like, art and oceanography. Where was your curiosity? Didn't your school have distribution requirements? Even if you've always known exactly what you wanted to do, didn't you want to learn a bit about the rest of the world's kinds of knowledge? You have two good master's in your subject, it's clear that you are now committed—and it is not a flaw not to have been committed by the age of 17.