LateAntique

*whew* - I was starting to feel like a slacker!

I'm applying for a few reasons: 1) David Levenson - the guy is an absolute polymath. He teaches a bazillion different languages, is great for primary sources, and we share an interest in Julian the Apostate. 2) Their close ties with Classics - being that I'm a Classicist as well, I can appreciate the dialogue between early Christianity and the Classics. 3) Emphasis on primary sources and good, old close reading of texts.

Impressive! Is this after your BA or is there an MA (or something akin) in there?

Our corner of the board is pretty dead, so I figured I'd ask about languages. When you graduate, how many years of which languages will you have under your belt? Ancient languages? Modern research languages? Me: Biblical Hebrew - 1 year (What a dreadful language!) Greek (Koine and Attic) - 3 years Latin (Classical) - 3 years

I'm doing the 300 most common ones right now, but I "know" most of the words already, so I may try to cast my net a little more broadly. I got the Princeton Review "Crash Course for the GRE" and I'm working on a section a day there as well as my big Barron's book. Good luck to you on Thursday!

Good luck to you!

Yikes! I'm sorry you had to go through all of that. I never knew how difficult it was for international students to take the GRE until I started visiting the boards. I feel like I have no room to complain, that's for sure. As a side note: if you end up visiting NCSU, I live pretty close and grew up near the university, so I'd be happy to point you to some local places.

I was pretty slack about preparation before. I didn't do any practice tests. I did everything wrong for test-taking, actually. I didn't get a good night's sleep, I ate a pretty lousy breakfast, and then the whole episode with the testing center. I'm going to try to take a few practice tests before I take this next one to see how I'm doing.

I likened writing the SoP to writing poetry. Every single word is chosen carefully and intentionally. It's a pain, but once you write it 20 times, you'll have it down.

After my pretty mediocre score, I'm going to retake the GRE in two weeks (Nov 18th). This time I'm doing things a little differently. I'm taking the test in the afternoon/evening (5pm) because I'm nowhere close to being a morning person (the other one was at 8am). Hopefully this time when I show up to the testing center the people will actually be there and I won't have to track down another place. I'm also going to block out an hour or two a day to study hard. I went through the 300 most common words on the GRE and made vocab cards for ones that I did not absolutely know the second I looked at them (about 120 total). Has anyone been in this situation and done well? What were your tactics for cramming, particularly on the math?

I wrote my recommenders awhile back thanking them for agreeing to be my letter writers and let them know they would be receiving those emails but to just delete them. I then sent an email later with my CV, Statement of Purpose, Transcript, Due Date List for schools, a writing sample (for a professor who had not read one of my papers), and the forms from three of the schools that require a hard copy of the letter. This was over a month ago. I let them know in that email that I would be sending the emails from the schools again this week. Later I'm going to drop by their offices with stamped envelopes and make sure everything gets mailed out. I figure this holds me accountable for my own stuff and helps my already very busy professors.

Whoa, congrats. This has to make the whole process a little easier.

Since people are explaining how they did it, I'll throw my hat in the ring. Working EMS/Fire is a little different than a "regular" job. I would work 12 hour shifts (6p-6a) during the week, generally MWF (that's 36 right there). Depending upon where you're stationed and the night (Mondays are naturally slower than Fridays), you might only run a couple of calls, so I could eat dinner, do homework, and sleep at least a few hours. I typically only sleep 4 hours a night anyway, so it wasn't a huge deal. On the weekends I would always do at least one 24 hour shift. Weekends were sometimes a little more laid back in terms of what we had to do, so I could very easily go into the training room and work on a paper or something. I always always always kept flash cards on me for my Greek class and I'd look at them on our way to the call and our way back so I wasn't wasting any time.

I was told by the chair of one the programs to which I'm applying to "sprinkle some names throughout" the SoP. They wanted to me to show that I had at least looked over the faculty page and understood the kind of research that was going on. I think there's probably a right way and a wrong way to do it. Something like, "Dr. Y's a cool guy and I want work with him!" is on the wrong end of the spectrum whereas something like "My own research would be advanced by studying with Dr. X and her work on 1,2,3" might be more suitable.

After speaking with some of my professors, I'm going to retake it. As it stands, I'm not sure that I'd be totally dead in the water, but in this climate I should be doing everything I can to get in. If this means a couple more weeks of no sleep, so be it. If anyone has any advice for cramming in 2 weeks or success stories, please share!

I can only speak from my own goals, but maybe this will help. I discussed the fact that I've served as a tutor or UA in some capacity almost my entire undergraduate career which plays into my desire to teach at the university level (though Classicists have to be open to the idea of teaching at a high school). I then discussed how my research goals play into continuing the dialogue between Classics and Early Christian Studies. I felt like this did two things: 1) Showed that I'm aware of the state of scholarship at present and that I'm not just jumping into this bright-eyed and naive 2) Showed that I've considered very carefully what my niche in scholarship could be.

Interviews are also going to be contingent upon the department's ability to fund travel expenses and such. My girlfriend is at Duke doing her Ph.D in the sciences and they rolled out the red carpet for her, but I have friends in the religion program who crashed on current students' couches.

The issue is that you should never try to be cute or funny with your SoP. If you have an anecdote that somehow explains or shows something, then it could possibly be worth it. For instance, I make mention of the fact that I entered undergraduate study at X school (a confessional Christian school) believing I was destined to study the New Testament in graduate school. 3 years later, I became a Catholic (and thus could not affirm the confessional stance of the school any longer) and broadened my academic interests, hence the reason I ended up at school Y. This served a couple of purposes - I had to introduce school X somehow because I had done relevant work there, but I also had to explain why I left in my senior year. I also used it as a way to explain the evolution of my academic interests. Overall, it served a lot of purposes and comes across as mildly humorous (the audacity of youth, being kicked out of a confessional school after converting, etc) while still being relevant to the overall SoP.

I think this was not the nicest email ever sent, but certainly not the meanest. I wrote an email awhile back to an Ivy professor and his very short email was only about all the other programs to which I should apply (none were on the same level). He answered none of the questions I actually asked. Also, as to the above comment - professors, of course, have bad days. And I think they probably get a lot of emails around this time. Thus, I started contacting professors last spring and over the summer. I met with some last fall at an academic conference that I attend and some over the summer and throughout the fall of this year. It seems if you contact them in the 'off season', you will get a bit more of their time.

This would be a nightmare for me. The most repeated criticism I received for my Statement of Purpose was that I didn't brag enough. I can't imagine having to write a letter that is supposed to be bragging about myself. I'd find another recommender, but that's just me.

Do you have a copy of the APA's Guide to Graduate schools? They publish it every year. It lists current faculty and the department's strengths. One of your professors will probably have a copy.

It must be very nice to live in a world where that's out of the question!

40 hours a week was an easy week for me in my first three years of undergrad. I worked 40-60 hour weeks as a firefighter/paramedic. I went to class during the day and worked 12's at night and 24's on the weekend.

Peanut - That's pretty much how I feel. It's not great, but it's not horrible - so hopefully the rest of my application will pull the weight.

So, after going to the original testing center today and waiting for over an hour until no one showed up and then being hussled over to another testing center, I scored pretty much where I figured I would for the amount of preparation I was able to put into this. I got 550 on my Verbal (a little shocking, to be honest) and 540 Q. My essays were both strong. At any rate, with a 3.89 GPA and glowing recs, am I still in the ballgame? I'm not sure how much time I would have to study if I rescheduled in the next couple of weeks due to big papers.