LateAntique

Odysseus

Woo hoo! Congrats!

Anyone care to claim the U of Iowa MA decision? I applied there for a Ph.D. Did the website change or was it just via the post?

Straight from a Duke Professor's mouth when he told me about hiring policies: "We have a big stack of folders, and we say, 'This is a Yale trained (whatever)', 'Here is a Harvard graduate...'." I agree with several of your points. 1) Top tier grad schools are incestuous. It's incredibly difficult to break into those schools without some sort of "in". 2) Schools with bigger, better programs are obviously going to have more resources available to their students. Ask anyone who's receiving a stipend from Duke vs. someone who is attending Dallas Theological for their Ph.D. My uni doesn't have a grad program in Religion, but our library holdings are awful. I often have to travel to Duke if I want to write a paper with any sort of depth. Also, top tier programs are going to have the resources to poach professors from other programs. Much to U of Chicago's chagrin, Princeton has a long history of poaching Classics professors from U of Chicago. It may not be fair, but that's how it goes.

I think everyone can agree that there are good scholars outside of Harvard, Yale, Duke, Princeton, etc. I'm probably going to attend FSU next year and I'm very excited at the prospects of working with David Levenson. However, my original post was simply to point out that one should not get defensive and get an attitude when someone else underestimates the reputation of one's school or the scholars that teach there. Brite may very well be a very fine school for certain things, but that doesn't mean one should get defensive because Brite isn't perceived as being on the same playing field as Harvard or Yale (and it's not - even if some scholars who teach at Brite would do just as well at an Ivy). As I said - one should attend the school that they see as being the best fit.

I never said 'snippy' - I said 'defensive/insecure'. He felt the need to get defensive because he felt like someone did not take his school seriously. I have friends at most of those programs and they're all quite happy people. Maybe some people get along better in those programs than others.

It's fine to say that Duke or Yale or Harvard doesn't match up with your desires. It's not fine to get an attitude with someone because you're feeling defensive/insecure about the place you attend. It's cool to choose schools based on fit, even if they aren't seen as being the most prestigious - that makes sense. Also, I think Duke probably has one of the most exciting NT faculties out there - Goodacre, Marcus, Hays, Campbell, etc. I think if Brite is doing the kind of work you want to do, it only makes sense to go there.

Yikes - defensive much? The guy noted that maybe he underestimated Brite's reputation. However, the best places to do work in Biblical studies are still Duke, Harvard, Yale, Emory, etc.

I haven't heard anything yet, but I'm not really anticipating getting in if there's only one person accepted.

Congrats! Well done on the acceptance.

Congrats! You're on a roll.

I'll go ahead and mark this up as a rejection, then!

Like the Gradcafe. If only people knew...

Disposition

Thanks for the post on CUA's Early Christian Studies program and good luck to whomever posted it. I'll be looking for my letter soon!

Thanks again - I couldn't have gotten through this process without you guys on this board. It's nice to have an outlet like this. Also - I was wondering who the FSU Religion Ph.D admit is? What's your subfield?

Confession

Hey - it's full tuition plus a fellowship. All the financial stuff should be covered in the packet I get sometime this week. The professor wasn't exactly sure how much it is. Funded MA's are really hard to come by. FSU seems to really respect their MA students (I know a lot who get to do some pretty serious teaching in their second year). I think this program will serve to make me a stronger candidate for Ph.D programs in a couple of years. To everyone else: Thanks so much for the congrats. I got Duke's rejection around lunch today and that just took the wind out of my sails. This phone call was unexpected and very nice.

There is no pattern. I got a rejection at 12 during the day, and a phone call from a professor at 10 at night. They'll get around to it when they get around to it.

I know this is for Ph.D results, but I figured I'd share mine - I got in for an MA at FSU in Religion (Religions of Western Antiquity).

I just broke it down like this: I got rejected. It's either a numbers issue (my GPA is 3.9, but my GRE isn't great) or a fit issue. I can work on one in the next year (numbers), I can't work on fit. I contacted the DGS and politely asked what parts of my application weren't up to snuff. If she says "numbers", I can improve them and try again (assuming I don't get into another school this year) - if she says "fit", then I won't reapply. I was bummed for about 15 minutes, but I'm totally Type A, so I saw a problem and addressed how to fix it. Moping takes way too much energy and I've got Archilochus to translate!

Got my first rejection today.

Rejected from Duke! Good luck to everyone else who applied!

Harvard lost more money than most schools will ever have. The UC system is definitely the worst off. I didn't even bother applying because of that.

Gee wiz, this is actually very nice. Thank you so much for the mention.