turktheman

In their GDR or history department? I have a friend who got into Vanderbilt' s history program specializing in Sephardic history and Judeo-Arabic. I'm pretty sure he's turning it down soon.

Heartbreaking. Not that it's any consolation, but if you get interviewed and nominated by Yale, then the professors must have thought you were a good fit and were ready for doctoral work at Yale. Bureaucracy and funding got in your way. I hope you get off the waitlist (If waitlisted) or get into another great program, of which there are many.

The department's recommendations were sent to GSAS last Wednesday (or was it Tuesday . . . can't be sure now). I can confirm that at least one person has been notified of his/her acceptance today by a call. I assume this means acceptances are ready to go out, but there's no rule that subfields have to sync their notification efforts.

This isn't helpful to hopeful Yalies, but Loyola Chicago emailed me today. I'm NT, so I'm assuming that subfield has been notified. No idea on others. Email did come from the chair, not NT.

MarXian is right that most schools have a rubber stamp stage where the will of the department is heeded at the GSAS level. There are also exceptions to this where a GSAS committee has agency in the decision, like Yale. If your contact you've emailed told you it is currently up in the air while in the hands of admissions (or what have you), then that's cause not to assume acceptance at this point.

Another factor in this conversion is that admitted students who applied to several programs may not hear back from all their schools to make a decision until early March. Even then, if they are waitlisted at their top choice, they may wait it out until April to see what happens. So, unless you get a rejection letter, it's still in play.

Through their GSAS. I don't know about the School of Theology, but the GSAS religious studies tracks appear to notify very late in February/early March (based on most of the results).

Notre Dame, Loyola Chicago, Fordham, UT, Emory, Boston University, and Harvard. I applied to a mix of programs since I'm interested in second temple literature, NT, and apostolic writings.

All silent on the Loyola Chicago front. Where all did you apply?

I'm not 100% sure how it works, which is why I was ambiguous above. My understanding is that the department of religious studies works through applications according to subfield. Some subfields do interviews (not sure who all does/doesn't). Full professors are given nominating privileges. Not every professor will exercise his/her privilege. Those nominations from all subfields are sent to GSAS. GSAS determines how many spots religious studies will get and ranks the nominations sent to them (the ranking system is the grand mystery). Let's say they offer 10 spots to religious studies, but 15 people are nominated: the top 10 will get offers. The other 5 will be waitlisted. Let's say you are Ancient Christianity and get waitlisted while another candidate gets accepted into AC. If he/she turns it down, you don't necessarily get the vacant spot. It goes to number 11 on the ranking who might be NT, Judaic Studies, or some other field that tends to have more nominations than Ancient Christianity or the like. So to answer your question, people get nominated without getting offers every year. It all depends on how many are nominated and how many spots overall are allocated to the religious studies from GSAS.

I don't think so. I'm sure decisions have been made, but notifications won't go out until Arts and Sciences work through the nominations. That could possibly already have happened and something could come out next week, but much more likely announcements will be made after next week (week of the 20th). There are some departments under Arts and Sciences that have reached out to those who have been accepted like certain fields in history (not historic fields within Religious Studies)

Interesting. When I had looked (back in January) the meeting was scheduled for the 14th of February. Maybe it was moved to another date because of Valentine's day. If you look to the left of the calendar under "Upcoming Events," it still shows up there: http://nelc.fas.harvard.edu/event/NELC_faculty

Agreed. The accepted shall be first and the rejected last.

They likely met in January to work the application pile into a short list. It would make sense, timing-wise, that they would finalize their picks the 13th. NELC also has a publicly accessible calendar with a department meeting listed for the day after, on the 14th. I doubt anyone will hear anything next week. The week after would make sense.

Yes, nt/early church focus. I think emails were sent out the weekend before last.

CJA is out too. The email that was sent out was pretty general (i.e. it was not CJA specific and could have easily been sent to all religious studies subfields).

Anyone have info about Fordham? I'm assuming they have made decisions by now, but there's not been any reports in the results.

Thanks for the info. I imagine they've done the same this year in JCA. We'll shall see soon enough. Have you heard anything from Boston College?

Things could change, but I think for most of the subfields they don't do interviews. The only possible exception is JCA, which someone last year in the results was pretty adamant about having been interviewed for that subfield. He posted first on 01/11/2016 listing a Skype interview. Apparently, he was accepted 02/02/2016. I would normally think this was a troll, but he/she was the first of a few to also list official acceptances in early February where he/she reiterated that they interviewed for the spot. Could be a one-off thing, but who knows.

It's entirely possible that UVA won't conduct interviews or that they only interview certain subfields. I think last year someone applying to JCA was interviewed early in January and heard back the first couple of days in February. That of course could be an outlier, but there also the chance that they already have interviewed someone for this application season and that person doesn't frequent Gradcafe. I would be interested to know if an interview for JCA is indeed a part of the process now. I don't think it is for the rest of the subfields. All that said, I wouldn't be surprised if someone heard from them this week or next. What is your subfield/ interests? I think Rice's program is a little too new and unknown to show results here. Much like Loyola University of Chicago in NT. I remember last year about a few applicants to UCSB commenting a bit on the forum. Check last year's PhD application thread. Don't expect anything from Harvard for a couple of more weeks or the end of February. They don't do interviews, so no worries on that front.

Congratulations! Nothing like chasing down a dream. This is my second cycle of applications, but my wife isn't going to let me reapply if I don't get in this year. It's looking like Notre Dame or bust for me.

Typically, Duke will notifying their top candidates in January or very early February. From the results page it looks like they mostly are decided by the end of January. My understanding of Duke's PhD process is that the interviews are not competitive; that is, they pick their top choices and invite them for a campus visit, which is tantamount to acceptance. I don't think many programs do it this way: some NT/Early Church/CJA programs do competitive interviews on Skype (e.g. PTS, Yale, Marquette . . . unless you're on campus already), some host competitive interviews on campus (e.g. Baylor, Emory, Notre Dame, etc.), and a few don't have to do interviews (e.g. Harvard and UVA [though UVA may have added interviews like UT Austin has]). I'm curious about your application to Marquette. Are you interested in NT theology?

I got an interview notification as well. Looking forward to it, but don't have any worthwhile advice. As far as the length, I think part of the time is spent doing a few types of tours: campus, library, housing, etc.

I'll pm you

Forum is not without its trolls--some for kicks, others because a previous spurn. Over the past few cycles I've noticed that the false result submissions come after someone asks: "Has anyone heard from X yet!!" Enter the troll. It's also tricky because some posters are indeed legit and aren't actively posting, but when they see a request for information they say, "What the hay. I'll throw a bone." I would tell you the secret to know the difference between real and fake results, but that would mutate the trolls behaviour accordingly.