runthejewels

I just declined UC Riverside's offer.  I hope that opens something up for anyone who's still waiting to hear from them.  Best of luck to all

thanks for the update! i'm not really holding my breath or anything, but maybe that will speed the process up for those of us still waiting to hear something . best of luck!

You're quite right; it is orientalism at its finest. Though because western scholarship is essentially grounded in an orientalist POV, you gots to study those languages. Even if your goal is to overturn that traditional narrative, doing so will require engagement with those western secondary/primary sources. 
 
awells gave a great list. languages, languages, languages. If you're in any ancient/medieval/certain modern field, do it now or you will blow your chance for one of those big name doctoral programs. HDS has great summer language programs. Do those. Hell, start this summer, either there or wherever you can. If you are not married and/or with kids, go abroad. Take a community college summer German or French class. Find ways to document your language skills. Admittedly, I am a bit anal about all of this, since my interests are decidedly 'textual'; but I also had really good luck with doctoral apps this season. So I suspect I'm at least somewhat correct!!
 
And yes, take as many classes as you can with your letter writers. I am absolutely sure my writers, having studied independently with two of them, made a huge difference in my application. If they can say a lot about your work and your personality, you may just move to the head of the pile. 
 
One last thing: be friendly, to everyone. Ours, like all academic (sub-)fields, is an incredibly incestuous and insular field. If you say something negative about a scholar to another scholar, there is a good chance they know her/him. Be friendly, open-minded, courteous, humble, and most of all, professional. No one wants to take on a student who's a jerk for five plus years. Good luck!

In my case, my research interests were strongly a match for the J/C Antiquity field, but I suppose my writing sample did not show enough of that, and my undergrad transcripts are less than stellar.  But given some people struggle to get one admit, and I got 3, I have every reason to be thankful.  

I have to disagree. ThMs are usually designed to get people through in a year. I've known many students at Fuller Seminary in the ThM program who finished in a year.  That's because as they were doing their 3-4 year MDiv, they were already beginning to narrow in on an area of interest, work closely with the professor who would eventually mentor them, and were basically able to expand a good seminar paper into the thesis--which is exactly what you should do for a thesis.
 
And I also wrote my thesis for my first MA in a little under a year. It was English, not theology/religion, but still, it's definitely possible.
 
This little piece of advice probably doesn't belong on this thread, but I'll say it anyway: Your thesis/dissertation is not the culmination of your career's work. It's the beginning of it. Spending ages and ages writing a dissertation--let alone a master's thesis--is the wrong way to go. That's why getting a thesis done in a year should never be thought of as wishful thinking. Even though many PhD students are unable to meet this goal, the standard timeline for most PhD programs is to write the dissertation in years 4 and 5. That's two years. That's what you have funding for from the department. A thesis, though a big deal while you're writing it, needs to be seen as one milestone, your first really, on the way to much bigger things.

Just got the call tonight. IN AT PENN!!! Can't believe it. 8 straight rejections. I am overwhelmed.

FYI, Talbot is a seminary. The thread linked above will definitely answer questions regarding the differences between "Christian apologetics" and "philosophy of religion," which are definitely not the same thing.
 
Two things in your post which aren't addressed in that thread: A seminary education is very, very general but usually still academically rigorous enough to earn you acceptance to a PhD program. I went to Fuller (MA in theology) and am now getting a PhD in religious studies (emphasis in theology).
 
With regard to your hesitation, you should know upfront that the path to teaching at the university/seminary level is not for people who are unsure. I don't say that to discourage you at this point since you're an undergrad (or at least not yet a grad student.) But if you go on to a master's program, you should use that time to figure out as quickly as you can whether or not advanced study is for you. You should definitely not pursue a PhD unless you decide that you simply can't see yourself doing anything else. That route is really really taxing both mentally and physically, and even though a lot of people think they know what's in store before they start (I thought I did), you really don't know just how much work it is until you're doing it. It's more than just increased reading and writing and higher expectations in terms of the rigor of your ideas. There's grant and fellowship applications. Conference proposals. Publication submissions. Participation in department and university life. Academic politics. Course work, comps, and a dissertation are milestones that you complete and then you're done with them. The others are things you're going to have to deal with for the rest of your working life if you want to build a career. People do present at conferences and try to publish at the masters level, but there is a completely different pressure to do that at the PhD level. If you can't see yourself fully engaged in all of those activities in addition to spending years studying a very narrow slice of something you're interested in, then I would not recommend pursuing a PhD.
 
Like I said, you don't have to decide that now. If you think you might be interested in that route, finding a funded or partially funded masters program would be a good next step.

So I figured, hey with an acceptance under my belt and a small amount of my former self-esteem back, why not email Riverside to check up on your application. So I did that. Haven't heard anything yet. It's been the weekend and yesterday, so we'll see. Oh well. I'll post back here what I find out (if anything).

0 for 2 so far...the suspense is undeniably thick.  why does this whole app process feel like I'm stuck at the blackjack table in Vegas with my last $20?

Harvard GSAS acceptances and rejections will both be released tomorrow - my insider professor just informed me.

I was just accepted to Wycliffe in Toronto. It says finances are given by the individual colleges in one of the PDFs they sent. I guess we will have to wait and see on those.
 
After getting rejected to every school last year and to one this year it feels so good to finally get in!!

Wait listed at Princeton...  As Jay-Z would say, "on to the next one."  

Yes, I'd love to know the subfields for the Princeton acceptances, but am afraid to ask.

I have a column on my application spreadsheet listing admissions notification dates from last year (or previous years in cases where the program had no entries in the gradcafe survey last year). In the cases where sub-fields had different dates, these are Church History/American Religious History/Historical Theology fields.
 
ASU 2/7 to 2/19 Columbia 2/21 to 3/1  Duke Divinity School 22-Feb Harvard 3/1 to 3/16 Harvard Divinity School 19-Feb Princeton Theological Seminary 22-Feb University of Chicago Divinity School 2/16 to 2/23 Vanderbilt 14-Feb Yale 22-Feb

Yeah, who knows? Some of these schools keep their spread pretty tight. Here is an interesting factoid: last year, it seems that of all the acceptances/rejections posted on theGradCafe, all of Yale's Religion PhD notifications occurred between Feb 19-23, Harvard between Feb 19-Mar 1 (and all around Feb 20 except for a "Theology" subfield), and Princeton between Feb 20-21 (almost exclusively on Feb 20). For those of us who applied to these schools, this could be an exciting week.

Pigs will descend from the sky before anyone's funding is worse than GTU's.