theophany

Other things to keep in mind on this whole stream. 1) Parking in Harvard Sq is a nightmare. It is one of the busiest and most highly trafficked areas in the whole Boston metro. Even if you want to park illegally, you might not even be able to find a place to do that. You simply cannot rely on street parking to get to campus. 2) Cambridge aggressively tickets, and if you have more than 5 outstanding parking tickets, they will boot your car, which adds an additional ticket and $45. If they saw that your car had 10+ parking tickets in a month, there is nothing to say they wouldn't do something more severe than just boot or tow your car. 3) You gotta take winter into consideration. Parking is already crazy enough, the streets narrow enough, in Cambridge without feet of snow; you add snow to the mix and things go insane. Like, people leave chairs in spots they've dug out and if you take their spot, you'll get much worse than a parking ticket. My recommendation is to take a bus on days you have class, and drive other times. Or better yet, see if you can find an apartment closer than Arlington that won't require the hassle.

Part of the statement is to give your academic history, to explain how you ended up where you are. Your low undergrad GPA is part of that history, and you should address it there. Readers are going to spend more time reading it than they are the supplemental stuff on your app. While I understand what others have said and their reasons for it, it will be a much stronger statement if you are able to tie it in to your overall trajectory, and to show how you persevered. Doctoral programs are HARD, and a committee seeing that you have learned from past failure and have overcome are going to strengthen your application in terms of whether or not you can do the work, and get it done, and overcome the difficulties. A mention in the "what else should we know" will be a more defensive move, and will not necessarily give you space to talk about it within the overall trajectory. But ultimately, there is a different problem with this post: If you were advised by a faculty advisor (someone who has been through and graduated from a doctoral program, has read hundreds if not thousands of applications) to do something on your application, DO WHAT THEY TELL YOU. There are no faculty members or admissions committee people reading and commenting on this forum, and you don't know us from Adam, or we, you. Your faculty know better than anyone on here is going to. We can help fill in the gaps when faculty don't advise, but never go directly against an advisor based on what someone here said.

I just finished looking up how Canadian schools are accredited (turns out, slightly different than the US). In the US, there are agencies that accredit schools in a geographic area (for instance, the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges). In Canada, that is done by the provincial government under the Provincial Minister of Education, which makes it slightly different. An equivalent would be membership in the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. The reason I suggest this is because there is generally going to be no doubt among an admissions committee about the "legitimacy" of programs in such an association, and the amount of preparation a student will have received to be able to succeed in graduate work. Certainly other programs might be just as good or better at preparing its students, but that kind of standard benchmark is something that committees use. It's better to alleviate questions in the long run, no matter how biased those questions might be. The concerns in admission committee members' minds are going to be questions of risk at a certain level: Is this student going to withdraw because they aren't ready, which will hurt our retention rate? If we give this student financial aid, will that investment pay out in the long run? Etc. etc. Anyway, I'd take a look at the AUCC website and see if there are programs at any of its member schools that strike your fancy, and apply there. As far as standing out goes, it's a matter of having: excellent letters of recommendation; a clear, interesting, and faculty-appropriate project articulated in the statement of purpose; demonstrated fit with the department; transcripts that express promising (and to some extent directed) scholarship, and explanations for not so great grades; for Hebrew Bible, a variety of language experience; good GRE scores (they usually won't help you, but they can sure as hell hurt you); and so on.

I would agree that your faculty at Emmanuel likely won't be helpful for research doctoral admissions, mostly simply because most of them haven't gone through that process and aren't engaged in choosing doctoral applicants. (I'm a little wary at some implicit anti-evangelical vibe that can sometimes happen on this forum, and want to make sure I'm avoiding that...it's a question of experience and not intelligence.) I'll continue to hold by what I wrote earlier. Don't go get a second bachelors. Instead, see if you can transfer to regionally accredited (preferably nonsectarian) school and finish out with a BA there. It might take two years to cover the requirements, but that's a lot less than four to do an entirely different degree. It might not hurt you to have a BRE, but it won't help you either—which is what you really have to consider with PhD applications. I've written this elsewhere, but top-tier PhD admissions are not so much about checking off boxes and making sure you have all the requirements to be admitted. Everyone who is a legitimate candidate will have those boxes checked; it's about standing out among all of those people. Yes, of course, there are always outliers at every school, but they are seen as outliers for a reason. And writing an admissions officer or a professor of interest at a school you want to attend is not a terrible idea, but make sure you do it appropriately—for the latter, with the idea of beginning a scholarly relationship and not just hounding them for information. But writing to admissions folks with your concerns seems like a good idea to me, better than any advice a bunch of anonymous voices who don't sit on any admissions committees are going to be able to provide you, however well intentioned (or not) we may all be.

As Kuriakos alluded, it's not so much the length of the program that's a concern as much as it is about the nature of the degree. If the BRE is not from a regionally accredited school, you will likely have a problem getting into a masters program, that could send you to a top PhD program. Many "good" masters programs won't recognize a non-accredited bachelors as meeting their admissions requirements. If this is the case, it would likely be a good idea to try to transfer to a regionally accredited school and finish a BA there. Being realistic, because of the issues of getting classes to transfer, you might end up having to spend more than a year in order to graduate.

It is too early yet to be looking, but the time is coming soon to start looking. Reddit r/boston is a good place to consult when looking for housing, for tips, roommates, etc. They posted an insanely helpful guide (here: http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1y4hy9/so_youre_moving_to_bostonlets_make_a_guide/) a month ago with all sorts of words of wisdom. There's also a really good blog entry from The Boston Calendar (http://blog.thebostoncalendar.com/how-to-hunt-for-an-apartment-in-boston/) that goes over the insanity that is finding housing. Honestly, I haven't heard tremendously amazing things about Grad Housing. It tends to mostly be international students and scholars who need something reliable and won't have the ability to really search for apartments beforehand. Some of the grad housing is basically identical to living in a dorm. Most everyone I know in grad school at Harvard lives off-campus in Cambridge or Somerville. More freedom, more of a distance from campus, etc. Boston/Cambridge/Somerville is too awesome an area to get caught up in the campus bubble, and living off-campus makes that less likely to happen.

Sorry, but this isn't quite accurate. The policy you referenced is from the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, not the Divinity School. The HDS Handbook (p. 44, http://www.hds.harvard.edu/sites/hds.harvard.edu/files/attachments/academics/registrar/handbook-for-students/33771/HDS_Student_Handbook_2013-14.pdf) says: "A student may choose to take a letter grade course on a Sat/Unsat basis by indicating this preference on their study card. Degree programs limit the number of courses that may be taken under the Sat/Unsat option and students should use caution when electing this option." The Sat/Unsat option is equivalent to pass/fail for all intents and purposes. That said, if you intend on pursuing further academic work, you should not take any courses related to your field under the sat/unsat option. In fact, you should limit the number of sat/unsat classes period, because they give no standard for evaluating your coursework (it could be anywhere from an A to a C-), and will be suspect. And you should always talk to your advisor (once s/he has been assigned) about any decisions like this. At any rate, I would advise holding off planning out your course schedule; shopping period is a phenomenon at Harvard that you likely will not have experienced before and you will want to avail yourself of it as much as possible.

Don't count on it, though. YDS's financial aid is super tight right now and there's not more money to be had.

As someone in the MDiv program at YDS who has been admitted to a doctoral program, I would second this unless you have any inkling of doing ordained ministry. I made the MDiv work by configuring my electives carefully and developing relationships early on with faculty, but the MAR is more concentrated in fields with less work required outside of them. MDivs have to take preaching, a required church history sequence, an internship with practicum, ministry classes, a broad curriculum in general, etc. Just for the sake of numbers, I know of three MDivs at YDS who applied to doctoral programs, and all three were admitted (two to their top choices). And switching into the MAR concentrate is dependent on whether the faculty in that area approve of your switch. I know plenty of people who have done it.

Frankly, I don't know why this matters. If someone applies to Harvard or Chicago not because of any prestige but because that's where they applied, and they get in or if they don't get in, what's that to you? Because they didn't have a full appreciation of the gravitas of being admitted into the ivory tower, nay, the beacon on the hill for the whole world that is Hahvahd? This process shouldn't be hard for the sheer sake of being hard, shouldn't be taken seriously for the sheer sake of being taken seriously. If someone is smart enough, qualified enough to get in, then good for them whether they were anal about the process or not, whether they went to a school who we think is inferior or not. We could deal with a lot more academics that are less concerned with coiffing their plumes and puffing up their chests and talking about how great they are, and actually start getting down and doing work. You know, and who are also generous scholars who are nice, kind people. And who help strengthen their colleagues rather than questioning their right to be there in the first place.

Right, which is what I said. Or meant to say with the Barth reference. If your primary focus is on a figure who predominantly wrote in a different language, you obviously will need to be able to speak that language too in order to participate in the scholarship.

If you haven't heard anything one way or the other from UVa, odds aren't good. Admits and those on the wait list were notified a month ago.

To echo xypathos: Immersion is an entirely different story. Immersion is the way (I think) we best learn language, and you can make further strides doing "rapid" immersion than years of sitting in a classroom. There's a vast difference between sitting in a classroom and having to think on your feet in a casual conversation, order food, give directions, or whatever. Middlebury is known the country over because of how effective its program is at simulating the language conditions of a study abroad program (if not actually better, given how much English is spoken worldwide). There is a caveat, though. Middlebury doesn't teach philosophical or theological vocabulary. Its emphasis is on everyday written and spoken languages. Knowing that the word for "intersection" in French is "carrefour" is probably not going to help you read Calvin, Durkheim, or Foucault, if all you need is to read them. German is an entirely different beast because of the way German thinkers play with language. So, though I'm fluent in French, I still often need a dictionary to get through theological or philosophical texts.

Windfish's question was about fields that only care about two modern languages, and mentioned French and German specifically. The discussion about ancient languages is interesting, but wasn't the original question. So yeah, either French or German down before you apply in order to be competitive (some programs require one for application in the first place). For what "down" means I'd look at what language qualifying exams look like. For example, at HDS they involve translating a few hundred words of intermediate difficulty theological/religious studies text in an hour with use of a paper dictionary. (Samples here) That seems a pretty fair standard to me, so I'd aim to be able to do that. Look at what programs you're thinking of applying to require. Speaking is great, but really only if you plan on giving presentations in that language. If you want to focus on, say...Barth, being able to speak German would be important. Otherwise, eh.

Keep in mind, also, that applying to PhD programs is about making your application stand out amongst the others applying. It may not be requisite to have languages down in general, but if you're applying in a pool of people who have one or two languages down (maybe even majored in a language as an undergraduate, or spent their whole time of their M* program doing languages), you're going to be at a disadvantage. Doctoral applications aren't mostly about "do I have all the boxes checked," because everyone will; it's about what you have over and above everyone else. 5-7%, remember. Of course, everything gets taken in whole, but I bet you're going to be spending more time worrying about GREs than languages, which is by far less important in the long run. If you walk into a library and don't speak French and German, the resources you can use will be greatly fewer; and translations are unreliable when you're doing the hardcore kinds of textual analysis necessary for all the fields we're going into. Don't think of language requirements as requiring "sacrifice" to other coursework; they are just as important, if not more so, for doing your own research. As for summer study, my coursework in linguistics leads me to be unconvinced that the average person (i.e. a non-polyglot) can get much out of them. Everything we know about language learning suggests that cramming a year's worth of teaching into two months or less does not work. Language isn't a knowledge like other things; it's an ability, a capacity that can only be acquired over a continuous period of time in which it can be nativized, so to speak.

To offer a contrasting perspective, schools don't necessarily prefer their masters students for their doctoral programs. In fact, in some cases departments are known for not taking their own students. In my case, my interests shifted as a result of being in my masters program (that is the point of education after all), the faculty that I studied with left (there is a lot of movement in religious studies), and I didn't even end up applying to Yale. Fit is important. That can't be overstated. And not only in terms of the faculty, but also the student body. Those are your colleagues and principal dialogue partners. You'll just be happier. And if you're applying to PhD programs, faculty that fit your project better are going to be able to give better letters of recommendation, will be able to mentor you in different ways. Plus your coursework is going to be tighter, your thinking and SOP will benefit as a result... Never underestimate the importance of having a good library, especially for graduate work as you get more and more specialized and need that one book for something. That's one thing I did not think about at all, but YDS has on everywhere else I applied as a masters student. Not only is Yale's library big, but with Borrow Direct (an interlibrary loan system) I have access to the full libraries of all of the Ivy League schools, MIT, and UChicago. Short story, the only way you can figure out fit is to visit places. If you at all have the means and time to visit programs, go. Admissions brochures can only tell you so much. Sitting in a classroom, in a chapel service, in a dining hall and seeing what it feels like—that's going to tell you more than any reasoning about this will.

Negotiating funding is basically a moot question anywhere, especially when it comes to masters programs (which most universities look at as free money). Despite some recent large gifts, HDS's funding is tight because they're also trying to recuperate the endowment. The "every tub on its own bottom" (each constitutent school is financially independent) rules the day at Harvard, so HDS can only offer in aid what it has to offer and has no recourse to a central university budget (there isn't one).

Both Porter and Davis are great. I'm hoping to live in Davis—it has a lot going on as far as restaurants, coffee shops, bars, etc. It is kind of hipster-y and prices in the area have gotten a bit more than they were just a few years ago. I have lots of friends who love Porter, too; one of its big benefits is that there is a Shaw's grocery store right in the square. Porter is somewhat calmer than Davis, because Davis has Tufts close by (which means more undergraduates). According to PadMapper, the median rent in Davis and Porter is ~$2500 for a 2BR. Boston is just expensive, and sticker shock will happen unless you're moving from NYC or Chicago. The further you are from a T station, the cheaper the place will be, on the whole. Cheaper rent can be found if you don't have a Sept 1 move-in, but those apartments are less numerous (but findable).

It disturbs me that this is how someone applying to an MDiv, the ministerial preparation degree, would respond to being rejected. Especially the idea that "earned" would be a relevant category, and that any amount of work you do should get you what you want by manner of course.

Lowell is at least a half-hour to Medford if there is no traffic at all and no weather conditions making it hard to drive. Because there is always traffic (especially during rush hour) and the last few winters have been among the snowiest and iciest in awhile, I would not recommend it. Lowell is also a former mill town, and has all the charm (and the security concerns) of any post-industrial city. There are plenty of one-bedrooms and studios in Cambridge/Medford/Somerville if you're willing to shell out for them, but it's almost certainly cheaper than Lowell with gas, parking, and car maintenance included.

The Graduate Studies Coordinator, Liz Smith (eas5x@virginia.edu) would be the one to contact.

This happens a lot. One of my classmates at Yale applied to the Religious Studies PhD at Yale (Asian Religion) right out of undergrad and his application was redirected to YDS for the MAR. There is a largely unwritten rule that you have to have a masters in religion before being admitted to the PhD, especially if your field is heavy on languages needed. This is actually the normal way PhD programs ran back in the day, the MA "en route" being a much newer innovation. Religious studies is one of the only fields that hasn't really made the shift, largely because reading ancient texts in the original language requires a substantial amount of language study that simply can't be done to proficiency level in two years of coursework.