jacib

I'm just saying there's a big range of programs, not just the Ivy League programs out there. I remember one girl on the boards last year really regretted applying to a school ranked in the top ten, a few in the top twenty-five/thirty, and a few below that (for what ranks are worth); she felt like in retrospect, she should have applied to a different mix of programs. I applied to five sociology programs and I thought that was the absolute maximum I could have a realistic chance at, considering my interests. Afterwards, I found one more I could have applied to that could have fit my interests (in a place I didn't really want to be) but I understand feeling that you've scoured and hit your maximum. I was just initially surprised that you had a small list with both Princeton and Irvine on it, is all. It seemed like a big range for a small group. In thinking more about it, though, I realized my five schools took up about the same range as your four schools do in whatever ranking system you want to use, they just had a distribution that skewed slightly differently within that range.

It's a holistic process. Yes, your quant isn't going to wow anyone, but it's probably not going to keep you out of anything, especially if a) you're doing qualitative work or you have any advanced math classes on your transcript where you did well. I'm going to a top ten school and my undergraduate GPA was 3.26--talk about not going to wow anyone. What I did wow people with was other parts of my applications. You have two masters and presumably you did math work in those fields, I suspect no one will really care about your GRE score all that much. With two masters, I expect they'll care much more about your writing sample and the recommendations of onprofessors (if they happen to know them, especially). As always, I encourage you to look at other places on this site because there is just so much useful information here; On the second page there's a whole discussion of GRE scores, but I think almost all of the advice on that thing is surpsisingly useful (including a few people who gave the advice that could be summed up "Apply widely, but appropriately"). Four seems like on the low end in terms of number of schools to apply to, especially since you don't seem to have a geographical restriction, and the schools you're applying to seem to be all over the place in terms of prestige. Princeton and say Irivine will have very different admission requirements (and even Princeton and Harvard will weight different parts of the application differently). When applying to school, I got lucky: after I got here, I realized that of all the possible professors, the adcomm last year at my current program for various reasons was absolutely the best I could have hoped for. Maybe if different professors had been on it, I wouldn't have gotten into this school, maybe if it had been more in my favor at other schools, I would have gotten those places. I got into this top ten program, and definitely got rejected at another program ranked outside the top twenty that I know was doing work similar to my to my propse project. Things like that (and I don't think that's that anomalous a story) show that it's hard to guess where people will end up simply based on their application, and it's even harder to guess after just seeing the numerical portions. As someone else said in that advice thread, "[C]ast a wide net. I will be attending a university actually ranked higher than my erstwhile top choice, but in the application process I dismissed said university because I thought my chances of getting in were very slim."

I recommend you look at this post: http://forum.thegrad...ogy-applicants/ for more information on applying; I think it will give you a better idea of where you stand. For instance, look at the GRE advice starting on the second page thread to get a better sense of how GRE scores matter. The degree your research topic fits with a professor, and the degree that your topic interests a professor, are as important if not more important than grades, scores, experience, recommendations and writing sample. Contact potential advisers via email and ask them if they think your interests would be a good match for theirs. Most will be honest. Just do not assume that interest means a guaranteed admission. Honestly though, these numbers -- any numbers -- can tell you very little about your actual changes of admission. Ask most professors and I feel they will say the statement of purpose and generally the writing sample are the two most important parts of your application. Notably unquantifiable categories. This is a very qualitative process, based a lot on matching. The conventional wisdom developed last year seemed to be that, while sadly bad numbers might keep you out, good numbers will not get you in. I would suggest (assuming you cannot get updated documentation in time) practicing hard for the GRE, and once you get your scores (assuming you'll get those soon), getting in touch with the Director of Graduate Studies at the various schools, briefly explaining your issue, phrase it as a lame question like, "Even with my disability, do you think I should I get my documentation up to date and retake it next year? Is it worth it to do it this year?" I would expect them to say "apply anyway", but this way they'll at least have your case in mind before they see your application and will be less likely to toss it. Ten books seems very impressive; it obviously depends what they're on how they'll be counted. If they are scholarly treatises of quality and ingenuity... you're in. If they are children's books or gamers' guides to world of warcraft (and you are researching neither of those topics), they will count as an interesting hobby. Research assistant, judging from the other applicant stories I've heard, always looks good on a graduate school resume. We had a visiting day for everyone accepted into my program, and 15 of the 16 people accepted people came--most of the ones with multiple offers had meaningful research experience (still, many people accepted had no research experience and a few of us had very limited backgrounds in Sociology even). It's a crap shoot.

No one here is an expert and can tell you with much certainty. Your GRE scores are good but not great. Your undergraduate GPA was obviously low, but I had similar stats (I think mine was 3.26 and 3.57 respectively or something along those lines). Your graduate marks are obviously good...but what kind of graduate degree has a major? Your work experience, especially as a research assistant, will help you a lot, I believe. I think only one person in my entire PhD cohort had a publication (I I think one or two more people in this year's masters cohort did), so I can't tell you how much that will help or not. My sense is that if you're not the PI, it will be seen similar to be classed with research experience. But that's honestly a guess. I recommend you look at this post: http://forum.thegrad...ogy-applicants/ for more information on applying; I think it will give you a better idea of where you stand. Look at the GRE advice starting on the second page thread I linked to above to get a better sense of how your GRE scores compare. The degree your research topic fits with a professor, and the degree that your topic interests a professor, are as important if not more important than grades, scores, experience, recommendations and writing sample. Contact potential advisers via email and ask them if they think your interests would be a good match for theirs. Most will be honest. Just do not assume that interest means a guaranteed admission. Honestly though, these numbers -- any numbers -- can tell you very little about your actual changes of admission. Ask any professor and I feel they will say the statement of purpose and generally the writing sample are the two most important parts of your application. Notably unquantifiable categories. This is a very qualitative process, based a lot on matching. The conventional wisdom developed last year seemed to be that, while bad numbers might keep you out, good numbers will not get you in. In your particular case, I trust you have a reason to apply to those wide range of schools (Berkeley is one of the very top departments in the country, and CUNY is likely not in the top 25). Prestige is important in our business, of course, but it seems like you're applying to mainly schools in specific geographic regions. If you l you're applying to mainly top ten programs and programs that hover around 25 or lower. Notice that you're missing a lot of schools in the top 10-25 range; take a look at them and see if they fit your interests. Yes, I know that the rankings are a problematic measure of what a degree from any school will be worth now, never mind in five to seven years. Yes, I know superstar professors at a lower ranked school (my mental example is always Talal Asad in CUNY Anthro) will probably have better outcomes for their students than the other professors' students from the same schools. Yes, I know there are many reasons not to care about rankings at all, especially if your dream job isn't teaching at a top research university (my dad teaches at a small program that only takes 2 or so students a year, and therefore is ranked in the 40's at best. His students are happy with their outcomes, I think). Still, I think rankings do show something, and it does seem like you're mostly skipping over a large class of schools in your application process, especially non-UC public schools.

I thought my statement was awesome last year. The school I'm currently going to was one of the best schools I applied to, the only school I got into, and had a 500 word statement. Don't fret! I thought writing a 500 word statment was awful at the time, too, but looking back at my 1,000 word one, I have to think "Wow, a lot of this stuff is totally unnecessary." I think in part the brevity made me take out all the unnecessary explanations I had and in the end that 500 word statement may well have been better than my 1,000 word statement in terms of presenting my research interests and my experience relating to them. Even though I hated it at the time and thought 500 words was way too short. And the MA thing; did you talk to the director of graduate studies about that?

Two women in my current program are former lawyers. They both practiced law for 3-4 years. I think their experience as lawyers is generally looked on favorably, especially since they both want to study things related to the law. I recommend you look at this post: for more information on applying; I think it will give you a better idea of where you stand. The degree your research topic fits with a professor, and the degree that your topic interests a professor, are as important if not more important than grades, scores, experience, and writing sample. Contact potential advisers via email and ask them if they think your interests would be a good match for theirs. Most will be honest. Do not assume that interest means a guaranteed admission. Your GRE scores are not low per se, but look at the GRE advice starting on the second page thread I linked to above to get a better sense of what those numbers mean.

It all depends on where you want to work. If you do absolutely brilliant work at CUNY and are one of the absolute top students at the program, and especially if develop good connections with other New York area faculty, you will probably be competitive with students from anywhere. For example, someone at Wisconsin has their PhD from Brandeis, which is ranked lower than CUNY, if I remember correctly. However, a route like that is atypical and you will also have to realize that most people who end up at Harvard, Wisconsin, Chicago, and Michigan have their doctorates from the kind of places that USNWR ranks highly (you should also look at the old and new NSR rankings to get a more robust sense of CUNY's place according to the people who could later hire you). In that sense, yes it will affect your career opportunities. Additionally, your cohort will generally be a different group of students from say Wisconsin, Michigan, and Harvard and lower funding will probably mean you have a longer time to degree, both of which will affect your graduate experience. However, prestige, funding, and cohort are not important to everyone (and become less important if you have outside funding). If those things matter to you, email the school and ask them about their average years to degree, recent placements for the last few years (all of them if possible so you don't get a biased sample), funding, and what proportion of an entering cohort finishes their degree and why people drop out. You can additionally ask to be put in touch with current graduate students or recent graduates, who may offer you different answers to the same questions. If there is a really prestigious person there who would work closely with you in exactly your proposed subdiscipline, that will affect your career opportunities (and possibly graduate experience too). If there is, ask them specifically about the placement of their recent graduate students. After a certain point, your work will speak for itself one hopes, but "names" (both of the school and the adviser) and social networks do help get your foot in the door careerwise, especially at the highest level. Top positions will have dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of applicants. The only way to find out how people from any one particular school (and one particular adviser) stack up is to ask around and also check websites. Think of a few schools you could be happy teaching at, and look at their faculty to see where they got their degrees from.

Don't worry; at my school we rarely have people straight out of undergrad (maybe 10-20%. something like that) but still the majority of first years are between 22-26. 23, especially with a masters, seems to me perfectly normal. But then again, outside of that range is normal too: two women in my cohort are 30+. I'm kind of guessing because age isn't something that we've talked about all that much. Age, as the say, ain't nothing but a number. On that note, good luck on the GRE! While you're taking it, keep in mind that I did almost perfectly on it and the whole time I was sure I was just screwing it up big time. I didn't want to look at my score at the end, I was that sure I had made major and repeated mistakes in both sections. What I'm saying is, don't worry about how you're doing while you're taking it because you're going to have just no idea; just answer the questions one at a time. I found it useful to do a few "warm up questions" in the waiting room, just to get my brain working.

Find articles on google scholar/jstor. His website also lists two books he wrote: Tarheel Politics 2000 (1998, UNC Press) and Tar Heel Politics:Myths and realities (1990), which is no longer in print. From what I can tell though, he's also a state senator and might not be around all that much, and if he does, he might not have as much time for research as other professors. His website hasn't been updated since 2007. It's also probably worth noting that he is an associate professor, while most of the other associate professors got their PhDs 20 years after he did. This probably means he's not a very active member of the department. In fact, his website says he teaches "when the legislature is not in session". Another option, especially if you know some statisticis, is trying to get a job at a think tank or policy center (instead of going for a stand-alone masters). Graduate programs tend to look favorably on that, from what I can gather.

For professional programs, it's not required, though I am sure it wouldn't hurt. It would certainly help you find out about the school. I don't know how common or uncommon it is among MA students. For Ph.D. programs, It's actually expected. At 80% of the schools I applied to (and probably an equal number at schools I didn't apply to), I contacted the professors in my potential department (and sometimes out of my department) who I wanted to work with. At the school I decided on going to, I didn't contact any of the professors, because one professor was so clearly a perfect match that I didn't think it was necessary because there are literally two or three people working on all three aspects of my topics (religion, politics and Turkey) in the entire country. Since she was one of them, I already knew we were a good match. I mentioned her several times in my statement of purpose. When she called me to tell me I was accepted to the program, she immediately scolded me for not contacting her first, and feigned being offended. She was like, "When I first saw your application, I thought, 'This boy is perfect for me... why hasn't he contacted me!'" So yes, email them. Make sure they're taking on students still (one guy told me he was retiring in three years, another was going to be on leave for the first semester which might make a big difference if you're a masters student). You can ask about their current research, and what direction their research is going in. You can tell them a little bit about your project and ask if it would fit their research interests even if you're sure it would. Some people are weird, and are only interested in working with students who want to use certain methods regardless of topic, but are uninterested in dealing with someone working a topic that they've already done using a different method. Some people are only interested in working with people only on a very specific topic and are uninterested if your topic is even slightly different. Some people will work with everyone. (The last few things apply more towards Ph.D. students than professional students, I would imagine). Do not ask them any information that can easily be found on the website, such as what classes they teach. Direct questions about the graduate program in general to the department's director of graduate studies, or if you're trying to find out if you're a good fit for a certain program, you could talk to the director of graduate studies, the head of that particular sub-program, or someone within that sub-program who particularly fits your interests well for more information (for example, if you have questions on a development master's, asking the head of the whole masters program, the masters in development, or someone working specifically on development in Africa might all be good ideas depending on the nature of your question).

I'd talk to your head of graduate studies. Or don't, depending. But if there are faculty you trust, talk to them, or talk someone from your masters program. They will know what "looks worse" better than random people on the internet will. How long will it take you to get a masters, and would it be worth your time to stay there for it? If you leave after 6 months or 12 months without a degree, I doubt it will make a difference. 7 to 8 years might be normal, but also keep in mind that that implies a range of people from 5 to 10 years at least. At my school, average is around 6 year I think, and that is going down (mainly because of increased funding), but I know I will be on the higher end of my school's numbers because I don't have the methods training I want and I don't have the background I want, either. That said, I can see one or two kids in my program who already have their methods, and in one case, ,might even already have her data, (both European incidentally) so conceivably put their nose to the grindstone and crack it out in four years if they really, really worked it (and got outside funding to avoid the TA work). Could you go through a few miserable semesters and get all your course work out of the way sooner? That's what one of my professors told me his Ph.D. adviser told him to do years ago: take 12 classes his first year, get done with all the course work, finish up his dissertation in the next three, and be out at the end of year four (to be fair his adviser is well known for being... eccentric. And brilliant). Some programs can be flexible, I know people who got a random class to count as their "advanced theory" class. See if your program would let you get away with a different type of methods class instead of stats. That said: maybe this isn't the right place for and you really should go try again. Is it too late to apply this year? You'd have to work it out with your head of graduate studies, presumably, in order to transfer. If you feel like it is too late, keep in mind that a three year degree in Europe would leave you at the same age as a five year degree in America. If I were to transfer, it would really, for me, have to be the last thing. At least talk to your head of graduate studies about your concerns about age, distance, etc, and how you want to get out of there as quickly as possible. I know of people who were able to get outside funding and not have to TA... which in some cases means not even having to be on campus after their first two years (obviously not being on campus has drawbacks to it) I can't imagine very many people have been in your exact situation. That said, I am an American who worked in Istanbul for three years, and being an ocean apart from my family was very, very difficult for me, especially when two family members got ill.

As a note on this, I think GRE scores in general are very important for competitive scholarships across disciplines, because its one clear way the department can justify the money to the university. I hadn't heard of it in religion programs at private universities before, but I'm not surprised because it is very common in sociology departments at state schools.

Yeah, I was just going to add that the huge difference between applying for MA/MTS/MAR (and sometimes between MA and MTS/MAR), MDiv and PhD--that explains a lot about the variant acceptance rates that the OP talked about. Agreeing with Sparky, conventional wisdom says that low GRE's can keep you out, but high GRE's can't get you in. Sparky might also remember from last year a girl who got a 1600 and initially got just rejection after rejection. I think at the last second she got in somewhere off the waitlist, but it was a close thing. Every school has their own formula and, and though, yes, the verbal is more important than the quantitative, I doubt every school will completely ignore the quantitative GRE. In fact, I remember there's a blog out there called Vita Brevis, and even though he was doing theology he felt that his low quant score was keeping him out. Just something to think about. Actually, come to think of it, even though i don't agree with every piece of advice he gives, it's a good, sober introduction to applying for graduate work in religious studies. Vita Brevis's 8-ish part series on getting into a PhD program (though I still think its useful to read if you're applying for a masters of some kind). It is very Theology/Biblical Studies/Ethics focused, and if you do something else, the rules are a little different (in general, a little more forgiving because they're a little less competative--for non-Judeo-Christian based things, they're actually pretty different I can tell you). Your GPA is a little low, but not so low as to make you uncompetative (I had a 3.25 so I'm not judging here), but you should be aware that that is a relatively weak part of your application. For me, my low GPA really made me work extra-hard on the GRE, but obviously I have no idea if that made a difference.

Is one of them a "diversity statement" type thing? And the other one about your research interests? Different schools use different terminology and its more or less interchangeable for the most part, but some (most? all?) state schools (and perhaps some private schools) want a biographical "diversity statement" in additional to the more typical "statement of purpose". If it's not that, I don't know what it is. I get the impression that the diversity statement can only help you, but it will not hurt you. I don't know how big a deal diversity statements are, really, and I don't know if they will be read with your other statement of purpose. As as I know, usually the graduate committee gets a file on every person, so I believe the adcomm would see it all together, rather than see 600 test scores, then 600 statements of purpose, then 600 diversity statements, then 600 writing samples. On the forum last year, some people mentioned going to schools and actually seeing their files (some of them mentioned printed out emails to the graduate secretary). I would guess that they are read together, but it might be useful to have some crossover between the two so that they compliment each other because its still easy to imagine circumstances where members of the adcomm might read things separately. Obviously, different schools would probably select people differently. If you're apply to a UC, look at their diversity statements and if Michigan's "personal statement" sounds similar, then treat it as the same thing. I have no idea how much universities take into account diversity, especially invisible diversity (like economic background) that can't be published in little charts, when selecting students. There are a lot of theories on it, and if you search "diversity" or "diversity statement", you can find out more. And as SocialComm says, when in doubt, read the website more carefully. If that fails, email the graduate assistant. If it's confusing, post it here and someone might be able to help you. I remember there was a lot of talk about what to write in diversity statements last year, and what individual guidelines wanted (I remember I was particularly frustrated and confounded then... but to be honest, until right now, I had forgotten they existed).

*bump* I reread this today and I think it is still really useful, hard-won information. I hope you 2011 people find the our (the 2010 people's) advice useful! You guys should especially take note of the GRE conversation on the second page, I think more people need to read that before asking "Are my stats any good??" 2011ers, come March you should make your one of these (linking to this one) and that way we can expand and perpetuate available knowledge (we're all wannabe researchers, after all).

What do you want to do with your PhD, especially those focusing on Christianity? Do you expect to teach or to work for a denomination or to do pastoral work or something else? If you plan to teach, where do you see yourself: at a research university, at a top liberal arts university, at a smaller local school, at a state school, at a secular school, at religious school, at a seminary, at college? Do you expect research to continue take up a large part of your time after you finish your dissertation? Have you looked into job opportunities, or is getting a PhD something you just know you need to do and the rest will be provided for? (Me, I am pretty sure I could be nothing but an academic so there's no judgment on my part if you say "Yes, I just need this PhD"). At my undergraduate university, the Judeo-Christian, especially theological, parts of the religion department were less than half of the whole, but judging from this forum, Christianity (especially pre-modern Judeo-Christianity as well as theology-y things) seems to be far and away the most popular aspect of "religion" at the graduate level. It seems like desire to get a PhD far outstrips the number of spots available every year and that it is much harder to get in a PhD program in religion than in almost any other field that I've seen (one exception could be literature). But as an outsider who has only glimpsed this from the parallel, I am very curious about what people want to do with their PhD in say the New Testament or Early Christianity or Systematic Theology or the other theology, because thinking back on the boards from last year, I feel like in the other topic I followed (sociology) there was much more talk about whether one would want to teach or not teach, and where one would want to teach, whereas on the religion subforum, there was a much stronger emphasis on the long standing desire to get a PhD with much less discussion of what would happen after. I am honestly just really curious because I don't know what an ideal outcome means here, I mean other than teaching at Chicago or Harvard or Duke or which ever other top research university you can name. Presumably, most people want to do that.

We were explained in our first pro-seminar with faculty, "If you don't want to be a tenured faculty member at a research university, don't tell us. Clearly we are all faculty members at a research university and for better or worse, we think we made the right choice. Research universities are good at reproducing the structure of research universities. If you tell us you're not interested in this track, we will give less attention. And if you're not interested this track, that's fine. You can tell each other even, just don't tell us because we have an inherent interest in reproducing ourselves." Even if we wanted to teach at a liberal arts college, we were supposed to hide that from the faculty. He said that all more articulately, but you get the drift. This might differ at other schools, but at my school this has been made clear to us again and again. Some schools might emphasize teaching more. Especially if you're going directly from undergrad, or even without a break undergrad-masters-PhD, you should seriously consider if this is what you want though. Have you tried anything else? I know I was not ready to apply out of undergrad, but after three years of teaching and living abroad and just doing other things in general, I was sure, and I was in a better spot to research the topic I had wanted to start three years ago. That said, one kid in my cohort is direct out of undergrad, and another did the undergrad-masters-PhD thing. They are both definitely ready to be doing their PhDs, and are in fact probably further along with the researcher mentality than I am. Then again, other two people are 30, and had actual careers that they gave up to do this. Another kid had applied for a PhD two times in anthropology before getting it right with sociology. It really varies person to person, but I think we are all ready to be researchers, and I think that's a clear common trait that we share. This might just a particular emphasis of my school, but i would bet that this is a more general thing.

I'm currently in a PhD program and one of the masters students asked to look at my old SoP to have an idea of what a successful SoP looks like. As I was rereading it, I realized how much useless and extraneous information I was including. I justified all these things that didn't need to be justified. However, I still liked what I had written in my research proposal section. Word count numbers varied, and the schools I got into had the highest word count (2500) and the lowest word count (500). I think my 500 word one was the best because it forced me to get rid of all that extra crap and really focus on my core research ideas, and the 2500 word one I could just go wild and wow them with lots of interesting detail. As I'm helping my friend write hers, I'm not telling her what to write or line editing or anything like that (yet), I'm just talking to her about what she wants to do and how she'd want to do it, and whether it is a good idea or not. She has two things (poverty and collective memory) that she is really interested in and is trying to connect using a research method and a particular site, she doesn't know the particulars yet, but she is clearly excited about poverty, collective memory, and certain methods. In my SoP I was much vaguer about a research method, or even if my study was going to be qualitative or quantitative (I implied that it would historical by who I asked to work with, and one could probably infer that it would use both quant and qual methods). But seriously, rereading the first few paragraphs, I cringe now seeing myself give so much biographical information*, but rereading my research ideas I think "Wow, these are much better ideas than I remembered. I should really do this." I think if you're applying at a top school, that's what you really want--research ideas that still sound good a year later, even if you're not sure you're going to do them (selling experience is also a bonus; I get that impression from others in my peers, but I didn't have any experience to sell besides language competency). And the best way to express your research ideas tightly in a statement will be to really have talked them through with lots of people beforehand. I had been talking about my idea for two years before I put pen to paper to write my SoP. *Note: obviously you need some amount of biographical information.I can just say for myself, I needed half as much as I put in. At least at my school, from day one it's clear you will be valued first and foremost as a researcher and a thinker, far above anything else. You don't get in because you're interesting, or you're a nice person, or you're a passionate teacher, or you've done interesting things (unless it relates to your research). I switched from a religion department to sociology for my PhD and while I think I needed to justify that switch and my lack of sociology background, I think I spent too long on it. I could have been giving other cool pieces of information to show that, in terms of my proposed project, a) I had done a lot of legwork I was already forming a thesis and doing haphazard preliminary mental analysis, or at least engaging with the issues I would encounter c) I was passionate about this particular topic. EDIT: I noticed that the other posts were not people in sociology. I mean this advice for sociology students and social scientists more generally. While I think it would be similar in other fields, I don't actually know.

My insomnia is your savior. I know NYU's stipend is a little lower than Columbia's, I forget how much, but you have a higher chance of getting a better deal on housing in Brooklyn (but also spend more money on transit). I currently go to Columbia. None of the PhD students here take out loans (all of the masters students do). When I asked upper classmen if I needed to take loans out, they were basically, they essentially didn't understand the question. None of my friends in PhD program at NYU have loans either, to the best of my knowledge. At all the top PhD programs at private colleges, one is given about 17-24k and that is expected to be enough. At public college stipends (and the area's cost of living) may be lower, and at cash strapped schools like Wisconsin and Berkeley there has been an increasing "you pay for the masters, we'll fund the rest of the PhD" trend in a lot of departments. To the best of my knowledge, most of the top private schools give the same stipend to all their students, whereas public schools are a little more diverse in how they fund (some funding all equally, some making funding very competitive, some making funding competitive only in the first year or two, some fund based pure merit, some fund based on what students can be funded for their work on specific projects, some fund everyone but unequally, some will not have funding offers for up to two-thirds of their accepted students while offering relatively generous packages to others--CUNY comes to mind here). At public schools especially, different departments within the school will fund in different ways even.

Vanderbilt has Religion, Psychology and Culture. Make sure you also check out places that do "Religion and Culture", "Religion and Modernity", "Sociology and Anthropology of Religion" (though that last one might be too far out, depending on your exact interests). Duke, Toronto, Chicago, BU all might have programs appropriate for you, depending on your exact interests. To be honest though, I applied to Religious Studies programs and Sociology programs and I ended up in a Sociology program. For me, it has definitely been the right choice simply for the wealth of methods I'm learning, though the fact that Sociology has a better job market than Religion doesn't hurt. I have to do a lot more lit review on my own, but hey, can't have everything. Seriously, at most religion programs I applied to, even though all my undergraduate work was in Religion, I only felt comfortable at a handful (I didn't apply to Vanderbilt because they didn't have the area studies resources I needed, but those other four plus UCSB were the only ones where I felt I might even marginally fit in). In fairness: I should note I had to cross a lot of otherwise fine schools off my list because I wanted to study a modern Islamic society that doesn't speak Arabic so I didn't want to learn Arabic. A lot of schools essentially said, "Your project sounds interesting, but we have no one for you." If you have a good project, you'll hear that a lot and you should hear that a lot because really, the only way to find the right schools is to email every department where you could possible even maybe fit in with.

Don't limit yourself just to Religion and Literature type programs. Tomoko Masuzawa (now in Comp Lit at Michigan) and John Lardas Modern (now at Franklin & Marshall) both did very literature theses and both went to Santa Barbara, which has nothing resembling a "Religion & Literature" track. Modern did a study of religion in Moby Dick, I think, as part of the Religion in America track, and Masuzawa's thesis turned into In Search of Dreamtime and I think was either in Religion & Culture or the Social Sciences & Religion type thing. There are lots of rubrics you could fall under here. A lot of places have "Religion & Culture", "Religion & Society" or "Religion & Modernity" type programs that you may well apply to. Get in touch with the heads of those tracks. Off hand, maybe Duke and Santa Barbara and Toronto would be particularly worth the look. If the author you want to do is American, that opens up whole new worlds for you. I didn't apply for Religion and Lit, and I don't go to Santa Barbara, I just also applied for weird, non-traditional tracks (though, really, History of Religion has a very very long tradition, but that's another issue). Brown might have something but I might be making that up entirely. Look around at all the Emories, Vanderbilts, Harvards, Yales, etc. The thing you really have to do is email, email, email. I applied to five sociology programs and five religion programs. It took me well over a month to find the right five religion programs. It took me two conversations and a few days of digging to figure out the right five sociology programs. I feel like I applied to every single appropriate religion program (and yes, only five fit my interests) but I realized there was at least one sociology I should have applied to, but didn't. It's hard being non-Biblical, non-"World Religion"-based when applying to Religion graduate programs. It will take a bunch of work to find the right programs. Follow every lead. It's extra hard for us to find the right matches.

It will completely depend on the type of writing sample. If you are doing a quant analysis of a single data set, an entire paper could have half a dozen citations. My writing sample was based on a comparative study of dictionaries over time, and every dictionary needed a separate citation, plus I had to pick up all my theory from all over, and had to use terms defined in a third set of literature, so I ended up with a lot of citations. It really depends on your project. Don't worry. Do you have every potentially questionable fact and assertion cited? Every quote? Every referenced source? Every idea from someone else? Great. Does your paper have some theoretical grounding that ties it to a larger body of literature? Even better. Does it need more? I don't think so. Oh and I sent in 20 pages of a roughly 35-40 project that was my BA paper. In retrospect, I probably sent the wrong 20 pages (I wanted to show the cleverness of my method and I think I should have striven to show the cleverness of analysis and conclusions; I sent the middle, when I think I should have sent the beginning and the end). Did it matter? No. I lucked out with a good match and am at my top choice school (Am I asking too many rhetorical questions? Yes. It's late and I can't sleep).

I think some combination of the last three responses nails it. You need to a. figure out exactly what you're interested b. think of where you want to work in 5 to 9 years and beyond c. figure out what's good in what you're interested in. For example, in Buddhism, Wisconsin and Virginia are both really, really good (better than Chicago, in all likelihood, because I think Chicago just might have Christian Wedemeyer... on the other hand, for Hinduism, Chicago is considered the shit because of Wendy Doeniger and someone on every search committee, even those who know nothing about Hinduism, will likely know her name. Her students are everywhere) and people in the field ought to know that....but that said, also remember that, let's say you study Buddhism or some other obscure field, people on the search committee might not know it as well as a Buddhodolgist would. In those situations, it will not just be the name of your adviser but also the name on your degree, the names of the other people on your thesis committee (at my PhD program, we just had a talk last week about picking a diverse thesis committee because those people will help write letters and get you a job, even if they're not from your subfield.... and not every search committee will have people from your subfield). Additionally, I think it is generally difficult to move from a stand-alone religious seminary to a highly respected university or non-denominational college. I'm sure it's been done, I'm sure people can come up with a few famous examples easily, but a degree from Dallas (which has HUGE respect) and a degree from Notre Dame (which also has HUGE respect) are going to take you very different places. They're both at or near the top of their respective worlds, but they're very different worlds, and only you can really know which one you want to be in.

Think of the type of school you want to work at. Look at their website, where did their faculty get their PhDs? If you have a specific school in mind about where to study, email the head of graduate studies and ask them this question (or rather, put it that you want to keep your options open). Ask them where they have placed students in the past 5 or 10 years, and if they have placed any in non-denominational college's religious studies departments. I found most places were quite forthcoming, even when I was totally wrong for them.

At the best schools, GRE is something that will more keep you out than get you in. 1200 is a magical minimum that people talk about, but your goal obviously shouldn't be a minimum, a 1400+ would obviously be nice. Study your ass off. Seriously. The test can be studied for. I used to teach it. Memorize vocab and stuff. Relearn all the math. Study every day. Make lists and organize. If you don't get in, this is what will keep you out and I think you already know that because the rest of your CV is ridiculously strong. Like, ridiculously strong. I applied to PhD programs with literally one sociology course on my transcript. Some schools essentially won't care at all about the GRE score, while some won't even look at your application below 1200. And you have no way of knowing which is which. One way to try and find out would be email professors at schools, asking whether you should retake the GRE if your scores are under 1100. Especially because you went to a smaller school, your GRE will be used to compare you to other candidates.