Almaqah Thwn

i got rejected by rice! my roommate was handing me his leftovers, when I grabbed it and it fell all over the floor. and, this on the heels of my top school choice rejecting me this week! I'm sorry I use humor to cope with the hard realities of the graduate school process.

I am around for this cycle, congrats on Chicago! I am applying for Hebrew Bible at Johns Hopkins, Princeton Theological Seminary, Cornell, and NYU.

You know, I skip this forum for two weeks so I won't build up anxiety checking it every three minutes. And then, when I finally log back on, there's absolutely no results for the programs to which I applied. The only thing new I've learned is that marXian and Marcion are two different users. Soon enough, though...

Just got done with the last one here as well. It's out of my hands now (the application, not the thumb twiddles)

It's nice. Last year, the Arts and Science program at one school to which I was applying sent out a fee waiver like a day before the application was due. It was a pleasant surprise. Who says procrastinating (or, being loaded down with so many other things that you can't get to things early) doesn't pay off?

Hebrew Bible in the ancient Near East, with an emphasis on comparative parallels between Israel and Arabia.

Have you tried checking to see if there are any students on their website whom you could email? Or, have you checked the program's academia.edu directory for people? Current students would be a great source of advice.

Personally, mine was flocculent: Resembling tuffs of wool in loose, fluffy organization.

Aside from the university which I am attending, nope. It can be tempting; but generally, I would recommend not reading too much into it.

Here you go! http://thegradcafe.com/survey/ Aside from that, people usually list where they apply on this topic or in their signatures. But, only a few people do that. Most people just hover like myself and release as little information as possible. There also is usually a Near Eastern/Middle Eastern studies topic in the Interdisciplinary forum, but this year there has yet to be one. Also, this topic is always way more active than that one.

Yeah, I've noticed this about Old Testament programs especially. Each year, people say exponentially less. That being said, I applied to Princeton Theological Seminary, NYU, and Johns Hopkins this past round, all PhDs. We'll see how it plays out this year.

In addition to Comparative Semitics programs, you could try Huehnergard at University of Texas at Austin. He is pretty amazing with Semitic languages, although the program there is Hebrew Bible/Ancient Near East. You could check and see if it'd be posible to do a PhD in Lingustics, and use Huehnergard as an advisor.

Well, I'm glad we figured out whom Calvin S. was talking about. But on a serious note, I would echo sacklunch on campus visits. My professors assigned an article that said that campus visits generally do little to affect your acceptance into graduate school. When I questioned them about it, they said that campus visits matter when you are trying to figure out which school you want to attend after you have already been accepted. Furthermore, when you are accepted (or are being interviewed) the schools will usually fly you up there because they do want you.

Hello inprogress, I was in a similar boat to you. I attended a fundamentalist seminary and am now am in a Masters program at an Ivy League school, wherein my professor now has been very supportive of my PhD applications. So, your future in academia is not dead, I can attest to that. But, I deeply emphathize with your frustration. My M Div program was at a fundamentalist school and about half way in I realized my theological convictions were very different from that of the program (some at the school would call it "liberal," but I identify as a middle-right mainline Protestant). And, it is somewhat excruciating, lonely, and depressing to sort of be the lone person who thinks your way in your program. Furthermore, you're in for basically two years of hoop jumping, where you have to take classes which are of no interest to you, plough through unprofitable busy work and uninteresting books, and bear with the conscious awareness that your professors are dismissing legitimate scholarly issues and then sometimes taking potshots at them (Your post tells me you are already aware of this, as well). While a conservative M Div is certainly a strike against you and scholars will be suspicious of you, it is not the death of you (In fact, a couple of years ago someone graduating from Westminster California got straight into Johns Hopkins NES program, and I myself almost got in as well). Although, I would not recommend doing the direct PhD route, there is just too much resistance and there is a high chance you'll get shot down. A Masters at a recognized school will help you overcome this (Once more, there were two people from my seminary who did Masters elsewhere afterwards, and got into PhD programs at top 20 schools), as will tact ways of showing that you are not a fundamentalist. Furthermore, also recognize that some places will also occasionally let people in, even if they are recognized fundamentalists. But that all being said, your academic career is not dead. The good thing about the M Div is that it is long and you have a decent amount of spare time. Take time now to develop skills that will make your application shine and get you into Masters programs with funding. If I were in your position, I would advise four things. First, learn German and find some way to get it on your transcript. German can make or break an application. If your school does not offer German, see if you can do a directed study. Heck, I even audited a directed study and was able to take German for free, since my seminary had free audits. You're going to need about a year to get to an intermediate level (don't just go for basic), and you have to be constant with it. (Also, don't chicken out and just study French instead. As a professor once told me when I was visiting their program: "French is easy.") Second, do a thesis and spend half a year working on one solid paper which you would feel comfortable publishing. You need a great writing sample to show you have scholarly abilities. The problem at your stage of academia is that you have never been pushed to produce good scholarship. In fact, many seminarians think they have produced good articles, when they are really just okay term papers. You want something more that is exhaustive of the minute area at which it is looking. Also, this is a great opportunity to contact people within your field. If you are working on a subject matter and can find a professor working at a school with an MA program who is also interested, you can start to create a great relationship with people. I know a student who got funding because they contacted the professor under whom they are working a year or year and a half in advance about the topic in which they were interested. They asked the professor to look over a draft paper they wrote in their subject area, the professor agreed, took the paper, tore it up, and sent it back with tons of reccomendations. Needless to say, do not be afraid to contact people or ask for things. There are great people out there who would love to help you out and will go to bat for you. Third, hammer away at the primary language which you are studying and get really good at it. Then, find a way to display that in your writing sample/thesis. Being in a conservative seminary, you can have a low opinion of your institute's scholarship. And to be honest, a lot of does not deal sufficiently with complex scholarly issues and relies on out of date theories which have long been (rightly) dismissed by mainline academics (There has been tons of scholarship about theology and the ancient Near East produced in the last twenty years of which I was completely unware until I got to this school). However, I have found that the conservative seminaries that are truly passionate about languages can provide you the foundation upon which to develop skills which rival the highly ranked academic institutions. Fourth, this is actually less of a recommendation and more of a gamble which you could take: If you have the spare time, find something which would make your application stand out from everyone else's. Is there a language, region, theory, or area of interest which you could train into which relatively few people are looking (And which schools generally do not teach)? There might be those lone scholars out there who is interested in one area in which no one else is interested, and they would love to get an email from someone interested in the same thing. This is a risk, though, as you do not know whether or not such professor exists. Check faculty pages on lists of good schools to get a feel of what you could do (Also, see if you can learn anything about the individual scholars themselves). If you can find a few people who might be interested and its a language\theory which undergraduate institutions and seminaries are not generally teaching, it could play out to your advantage. And even if you do not find anything, just doing your own research in modern scholarship, getting familiar with the names who are out there, and reading their articles is extremely beneficial in the long run All that being said (And I have spent way too much time typing this), I want to leave you with this one thing because I found that I was constantly struggling with it: Recognize that the position in which you are is not all bad. Even though fundamentalist scholarship has serious flaws, your professors, fellow students, and the people working at your seminary are still great people who care for you, will go to bat for you, and be interested in your well being. I am in the position which I am in now because of more conservative scholars who took time out of their busy schedule and went out of the way to help me get ahead in life, and I owe them a great deal for that. And even though much of the practical theology requirements are frustrating and can seem as though they have no academic value, they are very useful for your own maturation and developing empathy for others around you. I remember one professor: I hated his classes, but I highly admired him as a person. I once ran into him as I was paying rent, and he was paying another student's tuition. Another time, I was getting a new computer at a Best Buy, and he was buying someone else a computer. And, all of this was on a seminary professor's budget, mind you, which is not a lot. He was an amazing person, even though I disliked his classes and know that he would not read my books for being "liberal." So, enjoy the people around you now, forgive their flaws, tread carefully, but tread lovingly. You're in the position in which you are for a reason. That said, I'm not accusing you of doing any of this. But, I do know how easy it is to fall into the trap of academic snobbery and how poisonous it can be.

Generally, dating someone in your own program is a bad idea. It is relatively awkward to ask them for a radiocarbon sample and it is much cheaper and more accurate to just ask them how old they are.

I came here to say something along those lines. However, from what I know their funding is not so great in comparison to other programs.

Hello Megan, I shot you some information via personal message about Cornell's program about a week ago. Please check it out!

Managing to get a cat in grad school can be hard, but it's doable. Personally, I'd highly avoid schools that require the GRE- cats are notoriously bad at sitting down for lengths of times, much less at inputing a 90th percentile response into the computer. That said, it might be worth trying to get your feline into a European program. Italy has lasagna, I hear.

Unless you're applying to a program that wants a thesis proposal, go broader. I emailed a professor once telling her that I was interested in something as specific as your Deut 2:5 example, and she told me that I was too narrow in my focus. Her explanation was that within the PhD, one learns so much to where their research interests will change. Furthermore, shooting too narrow could give the impression that you are unteachable or too laser focused to broaden, which will hurt you in your applications. Professors want students whom they can mold or direct if needed. Personally, I think that something like "intertextuality from a feminist perspective" would be sufficiently broad.

The .pdf is broke, sadly.

If I recall correctly, University of Chicago's NES program sends the applications for FLAS after you apply and only to specific individuals, but before they accept anyone to the program. Those who receive the application are not guaranteed entry. My general feeling was that they have a base cut off and send applications out to candidates whom they are seriously considering, or at least made it through the first gauntlet. Someone in the program or who received a FLAS application could tell you more though.

Yeah, schools will do that. A good way to get a ballpark estimate is to check the grad school results from previous years. People will often mention how much funding they got when they were admitted and generally it stays relatively the same (Although, it can change). I got into two MA programs- one at Brandeis in NEJS and one at Cornell in Archaeology. When I met with the professor at Brandeis, he mentioned funding but did not give me too much details on his own, so I tried to estimate from the grad school results, but it still ended up being more expensive than I expected by like $40,000. For Cornell, I had no clue and had to ask the professor outright what the funding situation was and she was more than happy to help, as assistantships were not on their page anywhere (albeit external funding for archaeological work was). It's also funny how the Ivy League school ended up being cheaper by like $60,000 than Brandeis. That just goes to show that one should not assume a program is necessarily cheaper or more expensive based on reputation. My suggestion would be to scour the program pages for anything you can find and if you can't find it, email the professor and formulate your response in such a way that shows you read the program's website (E. G. "I was wondering about... but couldn't find anything on the website"). From my past experiences, professors generally treat students as though they have not read thoroughly the website (I'm assuming they get a lot of generic emails out of the blue or just have a lot of the same things to say that their website does, but I've never actually asked one about it) and when I showed that I had taken the time to read the webpage, the professors seemed to have respected that. Also: really important for your sanity: as tempting as it may be to look at student's CVs in the programs in which you are interested, look at them only as much as necessary to formulate your own CV. It's really easy to obssess over whether or not you are skilled or qualified or have good enough research interests to get into a specific program when you start comparing yourself to students who are already in those programs. Furthermore, the insanely qualified students tend to stick in your head as the gold standard by which all grad students are accepted, and not the one who is more like you. So, keep yourself from that, it'll drive you nuts and just impair your ability to focus on things on which you actually need to be focusing.

I'm in the same boat as you, menge. I got shortlisted at Johns Hopkins last year in a PhD for Hebrew Bible (but not admitted) and admitted into a funded MA at Cornell (of which, there were only two of seven) with a 4.5 AW. At very least, 4.5 won't get you cut off at some decent schools, but it all really depends on where you're applying. There was someone mentioned on here with great scores who applied to a certain Ivy League's PhD program, but their app didn't get looked at because their GRE was not in the 99th percentile.

Yeah, it's a terrible phase of life. It's temporarily relieving sending off the applications, but then terrible again as you check day by day to see if you got anything. When I was applying to programs, a lot of people at the school which I was attending considered me fairly intelligent. This became rather frustrating when I was slogging through applications and waiting for responses from schools. When I expressed my concerns to some of my fellow students, they often wrote off my concerns by saying "oh, you're smart, you shouldn't be worrying about it." And while I appreciate their willingness to help, it felt minimalizing of my situation and made it a rather difficult and lonely time. So, I understand some of what you are going through. It's a uniquely stressful situation and phase of life in which very few, if any, people around you are also going through. Just try not to sweat every detail. You're going to make mistakes and have weak points on your applications, no matter how much work you do now or how many times you obsessively go over your work. But, guess what? You may make mistakes that you have no idea you made until much later, that were much bigger ones than the ones over which you may be obssessing. Also, try not to check these boards too much or check other people's academic credentials too often. That will drive you bonkers. I would look up people's academic credentials on these boards or academia.edu and start freaking out, to where I just had to force myself to stop.

As a moderate Protestant who went to a conservative, fundamentalist seminary, I would echo this sentiment. When you sit under theologically-aligned teaching with which you disagree continually for several years, it can start to grate on you. Once, we had a guest speaker in chapel who believed temples in the ancient Near East used plant imagery because they took it from the Garden of Eden and that the view that the Temple of Solomon reflected ancient Near Eastern norms with its plant imagery was "liberal." At that time, I had just been accepted into an Anthropology MA elsewhere and knew that such a statement was utterly ridiculous, but most other people seemed absolutely fine with it. Now given, you'd be taught by Catholics and not fundamentalists. But, it is worth considering whether you would be okay constantly sitting under a faith tradition with which you disagree.