artschoolhopeful

Hi Acetylcoa, I'm not too familiar with your field, and I do believe it's the people and not the program that's most important, but be sure to think broader than the next 4-5 years. If you want to be in academia, you need to focus on you and pick the program with the advisor you think will be the most beneficial in securing your academic success--someone who is active in helping you develop your career and produce publications and a solid dissertation. If you plan on marrying your partner, being able to secure a job after grad studies near your partner should be your absolute focus, which means you have to pick the strongest grad program that will get you a job. I've done long distance before and it's tough, but if you want to be in academia, the job hunt starts now. It's only 4-5 years out of a lifetime.

Since I saw a few of you waiting for Michigan, here is some info. I received my unofficial admit from my POI last Wednesday and official admit with funding yesterday. The cohort for Michigan is 6 this year. People should be receiving their decisions soon--they invited about 14 to an interview/recruitment weekend (which I did not attend).

Hello all, I apologize for bringing up USC again, but I still haven't received ANY contact from them and I'm a little afraid to email them myself. For those who have received decisions, did the decision come just by email? Was the status of your application on the site changed from the usual "submitted" at all? Should I just bite the bullet and email them and ask what's up? They're the only one of my three schools that have made no contact with me and it's starting to make me anxious.

Has anyone not heard from USC?

Moi non plus. Anyway, what is your area of research in particular? For an MA, if you took "a bunch of post-grad continuing studies courses" in art history I think you should be fine, but if you want to go directly into a PhD program, maybe check out some visual studies programs? Especially if you are interested in social history and identity politics and what have you. I did undergrad at one of the more traditional art history schools and I'm actually trying to branch away from that. PM me if you want some articles on visual studies.

just out of curiosity--is anyone still waiting on Northwestern?

To those of you rejected by Northwestern--did you turn in your applications early? I gave up on Northwestern a long time ago, but I still haven't received my rejection. I feel like these Chicago area schools are doing really cruel rounds of rejections.

has anyone heard anything from SAIC?

I have a couple of friends that have done the econ/ibanking/consulting route, some of whom love it and some of whom feel trapped (I also graduated from an Ivy that was very, very internship oriented). I admire that you have decided to pursue your passions. Please understand that it is EXTREMELY difficult to become a "curator at a large museum" or "becoming a Professor at a good school." That being said, it seems that very few PhDs are unemployed, so I believe you could look forward to a fruitful life with an art history degree regardless. Please read these articles: http://chronicle.com/article/Graduate-School-in-the-Huma/44846/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A15182-2002Jul16 OKAY, now that I'm done being responsible and holding up my big "GO BACK" sign, welcome to the club! Here is my advice to you. To Build Up Credentials: 1. Work on languages. Do you have already have proficiency in any languages? This is very important for art history graduate school applications. Which languages you SHOULD work on depend on what period/area you want to study. GENERALLY SPEAKING, proficiency in German and French is important for art history. If you do not know either German or French, I would suggest you work on German as more people know French. 2. Start taking art history classes. Most universities have continuing education classes--Columbia included. I know banker schedules are extremely hectic and making time to take these classes will be nearly impossible, but if you could enroll in one or two art history classes, it would be extremely beneficial for you to add to your transcripts and for you to further demonstrate interest in the subject. 3. If you cannot take classes, read. And read some more. If you DO NOT have an inclination towards any particular period, I would highly recommend you stay away from modern/contemporary Western art because it is already quite saturated. If you are proficient in other languages, it's good to work around that (i.e. latin/medieval art, Chinese/Chinese art, etc). 4. Have you thought about trying to get a job or an internship in a museum--not a curatorial department, but in development or finance division? A foot in the door is always helpful. During the application process: 1. Buy this book: Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way into the Graduate School of Your Choice--Donald Asher I did not use this book for this round of applications and I regret not having made the purchase. 2. Contact advisors. I believe for masters programs it is not important to establish a main advisor or what not, but this is where number 3 from the former list is important. Demonstrate you have a breadth of knowledge that you acquired independent of your academic background to professors in the programs that you are interested in early on. 3. WRITING SAMPLE! Your writing sample will be a very, very important way to evaluate you. This is why it is important to read. A lot. So make sure you write a kick-ass writing sample and get as much feedback and advice as possible while writing it. I really do not know much about masters programs--I only applied to one because the only professor who works in my sub-field happens to be there and they only have a terminal masters. This is my advice for beefing up your art history resume and graduate application in general.

Don't Fulbright finalist notifications usually come out late January? Anyway, I would not say anything to anyone until you have all your cards securely in your hand. If a particular school can only offer positions with no wait list, telling them you have other options that you may weigh more heavily would scare rather than encourage them. If you can secure a Fulbright AND PhD admission, based on my experience from watching others, most schools will usually allow you to defer the PhD. This is specifically referring to a research (not ETA) Fulbright grant in the discipline that you applied for a PhD in. Also, notification varies by country, not discipline so try to figure out when your country usually notifies for an approximate date.

I just wanted to step in and add to this conversation a little bit. Where I went to undergrad happens to be one of the top schools in art history and I was always under the impression that I would get into graduate school. This may not be the case this year or ever--I'm okay with this precisely because of what bobo has said. There is A LOT of sacrifice to be made for an academic career and the people I look up to as my mentors are either curators at top museums or professors at my alma mater who have so clearly "made it" as art historians. They do seem to be a bit out of touch with the difficulty of securing jobs as a recent PhD student today; as they have only had success, seem to forget that many, many others fall along the way. I really, really appreciate and understand bobo's point of view and I have watched others with both humanities and social science PhD degrees struggle to find jobs. I don't believe that bobo is being cynical at all, but trying to sensitively relate the severe situation for aspiring academics. This application process has me guiltily questioning whether I have the strength to go through this over and over and over again--to apply, to put my heart and soul into my research and writing and to hope that somehow, somewhere, I will be the special chosen one. Even now, I am reluctant to commit to long-term engagements or relationships because of all the "what-ifs" associated to graduate school applications. This will happen over and over and over again. Some of us will certainly succeed and never fail--due to luck or extreme capacity. Some of us will fail a lot and then have a gleaming moment of success. Some of us will succeed and then fall. And some of us will just fall. I question if this is how I want to live the rest of my life when I do so badly want to research and write about my topic. My question is this--is anyone else feeling these pangs of doubt during the application process? Do you feel guilty about them--as in if you feel this nervous already, maybe you're not as passionate or cut out for academic life as you thought you were? I am extremely passionate about my research and would love nothing more than to write and disseminate knowledge as a living, but maybe sometimes I question if I am strong enough.

It feels pretty grim this admissions round, doesn't it?

Hang in there watersnake!! It's a tough year for all admissions, but I really do love that I can rant on this board, calm my nerves down and allow other people around me to live functioning lives.

This is an excerpt from a post in art history that mew27 put up for the 2008 cycle: "it's amazing and very aggravating how shady the whole admission process can be. there's a lot of under-the-table stuff going on that i was completely unaware of. my advisor called me in one day recently because he 'had something very important to talk about.' apparently what happened is that a professor from school X had called him over the weekend and expressed great interest in my application. he really wanted to work with me, but so did professor so-and-so at school Y. so what happens? between the 3 of them - the two professors and my advisor - they work out a "deal" as to which one i'll get into. both schools can't accept me because it lowers their chances that i'll go to either one of them, but if i only get into one, i'll probably go there (god knows we can't ruin their matriculation rates). so i ask my advisor whether i get any say in the matter/get to decide which school i want more, and he tells me no. the "deal" has already been worked out, and i'm not supposed to know anything about it. he just wanted to tell me so i wouldn't feel bad when i get rejected from school Y. i thought this was unbelievably shady - here they are treating applicants like freakin' business deals. so anyway, i shouldn't be ranting, but hopefully it makes some of you guys feel better knowing that there's a LOT of fishy crap going on here. everything is so political..." Anyway, I do not know if whether or not this scenario was true, but in my opinion, it does kind of make sense if you're applying to "top" tier programs, ya know?

we need to talk.