roving99

Highly likely no. It is usually about a week from when the 'review results' panel changes in the application, and generally speaking decision emails start rolling in very early in the AM. I would assume we do not hear earlier than Friday, if not perhaps Monday.

So I think those of us in the humanities/socsci are waiting any day now right, they would've just finished convening an hour ago. Any clue how quickly they have sent out notifs from previous years? will we know tomorrow? monday? next week?

Howdy! Has anyone else applied for this? Figured I would start a thread. The waiting is absolutely killing me. This fellowship would be a life-changer for me (as I am sure it would be for many) so I am just looking to commiserate. Art History here!

What are the major publishing houses in your field? Keep abreast of their new and upcoming scholarship. What are recent dissertations written in your proposed field? Take a look at their work and their arguments, look at their bibliographies. generally, use bibliographies. They are extremely helpful in finding new/alternative sources that you may not know of, particularly if it is interdisciplinary/a new approach. are you engaged with professional organizations in the field? They would probably offer book/article announcements and prizes that would be useful to you as well.

There’s nothing wrong inherently with a terminal MA program. Williams for instance has a stellar one. Tgere are many others as well. which program offers the best funding? which program has the best advisor for you RIGHT NOW? I would focus on those two questions the most. Many times after two years you will find that you have a more nuanced understanding of phd programs and advisors that align with your interests, so I don’t think wether the school has a phd program or not should be a defining factor. Consider this two years of training for the real application cycle. Also, I’m not familiar with Boston’s etiquette but there are also some schools that will NOT have MA students move to the PhD directly, so that is just something to consider.

For a master's degree, hands down, you should be going to the school with the best funding package, unless you are independently wealthy or have other means of paying for school. This is not a field that offers much in the way of payout post-graduation, so if there is a good advisor for you at each of those schools, funding is the most important for an MA. However, if there are any schools on that list who really do NOT have an advisor who is a good fit, I would write those schools off maybe even before funding. There is no use going to any program without the right faculty to guide you, since the work you do while in school will be far more important than the name of the school on your diploma at the end of all of it. If they all have comparable funding and comparable advisors, the choice is pretty subjective. consider the following: - Where is it located? Do you feel good about moving to this location? - what is the cost of living there? Will your funding package cover your living situation in said location, or will you have to get 1 or more jobs to offset that cost, or take out extra loans? - What benefits and opportunities do these schools provide for their students OUTSIDE of work in the classroom? -How long is the program? Will you be rushed through, or can you take your time and make sure you are absorbing as much as possible? -What is the culture like on campus and specifically in the department? Talk to current students and recent grads to get a sense of how it feels to be a part of that academic system. -What are recent post-MA placements? Are they doing the things you want to be doing after graduating? Getting into the schools you want? Working in the types of museums you have interest in? Just my two cents/some tried and true advice.

Absolutely! Feel free to shoot me a message on here and we can get to chatting about specifics. I'll say honestly, particularly in Contemporary LatAm, the Ivies are one of the worst places you can go. If you want to do anything remotely cutting edge or ground-breaking, you want to stay FAR away from the Ivies which are largely very stuck in traditional canon narratives. They emphasize colonial latin america through a Eurocentric lens and they focus on inserting Latin America into the pre-established canon rather than mapping it in its own right. Find an advisor who is doing the kind of work that you want to be doing, and go where the advisor is. Don't go to the "school." The field is still so small that you could end up at a great school with no advisor or a HORRIBLE advisor, and then the degree is worthless because you haven't been able to learn and frame your thinking in a way that is helpful for the field itself.

Congrats! Hunter is a great school for an MA, particularly in contemp LatAm. If you can swing it financially I'm sure you will have a good experience there, though I think I have heard too large of a cohort can be a problem. (don't quote me on that) contemporary LatAm is my field exactly so feel free to ask any questions you might have. Hunter does have a very good reputation for Art History regardless, particularly if you are looking to go onto a PhD. If so, work really really closely with your advisor and get to workshops, conferences, etc, and polish your writing as much as you can.

Have you reached out to your student advocate and/or your institution's omnibudsperson? That would be your best route through all of this to start. You need a paper trail proving what is going on that you can use to bolster your options in the future.

I’m not sure if there is a program that does this. It’s quite a niche field. You may need to build your own degree at a school that offers law, forensics, art history, and museum studies altogether, especially since your career goal similarly isn’t a position that just exists - you’ll need to build a brand for yourself and market yourself as such, I think it will end up being like a private investigator type of situation, and you may need those credentials as well.

Given the current climate of the world, I would 100% choose the school with better funding. Both of those are great programs and the cost of living at UI will be much less than DC. DC is a nightmare.

This is a crummy experience. I’m so sorry this is how you’ve been treated during a time when students need support the most. Unfortunately, your experience is a relatively common one. Many many terminal masters programs are just cash cows for their respective universities and students end up with the short end of the stick in a majority of these situations. I would continue to badger them. You need SOMETHING out of them, not just pure dismissal.

For me, 0$. I would NOT have pursued the MA/PhD if I was not fully funded. It’s not worth it - the time it will take to get you out from under that debt considering the academic job market just won’t add up. Especially now since we have no idea what the job market will be looking like the next few years.

You should also look at Rutgers. Tatiana Flores is a stellar scholar and recent hires have really bolstered the program. (Nicole Fleetwood, amber Wiley.) There is also a very good Latin American/Latino studieS program there as well.

I agree. There’s potential there for it to be 50% or more online to promote social distancing, especially in relatively major metropolitan areas. If you are taking out major loans to go to places like NYU, Columbia, Temple, SAIC, I would highly advise to reconsider the fall semester. I don’t think you will be getting what you are paying for. however, if you have a funded masters or PhD offer, I see no reason why not to continue. In my program, professors are acutely aware of the struggle and will go out of their way to bring incoming students up to speed as soon as possible. Also, with a summer of preparation, virtual grad courses will be much more successful in the fall. I actually have not minded the transition education-wise. If no one accepts funded positions, departments have the potential of completely losing those lines of credit and therefore having less spots to open up to future students. You may ask to defer, but they might not be able to do it come next year if they lose the funding.