Joan Callamezzo

In my experience that seems totally fine. I wouldn't submit a 10 page paper if they ask for 25, but overall I think it's absolutely acceptable to submit a paper that's a little on the shorter side. Where you really get into to trouble is when they ask for a 20 page sample but you submit your 75 page MA thesis. Some schools are very, very strict about page limits to the point that their application portal will physically not allow you to submit above a specific word/page count.

I think it's pretty important to actually read and understand the work of the professors you are applying to work with. When I was applying to programs I think it really showed when I was phoning it in vs. writing about a professor whose scholarship I actually knew and used. There was also one case where I found a POI who was a *perfect fit* for me on paper, but when I read a couple of her latest articles I was really, really not a fan of her approach. I'm sure this is easier said than done, especially if you are in a place where you don't have academic library privileges, but it will show in your writing sample and your enthusiasm whether you actually know your POI's work.

This is so so important to keep in mind! We have a family friend who was the head curator of our town's art museum, his highest degree is a BA. When he retired last year the woman who replaced him had a PhD from a really well-known school.

I totally agree with you CradCafe about the MA! I got my MA at a school essentially identical to SMU in terms of program size, faculty support and ranking. 9.5 times out of 10 I would advise someone to do an MA at SMU over Columbia or IFA.

SMU is a great program but the reality is, that it may not help you on the job market or when competing for fellowships in the same way that going to Yale/Harvard/IFA/etc will. It's not necessarily fair or right, but name recognition and program prestige are a huge part of academia. Regarding your point on program size, you will be hard pressed to find a "large" PhD program. MA programs, sure, but not PhD. My program is on the slightly larger side, but no advisor has more than 7 or 8 students who are all spread out over multiple years. It's also great having an advisor with multiple students because you can bounce ideas off of each other and work together. Also - I would NEVER post my full name on a website like this, but that's just me!

I second rococo_realism. Schools usually post a list of their graduate students online, and while it may seem creepy, you can just look up students in your intended field on Academia.edu and look at their CVs. My CV is a copy-paste job of my old advisor's (obviously missing a few categories..).

I disagree with theSchwartz. I have heard from extremely reputable sources at multiple schools that the written scores are even less important than the math scores. The GRE's scoring system for the writing portion is extremely formulaic. A bad writer who has read the review books and learns the pattern the scorers are looking for will get a higher score than a superior writer who didn't buy the book and isn't familiar with the formula. It's a pretty clear cut scam to get people to buy the ETS books.

Both are equally hard to gain admittance into. Contemporary is difficult because of the glut of applicants, and medieval is difficult because of the required languages and historiography. While there is certainly a smaller pool of medievalists applying to each school, it is not like there is a quota system in place - If you are the only medievalist who applies and you are unqualified you won't get in.

qwer7890 has given great advice. I doubt that in 2015, it is even possible to find a program without a faculty member who is engaged in critical theory. I would be wary of any program that allows you to focus exclusively on critical theory; it may not necessarily translate well on the job market. If you want to focus on aesthetics and critical theory more so than "Art History" proper you might be happier in a philosophy or even a Lit program.

I don't think you will get into a truly top PhD program, in a field as popular as 20th century, straight from undergrad, without knowledge of French or German. There is nothing wrong with getting an MA, and if you have a strong background already you may be able to get into a fully funded program. It can only improve your odds of getting into your top choice PhD program. It's much better to wait 2-3 years and get into a fantastic program, than it is to immediately go to whatever school accepts you.

There is really no such thing as a "relaxed" PhD program. Getting a PhD is by nature stressful. On the other hand though, as long as you go to a fully funded program with a nice advisor who does not pit her/his advisees against each other you shouldn't have to worry about things being competitive.

- What is your end goal? Do you want to the academic or curatorial route? If you are interested in a PhD in Art History, a museum studies MA is not really a good stepping stone. You may take an art history class or two on the route to earning a museum studies MA, but the focus will be on museum practice rather than the academic study of art history. My MA university had separate programs in Art History and Museum Studies and they were taught by completely different faculty with little to no overlap, save for the occasional museum studies student in one of our seminars. It is also important to keep in mind that curators at prestigious and regionally recognized museums have their PhD in Art History; education and support staff have museum studies degrees. It is safe to that a museum studies MA will not get you a job as a curator. I am actually pretty torn over whether or not the museum studies MA is worthy investment at all. Out of my classmates from undergrad who wanted to work at a museum the ones who chose a museum studies degree vs. those who took an entry level museum job after college there seems to be very little difference in outcome. - I am not familiar with either of those programs. In my limited experience the top european MA programs if you want to do a US PhD are Oxbridge, Manchester, Birmingham and obviously Courtauld. - In my experience and observing the experiences of my classmates, there is no way to predict whether or not it will be easy or hard to stay at/switch programs after the MA. It is very program and student specific. There is a stigma attached to leaving some programs, while at others it is pretty much expected that you leave. The latter is generally the case for terminal/stand alone MAs.

I honestly believe that people who are reluctant to take language classes should re-evaluate why they want to get into academia. If you are in the humanities you really should know French and German. Not for your day-to-day research necessarily, but you'll need these languages for historiography, attending conferences, and collaborating with other scholars. You (universal *you*) are pigeon-holing yourself by not wanting to take language classes.

It's a VERY small program, and not especially prestigious, but I have heard amazing things about SMU! Their funding situation sounds incredible, and IIRC they even have summer funding available to MA students. I've also heard that it's a generally supportive and positive environment as well.

I am not in History (so YMMV..) but I had sort of an interesting experience re: my lack-luster GRE scores when applying to my humanities programs and I think it's worth sharing here. I scored 163 in verbal and I can't remember what my quant score was, but I know it was somewhere in the high forties, percentile wise (i.e. not good!). I got into multiple Ivy league schools, so the quant score obviously didn't hurt me there, but at one of my "safety" schools I was told that I lost out on a university-wide fellowship because my GRE scores were not competitive enough. I think the takeaway here might be that at top programs, where everyone is guaranteed funding, a solid verbal score is all you need, *but* at programs where funding is scarce and more competitive, a high quant score may also be necessary.

I think that is is totally fine if you want to do a dissertation on "material culture," but I worry that you won't have much luck getting into PhD programs, or on the job market, if you pigeon hole your self into such a small field. Even if you don't see yourself as an americanist you would benefit from marketing yourself as one. I don't think an American Studies degree will cut it if you want to work at a "big name" art museum. Maybe if you go to Yale, but I'd still go for the Art degree if you want to work at an Art museum.

I would personally go with school #1. I never took a single "class" or seminar in my field during my MA. Instead, I took 4 independent studies with my advisor. As long as you have an accessible advisor who is in your field you will be fine. I got way more out of my independent studies than I would have out of seminars. I was able to choose exactly what I wanted the course to be on, and I got to work one-on-one with my rockstar advisor. I really think that the MA should be about writing an amazing thesis and working on languages (If you're doing Near East, languages are obviously going to be a *major* undertaking..). Maybe I am just biased by my own experience, but I don't think you should be worried about the availability of coursework in your field - it's great if you can get it, but you can still produce great (and even better!) work on your own. If you don't have someone you would want to work closely with, or if you prefer a more structured program (as opposed to self-directed indep. study) you should go with #2.

I would forget about the Fulbright. The research/study Fulbright is pretty much impossible to get unless you are ABD, at which point it is still highly unlikely. If you want to apply to Italy or England I would doubly forget it. If you have what it takes to get the research Fulbright as a BA, you are brilliant and extremely qualified and will probably get into a slew of PhD programs.

I would say that close to a third of the people in my MA program did not have Art History BAs. One girl was even a neuroscience major. It's really not a big deal at all, especially if you took enough AH classes to get a minor. In terms of not having an AH paper to use as a writing sample, you could write a new paper, but you could also submit a paper from a related field. I was an AH major, but when I applied to the MA I submitted a course paper from another discipline because it was my strongest paper and had won several department and university awards. It also worked out, because it was on the same historical subfield and issues that my art historical work focuses on.

I gave a paper at the Zoo as an MA a couple years ago and I LOVED it! It was seriously such a fantastic experience and really cemented that I was doing what I was meant to be doing. Going as an MA is actually perfect because no one really expects anything out of you, and the senior scholars are so wonderful and supportive, and just all around excited to see fresh faces. Everyone wants to give you advice and buy you drinks and take you under their wing.

This is probably a really, really unpopular opinion (and you all are welcome to ream me in the replies..) but I think that admission to Columbia/IFA MA should be thought of as a rejection. The programs, while attached to prestigious departments, are not themselves prestigious. I've never personally seen the admissions numbers, but they have to be somewhere around or even above 75%. Correct me if I'm wrong, but has anyone actually even seen or heard of someone getting rejected to IFA or Columbia MA? The reason the program is so small is because no one wants to spend that kind of money on what is essentially an academic door prize. My undergrad advisor got his PhD at Columbia in the early 90s, and he remembers even back then there were two classes of students at the program - the PhD students who were dotted on by faculty and staff, and the underclass of MA students who were put up with for the simple fact that they were basically funding the PhD students' tuition. If you* want to be a 2nd class citizen with six figures of debt, no one is stopping you, but I would hope you would think about the longterm and not let yourself get swept up in the name (*general "you," not OP in particular) Some schools with underrated, but generously funded MA programs are SMU, UC Riverside and Syracuse. Where you got your MA matters less than the contacts you develop while there and the content of your thesis. If you are constantly stressed about money or working a full time job to pay your bills, you will not have the time or means necessary to make the most out of your experience. *** Edit to Add: None of this is to say you should not feel proud of your accomplishment of getting accepted to 3 programs with only a BA! PhD admissions are SO SO competitive, and while certain exemplary students are sometimes admitted straight to the PhD, I think undergrads greatly misunderstand the disadvantages they are up against in applying alongside applicants who have one or more MAs.

Do you have an MA? Is it possible that you accidentally applied to schools that require an MA to be accepted into the PhD program? The PhD program at my MA institution had this requirement, and we got quite a number of applicants to the PhD program each year who misunderstood the policy. How "not very good" are your GRE scores? Most departments do not have a minimum, but if your scores were truly abysmal (like <50% on verbal..) I could see that being an issue.

Don't do it!! That program is silly expensive and doesn't have the same prestige as the PhD program, because it is basically operated as a cash cow for the department. If you're seriously considering attending, I would ask the DGS about stats from recent grads - do they get hired at top museums or galleries? Or accepted into funded PhDs? I think that the MAPH has a better reputation and is also not as expensive.

Hmmm... I really did not intend to start an internet argument over my comment. If you look back at my comment I said that at *my* program the TA-ships go to students that did not get accepted for fellowships or external funding, and that these are usually the student who have "weaker backgrounds. TA-ing also puts you at a huge disadvantage because its a time-suck and you spend all of your time looking over student work when you really want to be looking at yours. Teaching experience is important, but I would argue that the more funded quarters you have to focus on your dissertation the better you will do on the job market. The advantages are two fold: you have more time to work on your research and only your research, and you get the added boost of the recognition that comes from having earned a fellowship.

The university I did my MA at was prestigious, but our department had a LOT of problems. The professors put pressure on the graduate students to make a good impression on prospectives, and I will 100% admit that I was not entirely forthcoming with prospective students. No, it was not the right thing to do, and I do not know why we did it, but it happened nonetheless. I was always honest about the realities of the poor funding situation in our department, but I was definitely guilty of white-washing and glossing over some of the flaws of the department. I think that this is always something you need to keep in mind when visiting a department - students are not going to want to risk doing harm to their relationship with their advisor or the DGS, so take what they have to say with a grain of salt. Good people to talk to are 5th year plus ABDs, because they have the most perspective on the department, and probably have less at stake and will be more willing to give you an honest answer.