monsoonmaiden

Speaking for the US: for private schools and many charter schools, the minimum is a B.A. Many schools say that a master's is preferred, but you can certainly get a job at a good private school without one, and usually without certification. American public schools require certification, and as someone else mentioned, you can sometimes get "emergency" certification if you need to. I have a friend who has a BA and is teaching at an elite boarding school in Massachusetts. Check http://www.aclclassics.org/tr_jobs.html. One thing to keep in mind is work visa stuff. I don't know how it works with Canada, but I know it's a big hassle to get a work visa from other places.

Well, kiddos, it's been fun but unfortunately I've received all three of my rejection letters for this cycle. I just wanted to say a big congratulations to everyone who got in this year! Thank you all for being a nice little niche of support and insight and advice. I'm sure I'll be doing more lurking in the coming months, and will definitely be active here for my reapplication stuff. Time to revise my list of schools and figure out what I"m doing with my life in the upcoming year. Good luck, everyone!

Mine came yesterday. AND I got an additional rejection from UT's graduate college. Why do they feel the need to reject us twice, via email and then via post? Oh, the humanity!

So, stick with it. Your summer plans sound wise. Incidentally, I don't see my program on the list of schools you applied to. While I may be on the lit. side of things, I am very aware of the status of our archaeology program, which is absolutely right up there with the schools to which you applied. What do you study?

Thanks for the tips. As for the post-bac, I am only weak in one language, and I'm doing an intensive this summer to rectify that. (I figured out a bit later that I wanted to stick with classics so my Greek needs some work.) My modern languages are good, I'm almost fluent in Italian and am taking intensive German for reading this semester, so I think I'm set with that, although your idea to work that into the bibliography for my writing sample is great. I definitely will do that, as will I get in touch with some of my professors to take a look at strengthening my writing sample. My main question about contacting professors (which I did, and I even went all the way to AIA to meet as many as I could) is how do you ask tactfully "Am I a good fit for your program?" Is it as simple as asking just that? Thanks again for your advice!

Grumble grumble. Although it's easy to be calm and collected at rejection, it still stings to think that right now, there is a visitation weekend going on that I was not invited to. :-( So, I was wondering if you guys had any tips for reapplication next year. Other than, of course, adding more to the language load, what have you guys heard helps improve apps in a season like this? I've had admissions people tell me it really was about funding and numbers and ancient languages, but I'm sure there's more to it. Any ideas about what to do in the year between now and reapplication other than a totally non-related job? Have any of you taken gap years that you found were helpful in your graduate work?

I think (not to rain on anyone's parade) that it wouldn't make sense if a school had an interview weekend that they would accept people not invited to it. I know not all schools have them, but I can't imagine that they would spend money to fly people out to visit, especially in this climate, if they weren't serious about them as applicants. I have a friend who is being flown to the US from abroad for an interview weekend. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I were a school, I don't think I"d spend that money unless they were the candidates I was thinking about investing in academically for the next 5-7 years. What do you guys think?

To add to the info above, the UA just got all their apps in on Feb 15 and I know they had about 70, so it'll be a few weeks until they sort through those. I've heard Vandy has made a couple offers, as has Mizzou but I don't know much about their programs.

Gah! I don't understand why they have to reject everyone so late in the game. Can anyone else figure out the timelines that admissions committees use? If people are hearing acceptances so early, shouldn't we also be hearing about rejections? I feel like I have this totally deluded sense of false hope: just because I haven't been rejected yet (although I'm certain I will be) I feel like I have a chance. Very frustrating. Sorry to hear about UT, guys, I'm just waiting for my rejection, too. D-X Edit: Ok, so I posted this and literally like 30 seconds later my email got forwarded that I got rejected. Sometimes I just hate being right.

At least you had an acceptance in hand from Washington! I've so far only heard from Berkeley, too, and since I've started hearing others getting acceptances to my other 2 schools, my hope has really funneled down the drain. I'm kind of praying for a waitlisting at this point, even though I have the feeling this year few will even be taken from a waitlist, seeing as most people will just take what they can get. The only thing I've heard about Brown so far is that they have their invitational weekend for the Joukowsky Institute March 5 or something similar. 2 students from my department were invited in very early February. However! I know nothing at all about their other tracks, so maybe someone else knows more about the non-archaeology side of things over there... Looking at just the results search patterns on this website, Harvard doesn't seem to notify acceptances until late February, so you still have time, don't stress about that one yet. :-) Good luck! You're not alone!

Lucan, I'll chip in my two cents, but please keep in mind that I haven't gone through a PhD program or its hiring process yet, this is just from patterns I've seen and things I've heard, so take this with a grain of salt, I suppose. First of all, congrats on getting in/getting funded, etc! This year seems to be an exceptionally dismal one, so bravo! If your goals are to teach at a liberal arts school, and you are funded at Rutgers, like the faculty, etc. I would say to go for Rutgers. What I've heard is that you often end up getting placed for teaching in a school that is a tier down from where you were before. How true that is, I can't be sure, but at my current research I university, most of the professors do have either Ivy or top 10 school degrees (or the schools were top 10 at least when *they* got their degrees), and at the few top liberal arts college I've checked, most of their faculty also hold similar Ivy-type degrees. However, like I said, if your goal is to teach at a smaller school that may be a lesser known liberal arts school, Rutgers is probably fine. If, however, you want to teach at a top liberal arts school like Oberlin or the Claremont Colleges (again, just examples I've looked up), then you'd want to probably do the M.A. and reapply. However, in reapplying, of course you inherently take the same risk everyone does every year they apply: you may not get into your top school, and then you'd be in the same position you are now, but possibly without an acceptance or funding at all. That probably doesn't clarify anything, but good luck!

Yeah. I'm sure you all will know when I get rejected from my last 2 schools. I guess I should update and say I was rejected from Cal's AHMA program earlier in the month. However, I heard from the director of their admissions that they accepted 3 people out of 67, so... From my skilled forum stalking, it looks like Sidereal was perhaps our new potential Longhorn?

I saw on the results page we have our first Austin admit! Congratulations! (And why haven't they sent me *my* acceptance email yet? ;-) )

As far as I know, archaeology, the IPCAA program.

Out of curiosity, are you in the language track or archaeology?