KA.DINGER.RA

All of the interviews (except maybe peace studies?) happen this weekend. It’s tough. Beginning last year, they started taking only 2 CJA folks instead of 4.

Hi friends. Current ND PhD student here in CJA. If you're interviewing this upcoming weekend and have any questions, feel free to drop me a PM. I'll be helping to pick folks up from the airport and will also be speaking at the dinner on Friday (i think?) night, so it will be nice to meet you folks.

Agreed with @marXian. Do not pay a CENT for grad school tuition. There is a place that will give you a paid assistantship with your qualifications. UGA had a solid stipend when I was there (in exchange for teaching a 2:1 course load your second year) and the MTS, though slightly less funded than UGA, was ok and the COL was cheap.

I know it feels difficult to hear tough advice, but I genuinely wish someone had given me advice like that before embarking on graduate school. I'm in my tenth year of college with this year only being my first year of PhD work (4 year undergrad, 3 year MA, 2 year MTS). It's a super long and difficult road.

At this point, all interviews have occurred and acceptances have been extended. It might still take some time to hear back about rejections.

Wonderful! Any other acceptances floating around in here?

I'm not sure about the other subfields, but I think only one Biblical Studies person has accepted the MTS offer so far. That means that a couple of other offers are still floating around out there. If those people don't accept, I'd guess that waitlist acceptances will go out shortly thereafter.

At least for CJA, acceptances and waitlist notifications are out. No idea about rejections.

It might be different for the different concentrations. I'd heard that the meeting for CJA folks had already heard, but I could be wrong. When I was accepted here, the email came the wednesday/thursday after interview weekend.

Notre Dame's acceptances are going out tomorrow and I believe Emory's already have.

Oh definitely. It's certainly worth applying. I would just imagine that in a lot of places they'll prefer an MA or MTS as well.

To pile on to what everyone has already said, I don't really see moving straight from an M.Div to a PhD. An MA, MTS, or STM at a tier one school would likely get you there though.

I presented at their student religious symposium and found their graduate students to be as (or more) capable than many of the students I've met at Ivy League schools. They understand that the name value for their program won't get them where they want to go, so they bust ass and work hard. Goff is apparently an amazing advisor and is an equally great scholar. If you don't want to do Hellenistic Judaism or DSS, I personally wouldn't go. I applied and was accepted, but they knew my focus is on much earlier stuff. They said it might be better to go elsewhere; I ended up working on a second M* degree and am happy with my current institution. I have nothing but positive things to say about the students and faculty in that program.

To my knowledge, MTS can take a while. They frequently offer MTS spots to PhD interviewees that they want to keep in house.

I would think that all of the invites have gone out at this point. I know people who have received invitations in all of the various subfields.

Per the first question, no. I know a couple of internal and a couple of external candidates who have received invites. Honestly, I think a lot of it depends on which professor is sending the emails. Some people were getting emails at like midnight last year. No one should stress or anything if they haven't gotten a letter yet. It takes the course of a day to get most of the out. No one freak out yet!

Apologies. "Letters." Emails are going out today for some. It occasionally happens over 2, SOMETIMES 3 days.

FYI, Notre Dame letters are going out today and possibly some in the couple of days that follow. Some friends have gotten letters from CJA and HC. I have no idea about Liturgy, ST, MT, or WRWC.

That's very likely. It may just have been faculty from my area meeting today. Or others met and I didn't know about it.

Possibly. But that's only internal applicants. I have no idea how many outside applicants are applying. Word on the street is that they're meeting this afternoon to discuss applicants.

There are fewer internal applicants across the board, but significantly more internal applicants in History of Christianity from what I've heard.

Nothing for ND. I don't even think I've heard about the professors meeting to discuss potential applicants yet. Interview weekend is usually late February so I assume the meeting to figure out who they're inviting will be soon. Acceptances usually go out a couple of days after the interview weekend.

I'm surprised this thread isn't popping off more at this point. I was a giant, shaking ball of neuroses at this point last year. Kudos to y'all for keeping your cool!

It's no worries! I've had a couple of bad experiences with SBL, hence my frustration. Hoping that the wait isn't too too long on this journal submission. It wasn't bench rejected, which is always good! haha.

I should rephrase. I think that taking 16 months to get back to someone about whether or not they can start working on a book review for a journal (particularly one like RBL that puts out so many reviews) is ridiculous. Experiencing wait-time on hearing about an article, which obviously takes a lot of time to read and critique, is far more understandable.