jaydee

Indeed, on closer examination: http://www.grad.washington.edu/students/interdisciplinary/nme/index.shtml ....

I would likewise very much appreciate any insights held by this group regarding the comparison between the Arizona, Indiana and Texas programs. I am entering an MA program with the intention of going onto PhD. I am interested in going into academia, research and translation and my area of interest is modern Arabic literature, art and culture. And as a follow on question, I would be interested to know where the Penn PhD program ranks amongst its peers also...

I would be interested in hearing people's opinions regarding strength of program as well. I am trying to compare Arizona, Texas and Indiana's departments in Middle Eastern/Near Eastern studies as well. For your question Humbaba, my pre-application research led me to believe that Arizona is a more established program than the one at UW. One key fact that illustrates this to me is that UW does not have a PhD track in Middle Eastern Studies, whereas U of A does. Also U of A has a simplified process for moving from MA to PhD. It probably does depend on what your area of concentration is though!

I am finishing my third year of Modern Standard Arabic classes at a university (as a non-degree seeking graduate student). Thus, oral proficiency is my weakest suit! Nonetheless, I prepared and felt the interview went pretty well. I consider myself somewhere in the intermediate spectrum and self identified as such on my application. CMES asks students to be at the Advanced level so this was a concern for me. I was so happy to be accepted. I am holding out hope for funding and am still waiting for five decisions!

I was contacted by Kimberly Dahl on February 3 to schedule a oral proficiency interview which was conducted the next week. I was absolutely delighted to receive an acceptance email from her on February 18. I never checked my application until reading these posts (because they contacted me so early!) and the system is currently down. About a week after the admission notification I got an email notification saying that I am an alternate for the FLAS. I followed up and Kimberly replied that decisions on other fellowships and funding would come in a week or two, which is any day now! I haven't heard further news. This was my first accept. So I was very happy. Good luck to all of you.