killerbunny

Ah! Gotcha. That makes sense now. Yes, admissions have become more competitive. And yes, you're right about being somewhat specific in your stated focus but not hyper-specific. Best of luck!

Familiarize yourself with the field in general and more so your subfield of modernism—which is vast—to gain a good sense of the historiography and how you plan to advance research of a movement, or a cluster of movements, that have been well-covered by many of the best and brightest in the discipline. What's been done already, and what are a couple of new directions that you foresee yourself taking as a modernist? Your extracurriculars and skills will help bolster your application, and a well-written sample is crucial, but perhaps more critical is a statement of purpose that convincingly argues that what you plan to contribute will be good for art history and why you're the one to take this on and why program X with this and that faculty would enable you to make said contributions. Very promising applicants can have lackluster results—perhaps, that's what you mean by "stalled admission cycles"? I'm unclear. Even with a great application, it's still a crapshoot. But if you have professors happily willing to write you letters of recommendations, you're just as deserving of a shot as other applicants.

The general consensus with exceptions, always exceptions, is cash cow programs are to be avoided unless you can afford the steep tuition and the cost of living in one of two expensive cities, while taking time from working to be in an intensive program. The one argument, and a highly debated one at that, is an MA program such as these might boost your chances of acquiring the research skills, scholarly focus, and contacts to get accepted into a desirable PhD program afterwards. But if that's not even in the cards for you, then it seems you have all the reason in the world to pursue another avenue, a funded MA program like Tufts, Williams, or others mentioned in a recent post. If you don't have to worry about money, IFA is far more recognized in the art field, while the sway of MAPH is negligible to nil. Hopefully, someone who's been in either program with the similar goals will pipe up, or perhaps, you could seek out and talk to recent graduates with the help of these programs. Good luck!

First off, not all professors are "old"! ? And even if they are, it doesn't preclude them from being great sources of advice on your grad school prospects. And when you really think about it, they're probably the best source since they know you as a person and an emerging scholar, unlike any of us strangers here on the wild old web—though your stats sound impressive. Profs also may be busy, but busy with a job whose official duties include advising students on matters that you're asking about here. They'll be the ones writing what some think (debatably) is the most important part of your app, the letters of recommendation, which will be read by prospective advisors, people whom your current profs will very likely know as colleagues or even friends. As to your actual question, apply to a mix of (funded) MA and PhD programs and see what happens. Many forum users have done so in the past and the results can be surprising. I wouldn't worry about your majoring in history, but a writing sample that's heavy on art history is better, and one that demonstrates your desired focus as a future doctoral student is best.

I think the news of the Princeton interview was just in the results section, and not in the forums. I wasn't immediately aware of this part of Grad Cafe, but noticed others referring to results: https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/?per_page=20&q=&institution=princeton&program=Art+History&degree=&season=F22 As to your more recent question, I don't think your undergrad GPA and age will be major factors, especially compared to your writing sample, statement, recommendations, and all the factors at play behind the scenes.

In the statement, I'd specify areas of interest / list a few subfields to give an idea of your direction as well as to make the case for why you're applying to a particular program. But I'd avoid giving the impression of already having narrowed down a project. Being academically curious and open to the perspectives of your potential mentors will be more welcome. Almost everyone deviates from their initial plan anyways, especially as they become more familiar with the state of their field and learn where attention has already accumulated and where the lacunae lie.

It's a real pain to condense a thesis but I'd try to make the writing sample as stand-alone as possible, so that straight away, a reader can follow along and not get stuck due to a lack of context. This topic pops up every application season, so searching and finding the general consensus on the best way of using a long-form piece as a writing sample would be a good idea.

Art history PhD student here, but I feel compelled to weigh in on the matter of word limits. Based on applying to MA and then PhD programs with widely varying word restrictions on the SOP (from no limit whatsoever to 300 words!), I noticed that cutting down my statements invariably improved them. It helped declutter and streamline my thoughts and gave the impression of confidence. The same goes for writing in general. I'll add that the need for brevity continues throughout grad school while you're submitting abstracts for conferences or other calls for papers and applying for various opportunities and grants. My top tips for reducing words is use active voice and be stingy with adjectives and *especially* adverbs (most of the time, there's a better verb or noun that eliminates the need for modifiers).

To chime in with @botticelli and @jbc568 this added time to work on your writing sample and statement of purpose will be a big benefit to you. The more time you have to step away and return to those parts of your application with fresh eyes and a deeper understanding of the field, the better off you'll be. As for conferences, I'd say attending them to get that deeper understanding is better at this point than presenting, and thanks to the move to Zoom, it's easier than ever to listen in and learn about the latest scholarship. If you haven't already, check out and subscribe to https://arthist.net/ to find out about upcoming conferences as well as read calls for papers, which gives a good idea of the kinds of conversations going on now in art history. I'd also keep in contact with your current professors. You can ask them these kinds of questions, and they will have you on their radar when you need letters of recommendation next year.

Definitely still apply even if you didn't hear back from a potential advisor. Just as a response—even a friendly and encouraging one—is no guarantee of admission, a lack of one doesn't mean rejection is imminent. Like @ChimpArt said, people are busy, go on sabbatical, miss emails, or don't feel inclined to respond if a message from a potential student doesn't ask something specific or include anything to take action on. I'd only follow up if you do have something you want to know that only they can answer and hasn't been covered by the department's website.

Everything's negotiable! (Half kidding.) It doesn't hurt to ask if you do so tactfully and offer a reason or two why you could use more aid. My own experience: I (politely) asked for more $ from the MA program that I ended up going to, explaining that I'd be leaving my job and moving to go to school, so anything more that they could offer would be most welcomed. It didn't work. BUT I suspect that my plea and doing well in my first semester swayed them to give me more aid later when more funding became available. I've read on the forums here that having another offer sometimes gives you leverage to negotiate more funding; so searching for past discussions on this topic might help you decide how to approach this. But I say go for it!

I agree with @Sigaba and @essiec. Rather than asking about your grade, as I'd mentioned, ask how to develop your skills. It's easy to fixate on grades, but it's really less of the point than it ever was at this stage in your academic career and transitioning from that mindset will help you and be much appreciated by your professors, who are now more like advanced associates. And I think as the other commenters mention, you'll actually get the constructive feedback you're hoping for with the approach of giving (to the discipline) rather than getting something (an A and positive feedback, which, don't get me wrong, I live for).

That's rough. So much of academia requires reading minds. I often have to fight the urge to appear like I know what I'm doing to ask questions when something is unclear to me, but a lot of the issue is, as a classmate put it, I don't know what I don't know. If you're feeling gutsy, I'd just ignore her no feedback rule and politely ask her about your grade, saying that you'd developed the impression that you were on the right track and would take any comments to heart for future papers.

I'm sorry. From your post, your advisor does sound rather unsupportive. The no feedback rule elicits a ?!?! response from me (although, many professors have to be pressed for feedback because they don't want to waste their limited time writing comments that will go unread, unheeded). I'm facing end-of-term deadlines and just procrastinating here on the forums, so I'll be direct (forgive me if this comes across as blunt). How much did you revise your draft after you received a thumbs up from your advisor? I'm wondering if you aren't working against an expectation that even a promising draft needs to be revised, refined, and polished before it reaches A-level status. I have no idea what her compliments detailed but maybe she implied you were getting warmer in meeting her standards but needed to keep going? If you do feel like you didn't rest and turned in a finished paper that represented further revision and finetuning, please gently press her for feedback on where you went wrong. I'd be just about as open as you are here, that you are worried about your future in the field and really want to learn what's expected of you but in a way that conveys you don't expect your hand to be held through the process.

Third-person would be the voice to use. Generally, these biographies are required to fall under a certain number of words, and not that many in my experience, a short paragraph. If there are no guidelines given for this symposium, I would look up the programs for similar events to find examples of ones that you like. Many journals include author biographies that follow the same format. But yes, your research and publishing achievements are the primary topics. Highlights as opposed to an overly thorough rundown of your scholarship are best IMHO.