ClassicsCandidate
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Posts posted by ClassicsCandidate
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I'm going to be applying to an MA in Classical Studies, which involves some Archaeology. So it's not quite the same, but if you're alright with that, I'll be happy to look over your SoP if you're still looking for feedback!
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On 12/6/2017 at 7:41 AM, Mementobr said:
Hi, I'd like help with my SOP if anyone could help me . I'll be glad to help too.
I would be happy to help if you're still looking for people to review your SoP!
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If you are still in need of someone to help you review your SoP, I'm happy to help.
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On 12/20/2017 at 4:35 PM, LauraV said:
I am confused. If there is no upload location for the letter of intent that is required for a school, do I include/attach it to my curriculum vitae pdf? It's U of Nev.
If it's for UNLV, you can e-mail the admissions and ask this question. Usually, they're pretty good about answering those types of questions. Or, it may be something you have to send directly to your program rather than on the general admission. If you've looked through all the admission requirements for your program and there isn't specific instructions on sending things in different places (general application and graduate department you're applying to), then I would e-mail admissions just to be on the safe side.
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I was going to say the same thing as @fuzzylogician. I know that some programs might just throw those that go over the limit in the bin, and when I asked the director of the program I'm applying to what the parameters were (because when I looked on the site, the word count was nowhere to be found), I made sure to cut down my SoP to the most important meat of the information and got rid of any "fluff" I had gunking up my statement. I'm on version 10 over two months, and I'm still having people read over it and giving me feedback because I want to make sure it's well-done enough that there is no reason it'll be looked over. Now that there are parameters posted on the site, I'm still going with what the director of the program told me because I figured that would be the best route to take as it is likely she will be one of the people reading it on the admissions committee.
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Las Vegas is definitely an intense place to live and like any big city you have to be careful where you end up living because it can be very dangerous (I've lived near places in Las Vegas where it's usually fine but every so often you hear a gun go off in your apartment complex or read about someone on the other side of the street being stabbed during a mugging). I'm not trying to scare you or anything, but it's quite an adjustment if you're from a small farm town like I am. But if my farmboy butt can deal with it, anyone can, imo.
That being said, Las Vegas also has a lot of museums and a thriving art scene that I think you'd enjoy, and not everything is on the Strip. The Strip is actually really small compared to the rest of the city. The first time I came here I thought the Strip would be much bigger than it was - I can drive down the main path of the Strip in 30 minutes in light traffic but there's a great amount of other things to do and some interesting places to visit even if you eliminate the Strip all together. If you're looking into Art, you'll enjoy First Fridays on Fremont (https://ffflv.org/) and Las Vegas has really unique museums like The Neon Museum (which I believe has an artist-in-residence program) and the Mob Museum. UNLV has two museums: the Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery and the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art. Other museums include the Atomic Testing Museum, the Burlesque Hall of Fame, the Erotic Heritage Museum, the Las Vegas Natural History Museum, the Las Vegas Springs Preserve (which contains the Origen Museum, the Nevada State Museum Las Vegas, gardens, a seasonal butterfly habitat, a 1905 recreated village of early Las Vegas, and art galleries), and the Old Las Vegas Fort State Historic Park. These aren't even all the museums/galleries in town, either, but the better-known ones. The best thing about a lot of these places are they're nearby each other - the Old Las Vegas Fort State Historic Park is within walking distance of the Las Vegas Natural History Museum and I would argue that the Neon Museum is within walking distance from there, too (they're all on the same side of the road) and the Mob Museum is a short drive from the Neon Museum. (As you can see, museums are the first thing I learn about a place when I get there).
Also, food. One of the great things about Las Vegas is if you like Asian food, you will be set here. There is a really good place near the Charleston Community College campus called Moki Ramen and I haven't had ramen like that since I was actually in Japan. Pretty much any kind of food can be found here and the International markets are kind of a hike but if you can split an uber or pay a friend for gas with a car to go with to the market, they have a good selection of everything. Obviously, they have fast-food like normal but I didn't have In-N-Out where I grew up and I was done for once I had it in Las Vegas. When I move for my next degree, I'm going to have some issues if I'm away from a state with In-N-Out. (There is one right next to UNLV, btw. Along with things like Chipotle, Coffee Bean, Starbucks, etc.)
One of the things that really messed me up coming to Las Vegas, though, was how little options there are when it comes to transportation. There's buses, and that's it, and they barely run on their schedule - if you miss a bus you could be waiting 15 minutes to an hour depending on which bus stop you're at - I would suggest having a car if you can afford to keep one here because it's a lot easier to get around but everyone here drives bonkers so brace for that, too. Or budget to uber a lot when you go off campus for whatever reason.
Also also, if you want to take a break and do the touristy crap? If you get a Nevada ID (usually the UNLV ID will work but some places are fussy) you can get local discounts (and sometimes the student discounts are better than the locals discount so always ask about the student discount first! Some boba places even give student discounts); also there are things like the PowerPass or GoPass that lets you pay a set amount of money to save on multiple attractions in a week or so, depending on the company. If you're only looking for one-night shows, especially on the Strip, use Tix4Tonight, which have discounted tickets that can be good 2-for-1 deals or a significant percentage off of things.
I think this is most of what I can think of right now; Las Vegas is intense, yes, but between your grad program and the things there are to do in Vegas, you're definitely not going to be bored! You can always DM me with direct questions too, if you would like.
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I suppose the subforum may differ as well; I noticed that the Classics subforum is almost non-existent and not many people post in there.
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This is a really encouraging thread. My undergrad GPA was a 2.69, but I got into an MA program and I currently have a 3.86 in my program and plan on applying to a second MA, so I think my current program GPA will help. Congrats to everyone who got into their programs!
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All my grades for this semester were posted and I got all A's ^^
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In addition to what everyone said about contacting the programs about fee waivers, you should also look into local Arts / Humanities councils, which may have grants for graduate school applications (some do, some don't from what I've seen). I know that the Institute for Humane Studies used to have a PhD application fee grant, but I'm not seeing it up there anymore, so you might want to contact them and see if they got rid of it or if it'll be up again.
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7 hours ago, Bayesian1701 said:
The bill was signed today and became official. Lifetime learning credit is kept and tuition waivers are not taxed.
It's good to hear that the Lifetime Learning credit was kept and there was no tax on the tuition waivers; these are two things I was worried about since I'm applying to my MA for Fall. A slight relief, at least.
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1 hour ago, ploutarchos said:
I probably wouldn't have an "in progress" section on your CV, especially if there's only one paper in it. The trouble is that no one can verify what "in progress" means: an outline? a draft (rough or polished)? a lit review? It starts to become more meaningful for established scholars with track records, but even then most people don't list things until "in press." Further, it's already clear that the paper exists if it's your writing sample, so listing it on the CV is superfluous. That said, however, I think these considerations are more important for job applicants than PhD applicants.
Okay, cool. I'll take that out. I've had a few people give me examples of CVs that had "in progress" as an example but what you said makes a lot of sense. I'm trying to reformat my CV for a terminal MA program in Classical Studies. I've had a lot more museum positions and not all of the positions worked directly with antiquities.
1 hour ago, ploutarchos said:I think the paper sounds very interesting and could be a strong writing sample for the right program, but it will depend on how open the program is to less traditional avenues of inquiry. I suspect that my own writing sample last year, on the post-classical reception of a particular genre, was a liability at several programs, but I have no way of verifying that. I did end up at a place I'm very happy with, though.
I know the director of the program I'm applying to has done presentations on PJO herself (I read through her entire CV before I wrote my SoP), which is why I was less hesitant to use it. I hadn't considered that it might give some of the admissions committee pause. Do you think that will be more of a pro or a con if I used it as a writing sample?
I'm glad you ended up somewhere you liked, though!
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This was excellent advice and gave a good rundown of what every other resource I've consulted seems to miss. Thank you for writing this!
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12 minutes ago, ploutarchos said:
I would encourage you to postpone submission until after you arrive at your new program in the fall (assuming you receive offers and accept one). If you haven't had your paper accepted yet, it won't do you any good for this application cycle -- listing papers as "submitted" is close to meaningless -- and there is sometimes the unfortunate belief that reception, particularly pop-culture reception, isn't "serious" Classics. You may as well wait to see what your new program thinks about the paper and whether you should submit it and to what venue. For that matter, it may also be wise for your first publication to be easily recognizable to Classicists both in content and venue. But you may have already thought of these things, so FWIW.
I have it listed as an "in progress" paper, but if that information is best left out on my CV, I can do that.
The theme of the paper is how dyslexia and ADHD are used as explanations for being able to read Ancient Greek without studying it and ADHD being "helpful" for battle; it was a bit of an interdisciplinary paper (since it was the requirement for my foundations class in my current degree). So I have a lot of ancient views on disabilities and mental health issues vs. the modern attitudes in Greece (apparently, dyslexia is actually the only learning disability they have accommodations for in schools).This is true; I could save a better paper with a more "serious" theme for publication. Do you think it's still worth using as my writing sample, though? It's the most relevant one to my potential program that I have that is somewhat recent.
Thank you for the feedback; it has been very helpful!
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On 12/7/2017 at 8:56 AM, Pius Aeneas said:
It seems this forum is dead (fitting given the state of the field, perhaps), but maybe we can breathe some life into it since application deadlines have started to pass!
To answer OP, I think that quite frankly grades mean little as long as they aren't bad. Virtually everyone who applies for Classics and Classics-adjacent PhDs has excellent grades so what really matters for your application are your letters, your statement of purpose, and your language preparation (i.e. at least 3+ years of one of the ancient languages and 2+ of the other). If you're extremely concerned about the two Bs you might mention this to one of your letter writers so that they make a point of assuaging any potential doubts about your language skills. That said it seems like you only have a couple years for both Greek and Latin; this might be a bit slim for the programs you've listed. You might consider an MA or post-Bac if you need more language preparation before diving into a PhD.
I agree with Pius that the grades aren't horribly bad, but doing extra language work either through self-study or a Post-Bacc would help. (I had particularly rough semesters where I got C's due to extenuating circumstances but those can be explained in one of your letters, as Pius said). I don't have any extra to add but wanted to support this advice because it's precisely what I would have said.
On 12/8/2017 at 8:29 AM, aigilipos said:OP, if you are truly concerned about your GPA/general qualifications for these programs, I highly recommend pursuing a terminal MA to strengthen your application for future doctoral work. There are funded programs available, and it was a spectacular way for me to redeem myself academically.
That's the route I'm currently taking especially because in my first MA that I'm about to finish I got all A's except for one class (by 1.5 points because of a dumb mistake, ugh, it's still frustrates me) to show that I am in a far better environment conducive to my learning. I'm applying to a terminal Classical Studies program first so that I can show my improvement and give myself a better chance at a PhD when I apply later. Good luck with all those applications, Aigilipos!
7 hours ago, Pius Aeneas said:Anyone else out there applying this cycle? The first couple waves of deadlines have passed now and the next wave will be coming with the new year. As someone currently at a top program I'm happy to answer questions!
I'm applying for Fall '18! I'm trying to polish my SoP and then I have to re-read and edit my writing sample, which, surprise, centers around Percy Jackson and the Olympians but I don't think anyone's approached what I did in the same way (at least, they didn't when I wrote it last year), so I'm going to be submitting it to be published too (although, through a fantasy literature academic journal and not a Classical one).
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I would be willing to look over it, if you need more feedback! Will you let me know your parameters/school in the PM?
Can anyone review my SOP? Please:) (MFA Painting)
in Statement of Purpose, Personal History, Diversity
Posted
I would be happy to look over it if you are still in need of people reviewing it.