ClassicsCandidate

Thank you! And I saw that you said you were on two waitlists; I would check in with people who have gotten off of the waitlists for those universities to see what the statistics on that might be. I think that if they still have until the April date, don't lose too much hope! I've never been waitlisted myself; every application I put in last year was a straight-up rejection. So, I don't have much experience with the waitlist process.
 

I just wanted to update everyone! I was offered unconditional admission at the University of St Andrews, so I'll be going to Scotland in September. I'm still waiting to hear back from any funding schemes, but two are currently with committees, two are awaiting review. I've given a firm acceptance, so now it's all down to funding and logistics of moving. I hope everyone else is getting good news, too! My application apparently took a little longer because they wanted me to have three supervisors since my PhD project was so interdisciplinary but they must have really wanted me there for going through all the trouble of finding the right fits for me. I'm really excited!

@ClassicsCandidate congratulations! I am so happy for you! 
Do you think I have any chances? 

I just wanted to update everyone! I was offered unconditional admission at the University of St Andrews, so I'll be going to Scotland in September. I'm still waiting to hear back from any funding schemes, but two are currently with committees, two are awaiting review. I've given a firm acceptance, so now it's all down to funding and logistics of moving. I hope everyone else is getting good news, too! My application apparently took a little longer because they wanted me to have three supervisors since my PhD project was so interdisciplinary but they must have really wanted me there for going through all the trouble of finding the right fits for me. I'm really excited!

Thanks, @JMAurelius and @Celtics! Crossing my everythings for the folks who are still awaiting answers or responses from waitlists!

Congratulations! Well done, I wish you to enjoy your studies!!

This is Awesome!! Congratulations! Well deserved!! ???

I just wanted to update everyone! I was offered unconditional admission at the University of St Andrews, so I'll be going to Scotland in September. I'm still waiting to hear back from any funding schemes, but two are currently with committees, two are awaiting review. I've given a firm acceptance, so now it's all down to funding and logistics of moving. I hope everyone else is getting good news, too! My application apparently took a little longer because they wanted me to have three supervisors since my PhD project was so interdisciplinary but they must have really wanted me there for going through all the trouble of finding the right fits for me. I'm really excited!

I just wanted to update everyone! I was offered unconditional admission at the University of St Andrews, so I'll be going to Scotland in September. I'm still waiting to hear back from any funding schemes, but two are currently with committees, two are awaiting review. I've given a firm acceptance, so now it's all down to funding and logistics of moving. I hope everyone else is getting good news, too! My application apparently took a little longer because they wanted me to have three supervisors since my PhD project was so interdisciplinary but they must have really wanted me there for going through all the trouble of finding the right fits for me. I'm really excited!

I just wanted to update everyone! I was offered unconditional admission at the University of St Andrews, so I'll be going to Scotland in September. I'm still waiting to hear back from any funding schemes, but two are currently with committees, two are awaiting review. I've given a firm acceptance, so now it's all down to funding and logistics of moving. I hope everyone else is getting good news, too! My application apparently took a little longer because they wanted me to have three supervisors since my PhD project was so interdisciplinary but they must have really wanted me there for going through all the trouble of finding the right fits for me. I'm really excited!

I'm a Mediterranean archaeologist too! 

Salvete everyone! I just found this forum yesterday and I am so excited to know I am not alone in all this madness.
 
I am not necessarily pure "Classics", but I am applying for a PhD in Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology (and most of my programs overlap with classical archaeology)
 
If anyone applied to the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World Program at UPenn, all interviews have been completed at this point (I was one of the lucky ones to get an interview).
 
Other programs I applied to are: the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown, and Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology at Johns Hopkins.
 
Would love to hear if there are any other archaeologists applying in this forum!
 
Best of luck to everyone!!

Hi, all. I just wanted to share that I received my first response from an MA application. Indiana accepted me for an MA with full-funding. I was prepared to be rejected by all programs, so I am surprised to hear that the first reply was an acceptance. I will add it to the results later today once my acceptance high wears off and lets me process everything. 
I'd imagine anyone waiting to hear back about a PhD from Indiana would be hearing a decision now or soon. 

I had my first interview today! I was surprised how casual it felt - though I'm sure this varies from school to school. They just asked me some general questions about my interests and experiences and why I was interested in their program. Unfortunately they didn't give me much of a time line for when I might hear about results so I'm not sure if it will be days or months before I hear back. It seems from the results page that things usually pick up in the last week of January - fingers crossed for good news for us all! 

First year Classics PhD candidate here, and I thought of another tip for the interviews, if it can help.  Definitely seem generally passionate, but it really helps to have a research project thought up, so you can show that you know what the end goal of the program is. You can also show how your past interests tie into your future interests this way. Personally, it also gave me a lot more confidence going into the interview, since I knew what I was about. They ended up asking me this exact question: "If you were to start your thesis right now, what would it be about?" I'm so glad that I was ready. Anyway, good luck to all of you applying this cycle!

Unless admissions practices have changed significantly in the last few years, programs don't interview every single one of their admits. If you haven't received an interview notification from a particular school, it doesn't necessarily mean you're out of the running.

It's a nerve-wracking time, but if you look at previous years on the results page of gradcafe, there's a big increase in interviews/results around the last week of January, so there's still time!

Sounds cliche, but be yourself! Don't be afraid to let your personality come through and come prepared with questions about the department/program. If you've secured an interview, that means your academic qualifications/research interests/stats have passed the threshold and it's more about if you are a good fit for the program or if there are any iffy points in your application, it'll be about clearing those up too. The interview is just as much about you interviewing them as it is them to you. (For example, I had an interview for a school I ended up getting into where I knew immediately after the interview that the school was NOT for me). 

Hello everyone! I'm currently in my 2nd year of a PhD program in Classics. Chatting to people on gradcafe was a big help to me when I was applying and especially interviewing, so I want to make myself available to you all if anyone has any questions or worries as interview time approaches. I'm happy to help in any way I can!

I'll also chime in to both validate Expositor's experience (and thank them deeply for sharing), and say that their experience doesn't match mine. Mine is much closer to Carta's, esp. about things like departmental culture. But, basically, I think both of them are in different ways highlighting the utmost importance of two factors: economics, and mental health.
On the economic point, I'd say it really depends. Expositor is dead-on, of course, that many people have financial trouble, even at top institutions. But many top institutions do pay reasonably well, relative to local cost of living, for someone with few other expenses. Since it's not worthwhile to accrue debt, it's a reasonable claim that one shouldn't go to a program with a poor stipend (by which I mean under ~30k) regardless of prestige. This is admittedly an elitist sort of claim, esp. for someone who's happy with their situation to say. But I think not worrying about money, and being able to pay undergrad loans and save to some extent, is a major factor in my satisfaction with my program. 
One of the main points I want to push back against is the framing a PhD as a waste of 6 years, or as necessarily a significant opportunity cost. It only is relative to some career or life goals, so it's important for one to be clear on what matters to one. I wrote a longer comment on this last year in the Philosophy forum, in which I was perhaps a bit too rosy, but not grossly so. It's worth adding that a good stipend is close to the median American income (though high-cost urban areas make things difficult). 
The second big point, mental health, can be difficult to predict and manage, but seems to be a huge determinant of PhD program satisfaction, and is strongly affected by many factors, including departmental culture, requirements, and money. I for sure don't recommend excluding those with mental health struggles from academia, and departments should be as understanding as possible, but even an accommodating department doesn't make struggles better, so weighing this sort of risk seems like a crucial part of deciding whether and how to apply. 
EDIT: I want to also respond to Expositor's exhortation to "Do something useful with your life." Academia is often quite problematic, but it can look rather subsersive compared to most private and many public sector jobs. So, if someone is devoting themselves to non-profit work, or volunteering, maybe that will help the world more than academia, but those jobs frequently pay about the same or even less than a good PhD stipend does, in my anecdotal experience from friends in the non-profit sector. Jobs that pay much better are usually not contributing to social good. (And, as an example, something like primary or secodnary teaching can pay more, but also generally requires more education and likely debt.)

I've decided I'm only putting in any and all effort into St Andrews this year. I've applied for lots of different funding avenues as well, so I would rather just focus my energy on that. Now I can just sit back and hope one of those go through. We'll see!
I hope everyone's doing well with their applications and I'm waving pom poms for all of you applying!

Finger cross mate. I am preparing for my grad-school as well.
To my knowledge, it is more difficult to get a scholarship/funding in Britain nowadays than the past (from my Profs, graduated from SOAS and Oxon).
You may need to spend some time to work on your RP (3-5 pages approximately) and contact your POI directly. (the PhD admission between British unis and North American unis is quite different)
For me, I wish I can go to Britain as well but none of the unis suit me... (Britain is fancy in modern politics/literature ... )

My provisional list for the '22 fall application (would be great if anyone has some comment on my decision) :
PhD: Alberta (Modern Lang.), British Columbia (Asian Studies), South Carolina (Comp. Lit.), UC Santa Barbara (East Asian Lang. & Cult. Studies), UWashington (Asian Lang. & Lit.)
MA/MPhil: Alberta (East Asian Studies), CUHK (MPhil in Chin. Lit.), Florida State (Chinese), UMass Amherst (East Asian Lang. & Lit.)

The reason I also consider MA is that I wish to give a buffer to myself and acculturate to the North America learning culture 

still... a lot of questions and concerns
- Should I also consider Arizona State (MA in Chinese), UC Irvine (East Asian Studies) too? It's a neat school but competitive (every grad school is competitive LOL)
- I am hesitating if I should go take GRE or not. I really have no time to prepare for this exam .... I am working full-time in a research project (about Computer Science) to survive the tuition fee for my current degree, and I am doing my degree at the same time (am gonna write my MA dissertation) [you may guess where I am from .... haha ,,,,]
- Further to my concern, I know GRE is "OPTIONAL" to some unis (at least UWashington's already announced that they no longer consider GRE result)... still I am not sure if taking GRE is advantageous for my application.
- I tried to contact some POIs too but no response from them .... quite frustrated... should I follow up? Or should I just focus on my dissertation first?

Anyway, good luck to everyone. Do our best and no regrets. Back to work!

I don't know where you are based, but I do know that many academic publishers offer internships. Off the top of my head, I recall Princeton, Oxford, and Cambridge offering internships (paid?) in the NYC area. I would think experience in academic publishing is probably more important than a PhD to obtain a job in academic publishing.

Hi! Much like ClassicsCandidate, I'm back again with a new list of schools! I'm currently considering if I should reapply to any of the programs I was accepted to last cycle (accepted but no funding, so couldn't enroll, sadly) but any input anyone has on the subject would be greatly appreciated!
My firm list of schools this consists of: University of Wyoming (history, MA), UToronto (Classics, MA), Arizona (Classics, MA), and UT Austin (Classics, PhD)

Hello, all! I am back and ready to get my applications out into the universe again. I figured I would kick things off again since I've begun working on my second round of applications - this time with a new list, with some shiny UK universities on it as well, so I have applications to prepare and proposals to write. I'll be looking into UK funding for international students, too, so if anyone has any advice on that, I would appreciate it! I'm still gunning for primarily interdisciplinary programs at the US universities as well as Art/Archaeology, and for the UK universities I've been going by friends' recommendations who have attended the institutions already. Who knows, maybe I'll be in Scotland next year. 
My tentative list for this time around:
US: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Princeton, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale; I'm still on the fence on whether I want to reapply to Rutgers or the University of Michigan
UK: Cambridge, Edinburgh, Exeter, and St Andrews  (I was thinking about expanding this list but I think I am going to keep it to these main four; I'm most keen on the unis in Scotland, though)
I'll be reworking my SoPs, (start) writing a new writing sample, and sending out emails to request application fee waivers today. I'm happy to say MOST of the US universities I've got on my list no longer require the GRE so that's a win from me. I unfortunately couldn't secure funding for the UPenn Post-Bacc in time, so I'll also be trying to find alternatives to learning the languages on my own for this year while I wait to hear back from PhD programs. I hope everyone's doing well and the prepping is easy and without too much stress!