NyarkoSan

Congratulations on the interview! I guess that maybe disqualifies me from the UMich program then. I feel ya on the silence, I have only heard back from one Religion program so far.

Nothing back from anywhere I applied yet- I saw that someone was invited to campus at UMich and was wondering if anyone was claiming that/what the context of it was.

Good luck everyone. Hmm, I did have an email that my POI had yet to respond to before interviews went out, maybe they used the email as an opportunity to reply and ensure they didn't leave me hanging. I wonder how many people are getting interviewed. What are your research areas, if I may ask?

POI, but phrased that the admissions committee would like to interview. Does this change things?

UPenn just sent me an email regarding an interview this upcoming week. Good luck to anyone else also going through the process. (Also if anyone has advice for this sort of thing, please hit me up)

Anyone apply to UPenn? According to a few people there, interviews will be sent out mid Feb.

Ah, that's good to hear. The unfortunate news is that I ended up assembling my SoP and writing sample around Donner's tradtion-critical approach so we shall see what happens. Maybe I'll get deferred to the MA or something...

Congratulations on the admit!

Well, sure feels like I just burnt a hundred bucks lol.

Hey! I'm also applying for NELC PhDs. I have so far applied for UMich, NYU, UChicago, Georgetown, and Penn (for religion). I've studied Arabic for three years, and have six years of Spanish ( I wanna focus on Umayyad Andalusia) and just started German. I only have my BA, so I think that I'm pretty far behind a lot of MA students in the app process, but I guess it doesn't hurt to shoot my shot (well, the cost of applying hurts). I'm honestly so stressed about the process. Have ya heard anything about UMich for their interviews? I've heard rumors they're bilingual and that strikes the fear of God into me...

That's a relief to hear... Thank you for the information

I feel that... My scores were super lopsided and I really don't know how to feel about that. Like my verbal and writing were excellent, but my quant was... oof. I don't know why a religion program would care about the quant score, but it's just one more thing that has me bugging out.

Just applied to UChicago and Georgetown for NELC and Penn for Religion. Honestly it just feels like I've made a mistake somewhere and my app will just be thrown out immediately haha. This stress is crazy, man...

Thanks for the tip off, I remember them giving me a lot of great insight awhile back... Thank you!

Anyone on here interested in applying for Islam or Middle East-related degrees? It seems like everywhere I look Islamic studies doesn't have a very vocal pool of applicants...

Does anyone have advice for the NELC Program at UChicago? It's my top choice mostly because of Fred Donner, but what's been concerning me is that Donner's name hold a lot of weight in the field and I feel like I'd be low on the list of people applying specifically to work with him. My writing sample is specifically geared to fall in line with his approach to historiography, but honestly at this point it all kinda feels like patronizing...

Ah, that makes sense, thank you.

Good luck! Yeah, it really is. I haven't seen anyone in either the Religion or Interdisciplinary thread applying for Islamic studies personally, so mayyyybeeee there are less applicants this year overall haha. That'd be good for us. What's the difference between an MDiv and MTS, if I may ask? Is MDiv geared more towards religious postions rather than academia?

I saw the information you posted on the NT thread, I wish you the best of luck this time around! Why are you focusing specifically on Duke, if I may ask?

Alright, I couldn't wait any longer, so here it goes: How's everyone doing? I just submitted my first application and have never felt so stressed in my life. I hope that everyone is feeling a bit more confident and a bit more prepared than me. What degrees are you applying for and where? What's your background? Personally, I'm applying all over the place to a variety of programs, either Religion or Near Eastern Studies depending on which one provides a better match, and am mostly applying for PhDs straight out of undergraduate... We'll see how I fare!

Applying for the first time straight from undergrad... Honestly beyond stressed and I really don't think I can offer anything substantive to other applicants beyond the ability to commiserate. First apps are due December first for me, I'd like to thank OP for their advice and support. I really feel massively outmoded by everyone with a MA, so what I'm hoping for at best is that I get offered a place in an MA with some level of funding. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to make it to decision season haha, I'm just freaking out that it feels like my future is on the line here...

Hey all, I'm currently looking to apply for either a PhD or MTS in Religion this upcoming cycle and have just gotten back my scores from the GRE, 166 Verbal 151 Quant 5.0 Analytical, and I was wondering if my strong showing in the Verbal section would justify me submitting my scores to places that do not require a GRE to begin with. My GPA is fairly decent, especially in-major, but I thought that the GRE might have helped me stand out from the pack in some way. Is my math score just so low that I should hold back and not submit my scores to anywhere except for the places that absolutely require it? Thanks.

Hey all, It's been a long time since I last posted here, and all of a sudden I'm standing down the last two semesters of my undergraduate... I guess this is one last post to fully tamp down what I'm doing before application season get's fully underway. First, a quick rundown of my credentials: I'm a Religion and Middle Eastern Studies double major at a top 30 school in the US and my overall GPA sits at around a 3.55 but my in-major GPA is a 3.8. I am currently preparing to take the GRE. Unfortunately due to a personal tragedy last year my grades suffered a bit, and has sorta become a cause for concern. I have six years of Spanish (near-fluent) and three of Arabic (proficient on a good day) under my belt, and I hope to focus on Islamic art/expression in Umayyad Andalusia. I would prefer to go straight into a PhD but am willing to go into an MA if there is some degree of financial aid available. I have one paper out for review/publication and another getting prepped for the same treatment. I will also be presenting at an undergraduate conference come October. With all of that out of the way, I've been running into a few issues in my time exploring various programs. The first is simply that I'm struggling to find a good fit for what I want to do in the United States. Beyond UMich and UFlorida, there hasn't been much in the way of Islamic art/material studies, and this fact seems to be at odds with the recommendation of applying to around ten schools that I see frequently. I also just don't want to waste the time and money it'd take to apply to a bunch of schools if I don't fit in with their focus. I am willing to shift focus in my applications if it means maximizing my chances at admission, but I am also wondering if I should just broadly be less focused/specialized in my statement of purpose/application at large. A second concern is that the vast majority of the places in which I have spoken to professors have I recommended that I just apply for an MA rather than a PhD. Is it just usually the case that undergrads don't get offers for PhDs, or should I just go for it and apply anyways? That was a lot, and for that I apologize. I appreciate all of the help I can get.

Sorry for the late reply, guys. First off, I just have the papers sort of sitting there on my hard drive, and were formatted and geared for submission to journals. As Pierre said, I am already afraid they're rather amateurish, though this might just be that I end up disliking everything I write. Torontonian, I'd say that my decision to do German over French is rooted back in my interest in stuff like the Corpus Coranicum project, and it's that and the sort of approach that's being taken by a lot of German scholars that most interests me. It's just a matter of their approaches being out of my reach in regards to learning a bunch of languages that I can't yet show that's my focus. Unfortunately, my school only offers modern standard Arabic, though I'm trying to learn some classical on the side by myself.

Hello All, I'm currently about to enter my Junior year at my undergraduate, with a double major in religion and middle eastern studies. Within these next two years, I'm looking to do all I can to get admitted to a fully-funded Phd for Islamic Studies. I've written several papers and was just awarded a grant to conduct a long-term study on sustainability discourse in Islam, but up until this point all of my work has been in a variety of fields within Islam. This worries me, as I've heard a ton about needing to "fit" in with the faculty at the program you're applying to, and thus I've held off on submitting my papers because I don't want to seem like I'm all over the place (I've ended up with papers on Islamic art history, Fiqh, Sufism, and postmodern/postcolonial stuff). I ultimately want to do stuff with structuralist approaches to Islam, but it's a field that seems so heavily rooted in the mastery of multiple languages I don't really know how to indicate my interests at my current level. My next issue is much more generally related to just getting into any Phd. I don't think I'll have the funds to go for a Masters first, nor is it really what I would like to do. My grades are decent (3.6) and climbing, as most of my weaker grades came from classes unrelated to my majors freshman year. If all goes well, I am expecting around a 3.75 by the time I apply for grad schools. I'm also currently taking Arabic and am also starting German, and the institution I am currently at is decently ranked by most stardards (top 30). I have no clue about what my prospects for admission are, and I was just wondering if you all would have any tidbits of information that may help me along.