studentwiththelongneck

Hey y'all! I hate to be the person asking these kinda questions, but I'm really curious as to what you guys might think about this: I'm going into my last year of undergrad, and I'm trying to decide on whether or not I want to get an MA or go right into a PhD; I'm planning on applying to a mixture of both, but I'm wondering if I'm a competitive applicant for a PhD, or if an MA would improve my chances of getting one from a good program later. I'm an Art History and Italian double major, so I have lots of art history coursework. I studied abroad for a year in Italy where I enrolled directly into an Italian university to do art history coursework there, so I'm at a C1 level of fluency. I want to focus on Italian medieval and early Renaissance art, so I'm able to do research in Italian as well as English, which is super helpful! I'm also approved to do an Honors Thesis in art history this coming year, which is based on previous research I did and will be evaluated by an outside expert in the field at the end of this coming school year. I have a high GPA from a good liberal arts college, and I have solid experience working in art museums (right now I'm doing an internship with the National Portrait Gallery's research offices; earlier this year I interned at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice). I've heard that MA's are to mostly help you gain research experience and language skills- is it safe to say that I already have a fair amount of those things? Would I have a shot at getting into a good PhD program with just these, and not an MA? I have seriously no idea of my standing in the greater applicant pool- any advice would be appreciated!

Hey everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster. I'm going into my junior year of undergrad with an Art History and Italian double major (yeah, I'm starting on this whole thing pretty early) and I'm starting to look at grad schools and POIs. I really want to try to go directly into a PhD, and, without going into specifics, I think I'm generally in a pretty okay place for that. I'm almost positive that the area that I want to focus on is Medieval/Proto-Renaissance Italian art, and I'm having trouble finding POIs specifically in that area- do y'all think I should (eventually) look more into POIs that are Medievalists or Renaissance scholars? Most of the Medievalists I'm finding (unsurprisingly) focus on England, France, and Germany, but they're all within the timeframe I'm excited about. On the other hand, I feel like it's pretty common for Renaissance scholars to start around 1200, which I could also totally work with, even though that timeframe isn't really the main event for Renaissance people. I know this is weirdly specific, and that my best bet is to probably contact POIs myself to see how well our interests line up, but since I'm starting this search so early, I don't want to jump the gun. Does anyone have any thoughts?