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dkhp124

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  1. Upvote
    dkhp124 reacted to newenglandshawn in Top tier, 2nd tier . . . according to who?   
    Not quite. While a person may think Scripture is inerrant, this doesn't necessarily mean he/she believes his/her interpretation of it is. I can readily posit that I believe the Bible is the word of God, while also maintaining that I come to it with my biases and presuppositions (seeking, of course, to ultimately arrive at its true meaning).

    Again, as I hinted at before, there are different levels of inerrantists, so I would hesitate to paint with a broad brush.
  2. Upvote
    dkhp124 reacted to Deep Fried Angst in What are my chances at PhD admission at Duke or U of Chicago Divinity?   
    I'll echo what @marXian said. Your percentile ranking is fine in quant. The schools that typically care about quant, only do so because the Graduate school as a whole does.  A Big 12 school I looked at said, the average for the religion program was 60th percentile. I doubt most other schools would have a higher average in their humanities departments. And for cross grad school comparison, most graduate schools have enough math and science MA's to cover those in the humanities that score between the 60th-80th percentile, or even lower. 
  3. Upvote
    dkhp124 got a reaction from bettafish293 in Anyone considered applying to schools outside of the US? UK?   
    I did my Masters program in the UK and was accepted to the PhD program there as well, in the school of divinity. From my experience there and the relationships I've built with some faculty members (some of whom were originally from the US), I was able to hear a bit of their insights on the UK system, so I might be able to provide some anecdotal help for you.
    Are you applying for a Masters or PhD?
  4. Upvote
    dkhp124 reacted to marXian in Another "Stats Needed for PhD Admissions" Query   
    Again, this really depends on the faculty member, but for a lot of programs, if they think your project sounds really interesting and promising and they think that there is at least a combination of faculty who can support it, you have a shot. There are, of course, advisors out there who want to produce clones. But by and large I think many faculty are happy to supervise projects they think are really interesting even if those projects are only adjacent to their own interests. 
    Fit can also depend on who else an adcom is considering for your cohort. I remember being told in my second or third year that part of the reason I was admitted along with two other students in my cohort is because the three of us were all roughly interested in similar periods of German philosophy/theology, but they do Jewish philosophy/theology, and I do Protestant and social theory. The adcom, I guess, thought we could benefit each other by coming in together and going through the program together. (And they were right!)
    That's a really specific and somewhat arbitrary way to judge fit--but it speaks to the arbitrariness of this process. There's no magic bullet. Sometimes you just have to be applying to the right place at the right time. And I know that the job market is likely the furthest thing from your mind right now (it was for me when I was applying) but the level of arbitrariness just gets worse. At this level (both Ph.D and job applications) nearly everyone has merited enough to deserve a place in a program. All the things people are suggesting in this thread? More applicants than there are spaces in programs have done those things and more. Sure, there are people who have absolutely no business applying to top Ph.D programs. But the majority who are have done enough to earn a spot on merit alone. This is even more true for the job market. I would say 99.9% of job applicants have merited enough to deserve a job. If you've been admitted to a program, gone through the whole thing, and are on the verge of defending your dissertation, you have done enough to earn a job. But there's more! Publications? Yep. Conference presentations? Probably more than the applicant can remember. Grant wins? Yes. But everyone who is up for the same jobs likely has all of that too. And there really is no way to know for sure what it is that puts one over the top for a given job. You send an application out into the void and just hope that something clicks with at least one hiring committee because, usually, everyone applying has revised their letters dozens of times, refined writing samples, research and teaching statements, diversity statements, statements of faith in some cases, etc. and usually in such a way that they've hit all the buzzwords, all the eye-catching turns of phrase, all the things that are supposed to get the attention of a hiring committee. But whether or not they do really is almost completely arbitrary.
    I know that's depressing. But it's the reality of the academe at just about every stage of one's career (since the same arbitrariness applies to the grants and fellowships one tries to win as a faculty member.)
  5. Upvote
    dkhp124 reacted to MarthUser in What are my chances at PhD admission at Duke or U of Chicago Divinity?   
    Given the metrics you've shared (GRE and GPA), I would say you're a very competitive candidate.
    That being said, being competitive does not mean you're a strong candidate for a particular department. As others have already echoed, it all comes down to more subjective factors like "departmental fit" and your research interests. What might help is if you use the SOP as a way to tell your story, incorporating the challenges you've faced along the way (accounting for your undergraduate and graduate shortcomings) with the evolution of your interests over the years, leading up to what you hope to bring to the program you're applying for and the research interventions you will make as a member of that department. As I've heard it said in the business world, show the progress you've made in your weaknesses and it becomes a strength. 
    I share this as someone whose undergraduate GPA wasn't stellar (I was a Finance major in undergrad and wasn't all to interested in it as a subject) and whose GRE scores weren't impressive by any means (averaged around 160 on both), yet was accepted into a top-tier program. 
  6. Upvote
    dkhp124 got a reaction from Phenomenologist in What are my chances at PhD admission at Duke or U of Chicago Divinity?   
    Well, not necessarily. They do have scholarships that cover full tuition.
     
    The thing is that, while schools like Duke and Chicago guarantee tuition coverage as a part of their admission conditions, Fuller doesn't. So full funding isn't guaranteed there. Def no stipend.
  7. Upvote
    dkhp124 reacted to marXian in What are my chances at PhD admission at Duke or U of Chicago Divinity?   
    The undergrad GPA will be somewhat concerning, but it can be addressed in your SOP (briefly) and your graduate work so far clearly demonstrates that you're not that student anymore. I honestly wouldn't be too concerned about one low mark in a graduate program. My two MA GPAs were 3.89 and 3.7, my BA was 3.17, and I got into an elite school. Thankfully with Ph.D applications, numbers usually tend to count a lot less than more subjective measurements like fit determined by your writing sample and SOP. Your M* GPAs are good enough I think.
    Regarding the GRE, I'll say my experience was that I routinely scored slightly higher on my Princeton Review practice tests than the actual GRE. Not sure why that was, and I don't know if that's a common experience. If you were to score exactly what you got on the practice test, you'd be in pretty good shape. A verbal score of 163, while not out of this world, is high enough to be competitive I think, and a 5.5 on AW is definitely good enough.
    Aside from those factors, strong letters will definitely go a long way as will a strong writing sample and SOP. It's hard to gauge chances for individual programs without knowing your more specific areas of interest and who you want to work with, but generally, your chances of getting into Fuller will be higher than Duke or Chicago. That said, I'd strongly caution against going to a program that you'll have to pay for (Fuller.) I did my second MA at Fuller and knew many Ph.D students who struggled financially and went into enormous debt for their degree. With job prospects being what they are, that is, in my view, a huge mistake. 
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