sacklunch

I don't know exactly what it means, but I suspect the poster is conservative leaning, which is of course why they want to head to the U.K.! No coursework, no teaching, will allow one to keep their beliefs protected. Luckily, doing such a program, as a U.S. citizen, all but ensures zero academic job opportunities (esp. permanent ones).

Too many questions/variables here. So, it depends. You say competitive application, but don't say competitive program. Both? Give some examples of programs you're interested in. This forum is slowly dying, it seems, so you are probably best reaching out to current faculty and especially grad students at schools of interest and simply asking. Most people on here are hopeful applicants, such as yourself, and thus take their recs with some caution.

Latter. They will get a much better impression of you in person (and you of them). Also, you will be fresh on their minds when apps are actually under review (Dec-Jan-Feb). If you meet via Zoom this summer it will be 6+ months until they review apps.

Unfortunately I think the best answer is: any job you can get and one that does not require an MDiv (or related M*). Chances are you have a humanities bachelors, so not much help there. Those of us with PhDs are having a hard time finding full time employment that pays over 40k yearly, so I can't imagine trying to find something decent that also leverages an MDiv without any pastoral element. If you're able you might try to get another masters (state school? scholarships? something cheap-ish), but obviously in a field that isn't dead/dying.

I have a somewhat different experience, but broadly speaking I fully support xypathos's words. Coming from the religious studies side of things and having no "religion" to speak of myself (some days agnostic, on my best days atheistic), I think there are more shared between these fields (religious studies and seminary) than not, within and outside the classroom. Nearly all religious studies scholars studying Judaism and Christian are themselves part of the tradition they study and many of them have some kind of seminary/divinity degree (e.g. I have an MTS and PhD in Religion). So it is common in my experience to find this "pastoral" element within religious studies classrooms. Perhaps it shouldn't be present, but it often is. Of course it is considered required for seminary, which creates a different dynamic between student/teacher. To the other point, my experience is that nearly everyone who completes an MDiv stays within the Christian tradition. It's very rare for people to leave, though many swap one tradition for another (e.g. classic move going from Protestant to Eastern Orthodox). Most people in seminary are not even open to the possibility of leaving Christianity entirely, which is strange I think, only in that such an attitude is rarely found in other disciplines (economics?). It's an exclusive environment designed, I think, to let you fall, get back up again, over and over; but by design you're rarely, if ever encouraged to consider whether or not you should abandon your faith. Some people on here might say they have/did consider the possibility, but having been around divinity students for over a decade now and teaching some in that environment I just don't think most ever truly consider leaving. While I do think this is problematic situated within the methodologies/theories/practices as found in graduate education at most universities, I understand the reasons.

In that case I think you might be able to swing getting into a program. Marquette is a really good program from what I've heard and is also not terribly competitive when compared against the big names. Note that jobs these days are almost nonexistent. Most of the recent PhDs I know from top schools cannot find permanent positions and have been on the market for 3+ years. But if you're open to teaching part time while doing something else I don't think it's entirely foolish to pursue the PhD. Normally I am opposed to the UK PhD option for Americans, since Americans with UK PhDs are generally looked down upon (usually because they paid for the PhD, admission is much easier, etc.); but in this case I don't think it's an awful option, assuming you don't have to take out loans. A better route would be something like Marquette, which would be funded and be seen as academically rigorous while also demonstrating you can work/teach in a theological tradition. The Jesuits are a really safe bet; secular and religious academics generally like their programs. So you might also look at BC, SLU, Regis, etc.

As everyone has said, it's illegal for them to discriminate. Will they? Yes. Will you be able to prove it? No. I have heard faculty straight up say they don't like taking old/er students (above around 30). This is at top schools, while I imagine lesser ranked schools, including most state programs, will be much different. Before anyone can really offer any input we need to know: a) what field/subfield you're in, b) which programs/schools are you interested in, and c) what you want to do after the PhD.

Fair enough! This forum is far less active than in years past. You might have better luck finding current students through social media and asking. Good luck!

Search function. There are dozens of threads discussing the topic.

Neither have terribly difficult admissions. In fact, compared to most M* programs, their acceptance rates are unusually high even for non-elite schools (e.g. acceptance rates are lower at many MA's in Religion at state schools in the USA than at YDS, HDS, et sim.). My guess is that acceptance rates are now higher than they've been in decades, since so many people are a) pursuing degrees that lead to a real job (the MTS is primarily useful for continuing onto a Ph.D., which will certainly not guarantee a relevant job post graduation) and/or b) realizing that an M* degree and to a certain extent higher ed degrees in general are not worth pursuing unless you're studying to acquire some kind of technical degree (STEM) or unless you're following those degrees that can, mostly, secure high paying and in demand professional careers (MBA, JD, etc.).

Fair enough. Though, as an attorney, you not only were making good money for years before starting the MDiv, but, should the MDiv have been a professional dead end, you could have returned to your law career and been much better prepared to pay off whatever debt you acquired during the MDiv. In the case of the OP, they would be leaving - without any professional/medical credentials - to begin a +/- decade worth of schooling, acquiring what may well amount to be 100k+ in debt, in order to join a career that excludes +/- 95% of applicants. The academic path in the humanities has gone from risky to simply foolish in the past decade.

I hope others will chime in, especially those of us on the other side of the PhD, but in my opinion it would be a serious risk to make this transition. Now, before I go all doom and gloom, it is important to hear more about what you actually want out of an MA and PhD. You say enter into conversations of interest, but that doesn't tell me how you hope to earn money. You say doctoral program, so you might have in mind ThDs, in which case you may have an interest in more practical careers. Such careers are still relatively abundant, so far as I know, but I'm not in that world directly so I will leave others to comment. As for the other path, academia, please do not attempt to join our ever-shrinking, hapless ranks. The last well-reasoned (published) statistic I read (published about a year ago) was in the range of c. 2-5% of humanities PhDs are getting tenure-track jobs. That means 95%, or more, of us graduating now are not really doing what we are trained to do. To be fair, a good number of that 95% is teaching (adjunct hell), which certainly comprises a large part of what we are trained now to do. But such careers, if you can call them that, are not sustainable and in my experience the majority of folks who end up doing this burn out after a few years (you can imagine why, with many adjuncts earning less than their graduate stipend and without health insurance). In other words, if you begin the academic path you will almost certainly be forced to change careers after what will amount to be 8+ years of education from now (MA 2 years, PhD 6 years average). Like most of my peers and after roughly 15 years of studying (BA, three masters, PhD), I am making that painful transition now. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat more privately. Good luck.

I doubt it will make much, if any difference. Many folks will be applying the same time they begin the thesis, so there isn't much point if that's your timeline. On the other hand, if your timeline is such that you will have finished the thesis, or completed a substantial bit by the time you apply, and you don't have a suitable writing sample, then yes I can see the advantage of staying on for the thesis. In general, however, a thesis will be much longer than the required sample. In short, there isn't a clear answer and in my experience such options offer no lesser/greater success rate for doctoral admissions. We tend, naturally, to torture ourselves over these sorts of options/paths, while the people reading your application will skim over what seemed to us some essential bit of our training. The best path forward is to talk to current doctoral students and faculty at the specific schools you're interested in and just simply ask what stands out (*note this will vary from scholar to scholar within one department). Make sure you reach out to current doctoral students at the schools you're applying to. They are always ready to spill the beans.

Unless it's a free masters, run away; even it's free, you should probably run away. I followed a similar path (two terminal M* degrees, another on the way to my PhD), though I had a higher average. After I got into and finished a top-ranked PhD. I understand the feeling of failure if you do not continue. I remember that feeling well; it kept me going for years. And now I'm transitioning out of academia because there are no permanent, tenure-track jobs. Well, there are a few, but with hundreds of people applying to one job, the odds are stacked against you. Nearly all the people I know who finished a PhD at a top program in the last few years are making the same transition. For whatever reason, no one at the top M*/PhD programs really discusses the reality post-PhD (I'm a postdoc at an R1 now - I am still in the loop). And no one on this forum does because most are applicants/hopefuls. I suggest you make that inevitable transition now, rather than ten+ years down the road. Good luck

The reason is that it's basically impossible to be a successful academic in such fields without devoting yourself (almost) fully, including sacrificing your personal life and other career goals. If you end up going career + part-time adjunct, you will be working for pennies as an adjunct and sacrificing most of your free time to do so. And the classes you teach part time may be entirely virtual (many without any real teaching involved) and will almost certainly be teaching undergraduate survey courses. You can publish on the side, but it's extremely difficult to do so without being plugged into the academic world full time. It becomes more difficult year after year post PhD because you realize you're increasingly distanced from the secondary (and even primary) sources. That and without institutional support you can't quickly access sources if at all because of paywalls.

As far as I know all US PhD programs will have (at least one) masters en route. It's been said countless times, but worth repeating. Your chances are very low of having a career in academia; jobs are so few and competition so fierce these days that you will probably find yourself, even after finishing a top doctoral program, pivoting careers. Plan accordingly. The dwindling/abysmal job market is also one of the reasons you are having a hard time finding masters programs that focus on ANE languages. There isn't much point training students in these dead languages, since they're perceived as basically useless outside of academia (and actually at the few of the tenure-track jobs that are actually popping up these days, such languages won't be received well, since, well, none of their undergraduates will want to learn them, making your skill set of questionable value for the few institutions hiring these days). For reputation, stick to the usual suspects. You won't been doing yourself a favor at most of the places cited, save Catholic, Penn (though they have been increasingly turning away from biblical studies in general over the past 20 years), Yale, and Brandeis. You may have better luck abroad.

This is easy. It's not apples and oranges. Chicago without question.

There are a lot of practical challenges of doing research outside of a traditional academic job. Most importantly, you won't have easily and free access to books and articles. This is a serious cost consideration (you could easily spend hundreds or even thousands for a book project). Time is a factor. I just don't think summers are enough. They are enough for smaller projects and shorter articles, but not much more in my opinion. You will also have trouble finding a close group of trusted readers in your subfield (experts), given your time commitment and academic status (or lack thereof). You won't have the time to go to and present at conferences (critical for building networks of readers and opening opportunities to publish).

It's depressing for most, but it need not be for those who do want to teach intro/undergraduate courses as a career. Yes, basically everyone on this forum is a student and imagines that academic life post PhD is not so different from their student days. It's not really the same and for those who can actually get a job it's entirely different. It's sad and strange that this isn't widely known. Regarding the private school jobs, there does seem to be far more positions than university ones. But, to me those jobs seem barely better than the university ones. In both roles you're primary responsibility is teaching younger people and rarely (if ever) doing research. That will be fulfilling to many, but not most PhDs from R1s. You may end up going back to engineering after the PhD (if you get it and if you finish), because the job opportunities are far better. You will probably have to start at the bottom of some career not-entirely-related to your PhD, whereas at least with your engineering background you can leverage skill sets that easily position you for higher up roles (and certainly much better pay). It makes you wonder what the point of it all is.

I have a postdoc position now (R1), which I am fortunate indeed to have! While I could continue this position for another year I've decided to leave early. It's been a painful process, since I'm currently doing what I love, but it seems foolish, even reckless, to continue down the same path. Even if I can land a tenure-track job, it will almost certainly not be the kind of job I want (i.e. a job that requires me to teach 3-4 undergraduate classes a term, leaving little time for anything else). I'm not willing to spend 5+ years (after the 11 years I spent in graduate school) in a terrible position in the middle of North Dakota (et sim.) teaching undergraduates (most of whom quite frankly are there because they have to be, to fulfill some general requirement) on the gamble that I will get a decent academic job. There are other considerations. I have a serious partner. And academia just isn't what I thought it would be. Most of what you do isn't research. It's teaching, meetings, workshops, administration. I want to do research, but in order to squeeze that into the mix (and produce good scholarship) you need to sacrifice your personal life. You need to not go out with friends, not watch that show with your partner, tell your parents you can't come this weekend (or the next few), and so on. And when you give in you feel guilty. You never catch up, never produce enough, always to the next thing, always comparing yourself to others. That's the life. I get that it doesn't feel like that at your stage (PhD life and after). I'm not saying you will end up feeling the same way as me. What I do know is that my feelings are entirely typical. For most of us, academia--even if you can "make it" (and that's a huge if)--is simply unfulfilling. I truly hope, if you continue, you will be the exception. But I doubt you will be. You will probably find yourself, at 35-40 with a PhD in Religion, scrambling to find a job doing anything that will pay you barely more than your PhD stipend. As for me, I am fortunate to have found a good government job that leverages some of my skills (skills not commonly acquired by PhDs in religion; more dumb luck in my case).

There are very few jobs that will leverage your skills outside of academia. I have a PhD from a top program and I have applied to hundreds of non-ac jobs over the past six months. I've found that basically no one cares and in many cases the PhD will hurt your chances. In short, you're vastly overqualified and underqualified. You feel like you shouldn't have to start at the bottom with all the recent BA graduates, but sadly this is where you will probably land. The career outside of academia that seems most obvious is publishing. The problem is the jobs in this industry do not require a PhD and most of the higher up positions are filled by people who worked their way up over years; that is, they value experience and not so much graduate degrees (most I've met in the industry have a bachelors, few have even a masters). But the worst part about the publishing industry is the pay. I've interviewed for a few editor roles and the pay seems to hover between 40-50k (USA). Most never make above 60k. You may have a great research topic, but it's not enough reason to go into debt for the PhD, given your very poor earning potential. Is there a way to enter the "conversation" without a PhD? Not really. Anyways, I think what you would find, after having completed the PhD, is that the conversation is not at all what you imagined. Actually it's not really a conversation. There is to some extent a rich exchange of ideas between scholars, but mostly its working in isolation on projects that can and do take years to complete. And at the end of those projects few people seem to care outside of small specialized circles (you may not even care given the time to publish). More to the point: if you don't have a position at a university it's very difficult to contribute at all (here I speak of publishing).

Yes and no. Frankly, the reputation of one's adviser has little bearing on one's success securing a tenure-track job. Most scholars don't know (top) scholars outside of their (sub)field and most schools only have specialists in one subfield. So there are few times when an adviser's reputation will matter (e.g. when you apply to a top program, at which point you are applying against hundreds of others). In my opinion, it's far more important that you find an adviser who supports you, respects you, etc. (one would think these would be givens, but, unfortunately they're not).

Toronto has an excellent reputation in US academic circles. This is largely because its doctoral programs are much the same as here in the States. That said, Toronto doesn't have the weight of the elite American schools in this country (I can't speak to Canada or elsewhere). Toronto will certainly have a better reputation in the US than Oxbridge, regardless of TAing. It's important to mention that TAing doesn't matter much, if at all. The most successful applicants have good teaching experience, that is, teaching their own classes. If you get a doctorate from Oxbridge (et sim.) and you're an American citizen and you're applying for American jobs, I would say you have basically zero chance of getting a tenure-track job, outside of some conservative and small Christian schools. The competition is simply too fierce. There are hundreds of doctorates from American R1 schools applying to the same jobs. Why would they take someone with a doctorate half the duration (or less) and someone who has never taught their own class?

While I appreciate your opinions (truly!), I think you're wrong on most counts. I think you will change your tune after you have the PhD in hand (if you get in and if you graduate) and especially if/when you're actually applying/working as a scholar in the US system (if you manage to get a job in the field). Some points to consider: 1. To be clear, UK PhDs are not looked down upon as a rule. But generally speaking they are seen as inferior to US departments looking to hire. The reasons are actually pretty simple. The big one is teaching experience. Nearly all UK PhDs have far less (if any) teaching experience with the PhD in hand than US PhDs. If you have little to no teaching experience, you are probably not going to get a job (regardless of whether it's from the UK or US or wherever). 2. Check the nationality of the faculty holding UK PhDs in the US schools. How many of them are from the US? I'm guessing very few. There are different expectations for non-US applicants. In any case, I can guarantee you that UK PhDs have even less luck getting a tenure-track job in the US than US PhDs (maybe 5%?). 3. Yes, you're absolutely right that Oxbridge (et sim.) have great scholars and can produce great scholars and it's true that great scholars with UK PhDs hold tenure-track jobs at TT US schools. What you are ignoring is how little this matters once you finish the PhD. Remember, in the US you have roughly 10% (or less) chance of getting any tenure-track job. Most of the few jobs that actually exist could care less if your PhD adviser was someone famous (chances are they won't know who said person is or care). What they care about most, again, is teaching experience. Your list of fancy recommenders makes no difference to nearly everyone hiring. 4. You're simply wrong about the yearly process for US doctoral students. You don't have a year to write the dissertation. Most take 3-4 years - the same amount of time most UK students take, but the US students usually begin in their fourth year. The result is more time learning and honing skills valued by hiring committees in this country, esp. teaching. 5. All of your points make complete sense at your stage (post M*) (folks during/post PhD tend to leave the forum). Your experience of academia is (understandably) narrow and chiefly limited to discovery and research, which is of course part and parcel of the process, but it is only one part of the day-to-day work of most academics in this country (many in fact have no time for research). 6. I hate to harp on this point again, but, whatever path you follow, you are unlikely to get a tenure-track job anywhere in the US regardless of the school. I can tell you that I know zero people who were even interviewed for a tenure-track job this last season. These are people with PhDs from, among others, Duke, Chicago, Harvard, and Yale. Surprisingly, graduates from the elite schools fare worse at getting jobs at lower-ranked schools than graduates from lesser-known programs. I also applied and failed to get an interview (I have my PhD from one of the aforementioned schools and I'm now a postdoc). You will probably have to do something else once you finish (again, if you make it past all the hurdles of entry and graduate). This is the reality. It's no longer about whose the better academic (actually it never really was), but more of a lottery.

Frankly, no I don't think it will matter. You are missing far too much (coursework, teaching, time to think, etc.). The rate of success for USA humanities PhDs securing tenure-track jobs in the USA is sobering, to say the least. If they are hovering at the 2-7% success rate (the most recent estimate I have read), an American with a European PhD would surely fare (far) worse. Every single faculty member at a university in the USA knows that with few exceptions even a Cambridge PhD was bought; they accept most Americans because they know we can get federal loans to pay for the degree. If you get a full ride that's a different story (usually such applicants come from stellar/top-tier undergraduate institutions). The "best" in the field may be Cambridge et sim. But I can guarantee you that few institutions will share that view. The hard truth is that no matter where you get a PhD, you have less than a 10% chance of getting any tenure-track job. It should be obvious, but remember that your mentors are exceptions, even in the small, "conservative" Christian academic world. Many completed their PhDs and were hired in an era when academic jobs were relatively plentiful. Most are simply ignorant of the changing market (and I can't blame them).