sacklunch

If they were not private loans I would say no problem. Considering the insane debt many of us go into while attending the other big name div/seminaries, 20k is actually quite reasonable for two years. But, private loans are different. They won't care if you don't have a job. They won't cap your repayment at 10% of your income. They simply will not care and are the kind of people that will call you 5 times during your loved ones funeral service demanding their payment. They are loan sharks, basically.

This is another reason that seeking a PhD in our field (from a North American school) is often a bad idea if you want to have any sort of normal life. If you are married and have kids your family must be willing to move around the country/world for job prospects, oftentimes with poor wages. Whenever my friends in doctoral programs in the sciences complain about 'how long it takes' to finish their degrees I seriously cannot help but laugh. In the hard sciences, and even many in the social sciences, it is not terribly common for students to pursue a master's degree before beginning the PhD. Hell, even many philosophy PhD students do not even have an M* before beginning. Many of us studying some aspect of ancient history have 3-5 years of M* BEFORE beginning the PhD. Hilariously some classicists, too, can transition right into a PhD program. For text and/or ancient related fields in religion the time is usually: 4-5 undergrad, 3-5 M*, 5-7 PhD = 12-17 years. Oh and almost all of us have 5x the debt than the average PhD in the sciences. In short, we are idiots.

It's important to add also that one's personal life usually eats up a lot of free time. Many of us are married, have kids, outside responsibilities -- we are people -- which tend to accumulate responsibility as age increases. This combined with the fact that many folks have professional responsibilities while ABD, means that it may take quite a long time to complete.

The job prospects after the degree are pretty slim. What kind of job are you wanting after the degree? With just an MA you won't be finding many academic jobs except maybe teaching part time at a community college. Realistically the degree most likely will not help you out much more than just having a BA in religious studies. I suppose there are other options such as working in publishing, especially if you happen to work for a company that sells/prints a lot of Islamic Studies related books/materials.

^ Agreed. Having studied several ancient languages at both Catholic and Protestant schools (flagships), I can without a doubt say that the Catholics, at least in my own experience, prepare their students better for academic work using the languages. The Protestant schools tend to have a lot more students interested in taking Greek/Hebrew, many also very interested in ministry, thus changing the trajectory of these courses substantially. The result is often much time spent on 'practical application' of language study such as in ministry and so on, while the Catholic schools, much like secular departments (and liberal private schools, too), focus almost entirely on philology. Moreover, and as awells said, many Protestant language courses are limited to the[ir] 'biblical canon,' such that 'Greek' becomes NT Greek, and so on. Do yourself a favor and begin your language study in a Classics Dept., RS. Dept., or a NELC Dept. I mentioned GTU's MA in BL because it would allow you to take languages at UC-Berkeley and their tuition is about half of most private schools. If you apply, I would apply to the Jesuit school, given that they have more funds and your background may give you a leg up. Plus the Jesuits could care less if you're an atheist/agnostic/secular person.

If you have not already done so you may post something similar in the philosophy section. I say this because philosophy graduate admissions appear to be quite different from religion. That said, your stats are fine (and above average). You have enough of a background that getting into a decent M* program seems entirely reasonable. It's important to keep in mind that many of the people in this sub-forum have pursued M* degrees at private institutions, many with religious affiliations. Not surprisingly many applicants have some sort of personal (religious) interest when pursuing their M* degree(s). I have been told having a M* degree from a Divinity/Seminary, even if elite, is generally viewed with suspicion when applying to philosophy departments, in part because the requirements are usually light for admission (high acceptance rate, no formal background required, etc.), but also because they often do not require things like language exams. I say this because while it may be attractive (sexy) to pursue a M* degree at Yale (Divinity), academics in philosophy may very well prefer something like Tufts or UMSL's MA in Philosophy (per the Gourmet Report). When your professor recommended the above schools I have a feeling s(he) meant their philosophy departments. Of course, pursuing for instance an MAR at Yale Divinity may give you access to some of their philosophy department courses, the degree's other requirements likely restrict the number of courses you can take outside of Divinity/Religious Studies. (Un)fortunately, the top divinity schools tend to have a lot more free money. As far as fit: find the school's course schedule and see what they have offered in the last five years. This should give you a great idea of the kind of courses that will likely be available. Also make sure you clearly understand the program's requirements, especially your (in)ability to take certain courses outside of their department such as languages (often a problem at divinity schools, btw) and introductory courses that you may need. I will also say that from a religion/religious studies standpoint your GRE is fine. Philosophy applicants seem to be incredibly anal about their GRE score, I think, because most of them come straight out of undergraduate. Many of us here have one to two M* degrees and some with substantial language work. Accordingly it's a bit easier to gauge our competitiveness from a number of other factors.

I think I mentioned it before, but look at GTU's MA in Biblical Languages. They will not care if you're agnostic and you can take classical Greek at UC Berkeley. Plus their tuition is much lower than most of the big name schools. They have great placement record, too.

Do the language courses first before any content courses, if possible. This will allow you to take upper level content courses that require language prof. Seriously, languages are the most important aspect of your application. If you don't have at least two years of Hebrew and Greek I would not bet on getting in anywhere (for a PhD). And that's the minimum. Other languages will likely be crucial to your application (e.g. German, French, modern Hebrew, Aramaic/Syriac, and the relevant NW Semitic languages).

I doubt it. Most departments require that you either take their own exam or pass their school's reading course. These things vary so much though you should just contact the department of interest.

^ They do, particularly if you're applying to a state school. Most graduate schools have minimums regardless of field.

I'm a current grad student (humanities) at Duke and have lived in Durham for 2 years. If anyone has any questions about the area and/or places to eat/drink shoot me a PM.

Some great thoughts above. I also suggest looking at GC if you're thinking of going into a M* (and not a second BA). I have run into half a dozen GC grads at TT doctoral programs (several at Harvard, in fact). They are a bit cheaper than most of the big name schools and have degrees that are focused on ancient languages, which will be your best asset if you hope to get into a TT HB/OT program. Again, though, those I met coming out of GC I think both have two M* from GC (I believe MDiv+ThM or some sort of 4-5 yr combo of M* degrees). It's a long and arduous path with bleak results on the other side.

Go back and get a second BA. Otherwise you will likely be apologizing for your questionable undergraduate education all your (hopeful) academic life. As I said, the time you will likely spend in school will be about the same, since most of us have 2 to 3 M* before beginning a doctorate anyways (and thus you may be able to get by with only one M*). As someone said above, talking to your professors is generally the best idea. But since it appears they may not be professors at all, you may be better off (sadly) getting advice from random people on the internet.

http://chronicle.com/article/nrc-religion/124664/ ^This is one of the commonly cited rankings for religious studies/religion. While this includes 'theology', one's 'theological' interests may necessitate looking elsewhere...Notwithstanding 'conservative' interests, it's a good place to start for 'TT' doctoral programs. For instance, S-Rank: Programs are ranked highly if they are strong in the criteria that scholars say are most important (they are ranked): Duke, Princeton U, Chicago, UNC-CH, Brown, Brown, Emory, Harvard, Notre Dame, Boston College, Syracuse, Stanford, UPenn, etc. These schools are usually at the top of anyone's list when applying. They are 'TT' based on faculty, funding, resources, and (perhaps most crucial) placement after completion of the doctorate. Browse the above departmental websites to get a good idea of where their graduate students studied before beginning the program. You will find that the top 'evangelical' schools attended (if any) are Fuller and Gordon-Conwell. Though from what I have seen most of the students at TT programs come from the usual big name div schools: harvard, yale, chicago, and so on. Of course you will see plenty of randoms with M* from lesser known schools. So there is a chance of getting into a TT program if you attend McMaster, but the odds are against you. The acceptance rate at most TT programs hovers between 5-10%, and I would guess that at least (??) 25% of the applicants are highly qualified (e.g. coursework at TT M* programs, high comp. in languages, great letters, writing samples, and so on). This combined with the likelihood that you will almost certainly need to get a second M* after attending McMaster (in part because most of us do, but more likely because your undergraduate and prospective M* from McMaster are not 'TT') makes your odds further troubling. Good luck!

^agreed. You would be better off transferring general ed courses to a good school (if you are willing to move, too, top schools have much higher admission rates for transfer students) and then do another BA. This isn't a bad option and in fact will help you later in getting into a good PhD program, if that's your goal. This way you can get into a good M* program after the BA. As you may know, most of us in biblical studies/text focused doctoral programs have two M* degrees, usually because of the language requirements before beginning the program, so even with doing another BA you may spend just as much time with your BA being accredited (since you may just have to do one M* degree to be competitive, since you have already started Greek). The second BA, even if it takes you three years, will allow you to move to advanced prof. in Greek, Hebrew, and possibly German, French, mod. Hebrew, Syriac/Aramaic, and any other NW Semitic language appropriate to your interests in HB/OT.

Personal issues aside, the immersion program would be much better for learning Arabic. I have done both immersion and regular language coursework and the former is the only way to go if you want to advance in the language at any moderate speed. If your focus were not Islamic studies then I would say it's no problem taking the local course. But because 1) you have no Arabic now, 2) you only have two years to 'catch up', and 3) when you apply to doctoral programs, depending on your sub-field, you will be competing with other applicants with more Arabic even if you do the immersion school and continue on with Arabic while at HDS. Learning Arabic should be your number one priority for the next two years. It will be the dealer breaker in your application. FWIW, I know several students currently in M* programs (and some done) and all have told me that Arabic is the number 1 thing keeping people out of doctoral work. Unfortunately there are plenty of native speakers interested in Islamic Studies. This is also why many non-native speakers end up with two M* before they begin a PhD (just as in biblical studies, the main thing that keeps people out is language prep.).

Again, the problem with an inerrant approach to scripture(s) is that it is outside the conventions used in modern scholarship in every single field in the humanities. This is a unique problem for religious studies/theology. What sort of work do we do in text-focused doctoral programs? We follow the same paradigms, however 'secular', that any scholar does in Classics, Philosophy, and so on. The point, I think, is for scholars to be able to come to similar conclusions independently. How many times have you heard a grad student say "I was working on X thesis and I just realized someone wrote a book arguing the very same thing....damn!" This would simply never happen, for example, with the authorship of the NT and/or Torah. If you had a dozen classicists who had never even heard of the NT, or some other supposed inerrant text, they would not conclude its divine authorship using the tools we all utilize in text-critical fields. If we did not we would have quite a large canon full of all sorts of divine Words of gods. I also think it's worth mentioning that the inerrancy of scripture not only stalemates biblical studies scholarship, in my opinion, but those of us who work in reception and early church/'rabbinics' are thoroughly stifled, too, by such an approach. Whatever one suggests by 'inerrant' it always entails some established body of literature comprising the authoritative "orthodox" corpus. Historically this has had no small part in how we understand the history of early Jews and Christians and finally scholars are starting to overturn that paradigm. At least for my own work, there was no "orthodox" Christianity, nor "orthodox" Judaism well into late antiquity, an argument that relies very much on challenging the traditional "orthodox" canonization of "inerrant" scripture(s). Hell, let's take it farther. What do we practically do with the pluriformity of scriptures? If an American argues for inerrancy it is generally the Hebrew HB/OT and the Greek NT. But which Hebrew and which Greek? Which codex are we following? How can text-critics then use the LXX (and its daughter versions) as an aid to understanding Leningrad? How do biblical manuscripts that differ from the Masoretic Text help us, if at all? Why should we prefer the MT over Codex Vaticanus (LXXB) when our manuscripts predate it by centuries? Is the Peshitta inerrant? When it differs markedly from the MT/LXX, what does that mean? What is scripture? And, as Joseph rightly asked: Why should we care to study all of this when we already have the truth?

Also, to anyone out there: How likely do you think it is that one studying some form of scripture would or would not allow their belief of innerant scripture to influence their scholarship? And if it would influence their scholarship, is that bad? newenglish: I do not mean to upset anyone, for what it's worth. I welcome the diversity of opinions!

My point was merely that if these are the kinds of considerations (e.g. if scripture is inerrant) when deciding where to attend graduate school (PhD!) then I think they have 'missed the mark', yes, in my own estimation. But my own judgement on this issue, I think, reflects the larger 'attitude' at pretty much any mainline school offering a doctorate (and thus such a person would not enjoy their time there). My answer would have been entirely different if we were talking about M* programs, of course. As for why should I care if someone worships Isis and happens to study Isis-related texts (which are inerrant)? It doesn't bother in the least. Would I question a 'fundamentalist' Isis scholar? I suppose, in theory, I would never know one way or the other reading their work. Admittedly things get a bit complex when one studies the very crux of their faith. I also readily admit that one's biases are always peeking through and the rigors of the scientific method (and thus naturalism) have been thoroughly adopted by mainstream (secular) scholarship to suppress such 'issues', which by definition (should) exclude particular forms of evidence (for scholars to validate phenomena independently under rigorous methodologies, theoretically). Though in this case, I think I would be highly suspicious of a scholar's work if s(he) wrote on, for instance, the NT and believed it was inerrant. Again, it's nothing personal, but having such an opinion, for me, is just untenable. Imagine if you were in a graduate seminar on Darwinism (let's say it's a course in literature, philosophy, and so on). If a student in the course happened to be a 'fundamentalist' Darwinist (stay with me now...!) and believed that anything Darwin wrote was the word of (some) god, would that bother you? It might not, actually. But if during a course assignment or paper students were required to discuss how Darwin acquired his theories and the student could only conclude that Darwin acquired them by divine means (or perhaps Darwin was a god), would that be problematic? Perhaps I am setting up a straw man. Perhaps the example sounds absurd.

Ugh. That blog is....uhh...questionable. I stopped reading after: "None of the programs in the US that I consider to be FT (first-tier) are seminaries.Are you willing to study somewhere that does not have respect for the inerrancy of Scripture?" If you truly believe in the inerrancy of scripture, then you would likely hate your life while studying at any 'mainline', and especially any 'top', divinity/seminary in the US. I have been told countless times that one of the big reasons Americans go and study in Europe is because they can 1) maintain their conservative beliefs (it's just a dissertation) and 2) the conservative schools will hire them afterwards without worry that you have been 'tainted.' As one said above, the conservative schools may hire one with a PhD from Harvard, as is clearly the case browsing through some department websites. But let's just step back and answer the very basic question: What do you think is the purpose of a PhD? If you answer this question as the author of the blog you linked, that one chooses a doctoral program based on "theological orientation," then, I think, you have 'missed the mark' (see what I did there...!?). Imagine we pose the same question to those considering getting a PhD in Egyptology, hell even English literature. What do you think their answer would be? And would an answer resembling "in order to validate the worship of Isis" sit right with you? cheers

Though, to be fair, Plato is very interested in mathematics. What do his (smart) interlocutors do when they want to 'slam dunk' their own argument? Math, always.

I recommend some ancient works (as did the dude above me^), since they are fairly accessible to a 'non-specialist'. I suppose most of the folks on this sub-forum are interested in modern philosophy? Leave the ancients to the classicists, eh!? But really, give him Plato. Your brother will at least know the name, and Plato, at least in the West, has a 'sex' appeal that most moderns do not (everyone 'knows' Nietzsche, but it's too difficult for someone not particularly interested in the subject, I think). Hell, read a Platonic dialogue WITH HIM. It's quite fun. We have done it in some of my (Greek) courses and I was surprised by how much fun/engaging it can be!

Why not just give him some ancient plays and/or dialogues, maybe a tragedy? This is how I found philosophy interesting and I suspect I'm not alone. Give him something easy from Plato. Give him Lucian's A True Story (first 'science fiction' work in antiquity).

Thanks for this. After having accepted a top 10 school I have been sort of Meh. When people ask, ARE YOU EXCITED?! I'm like, yeah, I guess? We humans love to be sad, I guess. Grass is always greener, they say.

For some reason my hands are programmed to open a new tab, control t, and then hit f to bring me to gradcafe. There is no reason for me to come back, but I keep being drawn back.... :|