sacklunch

They sent me an email saying they enjoyed my essay and I was still eligible for scholarships--just not the good ones ("Please be assured that you will be fully considered for a range of other scholarships beginning early next month.")(with some degree of hyperbole here). Honestly, I wanted to go to Emory for the scholars at the GTU -- not the M.Div program. The M.Div program isn't that great. It's the the "getting my foot in the door" for the GDU at Emory that I wanted to do. I'm actually still waiting on my PHD applications -- the Mdiv was my plan B!

Let's be real: I've got a MA and post-grad degree in religion. If I have to pay-in again.... I will never get out of debt. Cripes, I've almost got enough to buy two fancy cars! Unless they can wave 80% of my tuition, they don't deserve me. Sorry to be a slapdick, but I've got several published articles, I work for a theological journal as right hand man to my editor (Most PHDs cant even say that!), I teach, I work as a research/teaching assistant--have solid grades in all of my programs AND I'm involved in my community with all sorts of service that I don't get credit for 99% of the time! Can't wave tuition? I'll find someone better who can. Yes, I'm butthurt about this -- kind of offended even, but I sure as hell won't be giving them my 100 bucks deposit until they show me what "range of other scholarships beginning early next month" that I will be getting if I write them a check. And I sure as hell won't pay-in anything more than 20% to Emory -- the Baals of Coca-Cola for crying out loud!

/rant off -- I feel better now.

BTW: this post is not grammatically/typographically sound.

I remember HDS did the same thing last year, although I wasn't in Boston, so I don't know if the weather was equally terrible last year. I wouldn't read too much into it. They likely have plenty of applications. I hope you're right, though .

I think weather is important, and it's not just the cold. I used to live in a very cold and sunny place in the northwest, and moved to the midwest. I can handle the cold and snow (to a certain extent); it's the lack of sunshine that gets to me here. We'll go 40 days in the winter without any sunlight. And it is as awful and depressing as it sounds. Also, and someone alluded to this, it's not the winters that are so bad, it's the spring that never gets here. It'll be cold November, December, January, February, March and into April. That's a half a year of shit. Half my life is spent in utter shit. It kills me. If I could, I would get out of here so fast.

But, here's the deal: if you're just coming to a place like this for a couple of years, then it's manageable. I've been stuck here now for about ten years and I don't see any way out. So, that's why I hate it so much.

I just wanted to point out that it's not always the cold/snow that makes life in these climates difficult. For me, the biggest problem is the lack of sunshine.

Graduate schools are going to announce acceptances and rejections between February and late March/early April. I am completing my research assistantship right now. My research job stopped paying me a long time ago (I'm not in it for the money--though I desperately need money). I need a real income. I have a MA in sociology. I feel that I would be "wasting" my fancy ivy league masters if I go back to what I know and hate: behavioral therapy, or if I go into tutoring, or if I go into anything that pays less than $25 an hour. At the same time, I do not want to find a "real" job because (1) it takes months of interviews and apps before people can get a "real" job--an by the end of the preliminary process I will know whether or not have been accepted into a school, leading me to either quit soon after hire or fall into a nervous break down; and (2) I don't want to be anything else other than a sociologist, so I don't have a plan B in mind in case I do not get into a school, which means I cannot search for my plan B job just in case. What the hell do I do? Right now I am just applying to everywhere... and for all kinds of ridiculous jobs... I don't even know how normal people find jobs. Unlike grad school apps, companies do not tell you when to expect a call. It is like throwing my resume into a black hole. I went to my school's career counselor and that was of zero help. She kept asking what field I want to go into for this time being. I told her that she had to figure that one out for me. In response, she asked if I wanted to take a $30 career match test. No, thanks, took that when i was 14. It told me I was not particularly apt to do anything and that I should most definitely stay away from farming.

DOES WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS HAVE INTERVIEW? (FOR PH.D. CS)

THIS ISN'T 1981. LOWERCASE CHARACTERS ARE UBIQUITOUS BY NOW.

HI
I AM NEW ONE HERE
THANKS

the GRE, as much as i absolutely hated it, has a few genuinely useful functions.

but first, no one looks at or cares about the AW score. so don't sweat it. adcoms get to know your writing firsthand by reading your SOP and your writing sample. they don't care one little bit about the GRE writing section, i promise.

the GRE provides the only way to compare students across disciplines. GPAs vary with fields and everyone has "strong" LORs. when schools are trying to hand out university-wide fellowships, they lean heavily on the GRE. and guess what? when you apply for the mellon dissertation writing fellowships that so many universities offer, you'll have to submit your GRE scores again. until they find a better way to quantitatively compare an english PhD with a sociology PhD, some sort of horrible, evil standardized testing will have to be used.

also, the GRE represents a hoop through which prospective applicants must jump. it is the first of many hoops you will encounter in your academic career. dare i say a four-hour test may be one of the least painful stupid, pointless things you will be asked to do as a student, a TA, an adjunct, or a professor. the GRE is really a test of how willing you are to jump and how good you are at jumping. most schools realize this. just because they realize that the GRE doesn't really test your writing ability, that doesn't mean the GRE doesn't tell them anything about you. there actually is a high correlation between GRE scores and success in graduate school. here's something that has nothing to do with your research, but you have to do it anyway, and you have to do it well. sounds like comps.

the GRE verbal section does test, to some degree, your language ability. you'll note that the people who really struggle to break 500V also really struggle with grammar and comprehension. the sesquipedalian people who break 700V sometimes use those big words correctly. i think there are huge problems with standardized testing in general, so i am not singing the praises of the GRE here, but when adcoms see that a student took the test three or four times just to break 600 on the verbal, it tells them something. what that something is, i don't actually know.




look. it seems like everyone goes to a "top LAC" or a "public ivy" and they've all got 3.8 GPAs. adcoms need to weed through that somehow. most of the weeding is done based on the SOP, the writing sample, your LORs (especially if they've actually heard of your LOR writers), your fit with the program, and whether your potential advisor is interested in you or not. maybe, with all those other factors, they throw your GRE score in there too, but i'd be shocked if it is ever a deciding factor between two candidates when there is less than a 100-point spread between them. sure, all other things being equal, the kid with 720V will probably get in over 520V, and why not? he jumped higher.

I didn't mean to come across as bitter at all, and I completely agree with waddle.

My point is that by any standards, the OP is exceptionally well qualified and must know that. He has more or less the perfect academic and professional background. The only other factors which are likely to be of importance are going to be the SOP and references, neither of which we are privy to. My point was that the members of this forum are likely to not be able to say anything of use other than you are an excellent candidate (which you are, and they have done).

Corny or not, I do it. I also think it isn't corny, especially if you go to a place like Yale or MIT where the number of grad students equals or exceeds the number of undergrads. Then it should be corny for the undergrads to wear school gear.

The job market in history sucks.

On the other hand, the number one message of the AAR this year is/was, the job market in religion sucks. Especially the job market in history of Christianity.

I guess it comes down to two things: first, if you can't get a tenure-track job at a 'regular' university/college, would you rather teach at a seminary or a high school? Although keep in mind that as a medievalist, your pool of places to work will be smaller--Protestant seminaries are not so much with the medieval church.

Second, and more importantly: the way "they" generally say to pick a subject is, would you rather teach Intro to World Civ (/US history/etc) or Intro to Theology? Do you see yourself teaching Theological Anthropology in Early Modern America, or Conquest & Colonialism? Because when you teach, you won't just be teaching in what you research. You'll be lucky, in fact, if you ever get to teach a class in something close.

That's the main reason I switched from religion (MA) to history (PhD)--I'm a medievalist as well, and while I my specific topic, I cannot for the life of me conceive of teaching a course on Aquinas and Scotus.

Something else to consider: apply to some history programs, and some religion programs, and see what shakes out (this is what I did; I'm very happy i ended up in a history/interdisciplinary dept). There are fewer good religion programs than good history programs--which is one of the reasons religion/theology people tend to apply to fewer schools--so applying to history programs as well gives you a better shot.

And also, I PM'ed you.

Hi everyone,

I'm new here and this is the first time I am applying for an American school, so I have many questions... At the moment I am feeling a little desperate and I am worried about not getting accepted to any school at all. Could you give me some examples of schools where my chances are best to get accepted for a PhD in English (as an international student, without a M.A.)?
I really appreciate your help!

Without going into too many boring details, I went into a PhD program straight out of undergrad and decided a few years in that it was not a good fit for me and that it was time to move on. I am currently in the processing of reapplying to PhD programs and this experience, along with my time in grad school, has demonstrated that I had no idea what I was doing the first time around. That said, I figured I would share what I have learned in the hopes that it might help some people out there who like me were, whether they realized it or not, in over their head. That said, I begin with the caveat that I can only speak from my own experiences and those of the people I know from grad school so this is an inherently biased sample.

1) Rankings are useful, but they should not be the sole determinant of where you apply. I made the mistake of applying to only top 25 schools in a specific geographic region. In doing so I missed out on a lot of good schools that would have been a great fit. More importantly, the rankings, especially at the top, can be entirely uninformative. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. could not place a single student at an R1 for a number of yeras and they would not drop out of the top 10. Similarly, there are mid ranked schools who do a great job of training grad students and have amazing faculty and placement records that will never crack the top 15 (for a number of reasons). Lastly, some top schools have a large number of graduate students. This can be both a blessing and a curse. It can be a curse if there are 3-4 people in your market year who all do the same thing and want to work with the same people.

2) Placement records can be misleading. What you really want to know is where their PhDs have received tenure. There are many people who get top 15 or top 25 jobs and then fail to produce and are denied tenure. While the school may not be at fault for this, if there is a repeated pattern of this it may well indicate that students are not properly trained.

3) Look for schools that offer a research design and dissertation writing class. I have known a number of people who have struggled to write or even formulate dissertations because they had no idea how or where to begin. Having a course that forces you to think about what you want to do for a dissertation and then helps you make progress toward that goal can be invaluable.

4) Lastly, do not be afraid to leave graduate school or look into other programs if you are not happy. I know that this is not exactly cheery, but it is a piece of advice I really wish someone would have given me. A lot of very smart capable people, some of whom are very successful political scientists, have attended multiple PhD programs. More importantly, there are a lot of smart people who have, for whatever reason, decided that grad school is simply not for them.

I apologize if this is a bit disorganized and rambling, but I really do hope it might be helpful for at least a few people who are new to this whole process.

So how much total debt would you be taking on? Are doctoral programs in your field commonly funded? If so, I would take on the extra debt.

http://ets.org/gre/revised_general_institutions
Thoughts?

Just some food for thought. I applied, and was denied, with a similar amount of UG experience. I had a 3.75 (3.9 in majors) with a theo/phil double major. I recently hung out with a handful of Yale Mdiv graduates two weekends ago (I'm already at BC) and they seemed to think it was pretty hard to get in (most of them had pretty high stats, ect).
-Nick

UChicago.

Just general questions:
1. Besides Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic, what languages do many doctoral programs expect you to have a reading comprehension in? German, French, ?
2. Are most programs free?
3. Do most programs require the GRE? I noticed that many of the programs I applied for did not require the GRE.

Keep in mind, I am mostly asking about private schools.

thanks guys
-Nick

Just general questions:
1. Besides Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic, what languages do many doctoral programs expect you to have a reading comprehension in? German, French, ?
2. Are most programs free?
3. Do most programs require the GRE? I noticed that many of the programs I applied for did not require the GRE.

Keep in mind, I am mostly asking about private schools.

thanks guys
-Nick

I am in a similar situation now with my girlfriend (I'm a male). I'm guessing here, but it sounds like your just not that into him, and maybe more into yourself? I say this because I am sort of the same way. I want a mate who is successful, has a degree, ect., but not one who has "more" of that than me. I would resent a girlfriend/wife who did not eventually get a masters, or even a phd. I think this just comes down to age and maturity, but I'm sure some people never really grow out of that. I'm confident I will! Don't drag the guy along if you really don't see yourself with him, whether that be because of your own selfishness or his own issues. I'm sure it will work out just fine, good luck!

Just general questions:
1. Besides Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic, what languages do many doctoral programs expect you to have a reading comprehension in? German, French, ?
2. Are most programs free?
3. Do most programs require the GRE? I noticed that many of the programs I applied for did not require the GRE.

Keep in mind, I am mostly asking about private schools.

thanks guys
-Nick

I am in a similar situation now with my girlfriend (I'm a male). I'm guessing here, but it sounds like your just not that into him, and maybe more into yourself? I say this because I am sort of the same way. I want a mate who is successful, has a degree, ect., but not one who has "more" of that than me. I would resent a girlfriend/wife who did not eventually get a masters, or even a phd. I think this just comes down to age and maturity, but I'm sure some people never really grow out of that. I'm confident I will! Don't drag the guy along if you really don't see yourself with him, whether that be because of your own selfishness or his own issues. I'm sure it will work out just fine, good luck!

I am in a similar situation now with my girlfriend (I'm a male). I'm guessing here, but it sounds like your just not that into him, and maybe more into yourself? I say this because I am sort of the same way. I want a mate who is successful, has a degree, ect., but not one who has "more" of that than me. I would resent a girlfriend/wife who did not eventually get a masters, or even a phd. I think this just comes down to age and maturity, but I'm sure some people never really grow out of that. I'm confident I will! Don't drag the guy along if you really don't see yourself with him, whether that be because of your own selfishness or his own issues. I'm sure it will work out just fine, good luck!

I am in a similar situation now with my girlfriend (I'm a male). I'm guessing here, but it sounds like your just not that into him, and maybe more into yourself? I say this because I am sort of the same way. I want a mate who is successful, has a degree, ect., but not one who has "more" of that than me. I would resent a girlfriend/wife who did not eventually get a masters, or even a phd. I think this just comes down to age and maturity, but I'm sure some people never really grow out of that. I'm confident I will! Don't drag the guy along if you really don't see yourself with him, whether that be because of your own selfishness or his own issues. I'm sure it will work out just fine, good luck!

I am in a similar situation now with my girlfriend (I'm a male). I'm guessing here, but it sounds like your just not that into him, and maybe more into yourself? I say this because I am sort of the same way. I want a mate who is successful, has a degree, ect., but not one who has "more" of that than me. I would resent a girlfriend/wife who did not eventually get a masters, or even a phd. I think this just comes down to age and maturity, but I'm sure some people never really grow out of that. I'm confident I will! Don't drag the guy along if you really don't see yourself with him, whether that be because of your own selfishness or his own issues. I'm sure it will work out just fine, good luck!