coffeekid

Well, after much waiting, I'm out. Got an email just now telling me my "application could not be accommodated" for the Intensive Language Study Grant. Pretty painful, but this means I'll be able to actually make some money this Summer. Best of luck to the rest of you!

Yikes! A lot of activity in this thread all of the sudden! Congrats to those with good news! Did anyone in this thread apply to the 8-week intensive language course grant? I was told "Early March" as well but haven't heard anything. I know it's only March 3, but it sounds like a lot of people were notified and I haven't heard either way! [this is the part where you wish me luck!]

Thanks for affirming my thinking about this, remenis. I'd still like to hear if anyone else has some experience/advice regarding this. Thanks in advance!

Especially for humanities and social science applicants: Are any of you providing with your application a supplemental document with a list of courses taken, perhaps organized by area of study? I have heard of people doing this, but am unsure about how common this is. I understand that adcoms will have transcripts, but I understand why categorizing your courses by "Area of Focus" could provide an added sense of direction and preparedness (i.e. - Not only do I have a research interests in topics A, B, and C, but here is a list of my course investment and experience with them). All thoughts and experience are appreciated!

Couldn't have put it any more clearly myself! Simply to add to this: In practice, you don't see many people doing the MA in two years here, though there is nothing wrong with that as an option, precisely for the reasons Balatro gave.

alem, First, yes, Vanderbilt has a very strong New Testament department. The most notable all star is Amy-Jill Levine, who is a serious scholar, is very well known, and is deeply invested in her students. Other big names in New Testament studies are Daniel Patte (just edited the Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity in 2010, which was a big deal if you went to AAR last year) and Fernando Segovia. There are a lot of people who have a strong emphasis on patristics as well, though I am less familiar with who in particular. There are a lot of differences between the MTS and the MA, which confuses a lot of people. Technically, the MA is housed in the Graduate Department of Religion (along with the Ph.Ds) while the MTS is housed in the Divinity School (along with the M.Divs). In reality, that division is mostly artificial. The GDR and the Div School are more or less indistinguishable: same building, same professors, mostly the same opportunities for classes. The MA is a one-year degree (24 credits) and the MTS is a two-year degree (51 credits). Despite what the website currently says, there is no longer a "cross disciplinary M.A.", only the "Specialty M.A.", mostly because this was, again, an artificial division. As far as courses options go, the short of it is this: The MA has virtually no restrictions on courses you can take in religion and elsewhere in the university if it is germane to your "specialty" (the typical foci you'll see in religious studies, posted on their site). You do, however, have to demonstrate competency in a language for it. The MTS has only 7 requirements to meet in terms of courses out of a total 17 courses needed to get your 51 credits. About half of these are the "essentials" (i.e. hebrew bible, NT, your choice of church history), and half of them are broadly defined and can be satisfied by just about anything (a course in ethics, a course in theology, a course in pastoral care). Also, you are allowed to take up to two courses in other university departments. The true wisdom regarding this distinction is this: even though the MA accepts fewer students, by far, than the MTS, most competitive applicants do the MTS [1] because a one-year masters is nearly useless by itself to get you into a Ph.D. with the abundance of MTS (two year), MAR (two year), and MDiv (three year) applicants competing against you and [2] the MTS has better funding! The site says that MA students get at least 70% tuition covered, which is true. However, in recent years, there have been no offers for more than exactly 70% coverage, unless you are doing Jewish Studies, in which case you can get 85%, which still means you are paying out of pocket. This does end up being a better offer than a lot of MTS students will get, but many competitive students will get a full-tuition offer from the MTS, or even a stipend in rare cases. An acquaintance of mine applied to the MA and was told by the adcom, "You are our top applicant! Which is why we want you to submit an application to the MTS so we can give you a better financial offer." This was about four years ago, though. Even though "MA" sounds more academic, MDivs and MTSs are becoming the norm for pre-doctoral in religion. The only real reason I'm seeing now for the MA is to supplement another masters you may have (MDiv, an MA in another field). I know some might take offense at this, but I honestly have not seen a student go BA --> MA --> Ph.D. (at a competitive program, mind you) in a very long time. Needless to say, I went the MTS route and couldn't be happier. Though, I should note that the MDiv funding is even better, which is why a lot of academic track students apply for the MDiv. I know of at least five students my year who got full-tuition and $10,000 stipends through the MDiv, which is not much less than many doctoral stipends. Considering how cheap it is to live in Nashville, that makes life pretty easy while in grad school. Let me know if you have any other questions about VDS!

I am currently at VDS, and feel that Balatro's comments somewhat closely match my experience. I am not sure how much you were asking about the political demeanor of the students/faculty, but because everyone is chiming in, I would confirm that it is liberal, but not radically. After moving to the south from the north, I learned that I was a moderately conservative northerner, but a moderately liberal southerner, if that makes any sense. That said, I would say that I am only slightly more conservative than the average of the population here, which is absolutely agreeable to me, especially considering the fact that intellectual rigor, not political dogmatism, seems to dictate things here. My focus is not in ethics, but I have a lot of friends here who turned down offers at some of the schools you mentioned to study ethics at Vandy. This is not to say that the ethics program is superior, only that it is definitely in the same league. Armour and Hylen are both great scholars and run good seminars, but neither especially focus on ethics, at least in the normal sense of the term as a subdiscipline of religious studies. But, Balatro is right that their work is certainly germane to religious ethics, especially with regard to gender, sexuality, and violence. The heavy hitters here in ethics are Ted Smith, Melissa Snarr, and Victor Anderson, though Stacey Floyd-Thomas and Graham Reside are up and comers as well from what I understand. Smith, Snarr, and Anderson I know for a fact to be not only very innovative thinkers, but supremely approachable and helpful for students looking to jump from a masters to a Ph.D. I say this because two of my friends have spoken at length with them about their Ph.D. apps and have received a lot of good feedback from them. Whether or not they any of them are "liberal" is obviously going to be relative. My understanding is that ethics is a pretty progressive field in religious studies as it is, considering the social justice trajectory. I would say: definitely apply. On top of this all, Nashville is a surprisingly awesome city. I'm loving it here.

At least in the humanities, I understand that listing your "Area(s) of Specialization [AOS]" and "Area(s) of Competency [AOC]" near the top of your CV, in certain contexts, is essential. At a recent philosophy conference, I attended a panel on "The Job Search," where a member in charge of a particular hiring stated rather confidently, "We want to see your AOS and AOC front and center." Naturally, this was for the context of Ph.D.s and ABDs who were looking for positions teaching, and this person's advice has been corroborated for me time and time again. My question is more specifically for people applying to Ph.D. and Masters programs. Is it too soon for undergrads and masters students to include an AOS and AOC on their CV? Of course, the intention of including them for someone like me (applying to a Ph.D. from a masters) would not be to suggest that one is already "specialized" or "competent" in the subdisciplines listed, but rather that these are established interests toward which one hopes to further develop knowledge. However, I understand that it might not be received in that way. My dilemma could be phrased this way: Why to include them: Just as for the Ph.D. grad looking for a position, a listed AOS and AOC is helpful for deciding fit with a program. If an adcom sees an AOC and AOS that they feel genuinely matches their strengths, then the application gets taken more seriously. Why not to include them: For one, your developing interests should be sufficiently sketched by your statement of purpose, not your AOS and AOC. Second, it is simply laughable for a masters student or an undergrad to be so arrogant and presumptuous as to list them. Not only do they not yet have "specialization" nor "competency" in them (at least according to doctoral standards), but this also expresses their closed-mindedness regarding any potential development in their interests. Someone has responded to this by suggesting that I provide a list of relevant courses taken, perhaps categorized by interest. This is good advice, I think, but it still doesn't really answer my question. If anyone has advice from experience, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks for the clear reply, Fuzzylogic. I think your justification of this is pretty solid, and I appreciate your suggestion on listing the details of conferences below a paper given more than once. I thought this might stimulate more of a discussion, but it seems that you've answered it pretty well. Many thanks!

I should start by saying that I'm one of those people who seriously judges those who do ridiculous things to boost the length of their CV, whether it be absurd spacing, unnecessary details, or listing the same conference papers twice when given at two different venues. The closest thing I've done to this has been to, first, list a paper that was presented at a conference and then to, second, list it again elsewhere because it was subsequently published in the conference proceedings journal. To be honest, even this makes me feel like a poser, but because my CV is rather young and it was my only significant publication, I let it slide. Here's my new dilemma: I'm giving a paper at a conference soon and was also asked recently to be the moderator of this panel. This is big for me because I've never done anything quite like it before. I want to add an entry for the moderator of this panel, but feel like I might be double dipping. I'm not all that caught up in "CV authenticity" or anything ridiculous like that. I'm mostly concerned about an adcom looking at something like this and thinking, "OK, this person is trying a bit too hard to look important." Yes, I know that most CVs don't get looked at that closely at first; I'm thinking about if I'm in a short stack and it comes to scrutinizing things to see who the best candidate is. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Thanks for the insight, kismetcapitan. The mystery person I kept talking about is my wife. She called again today and made the same points you did... and she was told "we have a spot for you"! Ridiculously fortunate... the only place she could apply to was the #1 program in the country (because of location on account of me), and she got in. Official letter is on its way next week. No word yet on funding and research opportunities. Apparently when they say "rolling admissions" on their webpage, they really mean it! She interviewed with a pretty small group of other people in her program early in February and she was told that the admissions committee only looked at her application a week ago. I thought for sure no news was bad news, as is the case with most programs. For those of you still waiting, it sounds like there is still hope.

First, congrats on getting in!!! Totally awesome for you. But wow... this is truly unlike anything I've heard before. The deadline for most programs is tomorrow, and they still haven't made decisions yet!!! Can you give me any advice to share with my friend on "pestering" them? They have called a few times, most recently a week ago, and they are afraid of being too pushy. But, decision time is tomorrow. Did you pull the "my other programs are waiting to hear" card, or did you just say, "the decision date is tomorrow! I need to know now!!" ?

By and large, I think you're right. Unfortunately, my situation is one where all of these people know me similarly well. I have four people in mind: three grad, one undergrad. Some places will accept a fourth recommender and I may use all four for those, but some will only take three. Maybe another way of asking the question is this way: assuming you had four letters to choose from, all equally luminous and personable and from people of equal reputation in your field, and could only pick three (3 grad, 1 undergrad), which one would you scrap? I know that sounds odd, but that's sort of the situation I'm in, which I guess isn't so bad to be in. Again, the only thing that has me thinking about this so much if the guy in the doctoral department here (who obviously got in) strongly advised against submitting an undergrad LOR. I'm probably overthinking this. I'm mostly wondering if he had legitimate reason to be so adamant about not submitting the undergrad.

I am completing a two-year masters in a discipline (religion) where a masters is a prerequisite for doctoral applications. I'll be applying to Ph.D.s in the Fall. Two people whom I trust (an advisor and a graduate student in my field) told me a while back that it was expected or the norm that, of the required three LORs to Ph.D. programs, two of those three should be from your most recent program (the masters) and one should be from your last institution before that (undergrad). A student in the Ph.D. program at my university told me pretty adamantly, however, that it's unwise to include any recommenders from other than the program you are currently in. Who is right here? I can make a simple case for both sides: [the former] not only did you established strong relations with your undergrad faculty over the course of four years, but admissions committees want to hear positive remarks about all stages of your academic training; [the latter] masters level work is an entirely new stage for academic work, not only do adcoms want a reflection on your performance in that higher level setting, but they want to hear recommendations according to your most current work, which is what you'll be continuing at the doctoral level. It seems like there are many variables that can decide the dilemma for me (strength of the institutions, reputation of the faculty, compatibility of research interests between recommender and where you're applying). That being said, and considering the fact that my particular situation equally plays to both directions in terms of the above variables, is there any prevailing wisdom on drawing from older, undergraduate recommenders for people applying from masters to doctoral? I thought I knew, but the person with whom I had the conversation recently was pretty convinced otherwise.

You're clearly a responsible adult with many substantial family and financial obligations. I would echo the wisdom you already understand: avoid getting into debt for something that is effectively a lottery ticket to Ph.D. programs. That said, my experience has been that people transition from religion masters to philosophy Ph.D.'s, but not vice versa. This could be because people in philosophy tend to hate religion and div students tend to be more open to philosophy, but on the whole I see religion departments picking almost exclusively from religion/div masters students; I can think of only one exception. If your goal is clear on the phil of rel in a religion department, and you are intentional about working substantial theology/religion coursework into your phil masters, then I don't see why you couldn't make the Georgia option work. I would ask about what resources they have for this route. You were given a good financial package... chances are you have some clout now in making the most of that curriculum! As always, just keep things in perspective financially.

Wow! No! They are still waiting too! I thought for sure that no news was bad news, but I guess they are just ridiculously behind schedule. I love vanderbilt (I'm there right now in a different department), and I know peabody is pretty awesome, but this is borderline ridiculous. The deadline to make a decision is in two weeks and they still don't have decisions out!!! Best of luck waiting it out. Please let me know when/if you hear... I'll do likewise.

Anyone else still waiting from Peabody??? This is getting a bit out of hand, I feel.

Wow... sorry to be the bearer of bad news here. First, Hodges is not the department chair, Jeffrey Tlumak is (not that this should matter that much). Second, I don't think Hodges is taking any more graduate students. I was also interested in his work on the tractatus, but he hasn't taught a graduate seminar in a few years and I don't believe he plans to again. He might be willing to do an independent reading or two, but I don't think that is a good reason to come to a specific program. That being said, the rest of the department is great. I'm in divinity, taking courses in philosophy grad, and everyone there is awesome, including the students. Also, I think your GRE is certainly enough to keep you in the pile of applications. I know of people who get rejected with scores better than you, and I've heard people get accepted with worse. Like with most places, the GRE won't get you in, but it can keep you out.

A friend of mine just called peabody to ask about the status of their application to the Human Development Counseling program. They were told that the program was substantially behind on responding to applicants and that not all decisions had been made yet, including my friend's application. This was today, March 22, about three weeks from the deadline to decide. This called once about two weeks ago, was told to call back, and the was told to call back again. I guess my question is, how close to the deadline does it need to be before they are justified in demanding a response? They said that my friend was not wait listed, but that the peabody is just way behind. Isn't this a bit excessively late? What should they do to get a response?

On the whole, that will probably be too early to send your scores in. The deciding factor, though, will be the particular places you're applying to. I applied to a few places that would not save any materials for people who had not already completed an online application, which for you would not be even available to complete for a while. It sounds to me that if you are going to take them early, you will likely have to fork up the fee for sending them separately at a later date. Yet another way the ETS robs us blind.

Glad that was helpful! Have you heard back from Vanderbilt yet? My official focus is "theological studies" (everyone at vandy has to pick one of nine areas (see their page), even though it really means nothing... I think it's for administrative purposes mostly), but my interests are in continental philosophy and the philosophy of religion. Another sell for VDS and this program in particular is the flexibility of the curriculum. For a 51 credit masters, there are only 21 required courses, and to be honest, I have already been able to fudge those mostly. You can take courses in neighboring departments (philosophy, classics, history, etc) and can hook up independent studies pretty easily. All in all, I'm pretty happy with VDS. For the sake of the thread, I'll cut off the sell here (PM me if you want to talk more).

My experience with masters programs in religion has been: the more straight up academic (i.e. - not ministerial) the program, the harder to come by good funding. The reason I believe is simple: wealthy donors are wanting to donate to programs that are producing people in ministry, not academics. Even though this slightly sucks for those of us not interested in ministry proper (myself), knowing this trend can be valuable to you if you can work the system a little. Two examples of this trend are the two places I was most interested in: Vanderbilt and UChicago. Vanderbilt offers three masters degrees: an MTS, MDIV, and MA. The MTS and MDIV are offered by the divinity school and both have substantial opportunities for full funding, and the many mdivs even get a stipend of $10k or more a year! The MA, however, is offered in the graduate department of religion. Even though the MA for me would have been the most appropriate choice for my interests, because they lack the big donors of the divinity school, the only offer they make to accepted students is 70% coverage. Don't get me wrong, this is a decent package, but the divinity school tends to be much more generous. I went with the MTS and it paid off. UChicago's masters in religion are all in their divinity school. Even though they have that A.M. that everyone (yes, me again) so longs to get, the dirty secret is that they only offer full tuition to five or less students every year; everyone else gets a 50% offer, but with their absurdly high tuition at $40,000 a year, it effectively makes it the full cost of almost any other program. I don't have specific numbers on their Mdiv, but I've heard far more cases of people being given full rides in that program than the A.M. Again, the most ministerial program gets the dough. If you've already applied for the Fall, this might be too late to be helpful, but the advice I was fortunate enough to receive is to apply to a ministry program that you can make the most of for your academic purposes.

Vanderbilt has a combined MDIV / JD too. Like Febronia mentioned, I believe you can apply after your first year. But yeah, Tahuds' remarks jibe with everything I've been hearing recently about law.

I know that a majority of Peabody programs have already heard back about their decisions. A friend of mine went to the visitation day, but she/he explained that applicants to the Human Development Counseling program (this person's program) were the only people there who had not been accepted, and that they were the only people to have to do interviews, though brief. This situation seems odd, and would have made me so mad to be part of a small group not able to be excited about checking out the program you've already been accepted to. There were only about two dozen people in this program who were at the visitation day. Does anyone know (1) how many are generally accepted to it and (2) when these people might expect to hear back? I ask because, although there are Peabody posts on the results page from past years, none are from this division of the program.