Harper

Advice needed for a friend: He was accepted into the CUNY Grad Center and waitlisted at Penn. He decided to commit to CUNY about a week ago, not expecting to get off the waitlist. However, he was just accepted to Penn today. How bad would it be to pull out of CUNY? As far as I know, CUNY is an excellent program but Penn is more prestigious. Penn is also offering him more money. Anyone have any advice on how the programs stack up against each other and/or on pulling out of a program you've committed to? Edit: He's focusing on medieval art, btw.

I've heard that, along with the IFA and Columbia, it's basically a cash-cow for their PhD program. They don't offer any funding for MA students, so unless you're independently wealthy you'd be going into a ton of debt considering the cost of tuition and the cost of living in Philly. I'm choosing between partially funded and fully funded MAs right now and the number one piece of advice I've gotten is that going into debt for a humanities degree isn't worth it. I've also been told that they don't mentor their MA students as well as their PhD students, so you may not get the best training. This is just what I've personally heard, so if anyone else has a different opinion feel free to chime in.

I see that some rejections from Penn have gone out to PhD applicants, but have any MA applicants heard anything? I've heard mostly negative things about their MA program, but I'd still like to know if I've been accepted/rejected.

Does anyone have any advice about which MA programs are better than others for medieval art? Currently torn between four programs and have no idea what to do.

Has anyone heard from Williams aside from the 3 acceptances in mid-Feb? I'm not very hopeful about being accepted at this point but I'm wondering if they've sent waitlist notifications yet.

My undergrad advisor thinks really highly of Tufts and I've read elsewhere that it's a very well-respected program. If I get in, I probably won't be attending because I recently found out my POI is leaving after this year, so there won't be anyone on staff to teach/advise students in my area of interest. If she were staying, it would be my first choice.

When it comes to prestige and top programs, how does this translate to MAs? I've heard from multiple people that the MA programs at Columbia, Penn, and the IFA aren't worth it because of a lack of funding and professors tend to focus more on PhD students. Tufts and Williams are considered top programs from what I've heard, but are they worth it if there aren't really classes or professors that are of interest to you? After this year Tufts will have only one pre-modern professor available for teaching and advising for the foreseeable future and her research seems pretty niche. Williams has a lot of great resources for the location, but there is only one professor there whose research is only tangentially related to my interests. The resources also seem to be more focused on modern/contemporary art. If you get into a fully-funded MA program at a less prestigious school that's a better fit for your interests, is it worth it over all the programs I mentioned? I'm also wondering if top PhD programs are different for different fields. For example, Michigan recently received over $8 million in funding specifically for medieval art history. Does this make it a top program for medieval art considering the resources?

Have any MA Penn applicants heard anything? My friend was wait listed for the PhD but I haven't heard anything. My app still says "ready for review" so I don't know if they've even looked at it yet.

I'm really curious about this. Feb 4 seems a bit early compared to other years. My portal says "Ready for Review," so I'm assuming they haven't even looked at it yet as I know other schools will update the status to "Under Review" when they actually start looking at your app.

Yep! Just to MA programs. Seems like there aren't that many of us. PM me if you want to chat about professors, schools, medieval art topics, etc!

Not yet, but I have one for the MA program next week. I have no idea what to expect, so I would appreciate any advice from y'all.