mercuetio

It looks like Utah state is also doing a Greek course, but I can't tell if this is supposed to be in person or online: https://history.usu.edu/classics/summer.greek.21a.pdf

I'm also looking to do a summer intensive in Greek and weighing my options. I haven't done research on all the programs you've mentioned, but it seems like Berkeley's program is the easiest to register for as a non-UC student and least expensive.

Another thing to keep in mind re: UMich admission/funding is that the program overadmitted its history cohort in the 2019 cycle. This, in addition to the COVID situation, is probably placing financial strain on the department and influencing admits. I don't know how they will end up handling it, perhaps it just means they significantly slash the size of this year's cohort.

This was my experience with Berkeley too, and decided not to apply (I'm a medievalist, not a modern europeanist). Early on in the apps process, many schools I was interested in either explicitly or implicitly expressed a preference for Americanist scholars, especially those interested in studying race/ethnicity in America (probably as a direct result of the horrific events of this past summer). I'm also told that time to degree for Americanists can be faster than for medievalists or european scholars because they have fewer language prereqs and don't need to go overseas to reach their archives, and it's probably in a school's best interest to fund a student for 5-6 years as opposed to 6-7 years. Good luck to you both! This cycle has been brutal.

hi @coffeehum! I think you're asking some very good questions re: state of the academy and are right to point out the differences in institutional support in public vs. private and even among individual private institutions themselves. It is easy to generalize "public" vs "private", but I think that the question ultimately boils down to "which institutions have the best ability to support me in all aspects of my career as a scholar"". I think that the best way to weigh your options when the time comes is to compare funding packages and have conversations with faculty and graduate students in the department to figure out what institutional support there is to support both your research expenses/experiences (guaranteed summer funding, language learning funding, internal fellowships, connections to certain research institutions, etc.) while you attend as well as looking at recent career outcomes for graduates of that program. Are they post-docs? Are they in a lecture contract at their PhD-granting institutions? Do they pivot out of the academy entirely? I'd also suggest not to let "fully-funded" trick you into believing that it must be living wage at the school you'd like to attend. The same stipend will go much further in Michigan than it would in California. I'm sure if you look back in the forum there's a lot of wisdom on how to discern financially -- and I'd also point you toward the pinned thread of funding packages on the forum.