NTNerd

@kenshiro it's mentioned in the notes of the most recent post (Emory)

anyone willing to claim the PTS interview from the results page? anyone familiar with PTS biblical studies PhD admissions? I knew I didn't have much of a chance without an M* from PTS (since it seems like most of their PhD students have an M* from PTS), but I'm holding out a tiny bit of hope that once in a while they accept an outsider.

@bigsh i also applied to ND (CJA). judging from previous years, it seems that their interview invitations go out between last week of Jan and first week of Feb.

@Eshearer i was also drunk all the time in undergrad and then met Jesus ?? I hope you get into UVA! all of my hopes are on ND...I have a decent shot there, (and I love the Christianity & Judaism in Antiquity program), but decent shot at a first tier program with 5% acceptance rate is still not a great chance, lol

haha, it's definitely a double-edged sword, @Eshearer! i'm thankful for the information I've gotten from this forum that I wouldn't have gotten any other way, but the way that I'm using the forum is definitely bad for my mental health ? Is your undergrad related to theology? My undergrad and first grad degree GPAs were poor too, but they were in completely unrelated disciplines (science and business), so I'm also hoping that my two M* degrees after that in religious studies/NT will compensate. I definitely think that regardless of the circumstances, programs will put more weight on the most recent degree(s) if there is marked improvement. I'm glad that UVA isn't as concerned about a high GRE score! My GRE verbal score almost certainly takes me out of the running at Duke, but that app was a moonshot. I resonate with you so much on that last statement. I've never wanted something this badly that I had such a high chance of not being able to get, lololol.

@Eshearer yeah, for real! without gradcafe i'd be seriously in the dark. But I obsessively looked over the results thread for all the programs I applied to and have a general sense of when they send interview invitations. I applied to Duke, Notre Dame, PTS, and Wheaton.

@Eshearer i am also freaking out waiting to hear ? In theory the results page should be helpful (i.e., you can gauge your situation based on whether others have heard from programs you haven't heard from), but I have heard both from people in this forum as well as people in real life that sometimes people troll and post fake results, so take it with a grain of salt https://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=(relig*|theol*)&t=a&o=&pp=250 Yesterday someone posted that they got an interview invitation at a school I applied to, and I immediately freaked out because I didn't get one...I assumed I was out (and I probably am, I'm not expecting to get in there), but the reality is that often programs send these things in batches, even within the same field...it seems that there's a first round of their favorites....and then up to a week or two later they might send out another batch (others please correct me if I'm wrong)

Thanks @JDD! it's helpful to hear from you that admissions can vary in the same discipline from year to year, because that is the impression that I got from looking through the results thread from previous years. I do recognize that PTS greatly favors their own masters students, and that I have very little chance as a person without a PTS degree...I know I'm shooting for the moon this year. After my initial question to you someone actually posted on the results thread that they got an email from PTS today for a skype interview. In my SOP I wrote about research interests in Matthew, so that was tacitly (probably obviously, lol) pointing toward Dale Allison.

@JDD is there an option of pass/fail for courses required for your degree? I assumed that required courses can't be taken for pass/fail, but I could be wrong or it might differ from institution to institution. I also did an MDiv, and I definitely have classes in areas that you mentioned pulling down my GPA ? My hope is that the pure academic (i.e., non-seminary) programs won't evaluate me negatively when they see non-As on ministry courses on my transcript. Sorry I can't answer your question specifically, hopefully someone else can. Since you are at Princeton Sem, do you know how their PhD admissions works? From grad cafe it seems that some years they interview, and other years people have gotten in without an interview. I am also not sure how much I can trust the results page because people might sometimes get PU and PTS mixed up.

I think it would be beneficial to take it and get an A if it's in any way related to biblical studies (so, e.g., Hebrew, cognate languages, OT, early Judaism, early Christianity, Greco-Roman stuff...). but if it's completely unrelated, e.g., physics...then pass/fail is fine

@bonhoeffer80 the original commenter's reply "The comment was specifically addressing a person who applied to 5 M.Div programs and does not apply to other M* programs or Ph.D" is essentially the answer. The MDiv is a ministerial degree, which is why ministry experience would look good on an application. Since the MA and PhD are academic degrees, ministry experience won't make a difference...for university programs you would obviously not want to include them at all, but for seminaries it wouldn't hurt. They won't help you get into academic degrees (i.e. it won't compensate for an academic lack), but for seminaries that care about ecclesial ministry it could help you stand out among academic equals (e.g., in a group whose GRE/GPA are similar, it MIGHT give you a slight edge).

Thanks @xypathos! do you have a sense of how many people apply for NT in the top tier programs? I've heard numbers of around 150 for total applicants in religion/theology (for an individual school)...

I didn't know that names and hard identifiers are scrubbed from apps but I guess blind review makes sense. To me it does seem that advantages gained from meeting or corresponding with profs might be negated (e.g., if they don't know the name on the app they might not remember you) but I will trust xypathos when he says that it's easy for profs to put names and apps together.

Thanks @exegete! I wanted to apply to Baylor but couldn't because I didn't realize that their deadline was Dec 1 until it was too late

thank you so much, @exegete! where did you interview, and where did you choose to attend?

I know this is premature since interview invitations won't be going out for a few weeks....also it's entirely realistic that I might not receive any. But I'm curious whether anyone has gathered any advice about interviewing for PhD programs, and what interview weekends at specific schools are like. I did a search in this forum and didn't find anything. I'm surprised that there isn't a thread just about interviews (or maybe there is but I missed it?)

@rejectedndejected gosh, now you have me all paranoid that those are MTS stats ? When I emailed to ask, in both the subject line and the email I asked for PhD stats, so I'd hope that the person replying didn't give me the wrong stats. As far as my scores...well, my diagnostic was 159 v, 162 Q, and my actual score was 161 v 164 Q, 5.5 AWA...granted, I only studied for a month....but I spent almost all my time on verbal since everyone says quant score doesn't matter. For quant I just went through the math review in the official guide and memorized the formulas I didn't know. I think AWA is a crapshoot, and I was actually the most nervous about that section....at least for the issues essay, I was really nervous because all the prompts I saw in the pool were about things like politics, cities, etc...things that I know nothing about. Even if you're a good writer, if you pull an essay like that out of thin air if you know nothing about the issue and can't think of any real world examples, i'd guess the most you could get is 4.5. It's different for the arguments essay, since you just have to attack the assumptions in the prompt and don't need to know anything outside of it. So I expected to bomb the issues essay. The only reason I got 5.5 is because I got a generic life adage for the issues essay. My score for AWA would definitely go down unless I spend a lot of time working through prompts or get lucky again.

*edit above: i meant quant and writing in my parenthetical remark. @rejectedndejected I think for a lot of first tier programs (e.g., Duke) 161 takes me out of the running right away...I feel hopeful that my other credentials as well a SOP will speak at ND since I'm closer to the average. I am applying to CJA, so we are not in competition Hope to see you at interview weekend! I don't know when they start reviewing, but based on the results page from previous years, it seems like interview invitations go out end of Jan or beginning of Feb. I figured out their average because I emailed admissions a while back and asked about stats for theology PhD admissions. Here is the reply: Our average GRE scores for admitted students were: 164 Verbal, 156 Quantitative and 4.8 on the Analytical Writing. The average GPA was 3.67. These scores are typical for the last five years. We had 142 applicants, extended offers to 15 and admitted 11.

@rejectedndejected mine was only 161 ? We have a shot at Notre Dame if we are awesome in every other way, lol. Their average is 164. If I reapply next year I will probably only apply abroad because even if I study more I don't think I could increase my verbal score...whereas my others scores could actually go down (even though everyone says that nobody cares about quant and verbal, I'm secretly hoping those scores would help me a bit).

i had that same thought!! ???

she submitted it this morning!!! in her defense, she is in a really crazy and busy season...but the fact that the letter was done and submitting to a program takes like a minute makes the drag over the past few weeks seem kind of ridiculous. well, now my chances at Duke have skyrocketed from 0% to 1% ??

welp, i am assuredly royally screwed. when i texted the last reminder on Monday she said she'd do it that day. but she forgot. and i texted her today asking if she could do it this weekend since she is leaving the country Monday, but she didn't reply. so i can only assume that she didn't respond because she doesn't plan to do it. what's ridiculous is that all she has to do is click a link and upload, it takes at most 1 minute...i don't get it. i mean, it would be a different story if she still needed to write it, as that would take a lot of time. ? I am assuming that adcoms do not consider applications that are missing an LOR?

I certainly hope faculty are not looking at apps over the holidays...that while applicants are spending Christmas agonizing over apps, they are enjoying time with family like normal people ?

Thank you so much, @kenshiro and @sacklunch! Do you guys know whether for first round reviews (by the faculty of your track) your app does not get looked at until it's complete? Or if faculty will start reviewing your app if you are missing an LOR? If the NT faculty are already looking at their apps and don't look at those missing letters, then this is really hurting me and my app might get thrown out...

Thanks @xypathos! I submitted my app on time, and everything was on time except for this one LOR ?