MaryHildegard

I was recently accepted to Boston University. I've heard stories about adcoms sending out 'oops, didn't mean to admit you' emails, and I'm so worried that's somehow going to happen to me. I submitted the merit scholarship app today and I know there's no way they're going to pick me (they pick about half the people they invite to apply for merit scholarships). Seeing other people's posts on here makes me feel bad. I feel like everyone else has a higher GPA than me and is generally more qualified. And then I haven't heard back from Harvard or Yale, which I know are both huge reaches, but of course I really want to go there.

HDS offers better aid now (75% minimum for everyone). But yeah, I’ve heard so many horror stories about law school debt. I applied for some of the internal Harvard scholarships, but I don’t know how much they’d be for even if I got one. @Joey_Jawad, you can also fulfill your requirement by taking and passing an advanced or high intermediate language class with a good grade. Scroll down the page here. https://hds.harvard.edu/academics/degree-programs/mts-program/mts-requirement

Wow, I can’t imagine taking out a 50k loan for grad school. I still have some undergrad debt that I would like to avoid adding significantly to. Were they at HDS or somewhere else?

Sorry to double post, but is anyone else thinking ‘yes, I love my topic, but there’s so many other cool topics’? I’m really interested in women’s religious life, but I’m also interested in vestments and clerical attire and the changing American approaches to them in the late 20th century to now (bringing in chasubles, throwing out cassocks, bringing back cassocks, throwing out any distinctive clerical dress, etc.) But I admit I have a chronic problem of thinking every humanities and social science field and topic sounds cool (my transcript has a lot of weird classes on it, to be sure). Also, let’s talk about languages! Is anyone else nervous about language requirements? BU doesn’t have one, but HDS requires competency either through a passing grade or an exam to graduate. For me the only really relevant language is Latin, and I did take four years in high school, but I am nervous about getting to graduate levels of proficiency if I get in.

I’ve been realizing lately that a lot of divinity school scholarships aren’t actual scholarships. Let me explain. A true scholarship is money from an endowment. A true grant is also money from somewhere, like the NEA. I was happy to get a 70% scholarship from BU, but after having looked at their website...pretty much everyone gets a 70% scholarship! What that says to me is that when BU does their accounting every year of how much tuition money they’re getting, they’re always putting down 3k per semester, not 10k. Maybe a handful of rich students are paying the list price. No 7k has left the endowment — they overinflate the cost on their website. So you might get less money, but you’re not going to be paying the price it shows on their ‘how much does our program cost’ page, because that was never the real price.

Ugh, I totally forgot about Yale doing interviews. I know they’re a huge reach for me, though.

I was recently accepted to Boston University’s Master of Theological Studies program. Tuition is about 11k a semester, and they offered me a 70% scholarship. Harvard Divinity offers everyone with need at least 75%, and I know someone who got 80% from Princeton, and someone (who is not currently being sponsored for ordination) who got 50% from Nashotah. I should note that I’m pretty average — 3.4, Economics degree from an okay state school. On the other hand, I see lots of posts about people racking up 6 figures in grad school debt, and people saying that in their field masters’ students get no money. So I’m curious as to what funding for non-PhD students is like in other disciplines.

Congratulations!! Everywhere in the Boston area is expensive, but the area around BC isn’t that bad, relatively speaking. I just went on Zillow and found a one bedroom in Allston for 1150 a month. That having been said, ask the realtor if the street is one of the undergrad party streets because BC (and BU) undergrads LOVE to party and I assume you’ll find living near that annoying. Also, if you’re renting in Brookline, be mindful that they don’t allow overnight on-street parking.

Yeah, that’s my preference. Although if I somehow get into BU and YDS but not HDS I’d pick YDS, unless it’s significantly more expensive. I’ve thought about continuing to live at home if I wind up at BU or HDS, but even though it’s not that far away, getting there by public transit takes forever and I don’t have my own car. I’ve heard New Haven is kind of a sketchy town once you get away from the Yale campus (and I’ve heard similar about the area around UChicago), which makes me wary of trying to find an apartment there.

HDS is my top choice, so I agree it’s awesome :). I also like the idea of being able to take classes at other universities in the area. And unlike the international students I met in undergrad (elsewhere in Massachusetts) from India/China/Malaysia, you’ll be used to winter already! Question for anyone in this thread: Do you want to live on campus? I do (unless I go to BU, which doesn’t offer grad housing). I liked it in undergrad, I think it’ll make it easier to make friends, the apartment renting process is a hassle, and I’d have to spend a lot on furniture. But I’m 22 and currently living with my parents.

Cool! Seems like Chicago might be a good location, since you’d be a (relatively) close drive to Wisconsin and Minnesota. I’m from near HDS and while we do have Scandinavian-Americans here (and Finnish-Americans), not in large numbers like the Midwest.

Thanks. Out of curiosity, are there any particular immigrant groups you have a particular interest in?

Hey, same! Applied to BU, HDS, YDS, and planning to apply to Catholic University of America for their MA in religion and culture. I received an acceptance email from BU yesterday with a 70% scholarship, which I’m very excited about. I feel a little self conscious reading this thread — you all have amazing stats! -3.4, degree in Economics from an okay state flagship -Had a research assistantship (in Economics) -I’m interested in nuns, and I was an intern in a convent for 4 months, which I think is unique. -mediocre Quant and AW but 168 Verbal -Would like to believe I have good writing and LORs. One of my letters was from a Methodist minister and professor whose class I sat in on (did not receive credit for) at Sewanee, which I wonder if it helped at BU since they are Methodist.

If you live in Brighton: you’re gonna have to figure out how to get a resident parking permit. If you live in Brookline: overnight street parking is not allowed, so keep that in mind when looking for apartments. Boston College is on the Green Line, which goes into Downtown Boston. You can switch at Park Street to take the Red Line to Cambridge. So downtown is easier to get to since you don’t have to switch trains. (I would not recommend driving downtown if you can avoid it).

I feel you. (Am applying for a master's in another humanities field). The wait is going to be the worst. My top choice has an admissions blog and they have some interviews with current students, and they all seem like they accomplished so much more in undergrad than I did. Do you have a backup plan if you don't get in?

Thinking more about your comment about ‘material culture’, I am interested in the...outfit fetishism I see in these circles. There must be veils and modified habits aren’t that good either. I saw someone on a vocations forum ask about nursing orders that wore traditional habits, even though they’re really impractical for nursing. Liberal nuns are derided as Sister Mary Pantsuit. You go on Instagram and see 17 year old girls reposting photos of youthful nuns in their traditional habits and sometimes with flower crowns. It’s part of the romantic appeal. You see men from traddy orders out of their habits, but not women (Georgetown has data that back this up). But like I mentioned above, I do think the habit can be seen as a way to escape the sexualized nature of women’s clothing, but in the traditional one you can’t be seen as ‘frumpy’. Same with veils — unlike with other women’s religious head coverings, you don’t have to have attractive hair underneath for your husband. I’ve seen people mock nuns wearing the habit without a veil for their hair being too masculine or plain or whatever, and especially in traditional subcultures long hair is a big deal for women, so the veil says ‘no, you don’t get to judge me on my hair because you can’t see it.’ So I’m curious bout why the habit has had such a comeback when nuns were eager to get out of it in the 70s, and how much it’s true that only orders with habits get young vocations. (I know the JPII told sisters to start wearing habits again but many didn’t listen). I’ve also noticed a lot of traditional orders, while they wear veils, don’t wear coifs/wimples/all the other white cloth underneath, and I wonder how much of that is because it’s impractical (I know cornettes require immense amounts of starch). But I suppose I’m not really that interested in the manufacture of habits in more than a passing manner.

Thanks. Yes, I’m interested in the MTS. I’m not sure if I want to pursue doctoral work but I don’t think I would really belong in an MDiv program. I don’t think I’m qualified for Notre Dame. I looked at BC’s program, but their masters is very theology focused (and I’m not qualified for a PhD). I picked BU because it’s near where I’m from, which I recognize isn’t a great reason. I do really like how committed HDS is to studying women’s issues. After having thought about it a little more I realized my interest is not just the rise (and the romanticization) of religious life among young women, but the way it’s still feminist even though they hold themselves out in opposition to the liberal habit-less nuns. (Thinking about how the habit is a repudiation of performing femininity, and the rejecting marriage/motherhood, especially when traditional Catholics expect women to be stay at home mothers with 10 kids). I’m not sure that kind of thinking would play well at CUA, since they’re known for being pretty conservative.

I'm looking to apply for divinity school for Fall 2021. I have a degree in economics from an okay-ish state flagship, with a 3.4 GPA, although I did improve a lot my last two years (3.5 fall junior, 3.6 spring junior, 3.8 both senior), and a minor in theater. I basically only took two 'real' upper level humanities classes (so I'm not counting web design for English majors, costume design, or costume technology). The only language I studied to any real degree was Japanese, which I took two intensive semesters of, although I also took two semesters of conversational Irish, first semester Chinese, and second semester Latin (I took four years of Latin in high school, as well as four years of German, two of Chinese, and one of Ancient Greek, although my knowledge of any of these is not the best). My research interest is the rise of traditional Catholic women's religious orders, especially teaching orders like the Nashville Dominicans. What's making them so appealing to young women (average age of a woman entering a convent went from 40 to 24 in the last 15 years), how many leave, is this the future of women's religious life/are liberal orders done for, etc. I'm currently an intern in an Episcopal women's religious community. I go to prayer three times a day, and I also have chapel responsibilities like ringing the bell, lighting candles, polishing bronze, etc. I also help with the garden/other outdoor work. I'm also taking a homiletics class at the nearby seminary, although not receiving academic credit. I'm taking the GRE next week; so far on the practice tests I've been getting about a 160V/150Q. Also about me: I grew up very nominally liberal Protestant, and my mother said Catholicism was a cult and that being a nun was awful. But I grew up in a very heavily Catholic area, so I saw Catholicism all around me -- yard statues, ashes on people's foreheads, school uniforms, etc., and I also saw nuns, who I now know are from one of the fast growing women's orders. Beginning in high school I began to be fascinated by various forms of extreme religion, spent a lot of time on places like FreeJinger, and then in my last two years of college, Catholicism, and I started going to mass occasionally. And I spent a lot of time looking at websites for different women's orders and wondering what it would be like. This internship has thoroughly disabused me of my romantic notions of being a nun. I plan on talking about this in my SOP to explain why I'm interested since I don't have a relevant degree. The schools I'm looking at are: Harvard, Yale, Boston University, and Catholic University of America. Other stuff: -The prioress here mentioned that one of the issues with traditional habits is there's a lot fewer seamstresses than there used to be, and making the outfits is time consuming. One of the theater classes I took was on clothing construction and we had to sew a dress (I've also sewn myself a dress based on a Dominican postulant outfit I saw online, partly by hand). I don't know if any of this is worth mentioning, that I know how hard it is to make clothes. -I had a research assistantship, in economics, which I do plan to briefly mention in my SOP and on my resume, but I don't know if mentioning the professor's name on my SOP is a good or bad idea. He's not someone you've heard of, but it just feels weird to me to write 'I had a research assistantship with a professor' instead of mentioning his name. -Other things on my resume: I'm a reporter and copy editor for a local weekly newspaper, I've had some generic admin. assistant jobs, and I was also an intern at a genealogical society, where among other things I helped digitize historic Catholic baptism records that were all in Latin, so I'm thinking I'll mention that as a 'I continued to think about the Catholicism that once was...' -I was in a Latin club in college (we basically helped out at high school events), which I don't know is worth mentioning. I did help moderate and write questions for certamen, which is a high school academic Latin trivia game that Harvard hosts a yearly competition for. -I happened to attend a high school that is a known Harvard undergraduate feeder, and the joke is that Harvard was founded so that graduates from my high school would have somewhere to go to seminary. I don't know if casually mentioning I attended there would be bad. Also, one of the cardinals who had a heavy hand in Vatican II also went there, so I don't know if saying 'I went to (school), designed as a seminary preparatory school for Puritans, which also later produced Cardinal (x)' or something like that would be bad. As you can probably tell, HDS is my top choice :). Another thing I'm unsure about is if it's a good idea to mention a specific course I want to take -- HDS has one on contemporary crises in Catholicism, which sounds like exactly what I want. I have mentioned that I appreciate that they have both Catholic theologians and feminist scholars, and that they're committed to the study of women's issues in religion.