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cavedan

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Everything posted by cavedan

  1. I'm going to Yale for the Ancient Christianity Ph.D. Stats: uGPA 3.85 (state university), gGPA 3.82 (ivy divinity school), GRE 790 V / 800 Q / 6.0 W, Greek, Coptic, Hebrew, and a little German, Arabic, and Latin, no publications, a couple papers presented, a couple seasons of field excavations (I was looking for programs that also had some archaeological component). also, an SoP that i spent forever on and was pretty confident about. Advice: find another student/TA whom you trust and who's been through the process recently and have them help you with things like revising your statement and writing sample - they'll be more thorough and more honest with you than your advisors may be, and they are 'safer' confidants for your rough drafts and anxieties, although you should of course also get feedback from your professors if they are willing to help you. start very early on your statement (like summertime, or right now) so that when you give it to your recommenders or to potential advisors you can show them something fairly polished. you should probably plan to apply to 6-10 schools, even if your stats are good, because there are so many factors and so few slots that admission is not guaranteed anywhere. similarly, no one aspect of your application is going to get you in (for example, near-perfect GRE's - i have a stack of tersely worded rejection letters to prove this). so, just do your best to make sure that no one thing will get you kicked out (for example, try to get 700+ verbal on the GRE if at all possible). while it kills me to say this, "fit" (that aggravatingly unquantifiable nuisance) is probably still the most important thing - and finding a way to communicate this fit in your SoP or via contact with potential advisors, something I didn't do nearly enough of. That's probably it for me on GradCafe until next year, so congrats to all who are matriculating this year, thanks to everyone for all the helpful posts and advice this cycle, and good luck to everyone applying next year!
  2. cavedan

    Yale

    Hello everyone, and congrats! I'll be starting a Ph.D. in the Religious Studies department (with the apparently standard $25,500 humanities package, which is much more than I ever would have expected). Just got back from visiting this week and, coming off a year away from school, I'm *stoked* about getting started. Everyone I talked to made the program sound awesome, or at least faked it well enough For the inevitable housing odyssey, I figured out at least that I don't want to live in HGS or one of the Yale-owned apartments (they seem overpriced), so I'll be hitting up Craigslist and looking for a place in the East Rock area most likely. I think a yearlong lease starting June or July would work nicely so that I wouldn't need to be searching for something when school is starting. It occurred to me that one could probably get a better deal by finding roommates prior to hitting up Craigslist, so that we could look for a 2-4 bedroom place together (for those of us who like having roommates, anyway). Anyone know if there is a dedicated housing forum for incoming Yale grads? Or if not, can we make this one? (to the above poster: check your inbox). For my part, I'm a single male, 25, non-smoker, enjoy living with pets although i don't have any to call my own. I'd prefer to have a roommate or three (any gender), and am thinking East Rock, although Downtown could also work. If my little scheme sounds interesting to anyone else here, drop me a message. Cheers, Dan
  3. I agree with all of the above, I'll just throw a couple more morsels in... In regards to having a professor help you with polishing - yes, yes, yes. This is the painful part of the applications process, pestering people you know are busy to help you again and again with something solely for your benefit, but it's really essential (don't believe those on this forum who would have you believe that "the waiting is the hardest part"). Ask the professor you turned the paper in to; even better, find a TA/current doctoral student whom you trust and have them help you revise your sample and SoP, since they'll have more time, went through the process more recently, and are 'safer' confidants. for readability, give it to your smartest friend in another field. when i was discussing my interest in a program with a professor, he asked me preemptively what my writing sample would be about. i told him the text i was focusing on, and he immediately asked "but what methodology are you going to use?" He went on to explain that a simple exegesis or text critical paper would be a poor fit for this particular program, and said that after they narrow down the finalists they do look at your sample to see if your interests and approaches are a good fit with the faculty - so, write about something you care about, and use the methodology you hope to use for your dissertation. while faculty may not read your sample in depth, your choice of topic makes a statement about your interests and your 'fit' much more so than the cursory "the work of professors X,Y,Z really match my interests blah blah" that you tack on to the end of your SoP. with that said, i was also advised by another person to choose a 'safe' sample - which, in my field at least, means an exegesis paper (but with an angle) that shows your historical-critical and linguistic skills (both ancient and modern). and a final anecdote: when i was interviewing at notre dame, i met with eight faculty members, seven of whom said not one word about my sample (in fact, a few of them gave no indication that they had even read my file). the eighth mentioned that he'd only had time to briefly look over my sample, but he liked how i had done my own translations from the original text, and he also complimented a text-critical suggestion that I had made... in a footnote on page 16. take from this what you will
  4. i second all of this. for my part, i had taken neither french nor german by the time i finished my masters, for reasons that seem foolish now. the next fall, when i was speaking with a professor at yale about my ph.d. applications, he singled this out as a glaring weakness (both for my applications, and for my career), and recommended that i find some way to get one or the other on my transcript before i applied - noting, as well, that i shouldn't simply say "i plan to self-study French/German before matriculating" because everyone says this who doesn't have the languages. so, i took his advice and began studying at a nearby Goethe Institut - less than ideal, of course, but i was overseas at the time so it was the best i could do. in the spring, when i was lucky enough to get an acceptance, this same professor sent me an email ending with "p.s. thanks for learning German." the point of all this being, yes they do notice these things, and give weight to them. oh, and yes it is possible to get accepted with only one of the two, but i wouldn't recommend it. now if you'll excuse me, i have a date with french...
  5. Ok, I've finally calmed down enough to post my results. I got accepted today to Yale's Ph.D. Ancient Christianity!!!!!!! For the record, I heard via a phone message and email from a prof., and an email from the registrar. Counting the other acceptance posted, plus eskidd's friend, yeah I'd say it's likely that most/all of the acceptances went out today =/ Also while I was busy running around screaming (on the inside, at least), I got an email acceptance from Brown as well (Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean, email was from director of graduate studies). It was a good day, especially seeing as I'd gotten rejections from Harvard (Th.D. NT/Early Xtny) and Princeton (Ph.D. Religions in Late Antiquity) the day before. Ok, I will now spend the rest of the month taking long, deep breaths. And sending my best wishes to everyone still waiting...
  6. Feb 20 is the day the Yale Ph.D. committee is meeting, I was told. In the past there was an open house day or something like that for admitted students, I think around April 11th? Anyway, hopefully we'll know soon.
  7. If anyone is applying to Yale (the Religious Studies department, not the Divinity School), I was told that the departmental committee is meeting around Feb 20. Apparently, first the subfields review their applications, then each faculty member nominates one applicant, then the departmental committee meets and decides on a final list of 10-12 or so, and forwards these to the Graduate School for approval (usually all are approved). So, people can expect to hear from the Graduate School by early/mid march, if not earlier. Also, for my subfield (Ancient Christianity), there are approximately 30 applicants this year, and they usually take one student :| (is there such a thing as a barfing face? there really should be)
  8. Just to throw some more results on the heap (I also posted these on the results page): On 2/2 I got an email invite to Notre Dame's interview weekend (2/26-28) for the Christianity & Judaism in Antiquity Ph.D. Also on 2/2 I got an email from Duke (New Testament Ph.D.) with a link to the Status website, which said I am not being offered admission but had "qualified for the alternates list" (=it doesn't look good) On 2/3 I got an email from a potential advisor at Yale's Ancient Christianity Ph.D. program to set up a phone interview (very nervous about this one)
  9. Also, Notre Dame's Christianity & Judaism in Antiquity is having interviews that weekend (2/26-28); I got an email invitation today.
  10. Broadly, Religious Studies, specifically, origins of Christianity. As far as I can tell, the departments I'm applying to take 1-2 students per year in my subfield =/ So, I'm holding out hope that I can be The One for at least one school. "Being the One is like being in love. No one can tell you you're in love, you just know it. Head to toe. Balls to bones." Best advice I've gotten so far... if only it were that easy. 8)
  11. 9 applications... $967 1 partial-expense-paid interview weekend... $200 1 acceptance at the dream school... priceless
  12. spock&kirk, If you're applying to one of the language-intensive subfields, then I think you're all set. When I applied for MTS/MARs at some of the schools you mentioned, I had much less language background (and a lower GRE), and I did very well with applications. I also found that most MTS students in my subfield had similar or less language background when they began the program. I'm not saying it's a simple 1:1 correspondence between languages and acceptance, but - well, maybe it is? For the masters anyway. In any case, if the written parts of your application are in order, I think you will do well.
  13. Linkslife, I too looked all over the net for rankings info, and concluded that no meaningful published rankings exist (but if someone knows otherwise, please inform!). Asking your current profs seems like the most dependable way to get a useful answer, and of course it will depend on your subfield. Without knowing that, my impression is that the schools you listed are all top tier or close to it, whatever that may mean - but of course, those are just impressions
  14. Hi All, I imagine this has been asked before but I couldn't dig up an answer in the archives. Any thoughts on submitting a fourth letter of recommendation? All of my prospective programs only require three. I asked the three professors who knew my work best and could write me the strongest letters (two from my masters program, and my undergrad advisor). However, now that I look at my application package as a whole, it occurs to me that all of my letters will be "the same" - that is, all three writers are very similar scholars, traditional you might say, and will probably be speaking to my abilities in similar kinds of courses (for what it's worth, my field is new testament/early christianity). I have a fourth professor (a visiting scholar in art history/archaeology whose seminar I did very well in) who also said they would be happy to write a letter for me. While I only had one course with this professor, I think they could speak more to my interdisciplinary interests, something I allude to in my statement of purpose but don't really have room to discuss in detail. My impulse is to just submit all four letters. This way, I hope, it will not look like I couldn't find a third writer from my master's program (by including my undergrad advisor), and it also won't look like I couldn't find a third in-field professor with whom I'd done substantial work (by including a one-term visiting scholar in an adjacent field). Are there any cracks in this plan? I scoured the program websites for my schools but didn't find anything about extra letters, although it seems like the online applications will allow me to register a 4th writer. I certainly wouldn't want the extra letter to 'bump' one of the other letters without my knowing it. Your thoughts/experiences are greatly appreciated.
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