colormelovely

Congrats Yale acceptees!

Good luck for Harvard.

I got into Yale! No idea about funding.

Congrats, Marcion!

Seriously. The thought of a "normal job" depresses me. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing...

You are mostly right. It's not that 'we' think that div training cannot and does not prepare students academically. Div schools certainly do. 'We' (I in this case) am simply saying that given that 1) most div programs require their MTS/MAR to take courses not at all related to their academic interests (it is meant as a sort of generalist degree at many schools) and that 2) div schools, (many) quite explicitly, are serving two masters, namely, academia and 'orthodoxy', your time may be better spent in a RS M*. To be clear I am not saying that these are opposed or even unrelated (to some). But RS programs may view them this way. And thus in serving two masters, according to RS and related fields, you miss spending time with the more 'masterful' of the two--academia. 
 
Also to your point about the majority of RS scholars having their degrees M* degrees from div schools. Meh. It depends on the subfield. If they are in some subfield dealing with ancient-things, then yeah you may be right. For reference:
http://indiana.edu/~relstud/people/faculty
Out of the full-time faculty I see two that have M* degrees from divinity schools--out of 22 faculty. The rest either do not list it or have never been in one. No time to check beyond this.

At least none of us applied to Carnegie Mellon!
 
Amen? 

I know for a fact Harvard has had at least two meetings. (my POI) as to the timing of the final choices, only God knows. I wish us all the absolute best of luck. I cured my Emory rejection blues with Chipotle carnitas today, and let me tell you: it worked!

A strong academic foundation like believing the earth is 6000 years old.

These are relatively modern (American) Protestant concerns. So what if the Bible doesn't 'hold up'? If we begin by assuming that it is some authorial, holistic 'text', then historical-critical methods are basically moot. It's interesting (not bad,of course) how such concerns are serious problems for so many young Protestants. 
 
What are 'traditional' exegetical methods? There is plenty of evidence to support that many early Christians did not hold the Torah to be actually written by Moses.
Why should Christians only accept the canonical NT? Why should they adhere to old-ass Catholic standards (or why would they even want to)? I guess if Prots believe it is all set up that way from God....well, I guess you're right.
How does one search for divine meaning?
 
I have no firsthand experience with YDS, so you may very well be right! 

What?

I'm in a program, but if a teaching job doesn't materialize at the end, my wife and I will figure something out, move to a new city, start an adventure, make the best, etc. Not really worried about it. 

If you are going to self-teach Greek, I'd recommend Athenaze to you. 

Is anyone being bogged down by the "you're not smart enough, your GPA isn't high enough, you'll blow the GRE, what, what, what are you doing?" goblin? That's where I am at the moment. I'm reading books by my POIs so I can better cater my statement of purpose towards them but still... can't imagine who'd want little old me.

Professor Chiu at UVM is an incredible mentor, scholar, and teacher -- and has an incredible sense of humor to boot.  Ever heard of Classics Ryan Gosling? She's the mastermind behind it. 
http://classicsryangosling.tumblr.com

Let's talk about how stupid the writing portion of the test is.
 
"Here's a stupid issue that has two obvious sides. Pick one, argue it, and craft a bullshit empire for the next thirty minutes."

My verbal and writing percentiles were in the mid 90s. The upper 90s is the place to be, though, and I'm planning on retaking if this application season doesn't pan out. My best piece of advice would be to use the writing scorer on the ETS website. When you take the actual test, it is scored once electronically and once by a human being. These scores almost always concur, so having practice essays electronically scored is a great option. I had a lot of trouble figuring out what kind of writing was considered "good" by the GRE. I am still somewhat baffled!

SLEEP. And alcohol. Not in that order. Oh, and trash magazines. #don'tjudgeme

Lately I've noticed an influx on my RSS and Facebook feeds of people posting articles and essays cautioning students against pursuing the Ph.D. I get it. The job market is horrendous, adjunct pay is shit, academic freedom in confessional schools is under fire, and tenure is quickly going the way of the buffalo.
 
Really, I get it. Now that I've been admitted to a Ph.D. program, I'm done thinking about it for a couple years (because I'm going to be pissing enough blood over the degree itself without worrying about what's [not] to come after it). But I do get it.
 
But, honestly: I'm tired of the posts. I think they are unintentionally damaging Religion departments and the Humanities in general, as they not only discourage M* students teetering on the brink of applying to Ph.D.'s, but undergraduates as well. If I'd been inundated with such a spewing of "the bad news about graduate school" at age twenty-two, I might've jumped ship. I imagine others might have done the same. Who would have suffered for that? The struggling Ph.D.'s who wrote the article/blog post who teach in seminaries or graduate Religion departments. We're killing ourselves, man. There is a case to be made that laying on the reality check/discouragement is the ethical thing to do, but I'm afraid of the unintended consequences and the scores of bright undergrads who will be dissuaded from pursuing further studies in the Humanities because of these posts and articles.
 
I'll now offer the soapbox to anyone who wants it. Your thoughts on these sorts of "Debbie Downer" Ph.D. posts?

Pros- Dr. Amy Jill-Levine. 
Cons-Tennesee (just kidding, I've actually never visited Nashville)

I just graduated from a smaller state school. My future plans include the Fulbright and admission into SPEA at Indiana University-Bloomington, the 2nd best public affairs program.

I'd say that my letters of recommendations, internships, and intensive research background got me into grad school more than where I went. Undergrad is much less important than grad school...

As a soon to be PhD student with 50k in debt (and who married 80k of debt), take the funded option. Both places will provide you with a great education, but neither can guarantee a future. People get into PhD programs from Harvard's MTS all the time, so you have just as good odds of getting in somewhere with none of the risk. 

I did my getting upset last week. And I already have an acceptance in the bag, so no matter what, I'm 1) staying in New York and 2) going to graduate school this fall. 

Now I just need to hear from Fordham so I can start figuring out financing. Regardless of whether they accept or reject me, everything's gonna be gravy at this point. I had really hung my hat too strongly on BC, and now that I've moved on, or am moving on, it's just gonna be a matter of finalizing plans.

Well you're in a really good position actually with no undergraduate debt, so I'd say its really up to you and what you'd think you can handle.

Woke up to an email this morning from Vanderbilt, I was accepted into the MTS program! I am super excited! Now I gotta calm down because they are mailing funding information, so I don't know what that looks like yet.
 
Josh

Hey there,
You show your ability to work with the language(s) in your writing sample. I think that will be just as good having taken a class. The reality, I think, is that many students only take those "French/German intensive" courses that last one semester/one summer. This is not enough. You either need to keep taking more coursework within the language, or work with it frequently after in order to gain real skill. My point is I imagine you will be fine. I would list on your CV under languages that you attended an immersion school, also. 
 
As for 'wasting time' on the ThM with languages....you seriously have to start now or it will be too late. This late in your academic career it is essential you pick up the necessary ancient languages. I have found taking 'content' courses without the primary languages is, well, not entirely profitable. If you can't access the primary sources then your research will be heavily limited.
 
Your advisor(s) will be the best folks to ask about which language you should start first. But I imagine, just what little I know of your interests, Latin would be more useful? If you are planning on applying for doc programs this fall, again, you need to start soon. I would take the Latin intensive during the summer, then pick up intermediate in the fall (classical), and then begin a year of classical Greek (not koine) in the fall, too. If you do not have your languages in order programs will simply not take your application seriously, I think.
 
Perhaps I'm a bit hard to folks without language work. It has been RAILED into me ad nauseum that one working within any historical period of religion must have a solid foundation in the required languages. 
 
If you want more information about what I have taken/my experiences with Greek/Latin/Hebrew/German courses, I would be glad to offer any help; just PM me.