georgica1

The MA/PhD programs in Art History at NYU are all through IFA -- they have different faculty because the IFA faculty only teach grad students, no undergrads. The separate NYU dep't of Art History is the undergrad art history program and the graduate programs in Museum Studies, Visual Culture, Performance Studies, etc -- art history related, but not "MA/PhD Art History" Hopefully that made sense.

My best advice is apply to a wide range of programs. Grad school admissions are in many ways a total crapshoot -- most programs will accept max 10-15 applicants, often far fewer, and that's across all specialties (i.e., they may only be taking 1 or 2 Renaissance people per year.) When it comes to PhD programs, the most important thing is to find potential advisors -- figure out who is doing research that interests you, and apply to their departments. The prestige of the university as a whole is often not as important at the graduate level; my field isn't Renaissance, so I don't know what the really top programs are, but if you're interested in an academic career, the reputation of your advisor and your department is going to be more important than reputation of the university, and there are a number of non-Ivies with top art history programs (NYU is probably the most obvious example.) I would suggest speaking to your advisor and/or a professor in your area who you have a good relationship with and asking he/she for program recommendations. They'll have a better sense of which programs are best for your field and may be able to give you a sense of which ones are within your reach. Lastly, having an MA doesn't necessarily increase your chances of getting into a PhD program. Many sequential programs encourage applicants to apply with a BA only

If you don't mind my asking, where are you headed?

I think it's probably unwise to go to a school where you won't be a good fit in terms of research interests. If you can't identify a potential advisor, I'm guessing you won't be particularly happy in the program, regardless of prestige (or lack thereof.) Your completed MA might not necessarily make a dramatic difference, but there are a lot of other factors that go into PhD admissions (as we've all discovered) many of which have little to do with specific applicants (economy, potential advisor's workload, etc.) If I were you, I'd take my chances and wait another year (and probably apply to a few more schools to improve my odds.)

I think one of the main draws of curatorial programs are the long-term internships at museums, so if you have had/can get museum internships, that's probably just as useful. Also, most major museums have internship/fellowship programs specifically for graduate students in Art History. With that said, I do know a number of people who have done curatorial programs who wind up as freelance curators or curators at non-museum arts organizations/galleries where there's less emphasis on research/publications (and tend to focus more upon emerging/mid-career artists.) If you're interested in working as a curator at a major museum, I'd definitely go the Art History PhD route rather than curatorial/museum studies.

I applied for 2009 and wound up 0 for 4, so I already know where I'm definitely applying, but there are a lot of maybes. The thing I'm somewhat unsure about is "safeties", if such a thing can even be said to exist at the PhD level (let's just call them "less impossibles" for the moment.) I know what the top programs are in my field (post-war/contemporary) but don't have a very good sense of the 2nd tier. What about you? Field, list, etc?

So, did anyone else get totally shut out this year? I only applied to 4 programs, all of them super competitive, so I'm not too shocked, but definitely not looking forward to going through this process again next year.

That's odd: I'm IN Manhattan and there was nothing in the mail today. If you don't mind my asking, was it an acceptance (and if so, had you been unofficially notified earlier?) I'm wondering if I should just suck it up and call. Edit: Never mind, just saw your earlier post about being accepted awhile back.

Just to follow up about IFA, I just called the academic office to check on my application and they said mine is still with the committee and they should be making final decisions within the next day or two. I assumed that I'd been rejected after seeing all the acceptances last week, so I'm definitely glad to hear that I'm still in the running, but trying not to allow myself to get too excited or hopeful. Has anyone called Columbia or gotten any kind of idea of when they'll be notifying? A ton of posts from other GSAS departments went up earlier this week, but nothing from Art History. So frustrating!

I'm not entirely sure if Columbia considers PhD applicants for the terminal MA in Art History, but according to postings on the results page, other Columbia departments have, so it's a possibility. With that said, even though it might technically make competition for the MAs stiffer, I'm guessing that a lot of people who applied to the PhD would turn down an offer to be moved to the MA pile (have an MA already, don't want to go to an unfunded program, etc.) so I don't necessarily think it would make a huge difference. I also think that you're probably right about MAs boosting your chances of admission, particularly if it's an MA from a prestigious program like Courtauld, not necessarily because an MA automatically makes you more qualified, but because applicants with MAs probably have a better sense of what they want to work on/more research experience/better writing sample. I'm definitely regretting not applying to a few MA programs as a backup.

I've been assuming as much. With that said, the phone acceptances were all posted a few weeks ago, so I'm starting to think that maybe they're still deciding about the waitlist, etc. Also, it's possible that they're considering moving some applications to the terminal MA programs. I find it somewhat hard to imagine that they've just been sitting on a pile of rejections for weeks without bothering to notify, but I guess anything is possible at this point. I never thought I'd look back fondly at the undergrad application/admissions process.

For those of you that got IFA acceptances today, does the website (either embark or the nyu tracking site) reflect any sort of admissions decision info? (edit: oops, didn't realize that a bunch of other people had posted similar IFA questions right above. Also, did the letter/email/whatever it was mention how many people they took?)

Unfortunately, one of my problems has been that, although I'm American, I'm an undergrad at a UK university and the application procedures are completely different here. Thus, although I've spoken to a number of professors here about my applications and they've been as helpful as possible, most of them don't really have a clue about how it works in the states. In the UK, typically you find a specific professor you'd like to work with, contact them and discuss your research interests, and then if that professor is interested in working with you, you apply. The SOP doesn't really have the same function; it's more like a summary/proposal of a project that you've already discussed with a member of faculty. Rather than applying to a department, it's more like applying to one specific person with final acceptance at the discretion of the entire dep't/school. In many ways, I find the UK process easier -- there's much more transparency about what they're looking for (i.e. most schools that I considered in the UK had specific GPA/honours classification requirements.) In short, I went into this process without much guidance or knowledge as to what to expect. I suppose the only positive is that I'll be much more prepared for the next round.

Since it looks like I'll be reapplying again next year (waiting on 2, but it doesn't look good) I've been thinking a lot about how to improve my application and one thing that I definitely think went all wrong was my SOP. So, out of curiosity, how specific were all of you about your research interests in your SOP? Did you propose specific projects/artists, or just general areas? I went the more general route and am now thinking that was absolutely a mistake. Also, for those of you who applied (or considered applying) to CUNY Grad Center, particularly those in Modern/Contemporary any insight/information? I'm planning on expanding my list of schools considerably for next year, but know almost nothing about CUNY's program except for the fact that a lot of people seem to be applying on this forum.

Bob, I think some of this is misdirected -- fullofpink stated very clearly that he/she didn't in any way advocate such a decision and didn't think that this SHOULD be a factor, only suggested that it MIGHT be a factor. And, frankly, I don't think such a suggestion is so farfetched. Yes, it would be discriminatory and sexist to hold a candidate's pregnancy against her, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. When I first read preg's post, the firs thing that occurred to me was whether or not she had mentioned her pregnancy in her SOP/any of her application materials. As it turns out she didn't so clearly it wasn't a factor in this particular case, but it seems like a reasonable question. Again, it might not be right (I would certainly say it isn't) but I'm guessing it happens. When there are tons of qualified candidates vying for a handful of spots, every little thing comes into consideration and it seems very possible to me that a school would pass over a pregnant candidate/one with young children for someone with equally strong academic credentials and no family. Some (not all, but certainly some) professors are inevitably going to want their doctoral students' lives to revolve around research/teaching/etc. and as such might be less inclined to accept a student who has other priorities, i.e. children. I'm not trying to start any kind of massive debate or fight here, just to say that I didn't think the suggestion was offensive so much as the fact that this IS probably a factor in admissions.