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.

I don't know about Harvard but if you haven't heard from Yale, I'd actually take it as a good sign rather than bad. They sent out a mass rejection a week or so ago (I was amongst the unlucky) so if you didn't receive one, you've probably made it to the final round.

To whomever posted the Columbia acceptance today/yesterday -- did they say anything about class numbers for this year/distribution between fields, etc.? I'm guessing since I haven't heard anything from them at this point, it's safe to say that I'm out. Definitely disappointing.

I got an email directing me to the Yale applyyourself site (based on the results that have been posted today, this seems to be what everyone got.) The decision link is at the bottom of the home page underneath the part where they list your application materials received and so on. If you didn't receive a rejection email, it might mean you're in or waitlisted, because it seems like Yale sent out a mass rejection today. If you don't hear anything by tomorrow, maybe call and ask?

Well, looks like Yale sent out all of its rejections today. I'm feeling surprisingly calm about it, though I'm definitely not liking my odds at this point (I only applied to 4 programs and this rejection is the only decision I've received thusfar. While I'm assuming I'll only get into one program, if even, I was hoping I'd get the acceptance first to soften the blow, especially since NYU IFA is notoriously late in sending out decisions.) Are any of the Yale acceptances here modern/contemporary perchance? If so, just out of curiosity, what's your area?

I am -- applied to both Columbia and Princeton and haven't heard a word from either. I was more or less calm/prepared to wait until mid-March to hear back/knew it was out of my control and that there was no point freaking out about when the decisions would come in...until I saw results from two of my programs. The idea that decisions have been made and that I still don't know is completely nerve wracking. I'm hoping that the people who posted acceptances were all "superstar" applicants and that they're still looking through the maybe pile to make final decisions, although at this point I'm preparing myself for rejection.

I can't really see the economy having a drastic affect on the number of PhD applications, particularly in the humanities. A PhD is a massive commitment of 4+ more years of school and the careers a humanities PhD can be said to prepare people for are pretty specialized: academia, obviously, and museum work in the case of History of Art. I think we'll see a pretty dramatic rise in applications to professional schools (MBA and law programs, for instance) and perhaps even terminal masters programs in the humanities from people who don't want to be academics, but need something to do for the next year or two after graduation and aren't having any luck getting jobs. I doubt there are many people who just decide to get a PhD out of nowhere (and I think admissions committees tend to look for cues in applications as to whether the applicant really wants a PhD and knows what it entails -- hence asking about career goals, etc.) With that said, for programs that won't accept without funding, there may be fewer spots available because of reduced departmental budgets.

While it's definitely unfortunate that the website/application for certain state universities don't explicitly detail their policies for admitting foreign students, it seems to me that these restrictions come from the state/federal governments, not the universities themselves (i.e., when it comes to residency issues in California.) I'm sure that the universities would love to be able to accept and fund more foreign students, but they're also funded by the government and as such have to follow more regulations than private universities. I don't necessarily see anything "unfair" about it, so long as the universities are up-front about an international applicant having reduced chances of acceptance. Since public universities are funded by taxes, residents have, in effect, already "paid" part of their tuition by paying taxes in the state. Non-residents haven't. Also, this isn't exclusive to the US -- one UK university that I considered applying to basically told me outright that, because the department gets the bulk of its postgrad funding from the government, I had almost no chance of getting any kind of funding from the university and, on top of that, would have to pay international tuition (significantly higher than UK resident tuition.)

OP, if you read around this forum (or any other similar one) you'll realize there isn't a simple answer to your question. Whether or not its "worth" applying to Harvard depends on your willingness to part with the application fee and the time it takes to fill out the application. If you have the time and money and Harvard is your dream school, then I'd say go for it. If you apply, you might not get in, but if you don't apply, you definitely won't. Honestly, based on the stats you posted and the program's recommendations about work experience, etc., it seems like you're at a disadvantage, but no one on this board is on the admissions committee and none of us are really qualified to determine what your chances are. If you have amazing LORs, essays, SOP, etc., there's always a chance. With that said, if you have limited time/funds and applying to Harvard means that you won't be able to complete another application for a program where your stats might be more in line with their typical applicant pool, you might want to reconsider.

With every bit of information you convey in your SOP, there is a positive way and a negative way to say it. From the intro you posted, it seems to me that you're starting with a negative. Your non-traditional background is definitely something you should discuss in your SOP, especially since you have clearly gone on to achieve academic success as an undergrad, but you may want to reconsider your wording. Rather than saying 'I struggled with basic arithmetic until I was 22,' I'd go with something along the lines of 'I achieved ____ success/grades/scores/whatever despite having dropped out of high school, etc.' (obviously this is not the exact wording, but the point is to put a positive spin on this information; present it as an accomplishment rather than something negative.) Think about how your words will be interpreted by the people reading your statement. You want them to be impressed by your ability to overcome setbacks rather than to doubt your ability to do graduate work. I'd also only specifically address your former struggle with math if you have visible proof of overcoming it (i.e. an A in an advanced math class on your transcript.) Your GRE score might not be enough to convince them that your math skills are strong -- there are a lot of ways to 'work' the GRE that allow people to get relatively high scores without necessarily being great at math.

I applied to a Princeton program with a December 15th deadline and submitted my application on the 14th. I checked today and none of my information has been updated, so I wouldn't worry too much. Also, they say it will be at least 7-10 business days after you submit before they update your file online, so if you submitted the 17th, I'd give it a few more days. I'm guessing a lot of the staff are on vacation (or at the very least have been out of the office for the past few days) so it will probably take awhile before they update. I'm planning on giving it another week, and if my GRE scores, etc. aren't shown as received, I'll call, but if I were you, I wouldn't freak out yet. edit: OP - after I saw that you were also applying for Art History, I double-checked Princeton's deadline. I cannot believe that I literally stayed up all night so I could submit my application "on time" (I was, for some reason, convinced that the deadline was the 15th) when application wasn't even due for 2 weeks. At least it's out of the way.