doobiebrothers

How does one typically adapt their application package when applying to a program the year following a rejection from said program? Is it expected that personal statements, letters of recommendation, etc. be completely overhauled (perhaps even entirely different references)? Or would the same documents be able to be considered afresh in the context of the new applicant pool?

I've been where you are, and from what I know of admissions I will say the following:
 
If somebody claims "extreme uniqueness and obvious fit" on an application, it might come of as very off-putting to the readers. One of the easiest things to sense from an essay is that sense of entitlement and arrogance, and it is a major no-no; those kinds of applications go straight into the garbage pile, regardless of other (usually stellar) qualifications. I'm sure you are indeed a great fit, in which case probably the best thing to do is to keep doing all of those wonderful things that make you a great fit--reading, writing, thinking, volunteering, hobbies, hanging out with friends and family, etc. As for the "secret admissions rubric" I wrote something about that recently: 
 

 
Please, relax and enjoy these next seven weeks of your life. I am sure you will get in and you will be very happy, but the level of stress that you seem to be putting on yourself does not seem to be very healthy.

remember this is for one very specific humanities program at one very specific university. I have no idea at all what other adcoms look like, so please don't be sad! If you explain the mitigating circumstances of the 3.3 that actually can help you--they LOVE to see those explanation paragraphs, it makes you stand out, and it gives you a closer read on the adcom. Like the moron that I am, I forgot to take my own advice this year, and didn't include a grades explanation, which probably would have really, really helped. Also, depending on the size of your department and the number of applicants, you really might get an individual "unique snowflake" consideration. What the hell do I know? Please don't be depressed because of my post! I'm sorry

Does anyone else engage in endless imaginary committee meetings, where you analyze your application as though you are the committee? I'm in the weird situation of having been on the committee of the department to which I'm applying, and I know the people and the process almost too well (I have seen the sausage being made, my friends, and it is ugly.)
 
So I sit almost every day since i hit the submit button and  play the committee in my head:
 
Does doobie make it past the first round?
158 applicants, 6 slots, 6 subfields
 
about 50 don't have the grades, gre's, sop to be considered, so they go (doobie is fine) (this is all sorted out in the first week of january)
 
108 to go, give them to two readers, who scale them from 1-4, 4 being the highest, based on 4 different criteria
readers are: professors, and sometimes two students, sometimes the dean (6-10 people)
these apps are read the second week of january
1. academic accomplishment (grades, GRE)
2. research potential (SOP, letters, writing sample)
3. leadership, extracurric (small part, but matters)
4. "personality" (Do I want to be stuck with this person for the next 6 years?)
 
I've got weak-ish grades in my MA but very strong in my BA and GRE, so maybe a 3 academically
In my own head I think I have research potential, but who knows what the committee will say? maybe if i'm lucky a 3.5
lot's of volunteering, particularly tutoring/teaching. maybe a 3.5 or four
personality gets tricky. the adcom REALLY knows me well--did I make a good impression? will this backfire? depending on who reads it, a 3.0 or a 3.5? could I dare hope for a 4?
 
at this point i probably average a 3.5-3.75, depending on how nice my two readers are (pure luck). then the office secretary puts together a ranked excel sheet, at this point NOT split by sub-field. bottom probably 25 people are almost automatically out, unless they are URM. 
 
it's now the first week of february, and the application goes to chair of subfield (in my case my POI, who is also my letter writer); chair picks the top 5 people for the subfield from the spreadsheet
 
committee has the first actual in-person meeting at this point (first week of feb, probably a friday) where they hash the top 30 picks and reduce them to maybe 10, maybe 15. This is where the politics starts, and the nitpicking gets ugly. This is where I'm afraid I will come under scrutiny for a few B's that I got in grad school. Granted these were in very, very tough classes (advanced coursework in the world's second hardest language) but in the face of 30 other perfect candidates this may be enough to sink me. I also have a few small-ish errors on my SOP; again, in the face of perfection, this might be the straw that breaks my back. This is where my prof will need to "fight for me on committee," where alliances are made and broken.
 
If i make it into the top 15 (about 2 for each subfield, give or take) now it comes down to the question of which subfield gets people this year (last year mine took two, so it does not look good for me) and which advisor gets a new student (mine took one three years ago, so maybe this year will be the year). This is all hashed out in the second in-person meeting, maybe the wednesday of the second week of february, and this meeting is a doozie. 
 
Then the chosen six go to the dean of the entire school, who (usually) rubber stamps the picks--unless GRE or GPA is super low (below 3.3, below 65%)
 
If you make it into one of the chosen 6, your POI will probably email you and let you know "congrats!" by the third week of february, at which point you have pulled out all of your hair and either gained or lost 15 pounds, give or take 5 pounds (ahem, cough cough, must stop eating Macdo as I cry into my SOP). And if not, the radio silence that lasts until march 1 is a good indicator that all of your hopes and dreams--at least for this round--are dead.
 
Please tell me you guys do this too?
 

The MDiv is not a difficult program to get admitted to. I'm sure you'll be fine.

That being said, your anxiety and "obsessing" seems to be a bit more than is typical. Is there someone you can talk to about that? Or coping mechanisms that might help? Exercise, more sleep, etc?

Good luck with your application and with the wait.

I heard a rumor that Duke opted to cut all funding for doctoral Religion applicants this year in favor of establishing a basketball team comprised completely of REL students...weird.

Hello! 
 
I was in a similar position earlier this year when I began thinking about applying for PhDs in Islamic Studies. I have an undergraduate degree in Arabic and a Masters in Anthropology but I have never taken a Religion class or a class on Islam. Don't waste your money and time applying if you won't have a chance of getting in. You will be competing against top students who have an MA and an MA thesis in the field. I have since decided to apply for several Masters programs in Religion with a focus on Islamic Studies. My interests are Shi'a history, ethics and the sermons of Ali ibn Talib. 
I applied to: Duke, Harvard MTS, UToronto, Hartford Seminary, and UChicago. 
 
First of all, you need to pin down your specific interests. Then, search for professors who match those interests. Then, email graduate students in those fields or attend a professional conference to get advice on the ins and outs of applying. 
 
Basically, Islamic Studies can be divided into 2 tracks: (1) a Near Eastern Studies department (NELC) which is more the classical, Orientalist tradition which emphasizes heavy language study, historical approaches, archaeology, etc. (2) a Religion department, which focuses more on questions of theology, doctrine, ethics, etc. They are more open to an interdisciplinary or sociological approach which is what I decided to do. 
 
You will definitely need at least 6 semesters of Arabic before applying to a PhD program, so a Masters will give you time to do that. It will also allow you to narrow down your interests to one dissertation topic that you will have to propose. It helps if your MA thesis is on the same or similar topic! 
 
Feel free to message me for more advice. 

remember this is for one very specific humanities program at one very specific university. I have no idea at all what other adcoms look like, so please don't be sad! If you explain the mitigating circumstances of the 3.3 that actually can help you--they LOVE to see those explanation paragraphs, it makes you stand out, and it gives you a closer read on the adcom. Like the moron that I am, I forgot to take my own advice this year, and didn't include a grades explanation, which probably would have really, really helped. Also, depending on the size of your department and the number of applicants, you really might get an individual "unique snowflake" consideration. What the hell do I know? Please don't be depressed because of my post! I'm sorry

Does anyone else engage in endless imaginary committee meetings, where you analyze your application as though you are the committee? I'm in the weird situation of having been on the committee of the department to which I'm applying, and I know the people and the process almost too well (I have seen the sausage being made, my friends, and it is ugly.)
 
So I sit almost every day since i hit the submit button and  play the committee in my head:
 
Does doobie make it past the first round?
158 applicants, 6 slots, 6 subfields
 
about 50 don't have the grades, gre's, sop to be considered, so they go (doobie is fine) (this is all sorted out in the first week of january)
 
108 to go, give them to two readers, who scale them from 1-4, 4 being the highest, based on 4 different criteria
readers are: professors, and sometimes two students, sometimes the dean (6-10 people)
these apps are read the second week of january
1. academic accomplishment (grades, GRE)
2. research potential (SOP, letters, writing sample)
3. leadership, extracurric (small part, but matters)
4. "personality" (Do I want to be stuck with this person for the next 6 years?)
 
I've got weak-ish grades in my MA but very strong in my BA and GRE, so maybe a 3 academically
In my own head I think I have research potential, but who knows what the committee will say? maybe if i'm lucky a 3.5
lot's of volunteering, particularly tutoring/teaching. maybe a 3.5 or four
personality gets tricky. the adcom REALLY knows me well--did I make a good impression? will this backfire? depending on who reads it, a 3.0 or a 3.5? could I dare hope for a 4?
 
at this point i probably average a 3.5-3.75, depending on how nice my two readers are (pure luck). then the office secretary puts together a ranked excel sheet, at this point NOT split by sub-field. bottom probably 25 people are almost automatically out, unless they are URM. 
 
it's now the first week of february, and the application goes to chair of subfield (in my case my POI, who is also my letter writer); chair picks the top 5 people for the subfield from the spreadsheet
 
committee has the first actual in-person meeting at this point (first week of feb, probably a friday) where they hash the top 30 picks and reduce them to maybe 10, maybe 15. This is where the politics starts, and the nitpicking gets ugly. This is where I'm afraid I will come under scrutiny for a few B's that I got in grad school. Granted these were in very, very tough classes (advanced coursework in the world's second hardest language) but in the face of 30 other perfect candidates this may be enough to sink me. I also have a few small-ish errors on my SOP; again, in the face of perfection, this might be the straw that breaks my back. This is where my prof will need to "fight for me on committee," where alliances are made and broken.
 
If i make it into the top 15 (about 2 for each subfield, give or take) now it comes down to the question of which subfield gets people this year (last year mine took two, so it does not look good for me) and which advisor gets a new student (mine took one three years ago, so maybe this year will be the year). This is all hashed out in the second in-person meeting, maybe the wednesday of the second week of february, and this meeting is a doozie. 
 
Then the chosen six go to the dean of the entire school, who (usually) rubber stamps the picks--unless GRE or GPA is super low (below 3.3, below 65%)
 
If you make it into one of the chosen 6, your POI will probably email you and let you know "congrats!" by the third week of february, at which point you have pulled out all of your hair and either gained or lost 15 pounds, give or take 5 pounds (ahem, cough cough, must stop eating Macdo as I cry into my SOP). And if not, the radio silence that lasts until march 1 is a good indicator that all of your hopes and dreams--at least for this round--are dead.
 
Please tell me you guys do this too?
 

I had a phone interview this weekend!

Does anyone else engage in endless imaginary committee meetings, where you analyze your application as though you are the committee? I'm in the weird situation of having been on the committee of the department to which I'm applying, and I know the people and the process almost too well (I have seen the sausage being made, my friends, and it is ugly.)
 
So I sit almost every day since i hit the submit button and  play the committee in my head:
 
Does doobie make it past the first round?
158 applicants, 6 slots, 6 subfields
 
about 50 don't have the grades, gre's, sop to be considered, so they go (doobie is fine) (this is all sorted out in the first week of january)
 
108 to go, give them to two readers, who scale them from 1-4, 4 being the highest, based on 4 different criteria
readers are: professors, and sometimes two students, sometimes the dean (6-10 people)
these apps are read the second week of january
1. academic accomplishment (grades, GRE)
2. research potential (SOP, letters, writing sample)
3. leadership, extracurric (small part, but matters)
4. "personality" (Do I want to be stuck with this person for the next 6 years?)
 
I've got weak-ish grades in my MA but very strong in my BA and GRE, so maybe a 3 academically
In my own head I think I have research potential, but who knows what the committee will say? maybe if i'm lucky a 3.5
lot's of volunteering, particularly tutoring/teaching. maybe a 3.5 or four
personality gets tricky. the adcom REALLY knows me well--did I make a good impression? will this backfire? depending on who reads it, a 3.0 or a 3.5? could I dare hope for a 4?
 
at this point i probably average a 3.5-3.75, depending on how nice my two readers are (pure luck). then the office secretary puts together a ranked excel sheet, at this point NOT split by sub-field. bottom probably 25 people are almost automatically out, unless they are URM. 
 
it's now the first week of february, and the application goes to chair of subfield (in my case my POI, who is also my letter writer); chair picks the top 5 people for the subfield from the spreadsheet
 
committee has the first actual in-person meeting at this point (first week of feb, probably a friday) where they hash the top 30 picks and reduce them to maybe 10, maybe 15. This is where the politics starts, and the nitpicking gets ugly. This is where I'm afraid I will come under scrutiny for a few B's that I got in grad school. Granted these were in very, very tough classes (advanced coursework in the world's second hardest language) but in the face of 30 other perfect candidates this may be enough to sink me. I also have a few small-ish errors on my SOP; again, in the face of perfection, this might be the straw that breaks my back. This is where my prof will need to "fight for me on committee," where alliances are made and broken.
 
If i make it into the top 15 (about 2 for each subfield, give or take) now it comes down to the question of which subfield gets people this year (last year mine took two, so it does not look good for me) and which advisor gets a new student (mine took one three years ago, so maybe this year will be the year). This is all hashed out in the second in-person meeting, maybe the wednesday of the second week of february, and this meeting is a doozie. 
 
Then the chosen six go to the dean of the entire school, who (usually) rubber stamps the picks--unless GRE or GPA is super low (below 3.3, below 65%)
 
If you make it into one of the chosen 6, your POI will probably email you and let you know "congrats!" by the third week of february, at which point you have pulled out all of your hair and either gained or lost 15 pounds, give or take 5 pounds (ahem, cough cough, must stop eating Macdo as I cry into my SOP). And if not, the radio silence that lasts until march 1 is a good indicator that all of your hopes and dreams--at least for this round--are dead.
 
Please tell me you guys do this too?
 

I've lost 7 pounds in the last 2 weeks. Only 60 more to go!

Does anyone else engage in endless imaginary committee meetings, where you analyze your application as though you are the committee? I'm in the weird situation of having been on the committee of the department to which I'm applying, and I know the people and the process almost too well (I have seen the sausage being made, my friends, and it is ugly.)
 
So I sit almost every day since i hit the submit button and  play the committee in my head:
 
Does doobie make it past the first round?
158 applicants, 6 slots, 6 subfields
 
about 50 don't have the grades, gre's, sop to be considered, so they go (doobie is fine) (this is all sorted out in the first week of january)
 
108 to go, give them to two readers, who scale them from 1-4, 4 being the highest, based on 4 different criteria
readers are: professors, and sometimes two students, sometimes the dean (6-10 people)
these apps are read the second week of january
1. academic accomplishment (grades, GRE)
2. research potential (SOP, letters, writing sample)
3. leadership, extracurric (small part, but matters)
4. "personality" (Do I want to be stuck with this person for the next 6 years?)
 
I've got weak-ish grades in my MA but very strong in my BA and GRE, so maybe a 3 academically
In my own head I think I have research potential, but who knows what the committee will say? maybe if i'm lucky a 3.5
lot's of volunteering, particularly tutoring/teaching. maybe a 3.5 or four
personality gets tricky. the adcom REALLY knows me well--did I make a good impression? will this backfire? depending on who reads it, a 3.0 or a 3.5? could I dare hope for a 4?
 
at this point i probably average a 3.5-3.75, depending on how nice my two readers are (pure luck). then the office secretary puts together a ranked excel sheet, at this point NOT split by sub-field. bottom probably 25 people are almost automatically out, unless they are URM. 
 
it's now the first week of february, and the application goes to chair of subfield (in my case my POI, who is also my letter writer); chair picks the top 5 people for the subfield from the spreadsheet
 
committee has the first actual in-person meeting at this point (first week of feb, probably a friday) where they hash the top 30 picks and reduce them to maybe 10, maybe 15. This is where the politics starts, and the nitpicking gets ugly. This is where I'm afraid I will come under scrutiny for a few B's that I got in grad school. Granted these were in very, very tough classes (advanced coursework in the world's second hardest language) but in the face of 30 other perfect candidates this may be enough to sink me. I also have a few small-ish errors on my SOP; again, in the face of perfection, this might be the straw that breaks my back. This is where my prof will need to "fight for me on committee," where alliances are made and broken.
 
If i make it into the top 15 (about 2 for each subfield, give or take) now it comes down to the question of which subfield gets people this year (last year mine took two, so it does not look good for me) and which advisor gets a new student (mine took one three years ago, so maybe this year will be the year). This is all hashed out in the second in-person meeting, maybe the wednesday of the second week of february, and this meeting is a doozie. 
 
Then the chosen six go to the dean of the entire school, who (usually) rubber stamps the picks--unless GRE or GPA is super low (below 3.3, below 65%)
 
If you make it into one of the chosen 6, your POI will probably email you and let you know "congrats!" by the third week of february, at which point you have pulled out all of your hair and either gained or lost 15 pounds, give or take 5 pounds (ahem, cough cough, must stop eating Macdo as I cry into my SOP). And if not, the radio silence that lasts until march 1 is a good indicator that all of your hopes and dreams--at least for this round--are dead.
 
Please tell me you guys do this too?
 

That's where I am today. The mental state where getting accepted and going to the school I want to attend just doesn't seem plausible.
 
I haven't been rejected - as far as I know - but I'm mentally defeated. I had issues getting my application in due to transcript problems, my transcript has problems (grades for a semester i never attended!), and I was never a "great" student in the first place. For god know's what reason I applied for Spring 2014, probably because I didn't realize how admissions typically work being out of school for so long. It's rolling admissions, so there's a shot, but now I have, what? Three months to pack up and relocate assuming I get a decision soon?
 
I'll be lucky to get in, never mind funding. How can I figure out how to pay for everything in 3 months? I'm having issues paying for a minor out-patient surgery I've been putting off since November.
 
And I've kept tabs on people in my intended field/realm who went into this newly formed program. When you do a "which one of these is not like the others" line up with me against the group.. I'm the odd man out. My background, experience, etc.. is totally different. I come from theater, design, and a literary background. They're all graphic and fine artists.
 
I'm kind of amazed I fought as hard as I did to get the application in and completed to a level that it isn't a "bad" application. My portfolio is the best it could be (I think) and my SOP is.. not perfect.. but it's readable, entertaining/interesting, and clearly spells out what I want to do and why I think i'm qualified. I tried to write about how being different will be a good thing and how I'd add to the classroom by offering a new perspective and experience.
 
Now I'm having my doubts that is even true, and instead I'd just be seen as the crazy person because I have a different perspective. Lord knows that's the sort of response I typically get in life for it.
 
My first time in grad school, in an MFA theater design program, I had this terrible experience... I was giving a presentation on a design and my professor stopped me and said curtly "What...?" and I was confused.. and I repeated what I had said about drawing on the constraints of neoplasticism for my design. And she said, again, "What are you talking about..?" and the whole class was just sort of staring at me. I stumbled over the word, "Neo..plast..sti..cism...?"
 
"We don't use -isms here!" she scoffed at me and threw her precision bob back in this way that let you know it was over, beyond argument or appeal.
 
I stood there, lights on me and my little model of my design.. and fidgeted a bit, trying to think of ways to describe a piece based almost entirely on neoplasticism without using the term itself or even alluding to the fundamentals of the movement. That's when the proscenium on the front of my model fell off, because I had been up all night working on the set model and the glue hadn't dried properly in time. I was mortified.
 
"You know, when I was at Yale working with Ming, we'd sometimes see the student work from Harvard.. and they'd have these sad little sloppily constructed model boxes for their sets..."
 
She picked the piece of my box up off the floor and tossed it on the desk.
 
"..and we'd laugh. Obviously they just weren't doing something right over there. They... just didn't get it."
 
And with that my critique was over, and I even knew it back then, so was my career at that school.
 
So I've not had the best luck, so to speak, with coming in from an outside viewpoint and blending in. I know my ideas for the industry I want to go into are sort of radical and uncommon.. but I think they can be progressive and important in the big scheme.
 
I'm just stuck here telling myself not to dream too far though. I know I shouldn't and I should instead fight for what I believe in with every ounce of what I can give, but it just doesn't seem practical or plausible. Like I should have backup plans on top of backup plans for when the inevitable occurs. Either I don't get in, or I get in and end up screwed or trying to hash out funding. I'm really not sure which would be worse.

actually rogue I'm doing the same thing: I wrote a "act as if" list: what would I be doing if I DID get in? And if I get rejected, I plan on following the act as if list (research, reading, thesis work, conferences) as closely as possible; I even got access to JSTOR so it's not unreasonable to expect that I can make phd level process in the year off. Hopefully we won't need these plan B's though, this year's applicants on gradcafe seem pretty amazing to me!

I think admission committees  should notify the rejected people as soon as possible. especially the ones who are out early in the process and not make them wait endlessly so they can refocus their effort on their safe schools/ redo tests , register for the next semester graduate additional courses. 

I've posted a spreadsheet that helps predict when philosophy departments will begin making admission decisions.
 
http://faircloudblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/when-to-expect-results/

Does anyone else engage in endless imaginary committee meetings, where you analyze your application as though you are the committee? I'm in the weird situation of having been on the committee of the department to which I'm applying, and I know the people and the process almost too well (I have seen the sausage being made, my friends, and it is ugly.)
 
So I sit almost every day since i hit the submit button and  play the committee in my head:
 
Does doobie make it past the first round?
158 applicants, 6 slots, 6 subfields
 
about 50 don't have the grades, gre's, sop to be considered, so they go (doobie is fine) (this is all sorted out in the first week of january)
 
108 to go, give them to two readers, who scale them from 1-4, 4 being the highest, based on 4 different criteria
readers are: professors, and sometimes two students, sometimes the dean (6-10 people)
these apps are read the second week of january
1. academic accomplishment (grades, GRE)
2. research potential (SOP, letters, writing sample)
3. leadership, extracurric (small part, but matters)
4. "personality" (Do I want to be stuck with this person for the next 6 years?)
 
I've got weak-ish grades in my MA but very strong in my BA and GRE, so maybe a 3 academically
In my own head I think I have research potential, but who knows what the committee will say? maybe if i'm lucky a 3.5
lot's of volunteering, particularly tutoring/teaching. maybe a 3.5 or four
personality gets tricky. the adcom REALLY knows me well--did I make a good impression? will this backfire? depending on who reads it, a 3.0 or a 3.5? could I dare hope for a 4?
 
at this point i probably average a 3.5-3.75, depending on how nice my two readers are (pure luck). then the office secretary puts together a ranked excel sheet, at this point NOT split by sub-field. bottom probably 25 people are almost automatically out, unless they are URM. 
 
it's now the first week of february, and the application goes to chair of subfield (in my case my POI, who is also my letter writer); chair picks the top 5 people for the subfield from the spreadsheet
 
committee has the first actual in-person meeting at this point (first week of feb, probably a friday) where they hash the top 30 picks and reduce them to maybe 10, maybe 15. This is where the politics starts, and the nitpicking gets ugly. This is where I'm afraid I will come under scrutiny for a few B's that I got in grad school. Granted these were in very, very tough classes (advanced coursework in the world's second hardest language) but in the face of 30 other perfect candidates this may be enough to sink me. I also have a few small-ish errors on my SOP; again, in the face of perfection, this might be the straw that breaks my back. This is where my prof will need to "fight for me on committee," where alliances are made and broken.
 
If i make it into the top 15 (about 2 for each subfield, give or take) now it comes down to the question of which subfield gets people this year (last year mine took two, so it does not look good for me) and which advisor gets a new student (mine took one three years ago, so maybe this year will be the year). This is all hashed out in the second in-person meeting, maybe the wednesday of the second week of february, and this meeting is a doozie. 
 
Then the chosen six go to the dean of the entire school, who (usually) rubber stamps the picks--unless GRE or GPA is super low (below 3.3, below 65%)
 
If you make it into one of the chosen 6, your POI will probably email you and let you know "congrats!" by the third week of february, at which point you have pulled out all of your hair and either gained or lost 15 pounds, give or take 5 pounds (ahem, cough cough, must stop eating Macdo as I cry into my SOP). And if not, the radio silence that lasts until march 1 is a good indicator that all of your hopes and dreams--at least for this round--are dead.
 
Please tell me you guys do this too?
 

Does anyone else engage in endless imaginary committee meetings, where you analyze your application as though you are the committee? I'm in the weird situation of having been on the committee of the department to which I'm applying, and I know the people and the process almost too well (I have seen the sausage being made, my friends, and it is ugly.)
 
So I sit almost every day since i hit the submit button and  play the committee in my head:
 
Does doobie make it past the first round?
158 applicants, 6 slots, 6 subfields
 
about 50 don't have the grades, gre's, sop to be considered, so they go (doobie is fine) (this is all sorted out in the first week of january)
 
108 to go, give them to two readers, who scale them from 1-4, 4 being the highest, based on 4 different criteria
readers are: professors, and sometimes two students, sometimes the dean (6-10 people)
these apps are read the second week of january
1. academic accomplishment (grades, GRE)
2. research potential (SOP, letters, writing sample)
3. leadership, extracurric (small part, but matters)
4. "personality" (Do I want to be stuck with this person for the next 6 years?)
 
I've got weak-ish grades in my MA but very strong in my BA and GRE, so maybe a 3 academically
In my own head I think I have research potential, but who knows what the committee will say? maybe if i'm lucky a 3.5
lot's of volunteering, particularly tutoring/teaching. maybe a 3.5 or four
personality gets tricky. the adcom REALLY knows me well--did I make a good impression? will this backfire? depending on who reads it, a 3.0 or a 3.5? could I dare hope for a 4?
 
at this point i probably average a 3.5-3.75, depending on how nice my two readers are (pure luck). then the office secretary puts together a ranked excel sheet, at this point NOT split by sub-field. bottom probably 25 people are almost automatically out, unless they are URM. 
 
it's now the first week of february, and the application goes to chair of subfield (in my case my POI, who is also my letter writer); chair picks the top 5 people for the subfield from the spreadsheet
 
committee has the first actual in-person meeting at this point (first week of feb, probably a friday) where they hash the top 30 picks and reduce them to maybe 10, maybe 15. This is where the politics starts, and the nitpicking gets ugly. This is where I'm afraid I will come under scrutiny for a few B's that I got in grad school. Granted these were in very, very tough classes (advanced coursework in the world's second hardest language) but in the face of 30 other perfect candidates this may be enough to sink me. I also have a few small-ish errors on my SOP; again, in the face of perfection, this might be the straw that breaks my back. This is where my prof will need to "fight for me on committee," where alliances are made and broken.
 
If i make it into the top 15 (about 2 for each subfield, give or take) now it comes down to the question of which subfield gets people this year (last year mine took two, so it does not look good for me) and which advisor gets a new student (mine took one three years ago, so maybe this year will be the year). This is all hashed out in the second in-person meeting, maybe the wednesday of the second week of february, and this meeting is a doozie. 
 
Then the chosen six go to the dean of the entire school, who (usually) rubber stamps the picks--unless GRE or GPA is super low (below 3.3, below 65%)
 
If you make it into one of the chosen 6, your POI will probably email you and let you know "congrats!" by the third week of february, at which point you have pulled out all of your hair and either gained or lost 15 pounds, give or take 5 pounds (ahem, cough cough, must stop eating Macdo as I cry into my SOP). And if not, the radio silence that lasts until march 1 is a good indicator that all of your hopes and dreams--at least for this round--are dead.
 
Please tell me you guys do this too?
 

"No, not tonight. I have grad apps to work on."

Friend: "Are you building a grad school?"
Friend: "No, really, what are you actually doing with all of that time?"

"It's mid-January. Should I give up? Yeah I'll just give up." << sh*t gellert actually said

"Make sure you borrow a friend's phone if you call the department for updates. Don't want them to link your phone number to your app. Even better, use an out of state area code and disguise your voice. Foolproof!"

"So I have a 3.9 GPA and 1590 GREs, with eight years' research experience and fourteen first-author publications and a stellar fit. Chance me? I think I'm gonna get rejected from ALL THE SCHOOLS. "

"Academia.edu says I've been googled four times today! What do you think that means?"

Many, many jobs exist outside of the US for religious teaching positions especially in Biblical studies. My plan is to work 5-15 years outside the US and move back to care for my parents. This is, of course, if I do not get a job before then, but I really desire the experience of immersing myself in another culture to teach them what I know and to learn what they know. Right now, the horizon is wide open. South Africa? Thailand? Costa Rica? Brazil? Fiji? Who knows? But it's very exciting to dream about. 

Dear Tickelmepink,

that's EXACTLY what I was asking. So basically, even if you are a well qualified applicant and the profs want you in, departmental politics might mean you are SOL.

thank you!

Alex

Waddle-

Thank you for your kind words!

DB2290-

I know I'm crazy right now, believe me. My family, friends, and fiance all put their hands in their ears and sing loudly when I talk about how I'm not going to get into any graduate school. But I work in college admissions with undergraduates, and I've seen so many outstanding students get rejected from schools like Georgetown-it makes me really wonder what kind of qualifications are 'good enough,' and I've never applied to graduate school, so I really have no idea what a great candidate is, versus a not-so-great one. My professional experience is that high schoolers with 4.5 gpa's, perfect SAT scores, and extracurriculars that would make your eyes cross routinely get rejected from top schools, so I suppose I'm a bit leery of the whole process.

But thank you for your insight.

In terms of the way that the director of the program worded her statement, she basically told me that she loves my research, wants to be my advisor, and will push for me during the committee session. However, one of my good friends told me that she recieved a similar assurance from someone at UVA, but that she was then rejected!

Alex