waitingtoexhale

TIME article noting the severity of budget cuts at the UC schools, which includes a 90% decrease in faculty hirings at UC Berkeley and absolutely no new faculty hirings at UCSD and UCLA: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1911455,00.html

I feel for your predicament. As much as Northwestern is a better fit for your research interests, it may just end up being more advantageous for you to go to one of your other school options. Perhaps it could work for you in Chicago, but it already sounds like a stressful situation before even accounting for your academic work. And the stress may boil over and adversely affect your doctoral study, which isn't a good situation for any of us. Best of luck with your decision.

NYU, this is terrible! Who are the ad wizards that came up with this one?

This might be the worst. topic. ever. Not only is it inane to try and quantify the "best" university when there is such a wide range of disciplines, but the topic has meandered into an ugly and pretentious mocking of schools like Strayer and DeVry.

I just want to affirm what others have been saying about the benefit of studying French and/or German before applying to doctoral programs. Several schools expect either French or German upon matriculation of your first year, with a translation exam during the first few weeks in the fall. I didn't take courses for either language, but self-studied using fairly common grammar books geared toward reading comprehension for graduate students (Sandberg's French for Reading and Jannach's German for Reading Knowledge). Instead of noting that I will learn the langauges before matriculation, I wrote that I had a good grasp of them for reading and was able to translate for reading comprehension and research purposes (which I guess also implied that I would be able to pass a translation exam). Self-study is possible, au moins pour moi, but it does take a considerable chunk of time and patience.

In addition to our challenges of job placement as graduate students, should we actually muster some sympathy for lawyers? An excerpt from TIME: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1887270,00.html?iid=tsmodule -- After serving as a 2008 summer associate at Philadelphia law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Harvard Law School student Juan Valdivieso was offered a position as a full-time associate and was anxiously looking forward to joining the firm later this year. Then, in an instant, everything changed. On March 12, Valdivieso received a memo explaining that the sagging national economy had forced the firm to defer his position for a year. Suddenly, with two months remaining in his law-school education, the 28-year-old found himself tantalizingly close to a degree and no place to apply it. "The first thing that went through my head was, 'What do I do now?' " he said earlier this week from Boston. "It was disappointing to learn that I had to change plans and disappointing that I will have to postpone some of the things I was looking forward to." Valdivieso certainly is not the only casualty of creative downsizing in the legal industry these days. As the nation's economic climate flounders and legal work dries up, a growing number of large and midsize law firms are eschewing layoffs by redistributing or deferring young associates instead. Some firms, such as Los Angeles

Condolences, mconsul. Have no idea what BU is thinking.

. I fourth this. Using outside sources, whether from dead-tree or online materials, are a legitimate (and many times necessary) academic endeavor. Sometimes, online resources can be tricky to decipher, if the information obtained is from a personal website found via google search instead of a library-based database search. Even though you may be citing an online source properly, the actual source itself may not be as intellectually honest. But I think all of us would be in agreement that copying is dishonest and wrong. In the case of the OP, what and how was he supposed to cite or attribute his alleged "research"? I don't think including a footnote that reads, "I found a copy of an older edition of the instructor's manual and copied the answer," makes it any less a form of cheating.

I'll be attending Emory this fall. Much like everyone else who applies, I have good stats (high GPA and GRE score), strong letters, languages (Greek, Hebrew, and French), spent a considerable amount of time on my SoP, and submitted a polished chapter of my masters thesis for the writing sample. My professors were very helpful throughout the application process: looking over my SoP, recommending certain doctoral programs, and providing encouragement with honest insights. Though I was hopeful about receiving a few offers, I was also aware of the incredibly slim odds and knew that whatever strengths I possessed in my application did not guarantee positive news. DO... ...identify and apply to several programs that are of interest to you. Unless external circumstances tie you down to a particular city/state, I think it's judicious to apply to different schools to give yourself more chances and options. But don't apply to so many schools that you don't give each individual application the ample focus, time, and attention it requires. And if you are like me and your meager finances dictate a need for full funding, be wary of schools that historically and commonly offer acceptances without adequate funding. ...talk to friends and colleagues in other disciplines who are also applying to doctoral programs. It helped me see that religion isn't the only discipline with a challenging and stressful application process and pushed back against the ever-present 'woe is me' myopia about the unpleasant application process in religion.

Honestly and unfortunately, the OP is trying to make all international students look bad. I don't think there's anything else to call what s/he did but cheating. This case is not about forgetting to reference or cite a source properly. Rather, the student found some kind of instructor's manual online and straight up copied the answer for the assignment. And the OP writes about knowing full well that to be a 'direct copycat' is wrong at the university level. This isn't an issue of understanding cultural differences across nations or the challenges facing international students studying abroad. The reason OP is in such a predicament has little to do with being an international or domestic student, but because s/he is an unethical student who was caught cheating in a grossly blatant manner. While cultural differences and adjusting to studying stateside are valid and nuanced issues worthy of discussion (at least Nel and Jakrabite seem to be passionate about it), that's not what happened to the OP. What happened to the OP is that s/he got busted for cheating.

I also agree with rufzilla and glasses. I think it would be helpful to know why I was rejected by a particular school, but I don't think I am entitled to or deserve a thorough explanation. But I also think it doesn't hurt to ask, especially if you plan on reapplying to the same program in a subsequent year with a stronger bid. But if you have already gained admittance at another program and plan on beginning your studies there this fall, I think it's best to move forward without looking back. There's more than enough work to do in preparation for future study.

Maybe in other disciplines, but I don't think an MA (or equivalent) hurts at all in religious studies. In fact, I think a majority of doctoral students enter into a program with a masters degree. And many of the religion and theology professors at my school also had an MA (or equivalent) and PhD.

I was surprised by the same kind of chatter (not on livejournal, but on gradcafe and from friends familiar with the doctoral admissions process), but I can see how it is derived now that I've just about heard from all of my programs. For the programs where I was given an offer of admission, professors contacted me personally to let me know of the good news and to ask if I had other potential offers. And the contact from professors came weeks before the official notice from the school. Even for the program that placed me on the waitlist, I received an email from the department and then a professor to let me know of my status. For the programs that rejected me, I did not hear anything before receiving a form letter about my rejection in my mailbox or inbox. Maybe the tone of what you read and heard on livejournal was ungracious or vitriolic, but the chatter on gradcafe seems to be both forthright and amenable. And unfortunately, I've learned that a good number of schools (but not all) just don't have the same kind of incentive or desire to contact rejected applicants in as timely a manner as done for accepted or waitlisted applicants.

I think financial aid forms, such as FAFSA, are required by most schools. The forms won't have any bearing on merit-based scholarships, but are necessary to obtain additional funds (loans/work-study).

I would ask both professors, just to cover all the bases. I would remind the professor you asked earlier and inquire with the other professor as well. This way, you'll have the required numbers of letters to have your application reviewed. And if both professors do happen to promptly write letters for you, you will have an extra letter for the application (which is permitted by some schools).

In addition to UCSB and UVA, Boston University (Nancy Ammerman), Duke (Mark Chaves, David Morgan), Emory (Gary Laderman, Barbara Patterson), and the University of Chicago (Martin Riesebrodt) may be also be of interest for work in sociology of religion. Moreover, all of these schools also have strong North American religion type programs, but some probably have more of a focus on historical studies.

I think studyordie's advice on asking masters programs about doctoral placements is spot on. And going to a prestigious school certainly helps because of the opportunity to work with highly esteemed (and well-connected) faculty, study with motivated peers in a robust (but also very competitive) academic environment, etc. Doctoral ambitions notwithstanding, I really enjoyed and appreciated my masters program in religion. It was a thoroughly challenging and wonderfully engaging learning experience. From talking to several aspiring doctoral students in other disciplines from the humanities, religious studies isn't the only discipline with a seemingly arbitrary admissions process with remote odds of getting into a top-tier school. I guess the combination of a greater number of qualified applicants and lesser available funding is deadly for all of us in the humanities.

Oh boy, here's a grim forecast for doctoral students, especially in the humanities: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/arts/07grad.html?em Andrew Delbanco, the chairman of the American studies program at Columbia University, said that the system producing graduate students was increasingly out of sync with the system hiring them.

Unfortunately, some schools don't inform rejected applicants of their decision right away. While the specific department has completed their decisions for admission and has informed the dean's office of the graduate school, it can take time for the graduate school to notify applicants for a number of reasons, such as sorting out all the funding details or waiting to send all decisions in one shot. So, in some cases, a professor from the department will informally notify accepted or waitlisted applicants days or weeks before an official letter goes out. It's brutal, but it seems there's no incentive to inform rejected applicants of their status. But, this isn't how all schools do it, so it really depends on the school.

Thanks for the clarification on what it means to be accepted without funding. A professor from one of the schools I've applied to had asked if I'd been accepted anywhere yet and if it was with or without funding.

What does it mean to be accepted into a program without funding? Does that mean that it's a full tuition waiver, but no stipend? Or something different?

Cavedan, congrats on Yale and Brown. Enjoy the spring, whenever it gets here.

I also think Reno's rankings are deeply problematic. For one, his criteria for judgment is clearly not objective in the least. And he places such an emphasis on religious faith, which is subjective and differs for every doctoral student. While Reno's theological position influences his rankings in one way, a liberal or a postliberal, or a neo-orthodox, or a mainliner, or an emergent (I think you get the idea) may have a completely different set of rankings. The National Research Council rankings try to be both quantitative and objective by using criteria like the things mystic_rose and studyordie mentioned: resources available to current students, quality of academic scholarship produced by the faculty, job placement for students, etc. Even the few times Reno doesn't make judgments based on his theological and confessional leanings, his critiques are not very credible. For example, his criticism of faculty inaccessibility at U. Chicago is based less on facts and more on hearsay from a handful of his students. While the telos of a theological orientation may be doxological, I don't think the telos of a doctoral education is necessarily so. I think we need to differentiate between a theological and a doctoral education. In a lot of masters-level work at divinity schools, seminaries, and the like, the theological education is both academically and spiritually oriented. A masters-level student may be looking for an education that is both intellectually challenging and spiritually invigorating. The strengthening of both intellect and faith is apt for a wide range of students, some of whom want to teach in the academy and others who want to serve and lead in the church (or some other kind of faith-based organization). Whereas, the telos of a doctoral education is oriented toward the academy and intellectual growth. While I am certainly hoping for spiritual growth and the strengthening of faith in my doctoral education in religion, I am not looking directly to my university or faculty to provide or nurture it for me. The role of the university is to provide ample and interdisciplinary opportunities to study, research, and teach. The role of the faculty is to nurture academic development by providing insightful guidance in the dissertation process, holding office hours for student inquiries, leading robust graduate seminars in topics of interest, etc. Even if I were to be pursuing doctoral work in chemistry, history, or philosophy instead of religion, where I go to school and the purpose for which I go would be theologically significant because of my personal faith commitments. But I am wary of judging or evaluating doctoral programs in religion based on subjective faith criteria just because it is the study of religion.

Prayingfor acceptance: Did your professors, particularly those who wrote letters for you, suggest looking at other doctoral programs? Princeton's program is indubitably top-notch, but there are other excellent programs that may fit your interests. The odds of getting into certain schools are just so slim, despite an impressive application with all the trimmings. Last year, Yale's incoming doctoral class was 8 and Duke's was 7, and both schools annually receive 200-300 applications. And Princeton notes on its website that they only take 5-8 doctoral students every year. The National Research Council rankings (1995) for doctoral programs in religion list 38 schools, and their research parameters (such as a minimum number of doctorates awarded) excluded many other schools: http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/area10.html