Bunter

I mean that if ND contacts you and asks if you have made a decision, you could write back saying that you are on a wait list for another program but that you need a final word from them before making your decision. This might prompt them to offer you an incentive to just accept their offer, if, you make it sound like you have a good shot on getting off of School X's wait list. This depends on a lot of factors, like how much your potential advisor at ND might want to work with you, and whether he or she has the departmental resources to incentivize you. I have heard of such things from friends, not from personal experience.

Yup. Got my Columbia rejection yesterday afternoon via email from GSAS. I emailed the department administrator (Jessica something) the day before asking for my decision.

Rejections arrived today from UPenn and Columbia. Looks like I'm heading to Duke. It's been real, thread.

Right right, that is the ethical thing to do. I merely meant to express what one could do, and if you wait a while and it looks like you might not get off of the wait list, but wanted to leverage something extra out of ND, one could do so. Approaching deadlines make people act, sometimes with generosity.

I don't know the people you refer to who work on the modern stuff, but Powers and Toorwa, who are both big figures in the pre-modern and medieval areas are well respected and are continually putting out good scholarship. Even if you don't work with them primarily, I think as far as secondary advisors go and people to talk to at least on the conceptual level, you might benefit greatly from their input. They are also well connected and I don't think they will be retiring any time soon, which is also something to consider.

It seems that 'in the middle' could mean that you are the top alternate pick for your "track," but that your track happens to be down the line from a couple of other tracks in terms of preference. I have not accepted the offer yet (am still waiting to hear from one program) but am pretty sure that I will. Perhaps should I accept, than a hypothetical Islamic studies alternate who may or may not be ahead of you in the list would then be skipped over or demoted from the wait list. As well, whoever was offered the spot for your track might not have accepted yet, which may or may not affect the other alternates. The positive attitude is a good sign though. If you are at all interested in sweetening the deal, I would let them know that you are on a wait list for a competitive program. I have heard of people accepting offers, signing all the papers, etc. then backing out in May or June when all is said and done and the other school calls back. I don't think this is frowned upon, because it is how things inevitably work.

I also work on Islamic law, and will be going into a religion department. I am happy with where I ended up, but am sort of surprised that I did not get into a couple of the schools to which I applied. I am not sure if this is due to my general 'fit' or what. I think the field of political science as it currently exists in the US is somewhat deficient in general for being able to deal with the middle east and people who take religious institutions seriously, so doing an MA in a field concerning the middle east-- that centered on anything other than the predictable and all-too-common security studies or democratization foci-- might not get you the recognition you deserve from a political science admissions panel. There is also a big disconnect between people doing western political philosophy and theory in political science departments and people who are well versed in Islamic studies. For getting a job at an NGO georgetown might be better, but this is just me thinking out loud. HDS might get you a good job with an NGO like CAIR or a religiously affiliated organization, not sure about Brookings or something like that. On the other hand, find out how many people finish the Georgetown MAAS program per year and assume that at least a quarter of them are trying to get the same jobs as you, there certainly aren't enough to go around. It might be a common thing for people to finish, go into a holding pattern for 12 months and send out resumes like crazy. I would ask to speak to alumnni of the program or students who are finishing currently to see if they have any prospects.

Dear Kate, It depends on what you want to do. I am finishing an MA at Harvard's CMES, and received a full tuition scholarship + stipend from an external funding source. I can say that paying for an MA is something that I wouldn't recommend in this field, and you are lucky to receive two offers. However living expenses in DC are very expensive. Having said that, I know some people in the Georgetown program, and I know others who have dropped out of the Georgetown program. I would say that it is a better fit for someone interested in pursuing a policy job, due to its proximity and connections with all of the DC organizations, than Harvard. I think Harvard is better suited for a career in academia, and getting recommendation letters from Harvard faculty should help you get into a good PhD program in political science, or another field, which you might find is a better fit after you do your MA. The latter was the case for me. Having said this, I also think that the hard part about Harvard is getting in, not necessarily doing the coursework or anything else. It is really a bit too laid back for my tastes, and I am going elsewhere for my PhD. My own personal bias is that anyone interested in studying Islam & the Middle East should undertake training that is not limited to the political, because, well, the academic conversations regarding the "politics" of the middle eastern and particularly Arab states are rather shallow intellectually. Once you've taken an undergrad-level course or two on the modern political history and the debates on liberalism, oil economy, political violence, you inevitably turn to hashing through details of causality and agency in the postcolonial period among classes and political actors, which, although important, is being done by many many young scholars these days. Furthermore, many political scientists are also turning into historians of the modern middle east as a result of (1) the lack of cooperation and available data from regional public archives in the middle east [see Yoav Di-Capua's book] (2) hostility towards in-region scholarship from government officials (3) unused archives abroad (4) an insufficiency of scope in political models for explaining regional trends [bob Vitalis]. I think much more useful and critical scholarship is coming out of anthropology and history departments, and particularly those that don't use political lenses of states, economies, and classes, per se. So if academia is a long term goal, I would go to the place that has a better all-around faculty in these areas, not just those with job connections. i would also add that none of my friends in CMES or the divinity school who are graduating this year and are not going straight into PhD programs have any sort of definite job prospects at this point. A lot of interviews, but no one I can think of has anything inked out. So any of the earlier conversations on this thread about such-and-such a program being a 'dream' school for the purposes of landing a job need to be held up to the cold hard reality of the economy and the fact that at each elite institute with such MA programs, 25+ people a year are 'specializing' in the middle east or Islam with working Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and recommendations from famous scholars. Furthermore, the types of jobs that these programs quality you for aren't high paying ($40,000 is typical) so again I would not go into debt for this degree.

wannaabee, I see you are "out" at UPenn. Is this for NELC, polit sci, or history?

I still haven't heard back anything, My focus is on law and ethics, so Hallaq and Messick and others are more relevant to me.

I'm sure they have some jockeying going on with their admits. My prospective advisor has been very communicative and eager to answer any questions that I have, I believe, in order to make me accept the offer. Currently as things stand I will accept the offer, but I still havent heard back from 2 programs. One of which I am interested in, the other, not so much. I actually emailed Van Rompay regarding Syriac studies and expressed interest in it for an internal minor, quite funny that we are somewhat on the same page. I did speak with 3 current grad students over the past couple of days, all had wonderful things to say about the program. I hope the best for you, let me know if you get a final answer, My guess is that you are either an alternate for the position to which you applied, or they have space for an extra 1 or 2 grad students and are trying to decide which track to give it to. Either way, no news might be good news.

So the last two on my list: Columbia MESAAS-PhD UPenn NELC-PhD Anyone have esoteric knowledge about acceptances & rejections?

Accepted to PhD in Religion, Islamic Studies track at Duke. Letter finally came today.

tentative offer of admission to Duke religion PhD for the Islamic Studies track, the GS is slow in processing my acceptance letter. Currently my top choice.

Letter arrived today from Harvard GSAS, I applied to NELC (PhD) and am finishing the MA through the center for middle eastern studies here currently, so it is technically a transfer according to their books. The letter states that they "could not act on my application" even though they were very impressed with my credentials, and they wanted to know if I would accept a spot on a waiting list. I take it either to mean that they knew they weren't the best match for me, which I effectively expressed in my preliminary conversations with faculty, but they are trying to make an effort, or alternatively it could be a polite solution so as not to reject me, even though they wrote my recommendation letters and so forth, a rejection would be awkward for someone who has two and a half months left here. Anyway, I am interested to see if anyone else receives such a letter.