Kuriakos

I'm jealous of all the science people who have answers back already.

All applications have been submitted for me, too. Hurry up February.

There hasn't been much activity on Grad Cafe this application season. I'm going to go ahead and assume that there has been a sudden drop in prospective students and that we are all going to get acceptances, full funding, and generous stipends.

Don't do anything that costs you money. You'll probably be taking on debt at some point and the longer you can delay that the better.

I don't know of any school that only accepts people with perfect 4.0 GPAs. If you go to the results section for the last few years, I'm sure you'll see some people will less than perfect GPAs got in. The impression I've gotten is that evaluating PhD applications is not really a numbers game. Most applicants will have some sort of weakness, and it is the overall strength of apps that really matters. I'm certainly no expert though. For all I know, I could end up going 0-8 this cycle!

I'm at Duke.

Well I don't know what the percentage is, but I had professors across several institutions who had no relationship with one another say the same thing: over 700 Verbal to be competitive.

I don't want to speak for someone else, but I'm guessing he/she is referring to the perception that the deck is stacked against such candidates because of the recent attempts to diversify.

Yep. Someone posted this link in another thread: http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2012/01/11/grad-school-divided-over-interviews/

Did anyone else notice that the UChicago application asks if you have kids? This worries me as I was cautioned not to mention that I have an infant in interviews and such. I don't really understand why you'd ask that except to discriminate against people. Thoughts?

I had people tell me to make sure I broke 700 on the verbal. I don't know how that works out in the new system, but I suspect that is close to the 90th percentile that Lux Lex Pax offered.

I heard unofficially that Duke will give interview notifications mid-January with actual interviews in early February.

Free healthcare for families, too?!?! That is an amazing deal. Ummm, who do I have to bribe to get in on that? (j/k of course)

I was asking about Chicago. He didn't seem certain about the information even as he offered it, so I'm glad to hear he was mistaken. It seemed highly improbable to me.

Link: http://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=125798. I thought this was an interesting bit of news. I've heard Baylor was making a push to improve their program with new professors and good funding.

I heard from a Duke prof that they don't guarantee five years of funding for their PhDs. Is that true?

I have 7 more to go. One due in 2 days. With a paper due for a doctoral seminar a day after that. So.Tired.

Thanks, Duke would be a hard place to leave. I love it here, and I hope we both get to stay.

Duke apps due today. Anyone else stressing about getting it done?

I think it is a problem unless you can establish a solid track record in an accredited setting and perhaps provide a narrative explanation in your application explaining your decision to attend an unaccredited undergrad. I know a guy in a program at Duke who used to be a fundamentalist and went to an unaccredited undergrad, but he was still able to go to Duke. That said, most unaccredited Bible colleges are little better than diploma mills. If you really want to give academic biblical studies a try, then I think you should at least do some coursework at a reputable school to see what it is like. I don't mean to be patronizing, but if you went someplace like Bob Jones or Pensacola, you probably haven't experienced anything like academic study of the Bible.

I was allowed into Duke's ThM with an MA.

I'm applying to 8. I'd like to do this in one application cycle.

Thanks, I saw that section of the forum, but I thought I'd ask here for advice more focused on religion programs.

Anyone have any good advice on structuring these things? I feel like I am either blathering on or I sound arrogant. Am I the only one struggling with this part of the application?

Let me second Windfish's statement. You sound like a great candidate to me.