cheapham

I'm waitlisted at SMU, so this could be good/interesting news for me. What was SMU's funding like? Curious how it might match up with other options I've got on the table. Thanks for the notice. Best of luck at Baylor!

Congrats to all those who got in to HDS! I'm finishing up my MTS this spring, and it's been a heck of a ride. I remember being ridiculously excited when I got in around this time two years ago. It's a great place with some amazing people. If you have any questions about the Div school or Cambridge or anything, don't hesitate to ask. Maybe I'll meet some of you at the prospective students visit day in April? Best of luck to you all!

I was just curious if anyone knows anything about where they're at with their PhD admissions process? A friend of mine is sort of holding onto hope that he'll get in, and I haven't seen anyone here talk about it yet. Just curious, thanks in advance for any info anyone here has.

Hey, retiredwaif, don't fret about ND too much. Their master's program is very small (esp. compared to divinity schools like Harvard/Yale/etc.), making it not only incredibly selective...but the lottery effect (i.e. - randomness) is pretty significant there as well. ND was my first choice as a masters as well a couple years ago, and I was quite devastated when I didn't get accepted. Yet, looking back now I feel like I ended up in a place much better for my academic journey than ND. Claremont has a tremendous faculty and excellent resources for learning. It's very ideal for a master's as well, in my opinion. Plus, I think you'll like Claremont, CA much better than South Bend. That said, if you've made some good contacts at ND...keep them up. They may be very valuable in 2-3 years when applying for PhDs. Congrats on Claremont BTW, best of luck there and in the future.

If you don't have concrete academic or practical ("on the ground work" type stuff) experience in the field...then yeah, applying to PhD programs without an MA will be very difficult despite how otherwise qualified and brilliant one might be. And like you said, not knowing the vocabulary of a discipline may become obvious in one's personal statement as well. Religious Studies as is now tends to expect an MA before PhD. That's not always the case, but you would need at least a Bachelor's in some very relevant discipline to overcome the lack of masters. So, I would recommend looking into MA programs. There are a lot of excellent ones, and I'm sure you could get many recommendations from the folks here (I have some favs myself). Sorry for the frustrations, hopefully it has all been a positive learning experience. Best of luck as you go forward, and don't hesitate to ask more questions.

Congrats to you as well! Not sure if you're addressing me or not, but I'll go ahead and respond. I got accepted to the New Testament/Biblical Studies department. Frankly all the NT faculty (Stephen Moore, Melanie Johnson-Debaufre, and the newly hired Althea Spencer Miller) are amazing and I can't wait to work with all of them. Drew was truly my top choice, and it's absolutely my most attractive offer so far, so I'm quite pumped. That said, I'm still on a couple waiting lists that I'm going to hold out for just to see what sort of funding options they might offer. Congrats to all the others who got in!

When I talked to admissions a month or so ago, they said this week should be the week they send out letters. The initial plan was the first/second of March, but delays do happen with these things. So, it seems we'll hear soon. Best of luck to all who applied!

Thanks! At this point its all contingent upon funding issues (I can't really afford to take out much more in loans at this point), but ideally I'd like to work with both as I think they both offer some pretty excellent strengths. I'd love to combine the textual focus of MacDonald and the methodological sophistication of Wimbush. We shall see what happens. I'm currently waitlisted at a couple other programs, and I haven't heard from several still. It will likely be several weeks to a month before I can really make any real decisions in this regard.

Reimarus is right, "without funding" usually means quite literally that...no funds offered from the university whatsoever. i.e. - they don't pay for anything. If they pay for tuition but no stipend, one usually describes that as "accepted with tuition covered" or "tuition remission" or something along those lines. For example, just today I was accepted to Claremont for a PhD in New Testament. As of right now, it's without funding, but I'm currently on a waitlist for a tuition fellowship. Hope that helps.

Two years ago, SLU took forever to get back to me. I had already made my decisions by the time they contacted me with a notice of acceptence. So, I'd be patient with them, they seem to have a long process.

I just got a letter yesterday (Sat.) saying I was waitlisted at SMU, so it seems that the notices have gone out. Best of luck!

Notification of ThD acceptance/rejection should be posted on the application website. Some phone calls have been made as well. Letters to be sent Tuesday. PhD notification hasn't been done electronically/digitally yet...but decisions have been made and some phone calls have gone out. I imagine letters to be sent this week as well. At this point, if you haven't heard anything from either program, and you can't wait any longer...I'd give them a call. Best of luck.