Tollelege
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RD_Paul reacted to a post in a topic:
PhD or ThM or MA?
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newenglandshawn reacted to a post in a topic:
PhD or ThM or MA?
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From personal experience, I can confirm what others are saying regarding the sufficiency of a MDiv degree, even from an evangelical school. I attended a very small evangelical divinity school where only a few students per year tend to pursue graduate studies. However, in the last three years, we have had students placed in PhD programs at Duke, Vanderbilt, Boston College, Marquette, Baylor, Saint Louis, and Toronto. None of those students earned more than a MDiv degree. This is not to say they lacked preparation on things such as languages (which are crucial). Our MDiv program required a
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axiomness reacted to a post in a topic:
Good place to get a theological education
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HansK2012 reacted to a post in a topic:
Good place to get a theological education
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I apologize for misconstruing your comment, Joseph45. I admit that PTS and Duke are amenable to evangelical students and include faculty who are well-liked in some evangelical circles, and I meant to indicate by my punctuation ("such as PTS or Duke, or Yale, Notre Dame, HDS, etc") that the latter three were additions to the two schools that you recommended. Furthermore, if I implied that schools other than the evangelical seminaries mentioned by the poster are unconcerned with ministerial formation, then I miscommunicated. Of course many of the students at PTS and Duke, as well as Yale, Can
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HansK2012 reacted to a post in a topic:
Good place to get a theological education
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ἠφανισμένος reacted to a post in a topic:
Good place to get a theological education
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From these criteria, I think that the schools you mentioned all sound like they could work well. If you are committed to working in a non-denominational church, then it would probably be prudent not to attend one of the Southern Baptist seminaries. You may also want to avoid the two Westminster schools, since the education you receive there would undoubtedly be couched in the particular doctrinal disputes and theological grammar of confessional American Presbyterianism and may sound rather foreign to your own non-denominational context. My advice would be to consider the more broadly evange
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sacklunch reacted to a post in a topic:
so, which are the "most competitive" programs?
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I went from a small liberal arts college to an evangelical divinity school to the PhD at BC in early/medieval historical theology. From my own experience I would like to say that it is quite possible to move into a competitive, well-funded program from a non top-tier M* program. On the other hand, when I was sharing this bit of encouragement with an applicant recently I realized that this is the exception to the rule in our area, in which the other current doctoral students' M* degrees are as follows: 3 Harvard, 3 Duke, 1 Princeton, and 1 Notre Dame. We did have one other student accepted l
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When discussing the competitiveness of any program, it is important to keep in mind that these programs are divided into subfields, so that competition may differ depending on where one wishes to specialize. For instance, while Duke may receive an enormous amount of applications in the subfield of New Testament, it would hardly receive the same attention from students interested in medieval history/theology. As another illustration from my own department, in the past season applications for subfields ranged from ca. 70 with an acceptance of 3 (4%) to a total of 3 applicants, of whom 2 were a
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Just to be clear, the new MA program in Philosophy and Theology is NOT offered by the BC School of Theology and Ministry. I only mention this because you spoke of the MTS program, which comes through the STM. The MA program will be offered jointly by the philosophy and theology departments at Boston College, which are technically separate from the STM (although you can still take classes at the STM, of course).
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Wafer, This may or may not interest you (depending on how exclusively you want to focus in on the philosophy side of things), but Boston College has just announced that they are offering a join MA in theology and philosophy run jointly by both departments. BC has great strengths if you are interested in medieval philosophy and theology, the history of philosophy, continental philosophy and its dialogue with theology, as well as philosophy of religion. While few of the professors would be interested in apologetics per se, there a few exceptions, such as Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. I
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seroteamavi, I am a current Ph.D. student in early Christianity at Boston College. Regarding your question, the answer is no; you do not apply through the STM but through the theology department. PM me if you have any questions.
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sacklunch reacted to a post in a topic:
History of Christianity or Theology?
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Broadly speaking, I would agree with jdmhotness. I did my M* at a Protestant divinity school and am now doing a Ph.D. in patristic/medieval theology at BC, an era of history that Catholic schools (especially Notre Dame and BC) seem to be particularly strong in. This may not be the case should you have a different historical period in mind (e.g., nineteenth-century American history or theology in the Protestant Reformation). To your question concerning history as opposed to theology, I wouldn't worry about this too much. The likelihood is that you will either pursue an MTS (such as at ND, B
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PhD applications for 2012-2013 chit chat...
Tollelege replied to TheHymenAnnihilator's topic in Religion
I received my acceptance letter and funding for Boston College today, as well. I am still waiting to hear on the Duke Th.D., but having one offer with a stipend is a huge relief and a cause for celebration. -
Thank you all for your input. I have considered the S.T.M./Th.M. option, but am hesitant for two reasons. First, I have been luckily able to avoid student debt thus far and don't like the idea of having to pay for such a degree. As 11Q13 said, they are typically unfunded. And, second, my education to this point has been heavily centered on the theology/history side of things and what I feel that I really need is more language study, ancient philosophy, and Classics (something I don't think would be focused on if I were to pursue a S.T.M./Th.M. at a school like Yale or Duke). Westcott
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Dear Gradcafe Community, This is my first post as a newly registered member of gradcafe. I have followed several threads here and found helpful advice, so I thought I would try my own question. I am going into the final year of my M.Div. program, hoping to continue on to a Ph.D. in patristics. But I have a dilemma. I am not sure whether I would be a very viable candidate for a top-tier Ph.D. program and am wondering what to do. I say this for a couple reasons. First, my languages need some work. I have about four years of Greek between undergrad and divinity school, but it is alm