crossedfingerscrossedeyes

I think it's a little dangerous to make some of the assumptions m-ttl has made in this thread. As someone currently in one of "those" programs, I should emphasize that my peers are comprise a surprisingly diverse lot. I mean diverse in all its senses. Not everyone wants to be a professor. A friend is currently doing a year at MoMA. 
 
And, entirely anecdotally, I certainly do not fit the "privileged" framework, hence why I say it is risky to make such blanket assumptions. 
 
As for museum work, I'm not sure you have in mind. A lot of "museum work" involves research that can compete with the best "academic" research out there. Many people here have past museum experience, or have worked at museums/archives as part of their graduate training. Clearly, the emphasis is on *research* rather than, say, organizing day-trips for high schoolers. Much depends on what, exactly, you wish to achieve. 

Andrea Zittel

This has changed within the past couple of years (from friends who attend there). They've restructed the program to be more in line with other graduate programs where they have started taking less PhD students (12 were accepted in my friends' cohort) with a guaranteed stipend. I don't remember how many years you get the stipend, at least 4. I don't think they offer any funding to their MA students nowadays.

I would be less worried for an MA program, in fact many people who don't have strong backgrounds in art history but wish to continue do a terminal masters program before moving on to a PhD or use to see if further study is right for them. From what I've seen it would perhaps be more of an issue if you were applying to track PhD programs since those programs tend to have more applicants and are a bit more leery of applicants with minimal experience in art history.

I think people are really, really, really overstating the importance of Art History coursework, and I agree with condivi. More often than not, students are accepted to doctoral programs in Art History with BAs in Literature, History, etc. To argue that Art Historical methodology is so radically distinct from that of other fields in the humanities that one would have trouble moving between said fields, is realistically quite stupid. Obviously there's a definite Art Historical "canon" (Alberti through Gombrich, etc), but I would guess that the near majority of sources used in Art History are sources found outside of the "field." Most "Theory," for example, is based in and around literature programs.
 
Also, as a side note neither Hal Foster, nor T.J. Clark or Julia Bryan-Wilson has a B.A. in Art History. You're looking at History and Literature degrees in all three cases, and they're top-notch in their subfields. I'd assume the same would apply to other subfields, with undergrad degrees ranging from Women's and Gender Studies to Medieval Studies. 
 
Don't worry about your undergraduate degree. If you have done well, have language capabilities (French, German, Italian, etc), and have a good, field-related writing sample, you're fine. Don't do a Post-Bacc; apply to MA programs, and potentially PhD programs if you feel comfortable enough.  
 

This has changed within the past couple of years (from friends who attend there). They've restructed the program to be more in line with other graduate programs where they have started taking less PhD students (12 were accepted in my friends' cohort) with a guaranteed stipend. I don't remember how many years you get the stipend, at least 4. I don't think they offer any funding to their MA students nowadays.

Watch the time, and when it gets to be five minutes left, start EDITING. It's completely worth it. You'll have been so busy trying to write *SOMETHING* in the prior 25 minutes that you'll need the time to make sure everything makes sense grammatical (or at least I did, and it got me 5.5).

Hello all -
 
I hope someone can give me some advice on a fairly unusual situation. I applied to PhD programs in Art History in LA and in NYC, where I am currently based. My applications were geographically specific because I am in a band that has achieved a fair amount of success over the past two years. By no means mainstream top 40, but a familiar name in certain circles (read: among Brooklyn 20-somethings). I did not mention the band anywhere on my application, because I thought it would be a nonissue, as we only tour during the summer, and as I have so far been able to balance school with my other commitments. Since I started my apps and made this decision, we've had some more commercial success, and one song in particular has been featured on a few TV shows, which has raised our overall profile and standing in Google search results. These past few days, I've received emails from POIs asking if I am the same XYZ (my name is uncommon) from the band XYZ. I'm guessing they Googled me? It seems unlikely that they recognized my name.
 
So, what do I do? I obviously can't lie, and don't want to. But I want to make it clear that I am capable and committed to the PhD track. Does this put me at an advantage or a disadvantage? Help! Panicked, and need to reply to these emails sooner than later...

Well, your statement of purpose is where you're laying out your proposed research focus for your PhD trajectory. They're not looking for a thesis statement, but rather some research goals. What sorts of questions are you going to be asking? I think how specific it is depends on your sub-field. For example, I'd expect someone who's looking to work on, say, French modernism to have a more defined outlook than someone who's working on early feudal Japan. Even with the knowledge that things can (and will!) change, you need to tell them what sort of topic you're envisioning yourself diving into.

At the very least, your SOP and writing sample should communicate your intellectual agenda. When the committee reads the two, do they get an idea of what professors you'd work with, both because of field and methodologically? I mention the last one because I think too often people overlook that when it comes to the writing sample. I'm someone who got into a PhD program with a writing sample not in my proposed field. Instead, it clearly demonstrated my methodology and how I "do" art history.

As for how closely is it read, it is read. It's pretty much the icebreaker used at accepted students' days (profs wanting to talk about your sample), and I know of multiple people who had pieces of their writing sample/SOP brought up during interviews last year.
I hope that made sense. Good Luck!

and in regards to "feminists," I'm talking about women who will do and say anything to justify their position of victimization in a -- so they want to emphasize -- "patriarchal society". so they jump on the bandwagon when cases like this leak, as they get to suspect a man for being oh-so-evil! they tend to disregard the fact that men 1) have their unique feelings and insecurities and 2) women can make up stories precisely to take advantage of a "victim" position. these "feminists" make me ashamed to be one myself.

Please do not include the anecdote about your exposure to the arts. This is a big no-no in the art history statement of purpose. I would start off strong by stating your intellectual achievements (Where you got your BA and how your coursework introduced you to film, which is what you want to get).

You also do not explain or at least mention in your post why the school you are applying to is a particularly good fit. I would spend a good portion of your Statement making a case for this.

Your statement isn't a statement about the deciding factors that make you want to go to grad school, it's about the qualifications you have to pursue graduate work and how the school you are applying to will best serve yours and its own purposes by accepting you. Faculty that study in your area, internship opportunities, and classwork the school offers are all valid to discuss.

Best of luck.

As November approaches, I feel the time is right for one of these here.

Who is applying?
Where?
To study what?
To work with whom?
How's your German?

Suck it up.

Could be any number of reasons; intentionally blowing you off probably isn't it. I would send a kindly reminder, or if she has a phone call her (enough time has elapsed between email and phone call).

When possible I phone people; email is great for a first contact, but since the email has become a bit more ubiquitous than the phone in dealing with these kinds of issues in academics, it's too easy to ignore or mistakenly pass over. A quickie phone call to her or an admin in her dept. leaving a messag (or inquiring if she is on campus) will do far more to get the result you want.

No, not fearful at all. If someone wants to call me out on my review, they have the right to. As long as they respect my right to give it. However, these reviews are supposed to be ANONYMOUS.

As for the whole not giving an A for C work... that's why the education of other countries is advancing well beyond our country. Grade inflation is a crock of $hit, and I'm not afraid to admit that! It's an insult to my education, and to the education of millions of Americans. Learning stuff isn't too hard if you apply yourself, no matter what level it is. God help anyone who takes my courses.

What do you want to do with your PhD?

If you want to teach, I am sure you realize how dismal the job market is, and how it gets even worse if you have to geographically restrict your job search. What would you do if your only job offer was in Wyoming? If you are not willing to live *anywhere* your chances of actually putting your PhD to use via university/museum employment go from being low to almost non-existent.

I really think you are doing yourself a disservice by only applying to ultra-top-tier schools. I would venture to say that there are probably at least 3-5 more schools that meet your criteria of east coast and highly ranked but have more realistic chances of admission. Everyone wants to go to a top program, but statistically the odds of that happening are not good at all. I can't blame you, because personally I know that if I don't get into a top 10ish PhD program I will most likely not pursue a career in academia.

Do you have a mentor who you can have a serious conversation with this about? I get a few red flags from reading your posts, and I worry that you might not fully understand the realities of what you are getting yourself into.

If this is offensive or unhelpful to you, please feel free to disregard my advice! This is a faceless internet message board, and I only know about 1/1000th of what is going on in your life and your decision to pursue a PhD.

say something absurd


later, you can just say you were simply saying something absurd in order to get convo going. if u do this often enough, eventually people will stop knowing whether or not to take ur seriously when u say crazy stuff, and so u can get away with saying all kinds of things that you actually do believe in but might be otherwise considered nutso. meanwhile, ur putting all kinds of usually deeply witheld thoughts into the air and into the conversational stream of your certain ivory tower. years later, u become that prof and you've developed a rep.

Checked my Brown status after the results board showed Brown results. OH MY GOD I GOT IN. Top choice, first thing I've heard. I almost don't want to believe it (does the website lie? Is this a cruel joke?) Imma go have me a happy Valentine's Day.

It sounds like, for North American scholars, instead of seeing academic fluency - that is, the ability to process and compose graduate-level ideas - in other languages as a benefit, we should really be seeing NOT having it as a disability.

Everything ported onto both Mendeley and EndNote for easy archiving/keyword searching.

File structure in my computer/Dropbox is simply "Courses/[Quarter Year]/[Name of Class]/[Meeting Number/Date]/" and usually that's enough stratification to have manageable files.

Physically, I have one of these document organizers where I place "to-be-read" papers (each compartment corresponds to a different course or project [or ideas for future projects within a certain domain]); I also have one of these magazine files where I place my "have read" files that I still need to keep handy (i.e., ongoing projects, courses where I have assignments, etc.); lastly, I just find 3-ring binders for papers that I don't think I'll be using too frequent (papers from previous courses, etc.).



It's a little exhaustive of a system, but it works great for me. I'm only a first year, and a lot of the professors say they wish they were as organized as this when they started grad school. It really makes finding papers an ease (between my online and physical file structures).

They may ask for transcripts, but grades are certainly not what will decide whether or not you will be hired for a tenure-track position. At this level you are judged by your research record (cv, publications, research statement, job talk), teaching ability (as reflected in evaluations, teaching statement, sample lecture - in case they ask you to give one) and personality (as reflected in interviews, meetings and such). Letters of recommendation are very important, as are the essays you write and the way you present yourself in the interview (if you get that far...). People are choosing a colleague who will potentially be down the hall from their office from now until they retire; I'd say the same advice applies here as when you apply to graduate school but probably even more forcefully - grades are one of the least important components of the application. Don't mess them up completely but don't worry overmuch.

For an art history interview, I waited to post my interview request until I saw other people posting, because that way I felt like it couldn't be traced directly to me. Maybe that's what happening in Eng/Lit?

*quizzical look*
"Wait. Did I read that correctly?"
*squints at paper*
"Quote: 'I am interested in studying the lyric poetry of John Donne because his manipulative, aggressive, too-clever-by-half, but so-freaking-charming-he-makes-your-brain-explode poetic demeanor is remarkably similar to the personalities of the last several men I've dated, and I seem to be genetically incapable of avoiding colossal jerks of this nature' End quote.......This girl's a crazy bitch with some serious intimacy issues. NEXT!"





(OK, so I didn't write exactly that in my SOP....but that's the general sense of it! I'm just hoping there's some ladies on the adcoms who understand where I'm coming from )

The process is getting to me again... Had a nightmare last night where I was up against a demented adcom who insisted that they'd only let me in if I dipped my fingers in gold in order to "become the Baroque".

I think I might need to stop watching Game of Thrones before bed. Also I probably need to relax.

Glad to help.

On the up side, if it's any further help... I got Accepted!!! With Full Funding! So I don't know if any of the above things helped bring about this result but whatever I did, it worked!!!