Beelzebub

Applied: 7 Accepted: 5 (all with at least 5 years of funding) Attending: Yale I think a lot of good points have already been covered, but I guess confirmation never hurts:) 1. I definitely agree that fit is much more important than the name; Harvard, for instance, is a great place to do classics in general, but when it comes to classical philosophy, its program may not be as strong as other places. Similarly, Yale's department is quite literary, and perhaps not as strong in material culture. At the end, it really depends on your own interests. 2. I heard from a lot of people that reaching out to programs and professors could be an advantage in the admissions process, but unfortunately this wasn't my case: the only place I contacted was one of the two places where I got rejected. So it depends on the personality of the professor, and the culture of the department, whether reaching out helps. 3. For Berkeley, make sure you spend some (but not a lot) time on the personal history statement; I suspect that's the reason I received a prestigious fellowship there. 4. Most importantly, for me at least, you should know your strengths and weaknesses and try to craft your application in a way that emphasizes one and shows that the other could be easily improved. As an applicant, you could be traditionally strong, or you could be sexy. Someone with strong training, say 6 or 7 years of both Greek and Latin, who went to a reputable university, and maybe even have an MA, will most likely get into a very good school. But this doesn't mean you have to be that person to get into a top program; you could have a very provocative writing sample that challenges current scholarship, or you could have extensive exposure to one or two related fields, for instance. I don't have an MA; I have less than 2 years of experience in both Greek and Latin (though the experience was quite intensive), and I still got into many of the top programs. Good luck to everyone!

Congrats! Maybe I will see you at Yale again:)

Greenmonk, I'm not sure if there's anything substantive I can say about classical archaeology, which isn't really my field, but I agree that you should be concerned about the academic job market for classicists and humanities students in general. I'm not saying that you should not pursue your passion (and if archaeology is the only thing you can envision yourself doing, then go for it!), but that you should be realistic about graduate school and the difficult path for academics after graduate school. True, most people from top programs eventually get tenure somewhere, but only after 6 years getting a PhD, probably 2 years as a visiting professor, a postdoc, or an adjunct, and then 6 or 7 years as an assistant professor. Your case is particularly difficult because it has been over ten years since you got your BA. Assume, then, that everything goes smoothly as you plan it: you will spend 3 years doing post-bac work in addition to your job, then at least 6 years in graduate school, then 2 years of non-permanent employment, before getting a tenure-track position. It all just comes down to this: are you willing to spend the next 10+ years in relative poverty (it might be better if you already have some savings) and uncertainty of future in exchange for the possibility of studying classical archaeology? You will have to move a lot in the next 10 years; that's okay and even exciting if you are fresh out of undergrad, but if you are building a family with someone, it's much harder. Will your family be willing to move wherever your job/graduate school is located? Those are just some of the considerations. Again, I really am not trying to discourage you to do archaeology, but there will be a lot of challenges, academic or otherwise, if you decide to. Anyway, I hope everything works out in the end!

Thanks! It took about a week for them to get back to me, but since CLST is a very small program, the timeline really depends on when the committee decides to meet, so I'm not sure if they are always so fast. I hope your interview went well! Who were your interviewers, by the way?

Thank you! Have fun with your Columbia visit!

Although I cannot claim the interview posted, I was accepted into the Classical Studies program last week. Classical Studies is actually a separate PhD program, which allows you to take classes from Philosophy, Classics, History, and Art History departments. I'm also somewhat certain that Classics has a different admissions process, and that Classical Studies usually do Skype rather than in-person interviews. I hope this helps!

Maybe I'll see you on 2/21!

Sounds like a plan, Soleil! Good luck

Those result posts really scared me too! I'm going next week. How about you?

Good luck to you too! Waiting for decisions is a tough time for us all, and I'm sure everything will work out in the end .

Don't lose hope! I think Princeton doesn't send out all the invitations at the same time (I got this info after researching the results page very carefully, when I really should be writing my thesis..)

I suspect it's the same for domestic applicants; I was invited for a campus visit too, and I live in the States. I'm also curious about the entire process at Princeton and the nature of this interview: is it more like a "we all liked your application and just want to make sure you're not insane" type of visit or a "you'd better impress us or you'll be rejected" kind of visit?