aetaival

Thanks Pears! I submitted my application on December 1st for the PhD program, so I've been pretty worried that I haven't heard anything yet (they were my first choice). And congrats on your second choice acceptance!!!

Has anyone heard from CUNY yet for archaeology?

Were you looking at getting into anthropological archaeology or classical archaeology? Classical archaeology would require you to go back to school for a degree in classics (or at least that you take some classes in the classical languages). In order to get into classics graduate programs you need to have extensive knowledge of either latin or greek. Anthropological archaeology you probably wouldn't need further schooling, but you would need to get some experience in the field and make sure that your personal statement explains explicitly why you want to be in the field. If you have some extra money and just want to 'try out' archaeology, you should go to a field school (http://www.archaeological.org/fieldwork/afob has a listing of field schools). Or you could try to get a CRM job, though most of them require that you have done a field school first. www.archaeologyfieldwork.com and www.shovelbums.org are both good places to look for CRM jobs. You should be absolutley sure that you want to go to graduate school for anthropology before you apply. It is extremely competitive to get in; most PhD programs accept one or two people each year out of 100-200 applicants. While you don't need a degree in anthro, you are going to have to make sure that the rest of your application is stellar to make sure that you stand out from the people who do have a degree in anthro. However, if you do decide that this is what you really want to do you should go for it!

I'm applying to academic archaeology programs, but I'm currently working in CRM, so here's what I've found out from my coworkers: I've heard good things about Northern Arizona's applied anthropology masters. And I think that the University of Colorado also has a pretty good masters program for people interested in working in the western US. I also agree with Double Shot's assessment of the University of Illinois' program; plus you could probably get work with the Illinois State Archaeological Survey which is a really good CRM program (even though you said that you want to work in the western US, ISAS would be a great place to get CRM experience.) Hope that helps!

I'm also applying to PhD programs in anthropology this year. After talking to both my professors from my undergraduate career and potential graduate school advisors, the advice I've gotten is that GRE scores are important, but that admissions will consider your application as a whole rather than focusing on just one part (like the GRE scores). It does seem like GRE scores are often a way for them to decide between students who have simliar looking backgrounds. In terms of what your GRE scores will play in your chances of getting in, that kind of depends on where you are applying. Any of the good anthropology PhD programs are highly competitive (The university of Michigan only accepted 2 people out of about 200 applicants last year), so having a really good GRE score will help to keep you in the top pool of applicants. If you're applying to an unfunded masters program, then it probably doesn't matter as much. That being said, you had a pretty good score for not studying! If you study for a month or two, you should be able to bring your score up which could help your application as a whole. Again, I don't know where you're applying but my professor at the University of Michigan said that they usually don't accept students who have less than a 5 on the writing portion, so that advice would probably hold true if you're applying to any of the other top departments. Good luck with your applications!