marXian

If you self-identify as conservative, Fuller or Talbot would probably be good fits. At Talbot, you will actually be able to do serious philosophy that could situate you to get into either a philosophy PhD program (secular or religious) or a theology/religious studies PhD program. At Fuller, you'd be able to do philosophy of science as it relates to theology much more explicitly since Nancey Murphy is there which would set you up for a theology/RS program (but not philosophy.) I'm not familiar with all of Talbot's various programs/tracks, but at Fuller you'd probably do an MA in theology, which would allow you to do a good amount of philosophy work with Murphy but also get the theological/biblical studies background you'll want if you want to do apologetics. If you're more conservative on the evangelical spectrum, both programs will challenge you in the way that furtivemode describes--just not as extreme perhaps as at a mainline school. Which is neither good nor bad necessarily--it has to be about what you're going to be comfortable with at this point.

pzp11, I'm a religious studies PhD student at Northwestern studying theology, neo-Kantianism, and historical materialism in the early 20th century. While the theologians at NU (students and faculty) are not working on phenomenology, lots of people in the philosophy department are (especially Deleuze), and our two departments are very friendly with each other. NU has a cluster program made up of a number of official interdisciplinary groups, one of which is a "critical theory" cluster, which affords the opportunity to do lots of interdisciplinary work. It would be very possible to be working on phenomenology in the philosophy department while developing a subfield in theology by taking courses in theology in the RS department. RS department would be happy to have more philosophers interested in developing sub-disciplines in theology and/or philosophy of religion! Feel free to PM me if you have more detailed questions. Shameless plug aside, UChicago is arguably the best place to do phenomenology and theology though, given Marion's presence there.

If there are any profs from whom you're hoping to get an LOR, I would take courses from them. Keep in mind that you want recommenders who know you as a student--not simply profs with big names in whose course you received an 'A.' Big names can be a huge bonus, but if the prof doesn't really know who you are, his/her letter may not be as good as one from a lesser known prof who can really speak to your strengths as a student. In fact, it will probably end up hurting your application if the letter from the big name ends up reading as really general and ambiguous. That said, you probably also don't want recommenders who are brand new faculty (i.e. in their first year of their first job) even if they know you really well as a student. If you can take a Ph.D seminar (assuming those are offered where you're attending) with a prof, that can be a really great way for him/her to get to know you and your strengths. Asking to meet with profs to discuss applications and potential programs/POIs can help too. With regard to curriculum, it really depends on what you're wanting to study. I can really only speak to my own situation. I applied to Religious Studies programs with theology or philosophy of religion tracks, and for the two I was admitted to, the specific courses I had taken didn't really matter. My writing sample was ultimately the most important piece in my successful applications. But my sense is that if you're wanting to do something language-intensive, like biblical studies or ANE as an example, the courses you've taken will matter a great deal.

I agree! But the point I was trying to get across is that studying philosophy of religion, even at a fairly conservative school like Talbot or Fuller (I'm a Fuller alum, btw) is not going to have an apologetics focus, which you may or may not find frustrating. And in a non-religious or much more progressive or liberal religious environment, you will most likely encounter hostility toward the very idea of apologetics or in some cases even hostility toward the practice of religion in general.

And with this, you finish proving you don't know anything about PhD programs in religious studies. You're embarrassing yourself. Just stop.

I think what everyone is trying to get across is that if you're interested in the latter, then you're not really interested in the former. Or at least, you're not going to get the latter in the former unless, as Body Politics has said, you go to a school that does [very conservative] Evangelical philosophy of religion. Even at schools that are considered conservative (e.g. Fuller or Talbot) the emphasis is not really going to be on "defending the faith." You have to go more conservative for that.

You've not been to enough AAR panels. =)

I suppose it depends on what you consider to be a "good defense." One thing to keep in mind is that virtually any program worth its salt is actually going to tear away a lot of what you already think is absolutely true. A good seminary education should question your answers rather than answer your questions. That's good if you're truly interested in apologetics since being able to see the weaknesses of your own claims is step one in learning how to defend them. The sort of "defending" that goes on at more middle-of-the-road places (as far as evangelical seminaries go) like Trinity, Fuller, and even more conservative places like Biola is not the same as the sort of apologetics you'll find at much more conservative schools, like Moody or Dallas. The focus, in other words, isn't really on defense via proving someone else wrong but "defense" in the sense of understanding your own position more fully. From your three posts, it's hard to get a sense of which type of program you'd be interested in.

Well damn, I guess I should've only applied to schools with 300+ applicants every year since my Ph.D from Northwestern is going to be worth nothing when I'm done. At least I'm being paid to do it!

Regarding the OP's list, I think the best bets are actually either Talbot (Biola) or Trinity. I believe Talbot has a philosophy MA (or something like that) that isn't Christian apologetics. And actually, it produces surprisingly competitive students. I know a student admitted to the philosophy dept. here at NU who did his MA at Talbot, and NU is a top 30 Leiter program. I think J.P. Moreland knows the game and is interested in getting students placed in top tier PhD programs in philosophy. Trinity also produces some pretty brilliant students (I know a couple.) The take away from all of this, however, is that you should definitely stay away from any degree with the phrase "Christians apologetics" in it. The bottom line is that if you're truly interested in that, you don't need a degree in that specifically. There are lots of Christians (even fairly conservative evangelicals) who are students in secular philosophy departments who are able to do work that is related to apologetics though perhaps not explicitly so (e.g. work on epistemic agency, philosophy of science, etc.)

If you went the historical theology/patristics route, chances are you wouldn't have much if any opportunity to do work in contemporary/constructive practical/pastoral theology. However, in my experience practical/pastoral theology programs and faculty seem to open to a wide range of creative methods and looking at the patristics as a foundation for practice sounds like something practical programs would be interested in, generally speaking. That said, I don't have a sense for which programs would be best to take a look at--but I know others on here will!

You know what else is good for the reputation of a program? Its job placement. Its students' awards, fellowships, and grants. Publications. Its faculty awards, publications, and overall reputation. Factors that are vastly--vastly--more important than how many applicants it receives each year. What money are you talking about? Application fees? I know this all came up in the context of GRE scores, but... wow did this get way off track. Follow the train of this conversation. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh. I don't mean it to be, but I'm really not understanding this thread. You went from insisting that GRE scores are a vitally important part of the application, maybe the most important, to essentially making the case that the reason departments don't want to list their "GRE cut off numbers" is so that programs can increase their reputation via generating application numbers. I'm honestly mystified by your insistence on this applicant numbers to program strength correlation. But more relevant to the thread, you make it sound like all adcoms have in mind an exact hard number below which all applications are automatically tossed. If a person has a V 167, a good writing sample and decent letters, do you think he/she is getting into a program over someone whose supplemental materials are not just good but truly special but who has a GRE score in the 84th percentile as a rule? Put another way: Do you think that an adcom would ideally want to always admit the former over the latter? The process is just way more subjective than you're making it sound. It may be in some cases that there are good reasons for an adcom to admit the former over the latter--but that is by no means "the rule." I think it's safe to say that there's probably a strong correlation between an excellent GRE verbal score and a truly special writing sample, SOP, etc. But simply because that correlation may exist, doesn't mean that the rule is that high GRE scores are admitted and low GRE scores are rejected. The other factors are just more important. If this "high score" correlation is more or less right, I'd bet there's probably a low score correlation as well: an applicant who scores below 80% verbal probably has a lot of other problems with his/her application that would equally result in elimination from the running. As Lux mentioned, there are plenty of other ways by which an adcom can weed out unqualified applicants. People applying right out of undergrad with low GPAs. Poor writing. Missing materials. Etc. A truly horrendous GRE score would probably disqualify an applicant. But 80-90% isn't truly horrendous.

I would apply to all of them. I got into Northwestern with a 161V (89%, roughly in the 620-640 range on the old system.) When I was contacting POIs, there were some that said the GRE is absolutely vital (UVA for instance.) I think for some top tier schools that receive 200+ (or way way more) applications, it's a way of weeding out applicants. I don't know if this is the case for Yale though. On some level, it is always a way of weeding out applications, i.e. those that are below 80% verbal. Other schools are not so keen on it. Best thing to do is ask each department.

Absolutely test the waters with that course. That's a great idea. If you've been out of school for a while, I don't see any reason not to just take a basic course to get your feet wet. I don't think you need to prove anything to anyone just yet with this being sort of a test course for yourself.

"Ecology" in general is hot right now in the humanities. But I think those are both specializations that you may have to, in a sense, create yourself. More departments/universities are developing programs that address this area, but it's still relatively new. Northwestern just implemented a "Religion and Global Politics" certificate program last year. To be clear, what's new isn't the study of politics in theology/religion or visa versa, but it's the active engagement between scholars across those disciplines that wasn't really there before. So for myself (at Northwestern), my advisor is a theologian, an expert in historical theology from Luther to Schleiermacher, but not necessarily in "political theology." I'm accomplishing that piece through two certificates, "religion and global politics" and critical theory, and through the focus of my dissertation. A lot of programs will give you this kind of flexibility, but I think you'll have a better shot at putting together "political theology" or "politics and religion" as a subfield in a religious studies program at a research university that has lots of great humanities faculty to draw from. In other words, a school/department doesn't have to specify "religion and ecology" or "religion and politics" in order for you to be able to develop either as a subfield.

Unfortunately, like AbrasaxEos has mentioned, there are a lot of programs. Even with the combined knowledge of people who post regularly here, I don't think we could provide you a comprehensive list. And even if people did begin listing schools that, to their knowledge, offered full guaranteed funding, you'd probably still want to double check. Also, some schools offer full funding to some but not all of their students--or at least that's been the situation in the past (Marquette and UCSB for example.) I don't know that anyone else will want to throw some schools up here, but here are some that I am fairly certain provide full funding: Northwestern UVA Duke Yale Harvard Duquesne Syracuse Iowa (?) Indiana (?) Pittsburgh (?) That's all I got off the top of my head, but there are obviously a lot more.

Your first question is tough to answer without knowing what your ultimate goals are and if by "church history" you mean a PhD in history or religious studies from a "secular" department. If your goal is to teach at a seminary or religiously affiliated school somewhere, then I think either degree would be okay. If you'd be open to teaching in a secular department that does historical theology, then I would avoid the theology route, unless you're getting the degree from Harvard, Duke, etc. I think the more important question would be what sort of project you're interested in and whether or not it could be adapted to different departments/tracks. Presumably, you could do "church history" (broadly construed) within a history or RS department. For example, James Bradley, the long time church history prof at Fuller Seminary has his PhD in history from USC. However, in a history dept., you'd more than likely just be doing history with little to no theology. The good thing about the middle ages is that it's really open to a number of departments. In a religious studies department (assuming it has a theology track), you would be able to get the benefit of being able to work on historical theology in that period and having doors still be open to teach in a secular department since your degree would be in RS and not theology. With regard to your second question, it seems anything that falls under "political theology" is hot right now, especially topics related to ecology, eco-criticism, etc.

Yes, I think it's a combination of both what you've said (the adcom will choose applicants whom they feel the department will best be able to facilitate) and projects that have the potential to be really exciting. This is why I think a prof may advocate for an applicant whose area of interest may only fall within the general scope of his/hers, but sees exciting potential in the project and thinks that his/her own methodology could help the applicant eventually produce a first rate application. It doesn't always have to be this way of course. Plenty of folks only apply to work with profs who are doing the exact work they want to do and they get in somewhere. My point was only that often applicants think they should or can only apply to departments with faculty who match their interests exactly. I think that you may have a better shot of being admitted if you can think creatively about faculty you might work well under. So in crafting the SOP, I don't think it's a problem at all to mention your specific interests because, as in my example you're still looking at departments with faculty who are in your field and your general area within your field. I'll send you a PM with my own experience.

I agree that the primary purpose of the SOP is to determine fit. Here is how I would think about "fit": I think most departments are looking at whether or not they think you can be successful in their program in general--that is the most important thing for them. This includes the general trajectory of your interests as they relate to current students/faculty as well as other students the department is leaning toward admitting. These are factors that are largely out of your control--but what that means for you is that it needs to be clear that you have a general direction in mind. Yes, identifying particular faculty is important, but I think adcoms are not as interested in whether you perfectly fit under the work of one professor and more interested in your fit overall with the department. What this means is that your proposed work does not have to be exactly in line with any one professor's interests in any given department. For example, there may be a prof who does a lot of work on Native American religion, but whose area is American religion in general--that person might be willing to supervise a project on Mormonism or American Catholicism as long as the student is interested in the profs methodology, etc.. This obviously varies from person to person, dept. to dept. but I think as long as a proposed project seems to fit well within one of the department's tracks, is interesting and innovative, you should be okay on the SOP side of things. This is really important: Adcoms are not looking for a dissertation prospectus. Those applications get thrown in the trash. Going along with the "general" theme laid out above, adcoms want to know that you're going to learn something in their department--that they're going to shape your thought in a significant way (in American schools.) The discussion of your proposed project in the SOP needs to be a balance of something that is more focused than what you did in your undergrad or MA degree, but not so focused that the adcom feels as though you think you can go and start your dissertation tomorrow. With regard to your list, my feeling is that the SOP is mostly for making the case as to why you would be an excellent addition to the department, and less about emphasizing your personal stats. The adcom has your transcripts, so recounting data like that in your SOP will be redundant unless you're using it to speak to part of your intellectual journey (which I do think is a relatively important piece.) I would put much of what you have on the list under the broad category of "fit" (i.e. area, POI, attraction to program.) I would focus most of my time on those elements and less on things like networking/achievements/past funding. I hope that helps!

I would take a look at Northwestern. The Political Science and RS departments have a really good working relationship. PM me if you want more info!

awells27: I was admitted to Northwestern without contacting anyone. newenglandshawn: You're definitely right to be confused! Here's how it was explained to me: American schools are wary of anyone who has a very specific project in mind. Your SOP is not a dissertation prospectus. The primary reason is that US departments want to know that they're going to have a hand in shaping your thought in a significant way through course work, independent readings, preparing for exams, etc. If you're essentially ready to write the dissertation, they might feel as though you have nothing to gain from them. At the same time, if your interests are so broad that they're unsure how you would fit into the department, that's a problem as well. Both of these things vary from department to department. Your SOP needs to demonstrate a general direction/shape of your interests, without delving into the specifics of an argument that you're already planning on making.

I don't think there's a problem with having a reference from outside of your specific field. American programs are already expecting you to come in with a relatively broad sense of what you want to do. I don't think one letter from someone outside your specific field is going to diminish your chances, especially if you know that prof is going to write you a fantastic LOR because he/she knows your work really well.

You want people who know you, your work, and your work ethic. Some people think that they absolutely have to get profs who have the most widely recognized reputations (I know this debate is going on in the Ph.D app thread.) While that certainly helps, it's not going to help if Prof. Famous has no clue who you are outside of the fact you got in A in one of his/her lecture courses. The people writing your LORs need to be able to speak very specifically to your abilities and your potential for graduate study at the Ph.D level. I had two from my seminary and one from my English MA who sat on my thesis committee. Since that prof was outside of the field, I asked him to speak to my ability to close read texts and to my writing ability, which he was happy to do. It was a bit of a risk, but the other options I had from the seminary would not have been able to write in detail about my abilities. I do agree that personal LORs should be an absolute last resort.

FYI, there are lots of process theologians at CGU who would take issue with being excluded from the discipline of systematic theology! =) Process theology is really just a way of conceiving of theology proper (i.e. the nature of God) and his activity in the world. So process is a way of shaping a systematic theology. I would definitely consider Keller's Face of the Deep a contribution to systematic theology since it treats on both the nature of God and the doctrine of creation. One does not need to write or even have plans to write a complete system in order to be a systematic theologian. If you're worried about funding in second or third tier programs, contact the admissions offices of those schools and try to get in touch with some current students. Though direct funding from the school is probably limited in those programs, it is possible to get creative and apply for some outside funding or even internal grants and scholarships. You just have to know what to look for. I have a friend from Fuller, where I went to seminary, who stayed for his Ph.D and he was able to secure 100% funding for his first three years. That funding only paid for his tuition, so he had to keep his job, but Fuller's program only requires one course a quarter from Ph.D students, so that was manageable. I have also heard from a friend at CGU that funding can increase after the first year depending on academic performance. CGU also, I've heard, has a good record of students getting adjunct jobs following the second year at the many community colleges in that area (meaning the name recognition helps, not that the university actively gets you these jobs.) If you're diligent about doing the research to figure out what sorts of opportunities might be available, I think it's possible to get most of a second/third tier program funded.

besixdouze, has someone mentioned Drew? Catherine Keller is someone who might be of interest to you. You could also easily do something in those areas at Claremont Graduate University. Bear in mind that you don't need to find POIs who meet every single one of those criteria. You actually probably don't want to study under someone who is doing the exact same thing you're interested in doing (some might disagree.) I think it's good to study under someone who is going to stretch you, not someone who wants to clone him or herself in you. Your interests would fit in programs that have a "theology and ethics," "theology and society," "theology and culture," "philosophical theology," "religion, ethics, society," etc. Chicago Theological Seminary definitely has people who do work in those areas (Ted Jennings comes to mind.) Also remember: EVERYONE feels terrible about his or her chances. But you will sabotage yourself if you focus on that. Seek out confidence. Talk to professors at your school who like you about your interests and SOP. If you have friends already working on a Ph.D, talk to them. Getting positive responses from POIs is helpful for this too (just make sure to take negative responses with a grain of salt.) Do whatever you can to build some confidence for yourself, and this process will be somewhat bearable!