marXian

Well, if anything, I guess this exchange illustrates some of the vast differences that exist among different parts of our discipline. I've heard literally the opposite of what 11Q13 is saying regarding book reviews being a waste of time, especially for an MA student or early PhD student. Definitely wasn't saying the OP or any other MA student should start dunking on senior scholars, but I guess I'm a little surprised that the consensus seems to be "Grad students shouldn't publish book reviews." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At the risk of dragging this out more than it should be, I do think it's helpful for early grad school career people on here to know that some distinctions should be made between the kinds of publications we're talking about. As far as I can tell, sacklunch and I were both only talking about trying to publish full articles in smaller, lesser known journals--that's what you should avoid doing. If you can get something published in the JAAR as an MA student, then 1) I want to meet you because you're probably some kind of genius or prodigy and 2) that's great, and it most likely will only help you. If, however, you publish something in a tiny denominational journal or obscure philosophy journal or something similar, chances are articles that are not of the highest quality will get through. Those kinds of journals are a bit hungrier for content, so their standards sometimes are lower than more prestigious journals. Frankly, there is a ton of absolute garbage that is published out there. Getting past a peer review doesn't necessarily mean it's good. Publishing in a highly selective top tier journal, however, means that there are other established scholars who think your work is important and should be read by others. A blog post, dictionary entry, or book review simply isn't in the same ballpark as a full length article in the respects explained above. Blog posts: I actually wouldn't list a "blog post" on my CV unless it goes through some kind of peer review process, and even then, I'm not sure I would--but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't agree to posting something that was peer reviewed to a journal's electronic "blog" format (and I have). If you have a personal blog, even if you only post on academic subjects, it should be nowhere near your CV--don't even mention it. Dictionary entries and book reviews: There's really very little risk I think in publishing a dictionary entry and definitely very little in publishing a book review. Book reviews written by MA students and early career PhD students are a dime a dozen. No one is scrutinizing the quality of those once they're published. Listing them on your CV is also pretty standard for students/scholars who don't have a peer reviewed publication yet. But once you get one or two of peer reviewed articles under your belt, I think you can take the other stuff off because, frankly, peer reviewed articles and a book contract for your dissertation are the only publication lines that really matter for the job market--i.e. the only publication types that will improve your chances. NTAC321 is right that you shouldn't pad your CV with things that won't improve your chances on the job market or PhD applications. Hiring committees and adcoms can spot that from miles away. But that's not the same thing as simply not pursuing those opportunities. You should pursue them because, as has been said above, they get your feet wet with the academic publishing process which is daunting. You should also be willing to hear from people like your advisor that they need to come off the CV when it comes time for that as well.

Again echoing sacklunch a bit, If you're interested in systematics or American religious history, don't waste your time on ancient languages beyond what's required for the MDiv. I took a year each of Greek and Hebrew, which I actually didn't end up needing for my degree (Fuller made some changes while I was there) and in retrospect, I wish I had focused my attention on other things and saved myself some pain. Is it cool to be able to tell hipsters at my church that their Greek or Hebrew bible verse tattoo is misspelled? Damn, it sure would be if I could remember any of it. I haven't encountered either language at all in my except in those very rare instances that a philosopher/theologian I'm reading uses a Greek word. I still remember the alphabet, so at least I can read those words out loud, even if I have to use Google Translate to figure out what they mean. sacklunch also brings up the very important point about the MDiv serving two masters and not leaving much time to explore specific interests. I'd say unless you are really intent on leaving the door open for ministry in the future, I would ditch the MDiv and do the MA in theological studies. Having some elective space gives you the advantage of being able to take more courses in a specific area from one professor, do a directed reading, take a course at PU, etc. To your question, it's completely normal since schools don't always have the same tracks and you may find yourself applying to theology programs as well as religious studies programs which are going to call for different SOPs and maybe different writing samples.

I want to echo sacklunch here. Publishing as an MA student is a bad idea. The only kinds of publications that really matter for your CV are those in major journals in your field. Chances are you won't get an article published in a journal like that as an MA student. Submitting to lesser known, smaller journals, denominational journals, etc. just to get something in will not help you. It will most likely be looked upon with suspicion if you're applying to TT programs. Also, you do not want to publish things that are not of high quality. The internet exists. Digital databases exist. A low quality published article will stay with you forever. If you want to publish something, book reviews are a great entry point. They're low stakes, and with some guidance from faculty member, an MA student can write one. But adcoms honestly are more interested in your writing sample, SOP, and letters, so working to develop those things should be the focus of any prospective applicant.

Actually, not that different if your interests in ST are more contemporary. In both cases, you'll most likely have to demonstrate comprehension in two modern languages. Whether you dive into deeper fluency will depend on what your dissertation topic ends up being. As someone who is at the end of an RS program in a theology track, I can say I definitely wish I had started German earlier. It's so vital for doing anything in the ST world, even if you don't primarily study German theology. Becoming fluent in German can really open up doors for you--Fulbright and other grants to study abroad, post-doc possibilities, etc. Aside from languages, it's really important to try and develop a relationship with a handful of faculty so they can write you letters. I went to Fuller, which mostly offers large lecture format courses, so it was difficult to stand out to the bigger name professors. I really made it a point to take their PhD seminars or set up one on one meetings with them to talk about my work. Even better, if you find someone you really like, try to line up a directed reading with him/her. This can allow them to really see what you're capable of, and it'll give you an opportunity to develop a potential writing sample.

I agree with this, and it's actually a great example of why knowing whether or not you're interested in biblical studies matters. If you're interested in theology, chances are you're just going to need French and German which can very easily be picked up over four summers. I came into my PhD program with no French and very little German and still managed to get reading proficiency in both and speaking/writing proficiency in German. It would've been a huge advantage to have had more before I started. Even if you're interested in something else (church history, liberation movements, American religious history), chances are your language requirements won't change much. The earlier in time you go, the more languages you'll need (e.g. if you're interested in the Greek Fathers, you obviously need Greek in addition to modern languages.) Many American religious historians will do Spanish instead of French or German. You'll need Latin if you plan to study any theology or church history prior to the 18th century. Regardless, it's generally not a requirement to demonstrate proficiency in these languages before you're admitted. People get admitted all the time to these kinds of tracks and pick up languages along the way (though I'd still advise to start now.) By contrast, if you want to do something in biblical studies, you will have to demonstrate proficiency in your relevant languages before being admitted. What languages those are is really going to depend on your areas of interest but could include Koine Greek, Classical Greek, Aramaic, etc. in addition to modern languages, and you'll need to start gaining as much proficiency as possible immediately taking every advantage available at PTS to develop those skills. Someone else working in biblical studies can speak to this much better than I can, so I'll leave it there, but that's why it's important to know--at the very least--whether you imagine you'll pursue something in biblical studies or something else.

@JDD I just mean whether you're interested in biblical studies or theology. Or history or a social science (anthro/sociology/etc.)? It makes an enormous difference. If you're interested in studying the Bible primarily you're going to need a much different preparation than if you're more interested in theology or church history or something else.

Could you tell us what your interests are and where you decided on for your MDiv?

Which is it? Do you want to have the experience of studying with a scholar you respect, or do you want to get a job? Kuriakos was simply saying that if you get a PhD from an SBC seminary, you likely won't get a job. Those schools churn out PhDs. You will not be competitive at all for jobs outside of very conservative schools. That's why Kuriakos said it would be worthless--it was in response to your original question. That may not be the answer you want to hear, but it's better to face it now than later. If you'd be getting no money to attend an SBC seminary for a PhD, I would turn it down. No sense in paying for something that very likely won't end in you having an academic job.

I'm not sure there's a hard and fast rule here, but I think, generally, the closer you get to April 15, the more quickly things start to open up (or close off as the case may be.) Unfortunately some people sit on their offers for a long time as they weigh options and don't decide until the deadline--which you can't really fault someone for, especially if it's a tough choice and/or there are family factors, etc. But for people in a waitlist situation, it sucks. I know this isn't super helpful, but I think it's good to know that you likely have a tough decision ahead of you. There are some things you can do to see if it can be made easier in any way though. Sometimes schools who don't abide by the CGS Resolution (e.g. seminaries) are understanding, though I really couldn't say about international schools. It would be worth contacting the schools from whom you have offers and see if there is any way at all they can extend the deadline for you. At this level, if you've been admitted, they want you to come and they're going to fight for you to come. There is usually much more flexibility to negotiate a little bit at the PhD level than other levels of higher education. The other thing you can do is contact the schools with whom you're waitlisted and ask them for some honesty about your chances. Departments will often tell you straight up whether or not you have a chance of being admitted. You may know some about your waitlists already, but it would be good to know whether the list is ranked, if so, what position you are. If not, is it a big waitlist or a shortlist? Assuming you would definitely accept one of the offers you have abroad if it weren't for these waitlists, knowing this information could make your decision for you. I.e. if you're one of ten people on an unranked list or tenth of ten on a ranked list (even third or fourth) and none of the international schools will give you a deadline extension, then take an offer you have. Of course, if you're #1 on the list of a department you'd really like to get into, then all you can really do is hope the other schools will give you more time to make your decision, or that you get bumped up before the deadline.

I'll also add to everyone above who has advised choosing Baylor/Marquette over Oxford. One other reason that hasn't been mentioned yet is qualifying/comprehensive exams, which are not part of the U.K. system. Those exams are also intended to speak to your teaching, though more implicitly than explicitly (i.e. hiring committees aren't likely to ask what your exams were in). I've used my three exams to develop five different syllabi that I can pull out and include in a job app if asked for, but that has also allowed to be very specific in my cover letters and/or teaching statements about what kinds of courses I'm prepared to teach (which most job apps do ask about explicitly.) Being forced to develop expertise in three or four specific areas under the guidance of some faculty who have expertise in those areas has significant advantages.

That first question...ask your advisor's current students. Many advisors don't have an accurate sense of what kind of advisor they are. They might be able to give you some idea, but if you really want to know, ask their students.

Taking on debt and paying for a M* degree is a risk that almost all of us assume when we decide to go down this path. We can get into whether that is right or wrong, but barring that, if you know for sure right now that you want to do a PhD focused on continental philosophy of religion, then this is...not great advice. I'm in the field in which you're interested in, at the end of my PhD. Doesn't mean I know everything, but I'm telling you: Go to UChicago. Harvard does not have the faculty in this field that Chicago does. You need to go to Chicago and study with Sarah Hammerschlag, Ryan Coyne, Arnold Davidson, etc. Not only are there great faculty resources in the div school, but the Committee on Social Thought is there and that faculty is, frankly, invaluable for the kind of preparation you'll want to get into a top PhD program. There really is no comparison. Is it necessary to go to Chicago to pursue your interests? No, but chances are higher that you'll end up in a better PhD program if you do. Harvard is not everything, not at this level, and not if your interests are narrow enough to fall under continental philosophy and religion. Very few people do that well, which means your choices of PhD department are going to be much more limited than, say, someone who does American religious history. In academia, we need every advantage we can get, and in your case, going to Chicago would be an advantage. You can find places to live in Chicago (I live there currently, though I'm not a UChicago student) that are perfectly safe, far less expensive than Hyde Park, and within reasonable distance from campus. I'm not going to say definitively that it wouldn't still be more expensive than living near Harvard, since I don't know that much about the area, but I have a hard time believing that Cambridge and surrounding areas are that much more affordable than what you could find in Chicago.

Divinity schools/seminaries are less competitive than religious studies programs. There are few RS programs that offer a terminal MA, and the div schools admit far more students each year (both in terms of number and percentage of applicants). GREs are not as important at the M* level; your SOP is probably the most important factor, even if your GPA isn't that high (i.e. low 3s or something.) Though if you happen to be interested in PhD work, getting competitive scores on the GRE (≥163 Verbal, ≥5 Writing, not completely bombing the math) will save you from having to retake it for PhD applications. Some div schools/seminaries don't even require the GRE though, so there's that too.

Many psychology students at Fuller do an MDiv or MAT with their Psy.D, Ph.D, or MFT.

In some cases this is also a way for some schools to make money. UofC's MAPH, for example, (a one year MA in "the humanities") is largely considered a cash cow, and many rejected PhD applicants get admitted to it. To be fair, I know people who did it and then went on to great PhD programs from there. But I think most people agree that it's primarily a way for UofC to make money.

I'm assuming you're asking based on where you've been admitted. I don't know anything about Dublin City, but if you're trying to decide between Duke and Fuller, choose Duke. I went to Fuller, and while I don't necessarily regret my time there or anything (I got into a good PhD program from there), if I had known more about div schools/seminaries, I likely would've gone somewhere else. If you are looking to go on to a PhD program, Duke will better prepare you for that. The degree name doesn't really matter that much. You need to think about which program is going to help you narrow in on a possible dissertation topic and be rigorous enough to give you the tools you need to succeed in a PhD program.

To be clear, when most departments contact people to tell them they've been admitted, they also tell those people that the offer "isn't guaranteed yet." Not everywhere, but most places. This happened to me when I got the initial phone call from my department's DGS at the time, and I freaked out because I suddenly thought that my feelings of excitement at being admitted were too soon, i.e. that there was a possibility their offer could be rescinded for some reason. When they tell admitted students that, usually all they're saying is that the decisions are pending administrative approval. In other words, most universities actually reserve the right to reject a department's admissions decision (based on something out of the ordinary like low GPA or low GRE scores or something), but this rarely ever happens. Still, departments feel compelled to say that admission isn't guaranteed at the time of notification even though it basically is. All that to say, if you're invited to a preview weekend after admissions decisions have been made, i.e. you're not competing for a spot, you definitely have nothing to worry about--they're going to be trying to convince you to come to their program the whole weekend, and you should soak up every second of free food and booze you can.

I'm not sure I understand what EarlyXianity is saying, tbh. If the interview weekend isn't competitive, how could getting an invite not be a guarantee of admission? Some departments interview via Skype, make cuts, and then once admissions offers are extended, admitted students are invited to a prospective student weekend where they're wined/dined/wooed. This is what my department (Northwestern) does. Other programs, Baylor for instance, use that visiting weekend as a final interview and make cuts after the visit. My department doesn't refer to our prospective student weekend as a "non-competitive interview" or an interview at all. If anything, we're trying to convince them to come here and not another program!

Congrats!

This is actually a really good feeling to learn to control and tame. It doesn't ever really go away. But getting into a program is just the first step in a long process of continually applying for things and waiting for rejection with a few joyous acceptances peppered in. That's a lot of what academia is, tbh. Conferences, journal submissions, fellowship and grant proposals, the job market. All academics submit themselves to these things, all academics have these moments of panic, and all academics experience rejection. The key is not to allow the rejections to speak to who you are as a person, which, I think we get trained to do in our graduate programs, especially at the PhD level. As everyone has pointed out, there are so many contingencies--things that are beyond your control that, should they lead to rejection, have nothing to do with your abilities as a scholar, your intelligence, and certainly not your worth as a person. It's the most frustrating thing ever (though the job market is worse), but accepting that this is just part of how it works mitigates some of that frustration (at least for me.)

Is the school on this list?: http://cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/CGSResolution_RevisedOct2017.pdf If so, they're in violation of this agreement. The problem for our discipline is that there aren't any seminaries on this list (which explains, in part, Union's mercenary tactics.) If you look at this list, however, you'll note the resolution is standard for literally every major institution in the US. I'm not exactly sure what that means for div schools housed within universities, but I think most if not all of the major ones abide by this resolution. If they're on the list, I'm not sure what your best course of action, but simply asking them about the April 15 deadline would be a start.

I was at Fuller 2009-12, and I can safely say that virtually no one gets 50-75% aid. My "scholarship" was about $600 a quarter, which does not even cover the cost of one unit. The vast majority of people take out significant student loans to pay for Fuller, and Fuller is really expensive. @JDD your intuition that Fuller is not as academically rigorous as other places, e.g. Yale, is right. It's even more true I think since Mark Labberton became the president, i.e. the programs are much more ministry-focused. But it's certainly possible to get into a good program from Fuller if you connect with the right professors, take PhD seminars, etc. You don't need your seminary to give you the academic training necessary to teach--that's what your PhD program is for. You need it to give you the training to get into that program, and Fuller can do that. But it's certainly the case that places like YDS, HDS, etc. can do it better. If I could do things over again, I definitely would have applied to places like YDS and HDS. I didn't because I didn't know what I was doing when I applied.

I had zero coursework in "religious studies" before being admitted to an RS PhD program--but I do have an MA in theology. I know people who focused on religion in a history MA who then went on to RS PhD programs. I have a colleague who does work on medieval mysticism who only had a BA in English and no courses in religious studies before being admitted. Religious studies is too nebulous to be able to say definitively that a program is looking for A, B, or C especially when it comes to coursework. It really depends on the faculty in the program you're applying to. At the PhD level, adcoms mostly want to be convinced that you'll be able to get through the program and that you have the potential to make some interesting and important contributions to the field--which is so broadly defined as to be virtually meaningless.

It really depends on what you're doing. If your interests are in texts or reception history in the ANE, for example, you're going to need way more language training than you could get in undergrad. Hence, you likely won't be admitted without an MA, not because you need the physical degree necessarily, but because earning the degree provides you the opportunity to do the language work. Unless the requirements literally say "MA or equivalent required," you aren't required to have an earned master's degree. In my application year (2011) I was told by two profs at UVA that they really don't admit people without an MA, which I think is largely true. Yet, that very year they admitted someone without an MA (and didn't admit me!) My cohort at Northwestern has two students who did not earn an MA before coming. But neither of them do work that requires substantial language training. We're all going to graduate around the same time, i.e. not having an MA did not hinder them and having two MAs (me) did not make my program go any faster. I would say that it's definitely more common in philosophy for people to be admitted without an MA. There are actually a number of threads in the philosophy forum with debate over whether or not this is a good thing with some noting a trend toward earned-MA students being more competitive and desirable for PhD programs. But I think that, in general, doing anything philosophy-related in religious studies makes it slightly easier to get into a PhD program without an MA assuming you really know what you want to do, maybe have some German or French already, etc.. The reality is that most people finishing a BA don't have a clue what they'd write a dissertation on (even if they think they do) and need the MA to focus their interests in order to write a compelling SOP.