marXian

To the publication question, I have never, ever heard of that, especially not in the humanities, but perhaps it's more common in the social sciences. To the question about RS, the short answer is yes. RS departments are often composed of people who have PhDs in disciplines that aren't RS, e.g. history, anthro, sociology, etc. If you do an exam in theory and method in RS, or use RS theories and methods in your diss, and/or have an RS person on your diss committee you should be fine. Stay connected to AAR, present papers, try to publish in RS journals, etc.

If your interest is continental philosophy of religion, I strongly recommend considering a religious studies department over a philosophy department. Philosophy as a discipline, as you likely know, is far more "guild-like" in structure (as you can see from blogs like The Philosophical Gourmet) and programs that specialize in continental philosophy in the US--let alone philosophy of religion--are few and far between. (Though if you're already applying to PhD programs in philosophy, perhaps you've found some that fit your interests.) Most continental philosophy work is done in other humanities departments, particularly those heavily invested in cultural studies. Of course, there are some frustrating ways in which "theory" in this sense is engaged sometimes, e.g. as a lens through which the scholar looks at his/her subject matter without critically engaging the lens at all. But there are many of us who do engage theory critically, and there is definitely an academic home for folks who do philosophy of religion/critical theory/continental philosophy in religious studies. UCSB is a great place, for example (Tom Carlson, and now Elliot Wolfson.) As rheya19 mentioned, UofC's Divinity School is also a great place if you're interested in the German tradition (Ryan Coyne). Northwestern's philosophy department has had amazing resources for me in the German tradition as well. Syracuse (where Caputo used to teach) has also historically been strong in continental philosophy of religion. I don't think an MAR would be a setback at all for a philosophy PhD program, especially since you have a BA in philosophy. Now, an MTS or MDiv would most definitely be viewed with suspicion, even from Yale or HDS. If you went that route, you'd probably need an MA in philosophy to show you're "on the right track." I've known multiple people who have had to do this. But here's hoping you get into a philosophy program this year!

The short answer is yes, but with some qualification. I think Marcion is by and large right above that Ivy schools do have top RS programs whose graduates get jobs. But I do think two things need to be disentangled; namely, top tier school in RS and Ivy League school, especially because the impression on this thread seems to be Ivies=Best, Everything Else=Second Tier. Are the RS departments at Ivy League schools top tier? Yes, for the most part. But if we're looking strictly at departmental reputation, placement record, etc., then a lot of other schools, including non-elite universities, have top tier RS departments. For example, I would never consider FSU's RS program second tier, especially if you study American Religious History. And therein lies the rub--the strength of your program's ability to help you on the job market really does depend a lot on your subfield and who your advisor is. The bottom line, to answer your question, is you need to look at the departmental fit and not the school's overall reputation which really only matters for undergrads. Is FSU a highly ranked undergraduate institution when we're considering it on a general scale of all undergraduate institutions? No. But its RS PhD program is very good for particular subfields. Departments are always strong in particular areas and not so strong in others. Some departments provide amazing faculty support and at others, some students find it very very difficult to get any face time with their advisor at all. Some students will find the latter a major problem and others no problem at all. Some departments provide great interview coaching and job market training. Some, Harvard for example, provide no such coaching or training (or such opportunities must be sought rigorously on a student's own initiative) and it really shows. I'm sure many of us on this board already in programs have witnessed some pretty atrocious job talks given by Ivy products. As someone has already said, Ivy names will often get an applicant a closer look and probably help toward landing an AAR interview. But the interview weekend cannot be saved by a school name. At that point it's all you and only you. I think there are three factors you need to consider: funding, fit, faculty. One of the reasons people on the board emphasize schools with funding over those without or very little (beside avoiding debt) is because people with funding simply have more time to do better work than people who have to work an outside job to support their studies. They have more time for grant applications, to write and publish an article, etc.--things that aren't requirements for obtaining a PhD but go a long way toward job marketability and success. Two students of equal ability will likely have different success if one is in a fully funded program and the other is not. Schools that offer funding also just tend to be better resourced overall in terms of fellowship offices, internal grant competitions, etc. But again--that doesn't have anything to do with whether a school is an Ivy. There are fully funded state school programs--Indiana, UVA, UC Santa Barbara, UT-Austin, UNC, and FSU for example--whose graduates get jobs with, I would guess, a frequency competitive with that of the Ivies. Many of the private programs, e.g. Duke and UChicago, are already considered on par with the Ivies, but others, Syracuse, Stanford, Northwestern, etc. are also either historically strong or have become strong recently. As to fit, if you're not comfortable in your program--i.e. where comfortable means studying with people, both students and faculty, and in an environment that is conducive to your growth as a scholar--you're not going to succeed. PhD programs are too emotionally draining. If an Ivy turns out not to be an environment in which you will thrive, it is not worth your emotional, mental, and physical health. People who choose Ivies over a better fit elsewhere struggle mightily (unless they're academic robots). Being in a place where you feel you belong and can be part of an active scholarly community is really vital to being successful. With regard to faculty, there are some really great, well-respected, well known scholars who teach at non-Ivy league schools. Bob Orsi and Sylvester Johnson are at Northwestern. John Corrigan at FSU. Ann Taves at UCSB. These are people whose name literally every RS scholar working in a department would know. If you have a person like this as your advisor, no one is going to give two shits that you didn't go to an Ivy. That doesn't mean that you must have someone who is known that widely across RS as your advisor. But if your advisor is well known in your subfield and writes you stellar letters, that will get some traction on the job market. To your specific dilemma: It's really not possible to say where UC Davis's RS program ranks at this point because it's too new--no one has graduated from it. I did meet a grad student from it, however, who presented in my department's grad student conference back in October. He seemed to be really enjoying it and felt like it was a good fit for him. The UC system is by no means the bastion of well-funded public PhD programs. That being said, it's still regarded as the flagship of public university systems, and Davis is near the top of the middle/bottom of the top of those schools overall. But if you run through those three criteria above, funding, fit, faculty, I think you'll have a better sense of whether or not it's the right choice.

This was five years ago, but I have a friend at Duquesne now who didn't hear until the end of March--like the 27th or 28th or something. I remember it was the last school he heard from, and he thought he was going to be shut out.

Wow. I'm assuming this is an American school? I have never, ever heard of an administrative body regularly turning away admitted students, let alone a whole group of students, recommended for admittance into a department. I have seen, on this board (for other disciplines, not RS) horror stories of people who were promised admission and then rejected at a higher administrative level--so I don't mean to suggest that it is impossible for this to happen. But these stories are, as I say, horror stories. And there is usually something fishy about them--like the person who has been rejected isn't telling the whole story or something. If there is a reason to reject someone after a department has recommended them for admission, it's going to have to do with funding, which is to say either the technical details of your application (your transcripts, GPAs, GRE scores) or the funding a department actually has available. Regarding the first, unless you have exceedingly below-normal GPA and GRE scores for grad school acceptance, your BA/MA are from unaccredited institutions, or your transcripts turn out to be fake or something, you probably don't have anything to worry about. Degrees from unaccredited institutions and low scores probably raise a flag at the administrative level that require more investigation, and it's entirely possible that those kinds of red flags could slip past an adcom if they thought an SOP and letters were really exciting. Regarding the second, it's also possible that a department offers more spots in its program than it actually has funding for. This is a regular practice of some departments, usually lower tier schools, because they know they're chasing after some of their admits who will likely also have offers from top tier schools. For top tier schools though...I'm not sure. My institution is an elite school (though maybe not considered a top tier RS department, idk) and I know my department does not do this. They always make sure they'll have enough money to fund anyone to whom they extend an offer. If they make ten offers and all ten accept, they're likely not going to make that many offers the following year because they won't have the money. But there's no rule or law that says they couldn't take a gamble in the hopes some people would turn down their offers. But the second thing doesn't sound like what your POI is saying. I honestly have no idea what he could be talking about. From my experience in multiple graduate programs, I've never heard of an administration arbitrarily deciding not to take some or all of the students recommended by a department. Though if anyone else has more concrete information than I do, I would be very interested to hear.

For those wondering what it means for "The Graduate School" or whatever larger administrative body to approve candidates recommended by a department: It's true that this does vary a bit school to school, but for the most part, that administrative body is usually just making sure that candidates meet the minimum requirements to receive funding. They have that approval process in the rare case that a department is trying to push through a prospective student who has a too-low GPA or GRE scores. That probably never, ever happens anymore. When I got my call a few years ago from my then-DGS, she said something like, "Congratulations! You've been accepted to the program! We're so excited to have you! This is of course unofficial until The Graduate School makes final approvals and sends you your admittance letter. Okay, byeeeeeeeee!!!" I, of course, lost my mind and thought that there was a chance I could not be admitted after all. But there is honestly nothing to worry about. The bottom line is that if you meet the minimum requirements to receive funding, which are very likely low compared to the average stats of people admitted to programs, they're going to approve you. These kinds of administrative bodies are not reading SOPs and letters and then questioning the decisions made by faculty in departments.

How dare you.

@axiomness PM'd you.

Wow that is a persistence I don't think I would've had. Congratulations on getting into a fantastic program.

I can confirm that Northwestern interviews were completed last week or will be this week. Our visiting weekend (which is for admitted students) is the first weekend in March, so notifications will be going out very soon if they haven't already.

Definitely not an ignorant question. Here are some things to note: In theology/biblical studies in particular, there tend to be a disproportionate number of PhDs from overseas when compared to other humanities disciplines. That's because people coming out of more conservative seminaries who aren't able to find a place in a US program are able to, essentially, write whatever conservative dissertation they want at Aberdeen, Edinburgh, etc., and come back to the US for a job at a conservative school. It's a fairly common practice. In religious studies, I would say going overseas is an enormous risk. The major difference between a US and a UK program is that in the latter, you're simply writing your dissertation. No coursework and no exams in the UK. The problem is that US departments look for particular things that the US system is, at least in a vacuum, designed to give students, despite the dismal job market. For example, US departments want to know that you're competent to teach in particular areas. Exams help you demonstrate competence. It's certainly not enough to only have the exams, but having those gives you an advantage over UK applicants. E.g. those book lists can be fashioned into courses syllabi centered around your exam questions, and you might even have the opportunity to teach those courses during your program. The dissertation is everyone's "calling card"--it's certainly the most important thing coming out of any PhD program. But US departments are looking for a lot more than just a good dissertation. It's difficult for US students to get funding for UK schools. A three year program, at say Oxford, could still end up well over 100k (tuition + living expenses + research expenses). If all of that is in loans, that's an insane amount of debt to take on for the sort of job prospects. The days of simply stepping into a job out of a PhD are long over. I just don't think it's worth the risk unless you're embedded in the world of conservative Christianity and have an "in" at a conservative bible college or something.

I did read it as top tier, but tenure track does make more sense. Usually when people use TT as an abbreviation on this forum, they mean top tier, though that's usually in reference to PhD programs. Sure, it's possible to get a tenure track jobs at a SLAC out of graduation. It's more difficult (statistically) than getting into a PhD program, but it can happen. Almost no one gets an R1 tenure track job out of graduation. The chances of that are slim to none--that's all I was trying to get across with my original comment.

Much of whether or not a person can finish in five or six years depends on the program and the advisor and, depending on those factors, could have nothing to do with how prepared a person is. Program flexibility often changes with the DGS, so, for example, maybe one DGS allows exceptionally prepared students to take their exams a year early (e.g. maybe they already have an MA in religious studies, etc.) but a new DGS comes in a couple years later and puts an end to that. Some universities (mine, for example) don't allow anyone to transfer any units from completed master's degrees toward their PhD course work. I had to earn a third MA through coursework in my program. Some of the coursework was actually very helpful for my exams and now my dissertation--some not so much. I only know of one person (so far) who has graduated from my program in under five years. Most take six or more. I think 5-7 years is pretty common in religious studies. People doing archival research (e.g. history) tend to take 7-8 years. Using papers as dissertation material is pretty common. Some advisors prep their first year students right from the beginning to structure their entire program toward the dissertation. It's not necessarily a guarantor of finishing early though. In most cases, I'd say it's necessary in order to finish in the "standard" 5-6 years. As I said, I came into my program with two master's degrees. I'm in my fifth year now, and I know it will take me at least until the end of my sixth year to graduate, possibly into my seventh (though I hope not!) When I thought about how exactly I wanted to frame my dissertation in my prospectus, I used many of my seminar papers as a reference to figure out what exactly it was that interested my about my figure/texts that I'm writing about. Courses should no longer just be ends in themselves at the PhD level. They're stepping stones toward the larger, far more difficult project. A TT job? Any job. People aren't hanging around their programs or getting postdocs because they're turning up their nose at a tenure track job offer from a third tier state school or tiny liberal arts college. The vast majority of people would be happy to get anything that provides some semblance of job security beyond adjuncting. I hope that doesn't come off as too harsh--but having realistic expectations is important. Almost no one is getting a TT job right out of their program--even people graduating from TT schools.

Buddhism: https://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Introducing-Experience-Donald-Mitchell/dp/0199861870 Hindusim: https://www.amazon.com/Hindus-Alternative-History-Wendy-Doniger/dp/014311669X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482424036&sr=1-2&keywords=hinduism+wendy+doniger (ignore the Amazon reviews) Judaism: https://www.amazon.com/Judaism-Revelation-Traditions-Religious-World/dp/0060626550/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482424090&sr=1-1&keywords=judaism+michael+fishbane Christianity: https://www.amazon.com/Turning-Points-Decisive-Moments-Christianity/dp/0801039967/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482424155&sr=1-1&keywords=christianity+mark+noll

No problem. AAR/SBL is a fantastic place to meet POIs and honestly just as effective as visiting them on their campus--maybe even more so. I also think you're wise to not apply to any schools you don't think you'd attend anyway. If there's any chance you don't think you'd fit well even if you got in, then stay far away. PhD work is far too emotionally draining to be at a place where you're uncomfortable or working with an advisor who only marginally understands your project, etc.

First thing to keep in mind: PhD applications are a highly subjective experience. Everyone has anecdotes, many people have something about their process that differs slightly from what other people did or experienced. I was applying five years ago, but I think this still holds. I was admitted to and chose to attend a fully funded program that I neither visited nor contacted prior to applying. That said... 1) Prior to applying, I only visited one program, CGU, which was the only one within a short drive of where I was living at the time. I had a meeting with my POI there. I did get in, but my perception is that they admit more students than other RS PhD programs because they have very little funding to offer. I do not think that traveling cross-country to visit campuses is worth the time or money. Your time would be far, FAR better spent on polishing your writing sample and statement of purpose. And the money could even be put toward a professional editing or tutoring service that can help you really polish your SOP and writing sample, though I don't think that's even really necessary. 2) I did email a number of programs prior to application. At this stage, however, I think we're right on the cusp of it being a little too late to start doing that if you haven't already. In retrospect, the most important thing that emailing POIs did for me was help to narrow down my list of schools and figure out how to tailor my SOP to each program. Some people were extremely helpful, offering to talk on the phone or forwarding my information to their DGS who gave me further information on their respective programs and even advice for altering my SOP to better fit their department. One person, Mark Taylor at Columbia, told me not to waste my money applying--not because he didn't think I was smart or capable but because they received so many applications and he could only take maybe one student a year, he thought my money would be better spent elsewhere. Others simply didn't respond. I crossed those programs off my list, but again in retrospect, I probably should have applied to them anyway. For example, I found out that my POI at UCSB (Tom Carlson) rarely if ever responds to queries from prospective students. But he still takes on 1-2 new students a year. So I should've just gone for it. Also, I didn't email my POI at the program that I ended up attending. I decided to add four more schools to my list very last minute (about mid-November) and thought it was too late to contact people at those schools. I didn't get into any of the programs with whom I'd had extensive correspondence, but I got into the one with which I had none (see my "first thing" above.) All of that said, I do think it is a good idea to contact POIs if for no other reason than it can give you a better idea of what a department is looking for and how competitive it is. 3) My original list was six schools, and I expanded that in mid-November to ten. I got into two, one of which was (and still is) a fully funded offer at an elite school. I'm fully aware that my experience may be the exception and not the rule, but I think it's really hard to say that there are any hard and fast rules in PhD applications, assuming one has the requisite grades, languages (if necessary), and decent GRE scores. All of those things being equal, it's often really difficult to say what exactly puts one application over the top for any particular school in a particular application season.

I met someone during the first year of my program who was in the middle of his third master's degree (MA theology) at UChicago. He was in the exact same situation you're in now: Did an MDiv at Liberty, struck out in PhD applications. Went to Tufts and did an MA in philosophy, struck out again. Went to UChicago and then finally got into an Ivy PhD program (in addition to other really highly regarded programs.) It's certainly not the end, but be prepared to buckle down and pick up another master's degree (at the very least).

Sounds interesting! I work in the Christian tradition, so that's what I got: Alfred North Whitehead comes to mind, though he's come into view a little more thanks to people like Phillip Clayton and Catherine Keller. I don't know what tradition you're from if any, but some traditions find Kant's treatment of evil Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone somewhat unfamiliar, or perhaps unworthy of consideration--of course, if you're from a broadly liberal or mainline tradition, then Kant is likely more familiar. He's certainly quite often considered "unorthodox" however, even among liberal theologians. Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and/or his essays on theodicy from Sociology of Religion might be interesting to include as a means of reflecting on the sociological consequences of the popular circulation of ideas about the problem of evil. A friend of mine put together a panel for AAR this year comparing Jewish and Black philosophies of hope and pessimism, and including some of those figures might be interesting since hope and pessimism are more or less responses to theodicy. For example, Ernst Bloch's The Spirit of Utopia, some of Walter Benjamin's fragments or other Jewish philosophies of hope/pessimism might be interesting. I'd recommend Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption, but you could spend ten courses working through that so maybe not. W.E.B. Dubois, James Baldwin, Frantz Fanon could all also be really great conversation partners in considering these issues from a Western but non-white perspective. I'd love to see a list when you settle on it!

I'm basically in agreement with sacklunch and Almaqah Thwn, but I want to make what I think is an important and hopefully helpful distinction. I don't think the former approach is a problem necessarily--what you don't want to do as a rule (i.e. what makes you seem "unteachable") is make it sound like you've already settled on an argument. That is the difference between an SOP and a dissertation prospectus, as well as the primary difference between US and UK/European applications. In other words, saying that you want to research the intertexuality between Jeremiah 12:3 and Deuteronomy 2:5 from a feminist narrative critical perspective isn't the same thing as saying, "If we research the intertexuality between X and Y from perspective Z, we discover A, B, and C. I argue for A, B, and C because..." The latter is what you do in a prospectus or an application to a school where all you are expected to do is write the dissertation without coursework or exams. If you do that in a US application, you're all but guaranteed to run into the problems Almaqah Thwn describes. As Almaqah Thwn's example shows, different faculty are going to read these differently. In my department, the specificity of your first example wouldn't be a problem necessarily. They're looking for projects that provide a compelling base for a potential dissertation tend with the understanding that the project will likely change either a little bit or completely depending on the faculty who are interested in taking on the student. That's really the key--are you proposing something of which you're essentially already convinced, or are you proposing a project that sounds promising and compelling but is also open to the direction you're going to receive from your advisor, the RS department, and others at the institution through course work, exams, etc. My hunch is that many adcoms would see your citation of specific passages and think, "Well, maybe--we'll see," rather than thinking it's essential to the project. I think they're going to be much more interested in hearing about how you see a critical theoretical perspective informing your textual analysis.

If you're applying to top tier programs, chances are the funding for all humanities or "school of arts and sciences" students is the same across the board. E.g. Northwestern and Yale offer students about $30k/year (NU five years guaranteed, Yale six) regardless of department (things vary when you get into the hard sciences of course, but among humanities students, the base pay is the same.) There are certainly less well-funded programs particularly if you're looking at seminaries, divinity schools or other religiously-affiliated schools (though some of those are competitive.) However, I'm not sure I've heard of a program that has guaranteed funding for less than 15k/year for a PhD in RS--meaning, I'm not counting programs who offer no official funding package, who can't guarantee consisting funding year to year, who make students compete for better funding, etc. Off the top of my head, here are some programs that offer near or more than 20k/year in RS and have people (faculty and grad students) working in "philosophy" broadly conceived: Yale, Northwestern, UNC-Chapel Hill, Stanford, Duke, UVA, Syracuse, UChicago (Divinity), UC Santa Barbara (I don't think all students are guaranteed funding, but the vast majority get it, and I've heard they're moving toward a fully guaranteed situation.) I'm positive there are more. Some of these may not be as competitive as they used to be--I was applying five years ago, so things certainly could have changed!

They're in a state of turmoil I think since this happened: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20151023/ARTICLES/151029859

If your field is NT, then yes, the more language training you have the better, including modern languages. But the "paper trail" I think still mostly applies to the ancient languages in this case. In other words, it's the ancient languages that will matter much more for admission; having modern languages under your belt, whether through "official" means or not, is going to benefit you more once you're already in. If you're confident that you can pass a modern language proficiency exam in either French or German in your first year, then you're going to be helping yourself out a lot. People who have to take a lot of modern language courses to meet proficiency deadlines on top of their first and second year seminars are creating a lot of extra work for themselves. It's possible though. I was admitted to study German theology/phil of religion with only one semester of German that I took four years before my application. I decided to jump straight into the intermediate German sequence when I got to my program (which was super hard at first, but I managed) and I took an intensive beginning French sequence the summer between my first and second years that my university offered. I then attempted both proficiency tests in the Fall term, passing only German. I retook French in the Spring and passed. I cannot imagine having to do more language training on top of those, which is why departments want to see that students interested in textual studies are already expertly proficient in the required ancient languages. All that to say--people who come into their programs being able to demonstrate language proficiency (however your program does it) have much more time to dedicate to their seminars. So whatever modern language work you're doing now--whether or not a prospective department "counts it" as official training--is probably going to benefit you once you start somewhere if you can pass a proficiency exam without needing an extra coursework.

If you're applying to do anything theology-related 19th century or beyond, language is not going to be as important as those folks talking about the "paper trails" on here. Most of the people concerned with that are applying to study things that require a significant amount of ancient language work (e.g. Hebrew Bible, New Testament, reception history, etc.) People doing historical theology 18th century or earlier need Latin. Having some language training isn't going to hurt if all you need is one or two modern languages (like German), but being able to talk about it in your statement is probably fine. As long as you can pass a proficiency exam in German (usually by some point in your third year), that's all a department is going to care about.

First, I really appreciate your candor in these posts and the one on the other thread, @AbrasaxEos. I'm in my fourth year, trying to finish my dissertation proposal, frustrated by getting rejected by external funding sources, wondering if it's all really worth energy. It gives me a lot of hope to hear about someone who just walked away (and I've heard a few such stories recently, in my own program as well.) But even still, I want to resist the idea that "inherent worth" is trumped by the use-value of one's employment, i.e. that employment must have use-value in order to be worth pursuing. I suppose I feel the need to defend a PhD in any humanities discipline for a moment. And I guess my username gives away what follows to an extent. As a Marxist who is really interested in the Frankfurt School, whether or not I continue to pursue academia, I feel an ethical obligation to resist the reification of vocation-in-general into use-value. This was something I felt strongly about before I decided to pursue academia, and even if I decide to leave at some point in the future (not at all outside the realm of possibility), I will continue to resist this. The "uselessness" of the humanities is what (albeit ideally) makes them at least potentially effective against the hegemony of capitalism--because they are more apt to resisting reification into commodity. I realize that to a certain extent that's an incredibly naïve view of graduate school/academia since the vast majority of universities and colleges are already complicit in the logic of capital, such that it would be silly to hope for escape from that logic by entering academia. Still, my appeal to the "inherent value" of what I do is part of a larger ethical political/economic conviction--not just a naïve defense of what I'm doing. I suppose I hope that to some extent the continued insistence of liberal arts educators that college students learn "critical thinking" (vague and often misconstrued, to be sure), learn to think outside the logics of capitalism and "natural" science, etc. is in part what has enabled a candidate like Bernie Sanders to have the wide appeal that he does among younger voters. This is an imperfect effect (e.g. criticisms that students today need coddling, that they're "offended" by everything) but I'd honestly rather deal with students who take [what are ultimately] post-colonial, post-structural, identity politics critiques too far than with students who insist on the "neutrality" of free markets, race, and liberal politics. There is inherent value in learning to think against those logics. That was likely much more than you were bargaining for in making the comment about the inherent value of PhD work. I want to emphasize that I really do appreciate your perspective. I think, though, that it's probably fair that many in the humanities (thought by no means all) share the conviction that there must be inherent value to some kinds of knowledge production and dissemination. Otherwise, we are intentionally pitting ourselves against quantifiable sciences, and I don't think there is any winning that fight.

Don't get me wrong--I absolutely would not be where I am today without Nancey Murphy, Rob Johnston, Kärkkäinen, Goldingay, Tommy Givens, or Bill Dyrness. All were immensely helpful in preparing my applications, helping me find direction, actually writing me letters, etc. So I'm definitely grateful for my time at Fuller. One thing you said is 100% correct and has been true of Fuller maybe always: It's what you make of it. It just seems like it's harder to make the degree that MAT students in the mid-late 2000s were able to do. I think if you're doing biblical studies, it's a different story. But for anyone interested in phil of religion or theology, I think there are better choices (unless you're doing analytic theology because of Crisp.) My guess is that other similar seminaries are the same. That being said, I think you're overselling Fuller a little bit. Why the distinction between Duke/PTS/Yale and Harvard? Why are Baylor and TEDS in the same category? Fuller can get you into all the programs you listed, sure. But I also think it's fair to say that a person coming from HDS, DDS, YDS, etc. probably has an even better chance because the opportunities for the things you describe are more readily available. At least GC students can take courses at Harvard. Nothing is guaranteed or definite when it comes to PhD applications. Even internal applicants to Fuller's PhD program get rejected, and it's not nearly as competitive as the programs you listed. You hit a home run getting into Duke. I got into a really good school out of Fuller too. But not all are that lucky, even if they do everything they can to prepare. The application process is way more volatile than that.