marXian

I have a colleague in my program working in historical theology who did an MDiv at GC. She's been very successful in the program (major external funding, publications, etc.) I went to Fuller, which could be considered GC's west coast counterpart. Nearly every friend of mine applying to PhD programs in my year or the year after was accepted somewhere, though with varying results (CGU, Chicago Theological Seminary, Duquense, and Yale). They also all were doing different things (phil. of religion, systematic theology, New Testament, etc.) My friend who was accepted to Yale also had offers from Duke and Chicago--in my opinion, this is an outlier scenario for people coming from Fuller. Out where I am now, I occasionally meet with undergrads interested in PhD study eventually (referred to me by people in our church) who are trying to decide between seminaries/divinity schools. I always try to steer them toward the Dukes of their choices and away from the Fullers if they really have their heart set on PhD work. Again, it's not that you can't get in coming from a Fuller/GC type place. It's just that the major div schools tend to better prepare students for PhD applications. I don't know about GC, but Fuller has absolutely moved more toward ministry preparation and away from preparing future scholars. Mark Labberton, the new president, is primarily a pastor, whereas Richard Mouw (president for 20 years) is a philosopher. When I entered Fuller in 2009, there were five MAT options, three of which were very academically rigorous. The track I did required all the systematic theology courses, both biblical languages, philosophy, ethics, etc. Just one quarter after I arrived, they began to change the requirements, making languages optional, only requiring one of three systematic courses. The idea was to make the degree more flexible and allow for more electives. But the degree requirements now are so general as to be practically meaningless in my opinion--unless you're interested in being a teaching pastor or something. GC may be entirely different--I've heard they have a much stronger focus on biblical study than Fuller. But as sacklunch said, if you're interested in doing something else, then I think a major Div school is a much better option.

You're likely not going to find people at any of the big name schools who are going to be interested in a "straightforward" comparative project--especially one comparing Christianity to anything. That's not to say a project like that is completely outside the realm of possibility but here are a few things you need to get abreast of as soon as possible: 1) The history of the academic study of religion (especially in the beginning at the turn of the 20th century) is fraught with instances of lots of well-meaning Christians trying to understand other religions "objectively" but just end up inscribing Christian categories onto them. An emphasis on "interiority" or interior, ineffable experience is an example of that. The heyday of comparative projects (~1940-70) is a period that a great many contemporary scholars of religion would like to pave over and forget about and its main figures (esp. Mircea Eliade) are used as foils to symbolize all that is wrong with religious studies. You're going to need to show an awareness of this history and explain why what you're doing is different in your SOP. So if you're not familiar with this history, you'd be wise to start familiarizing yourself with it now. 2) People who study Buddhism or Islam in RS departments typically know Chinese, Japanese, or Tibetan, etc. (for Buddhism), Arabic (or other languages depending on the region for Islam) and, depending on the time period they're studying, they know the classical/medieval versions of those languages. So, for example, if you wanted to compare Zen Buddhism with some period of Christianity and you didn't know any Japanese, no one would take your engagement with Zen Buddhism seriously, and instead, they'd probably see you as part of the above problem (a Christian understanding Buddhism through Christian categories.) 3) I say these things to either help steer you in the right preparatory direction for RS programs or toward a theology program/theology track where this kind of thing seems to be more common. Lots of people with MDivs go into religious studies departments. But your success is going to depend largely on your expectations of what is feasible and what's not. I would add Iowa to the above suggestions. I met a student from there a few years ago doing comparative theology (Catholic theology and Buddhism).

Find departments that have faculty who are jointly appointed in religious studies and history (e.g. Bob Orsi at Northwestern is in both history and RS--but he may not be taking students for much longer.) Also, more generally, if schools have a strong commitment to being interdisciplinary, then it probably won't be a problem to work with people in RS departments. From my experience, history departments can get a little insular (like philosophy departments) in adjudicating what kind of work actually qualifies as history. For that reason, some departments/faculty might be resistant to students doing work that is too theoretical and not "historical" enough. On the other side of things, though, I've known people who have felt that RS programs are too theoretical and have felt much more at home in a history department. It all very much depends on the climate in each department though. By and large, I don't think most history departments/faculty would have a problem with a student wanting to do some work with religion/divinity school faculty as long as the student's work was firmly historical.

My mistake! The vast majority of people posting here are interested in seminary degrees and often don't understand the difference. I shouldn't have assumed that was you.

The title of your thread is a bit misleading (not your fault; this confusion is super common.) Degrees from seminaries/div schools ≠ MA in religious studies from religious studies department in a university. Yes, some seminaries/div schools, e.g. Yale or Chicago, offer MAs in religion. The difference is that seminaries/div schools have hundreds of students all earning an MDiv, MTS, or MA in theology or religion. These are typically "graduate institutions" meaning there are no undergrads to support significant grad funding. On the other hand, an MA in RS (which are increasingly rare I think compared to graduate degrees from seminaries/div schools) are supported by religious studies departments within a university which has an undergrad population to support grad funding. Hence you have people like raleighheth and menge above in these kinds of programs who have full funding. I did an MA in English at a small public university in Colorado with tuition fully funded and a monthly stipend. So your question is not actually about how to pay for an MA in religious studies--it's about how to pay for an MDiv/MTS/MA from a seminary or div school.

It really depends on what you're studying. UCSB and UNC are both very solid graduate programs in general (don't know much about Rice), but what you want to study really matters because while Program A may have a better reputation overall than Program B, if there is a rockstar POI at Program B who is really the best in his/her field, then overall program reputation just doesn't matter as much.

With regard to your concern, I guess it kind of depends on what your undergrad or even high school situation was. I went to public schools through my entire education until seminary. So people not sharing my theological interests was something I was used to. Unfortunately I think it's true that history departments tend to be a little more confused by "theological commitments" than other humanities disciplines, but I really do think it will be worth it to become conversant with the way that "secular" historians handle church history. My PhD is in religious studies, but I'm in the "theology" track within my department. I study social philosophy and liberal Protestant theology at the turn of the 20th century. My English MA has allowed me to combine my interest in Critical Theory with religious studies in some very fruitful ways with regard to my dissertation, so I'm definitely thankful for that training as a spring board for what I'm doing now.

There are definitely a good number of people going into PhD programs in religious studies or theology with two master's degrees. I was in a situation similar to yours at the beginning of my grad school career. I had friends who were going to seminary and encouraging me to join them. Instead, I applied to MA programs in English literature (BA was in English) moving to Colorado from California to do it. While I was working on my thesis for that degree I realized that my interests were really in theology/philosophy of religion, so I ended up at seminary after my English MA. Having a "traditional" grad school experience prior to seminary was very beneficial. Seminaries and divinity schools sometimes don't feel all that different from undergraduate institutions because the class sizes are basically the same and because those kinds of programs admit students with any undergraduate background, so some courses can feel a bit "remedial" for a grad school course. My seminary felt that way especially coming from my English MA program. All of that to say that an MA in history will likely be a great experience for you and will definitely make you more competitive for PhD programs, since seminary degrees are generalist degrees. The history MA will allow you to narrow in and focus on your specific area of interest which will help you refine those interest much more than a seminary degree will. Plus you're only 21!! I started grad school at 24 (my English MA) but I don't at all regret doing two master's degrees before beginning my PhD.

You might want to take this with a grain of salt, but when I was admitted to my program (2012), the DGS called to give me the good news but also said that the offer was not official yet since the graduate school had to finalize its budget for newly admitted grad students (or something like that). When I got off the phone with her, I had a mild stroke thinking that there was a possibility the offer could be rescinded because of lack of funding or something. I started emailing friends who were already in programs asking them to decipher what she said for me. In the end, her saying that was just a formality I think--meaning that the "official" offer was the actual letter I received from the dean of The Graduate School, not her phone call to me. So it could be a similar situation here.

UVa has usually sent responses much later than a lot of other schools (like mid to late March).

Yes, it's really excellent that you're getting that advice. I don't think prospective Ph.D students ever think about or even realize that faculty can and do do that to their Ph.D students!

I just want to emphasize this point (the second half of it.) If you're interested in history, you don't need someone who is an expert in Mormonism specifically as your advisor. Having an advisor who is an expert in American religious history will definitely be enough, even if he/she studies Catholics or something primarily. Sure, having a committee member who knows Mormonism is going to be a good idea, but that person could be external (i.e. someone not at your university.) I have a colleague who studies Russian Orthodox immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century whose advisor is not an expert in that particular branch of Christian history. But my colleague's advisor is a very well known American religious historian, so it's fine. FWIW, this colleague started in the religious studies department but switched to history after the first year (actually had to reapply to the university), so history departments friendly to projects focused on religion might be worth putting on your radar.

If the school with the POI accepts people without a M* degree, then absolutely apply. The worst that could happen is you don't get it. If you have a POI who is really interested in having you apply, I don't think there's any downside, especially since you'll only have one semester left for the MDiv.

I don't know that much about publishing in the sciences, so correct me here if I'm wrong. But my impression is that publishing in the humanities is, generally, quite different from publishing in the sciences primarily because in the humanities, we can't publish "incomplete" or "failed" research. In other words, whatever argument we're making, we have to be really really confident that we have a new angle on something and that we're right. My impression of the sciences, however, is that it's more acceptable to publish "works in progress" so to speak, because everything is a work in progress. All research is always, in some sense, "incomplete" but our journal articles are expected to stand the test of time as much as possible, whereas, I think, the results of most science publications are assumed to be surpassed and obsolete within a relatively short amount of time. Because of that, it's not that common for humanities PhD students to publish more than two or three articles during their time as students. Some don't publish anything except for maybe one dissertation chapter along the way. All of that said, I agree with the mods that you're reading into things too much. If a professor from outside of your field thinks you've written something good enough to develop into a publishable article, that's fantastic. But you should be talking with your adviser about publications as well. Some advisers feel strongly about their first, second, or even third year students not trying to publish. As I alluded to above, arguments that turn out to be shaky could come back to bite you later. Because of that, some advisers feel better about publishing once students are candidates (i.e. have passed their quals/comps).

I agree with this, except for the last part. I don't know where your MDiv friends attended, xypathos, but for anyone going to a secular RS department, the MDiv isn't going to give you anything probably in terms of credits, and certainly not a year. That extra year of course work beyond the MTS is 100% ministry (i.e. practical) courses--not academic. Plus I'm not sure why the extra year of coursework for the MDiv would knock off a year of PhD work--if programs do give credit for earned M* degrees, it's usually not a 1 to 1 deal. Yes, you will have more time to do languages if you do an MDiv, but that only really matters if you're interested in biblical studies. 2-3 years of MTS work should be more than enough to get Latin under your belt and at least begin German if you're interested in church history/historical theology. And if you're not planning on focusing on any era before 1750 (give or take 50 years), you're not really going to need Latin at all. If you are really set on a PhD, an MTS is going to give you courses that are all (mostly) relevant to that. You're going to have to do a lot of ministry classes, internships, etc. if you do an MDiv.

You don't necessarily need someone who does exactly what you want to do. "Transhumanism" can mean a lot of different things in RS. If you find someone who does "contemporary religions" broadly and is interested in media/technology/religion, he/she will probably have a lot of interest in your project. I think the more difficult thing will be navigating the theological and even the ethical interest in a religious studies department. Even if your interest is comparative (another kind of dicey thing in RS departments), you'll want to make sure the department you're applying to is friendly toward ethical/theological/constructive projects (as opposed to ethnographic, descriptive, etc.)

This seems like an intuitive solution, but be really careful--if the application specifies spacing, don't mess with it. The committee will know and they won't like it. Once you're in a program, you're going to be writing lots of page-restricted documents in order to win external grants and fellowships. Those always specify page, spacing, font size... it's at least good practice now to try to fit within page requirements. But I do agree with Kuriakos: If you have an article published in a reputable journal, that is going to impress a committee. I would check to see if they would want to see the whole thing or have you truncate it to meet the page requirements.

PM'd you.

If you have two of three languages essentially mastered (i.e. advanced reading ability), I don't think only having informal work in the third will be a significant problem. Is there a way to write a writing sample that would show your study of that language? For your own sanity if/when you begin a PhD program in the future, self-study is ALWAYS a good idea for languages because you're going to have very little time to add languages on top of your coursework (though many do that--including me--and turn out just fine!) But the more you do on your own now, the more freedom you'll enjoy in the future to just conduct research without worrying about getting a language under your belt from scratch.

I've heard of people transferring as late as their fourth year. Obviously, that's extremely uncommon and would only happen probably in situations where an entire department is being dismantled by the university or something. I have a colleague who began a PhD program last year, didn't like it, applied to new places and got in to a much better school. That school wants her to start over (technically) because she only completed a year in the first program, but she's fine with that. They might even be letting her transfer some of the course work over so that she could potentially start her exams a little earlier. I even had a prof from my second MA program advise me to take whatever funded offer I received and spend my first year applying to better programs on that school's dime. I found that to be...distasteful to say the least. But I guess that does happen.

PM'd you.

I have known of a few people who have earned an MA in theology at an evangelical seminary (Fuller), followed that with an MA in philosophy (usually from a school local to Fuller, CSULA or LMU) and have been able to get into good PhD programs in philosophy (UCSD, for example). I had considered that route myself, but already had an MA (English lit) coming into my theology MA (at Fuller) and thought doing a third before a PhD program was just too much. It was my contingency plan though. As I was considering my options, the philosophy prof at Fuller, Nancey Murphy (who's PhD in philosophy is from Berkeley) told me that it reflects better on applicants to do the philosophy degree after the theology one because it shows where your most current interests are, or as she put it, "That you've changed your mind for the better." So it shouldn't matter where your MA in theology is from, as long as it's an MA/MTS, since those are considered the "academic" degrees, even at a seminary. I know someone at my school (T30 philosophy department) who earned his MA in philosophy of religion from Talbot. As long as you have the chops, I don't think programs care too much if your degree is from a religious school. That is, they're not necessarily going to take that into consideration as an isolated variable in evaluating your application.

Independent studies/directed readings are not looked at any differently on the transcript. Where they can be really helpful is in producing a writing sample for your PhD applications. If you're interested in a specific topic X, doing a directed reading with a prof who shares that interest and can help you develop you skills and knowledge in that area will enable you to produce a writing sample that is likely a cut above many of the other samples (at least that's the hope.)

Yes, unfortunately, the standards for proving language proficiency sometimes differ department to department within the same institution (e.g. the history department at my school administers all its own language exams except for Latin, whereas students in my department have to register for an exam administered at a different but nearby university and travel over there to take our reading exams). Unfortunately, it may be that a program you decide to attend for your PhD may only accept their own language reading exam. I'd recommend something like Duolingo to keep up on grammatical skills, but honestly just reading Der Spiegel or Der Standard online every day is going to not only maintain but improve your reading skills. When I started doing that, I began with reading articles on American politics so I could have some idea of what was going on in the article. It can be slow going at first, but the more you do it, the less you find yourself going to the dictionary for help. A reading course the summer or term before you plan to take the exam will certainly help, but if you have a high beginner or intermediate level of proficiency in German, you shouldn't need to put in a ton of work in order to pass a proficiency exam as long as you do something to keep your mind connected to German between the end of your program and when you take the test--which sounds like it could be a while. It's also a good idea to look into the various DAAD Stipendium programs that can send you to Germany for 4-8 weeks for intensive language training. Those awards are pretty competitive, so I'm not sure how successful MA students are, but doing one of those the summer before you plan to take the proficiency exam once you're in a PhD program is going to make passing the exam really easy.

If you have two years of undergrad German, you'll be fine applying. You'll probably try to get a grant to go to German for a couple months in one of your first summers of a PhD to really hone your German skills, but two years of undergrad German is more than adequate to pass a German reading proficiency exam. The more difficult languages (e.g. Latin) are the sorts of things that will impress an adcom more than German. If you expect to need Latin for your PhD, you definitely should start that during your MA since you'll likely be applying against people who maybe took four years in undergrad plus additional training in a master's program. If you can avoid having to take language courses during your PhD coursework (definitely not uncommon for people doing philosophy/theology stuff), you'll be much better off. Language course work almost never counts as courses toward your degree, so you end up taking a fourth course on top of your three seminars. It's just a lot of extra work that, if it can be avoided, absolutely should.