Shelley Burian

I`m in the in between states Ancient American panel which I think (embarassing) is Friday at 3:15.

I am, I'm presenting in one of the Ancient Americas panels

Hmm, difficult question. The general trend of thought seems to be that you should be as specific as possible, but I have seen people be admitted and do well who did not have clear ideas, and I myself have really changed my area of focus since I've been in my program, moving from ancient to modern indigenous textiles. Where I think the advice on specificity comes from is that what admin committees DON'T like is someone who doesn't appear to have thought the idea of graduate school through and who doesn't have much experience to back up their choice of field. I think that what needs to come through is the sense that you might not know exactly what you want but that you are getting there and really thinking through your choices. Being honest is always appreciated and it will save you a lot of trouble if you are admitted since your adviser will know what they are getting up front.

The number of graduate programs for me was limited to the number of applications I had the energy to fill out, it's more tiring than you think! My area of study is not Early Christian but South American textiles so I don't know how much help I would be but I'll give it a go. Firstly, don't undervalue yourself regarding the PhD.I've seen several students get into good PhD programs straight from undergrad and most in art history come with full funding at the better schools. Funding brings me to my second point of advise which I'm sure you've already gotten but it bears repeating, watch out for debt. Masters programs can be very expensive and with the uncertain job market it can become a serious burden. All of the programs you have listed have good general reputations so I think they would all be decent programs. I have heard good things about Williams especially. It's worthwhile to contact the professors you are interested in working with to see what their interest in you would be and also to verify if they are accepting new students, that way you don't waste your application money on someone who is retiring.

Unfortunately Emory choose to discontinue the PhD program of the ILA so they are no longer accepting new applicants

Emory University has (as far as I can tell, I barely survived my Greek art seminar here last fall) an excellent Classical program, although the professor, Bonna Wescoat is more an architectural historian. She runs the excavations on the island of Samothrace. We also have a large focus on Baroque/Renaissance Italy, especially Rome.

I would be less worried for an MA program, in fact many people who don't have strong backgrounds in art history but wish to continue do a terminal masters program before moving on to a PhD or use to see if further study is right for them. From what I've seen it would perhaps be more of an issue if you were applying to track PhD programs since those programs tend to have more applicants and are a bit more leery of applicants with minimal experience in art history.

One of the biggest issues I have with this discussion (in a general sense, not specific to this article or forum) is that this problem of devoting years of your life and in some cases significant financial resources to train for a career and then have trouble finding permanent employment is not unique to PhDs but is much more widespread. So is the advice problem, who to encourage and who to discourage and how do we make those calls when we are asked to give advice. I keep waiting for someone to compare success in a traditional academic environment to success as a professional ballerina or any other aspect of the fine or performing arts because I think that this comparison might actually help people unfamiliar with the academy understand the dynamics of success (everyone knows how many good singers get rejected from American Idol.)Having talent for research doesn't guarantee you success, and being a good college student and liking the academic environment doesn't mean that you will enjoy being a professional academic in the same way that not everyone who has talent for music and enjoys performing it becomes a profitable professional musician. So many fields are over-saturated with candidates that I think it might be more useful to focus on preparing fall-back plans and thinking beyond finding the dream job (something everyone should do,not just graduate students) than bemoaning the fact that our career field is over-saturated.

I would try to see how many students they have had who haven't finished and dropped out, because that is the biggest warning sign. From what I've seen, having a bad fit with an adviser often means a delayed graduation or even not finishing so I would go with the second person unless they are a complete unknown and the funding is substancially lower.

There seems to be kind of a mixed attitude towards students who come from a studio program and it varies from institution to institution. Very few schools in the US require that you have a previous degree in art history (BA or MA)and as long as you have taken the required number of courses in art history you are eligible for admission. However, as I have responded to the other post about a specific institution's reaction to studio training, some schools whose programs are more theoretical and based on philosophy, rather than on object centered research, don't tend to favor people with this background. This is far from being universal and most schools welcome people with studio backgrounds and see them as having a special perspective on art history because they have been practicing artists. A good way to see how MFAs are viewed at a particular school is to look at their current students and alumni. Do any of them have MFAs? I think, but am not sure, that Ivies tend to prefer a stronger academic background. A good writing sample will probably be key in convincing them (or any school) that your training has been adequate for PhD studies. I don't know what subject matter would be the best choice, especially not knowing your area of interest.

This sounds to me like something you should discuss with your supervisor, as every institution regardless of country does things slightly differently. In my program for example we are basically told grades don't mean anything anymore and are often only given actual letter grades on the final paper and for the class in general. For courses within our subfield(I'm in art history which has many different branches of study much like regular history) we are expected to perform at the A level but B+s and even Bs are perfectly acceptable for courses which are completely unrelated to our specialization.

Don't know about the W affect on your transcript but you might consider investigating how seriously your institution takes academic probation and what the consequences are. At my institution, it happens to a fair amount of students and can be triggered by a professor simply not getting grades in on time giving you too many incompletes. It doesn't affect scholarships or stipends and is very easy in most circumstances to erase the following semester. Since you are borderline in the class its something to consider.

Unfortunately, as a grad of that program (undergraduate, not grad) I have to say that McGill is particularly unfriendly to the studio art track. There is no studio art whatever taught at the university, and undergraduates cannot even count studio courses taken elsewhere towards their art history coursework. Your preparation for graduate work is likely to be more questioned than it would at other schools. I would strongly advise you to contact the professors you are interested in directly concerning your research interests to see how receptive they would be to your proposed work. McGill is HIGHLY theoretical and it sounds like your interests are more.object centered. If you haven't looked at it already, Concordia University is another English-speaking university in Montreal which has a very good art history program and is MUCH more integrated with studio practice with strong BFA and MFA programs. I think they would be much more receptive and a better fit. You could also take graduate courses at McGill with the professors you are interested in as a student at Concordia.

I would say it depends on how closely you need to work with your adviser/ how much control they have over your overall success in the program. For my field, your adviser pretty much governs your graduate life from the year dot to your defense, so if you don't have a good personality fit with that person then it gets very difficult. On the other hand if you only start to work closely with your adviser later in your program and you have to work closely with other faculty and graduate students, then looking at overall atmosphere might be better. I would say that the more prestigious school sounds better in that there are other faculty members it sounds like you could switch to if your relationship with the person you enter with as your adviser starts to slide.

Although I am a McGill grad and love the school, I would suggest that unless there is a particular professor you really want to study with there I would do one of the other schools. It's not a good time to studying at any Quebec university frankly, as the funding situation is so uncertain and there is still a lot of tension over higher education financing. I would not be surprised if McGill is forced to cut future graduate funding. McGill's art history program is also not nearly as well known as Toronto's is in terms of PhD studies down the road. I would also concur that there is less curatorial experience as the program does not have a direct affiliation with either MBAM or MAC, although you certainly can get introduced to people and make those ties yourself, as I did.

I wouldn't think that art history is the way to go, at least in the US and Canada. You might be able to write a dissertation on theory but you are going to spend most if not all of your time taking courses which are not theoretically based at all. I also have theoretical interests alongside my main focus in Andean textiles (which is very unusual for an ancient specialist) and am having trouble finding support for these interests in my coursework. Apart from a methods course, most art history courses do not read the philosophic primary texts except maybe for a few modern and contemporary ones.

As someone who did not get accepted into programs my first time and had very good offers a year later, I would have to say that what made the difference was a complete re-write of the writing sample and a more mature statement of purpose. I was told by people who have sat on admissions committees that one of the factors they are concerned with is maturity and evidence of a person's passion being sustainable. For top schools which offer stipends and full funding, you are an investment for them. They want to make sure that you have thoroughly thought through your choice of sub-field and career options. Your list of improvements looks good and the only further suggestion I would make is that if museum work is your primary goal, try to actually find a job and not just internships. Showing that you know what the daily grind in a museum position is like (which often internships don't really show you), even if it isn't related to curation or even in an art museum really adds to the maturity of your CV and SOP. Work experience shows that you know what it's like to not be in school, have explored career possibilities and have chosen to pursue graduate studies based on this experience.

Tough situation. You might consider having a further discussion with your current adviser as to why they think you are not committed or what they would like you to do differently. I have heard stories of offended advisers making things difficult for people after they switch,however it sounds like you have sufficiently impressed your department to avoid this kind of thing. Are you planning to continue on to a PhD, either in this department or elsewhere? If yes, it might be better to switch to someone with whom you will have a good relationship and get good letters of rec from. I would ask other, older students in your department if people have switched in the past and how it went.

The writing section is NOT a measure of your ability to write well but to write a certain kind of prompt well, often in a way which directly contradicts the kind of writing humanities students are taught. Your writing sample will be the true judgement of your ability for adcoms and POIs

I think that there are three different interpretations about what can be meant by "students' feelings" which are causing a bit of confusion and unjustified objections to the OP. Some people seem to be referring to the situation of a student complaining about a bad grade with little or no rationale for the complaint, apparently simply wanting to make the teacher aware of their feelings. Others seem to be referring to a different set of problems regarding the technicalities of grading and syllabus construction with the accompanying complaints about lack of clarity in communication. The third is the much more philosophical idea of what the learning experience in a college classroom should be like, and the increasing perceptions (justified or not) students have about professors' disconnect from their interests in and opinions on that experience. The OP seems to be referring to students' feelings in the first sense and I feel their reaction is justified. Due to an overall declining respect in our society for teachers, many students feel that they should receive a high grade for minimal effort.

I would say PhD, although if they don't specify a funding advantage it might not make much difference. But if it is not a track program per se and you are only declaring an intention to apply for their PhD program in the future than it shows commitment and is probably not that much harder to get into.

I think that this is the difficult thing about graduate school. We want to be friends and support each other in our work but at some point you have to realize that you will be competing against each other for these kinds of things and eventually for jobs. I agree with the above poster on putting yourself out there. It's not really a question of being nice or not, I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Promoting yourself and your career is your responsibility and no one would blame your for applying to the same competitive fellowships as your friends. Certainly don't be that person who backstabs other students and tries to undermine them in class and with your adviser, but putting the thought of all the other students who are applying for the same position as you out of your mind when you are doing your application is certainly acceptable. Nobody wins all the time, and a healthy combination of both makes you grateful when you do and happy for your friends when they do

I think that its important to show that you have put thought into how you are going to proceed in your sub-field and that you have a general direction towards a topic, rather than needing to lay out specifics. For my field, it's very important to know your geographic emphasis, as often people who work on the Aztec and the Maya really cannot direct a dissertation on the Inka or the Aymara. I came into grad school interested in looking at transitions between purely indigenous and early colonial culture, which I am still interested in, but with a completely different indigenous group (still within my general geographic preference) than I specified in my SOP. Advisers know that you will probably change the specifics of your interests many times, but want you to have a definite bent in some direction.

I study colonial Latin American art and the history of images of racism and its always amazing to me that even in courses DEDICATED to these discussions how hard it is to overcome some of these opinions. Where was the student's opinion presented? If it was published in a school newspaper maybe you could help your other student write an editorial response. Even if it wasn't a newspaper article might be a good way to get discussion started. Does your school have research groups/institutes devoted to issues of race and higher education? If so you could maybe talk with them about organizing a lecture series or a colloquim around these issues in your specific discipline (Emory had a lecture on racial discrimination in their dental program this fall).

Art History-5 Love my department and my adviser who is one of the most supportive and kind professors I've ever met. The classes which are not in my field of ancient American art are hard, but I'm learning a lot from them and I hopefully will turn in decent papers for them. Not crazy about Atlanta but its growing on me.