MA in Art History HELP

[Benton73]

Hello. I am wanting to get a Master's in Art History, but extremely nervous because I don't have a BA in Art History. My undergraduate was from a good midwest public state school, but had a horrible art history proem (my school actually cut it this year). I reached out to many professors at my school asking for advice, but most of them said I am not a good candidate to go into art history in general. I majored in Russian, Political Science, and Global Studies with minors in Human Rights, Art History, and National Security and graduated with a 3.7 (really wanted a 4.0 but had to juggle 3 jobs/internships to pay for school). I'm almost fluent in Russian and with be a Fulbright in Russia this upcoming year and have volunteered and held internships with Pushkin and Garage art museums in Moscow. In my Master and maybe PhD I want to focus my research on how art influenced politics and vice versa in the early Soviet Union (Art Constructivism). I have done a little research on a few programs, but I am very nervous that I'm not a competitive applicant for top schools. Ultimately I want to work internationally using art as diplomacy and currently having a hard time finding programs that focus on Russian art or Soviet art. Just worried that most programs won't see me as a good fit.

[Redondo]

If you can't get the recommendations from the profs who told you they don't think you're a great candidate you're going to have a hard time. However, if you're serious about it, and you have the emotional and financial wherewithal, I think you should try anyway. You won't know if programs won't see you as a good fit until you apply? And tbh no one on this forum can "rate you" or give you odds... as you can probably tell from scouring these forums, it's impossible to divine the secrets of grad admission. Plus the bleak truth is that based on numbers alone, it's actively irresponsible to encourage any person to pursue art history. Admissions rates to "top" PhD programs are hovering around 5% of applicants these days. Yet here we all are.

What follows is exactly what we know you need to do to get in, which is exactly what is written on the application pages of every graduate program website: you need to be able to explain articulately what you plan to do during the course of your graduate degree and why you need to be at X institution to do it; you need to prove you can both write well and think well; you need to have decent letters of recommendations; you need to have a decent GPA and an average to above average verbal GRE score. Yes a BA from a fancy school is helpful but you'll notice it's not a stated requirement. W.J.T. Mitchell went to Michigan State. Alexander Nemerov went to the University of Vermont. As for your non-art history background, all programs also state that they welcome applicants from non art history backgrounds. I'm in an MA program now with a handful of classmates who hold BAs in other liberal arts and they have never been at any perceptible disadvantage here. 

I would spend your Fulbright year, as much as you can, reading art history and trying to familiarize yourself with current discourse in and around your subfield in order to determine whether your ultimate career goals will truly be best served by an MA in art history. Off the top of my head there are two amazing scholars of Russian art of the revolutionary period I can think of - Christina Kiaer at Northwestern and Matthew Jesse Jackson at Chicago. Both of these schools have great Russian/Slavic Studies departments as well (you might look into graduate programs in those departments as well). Only Chicago has a terminal MA but that may be a good option for you (provided you have the means as this program is at best partially funded) to determine whether a PhD in art history would take you where you want to go. 

[forgottenverses]

hmm, I cant speak for anyone else's experience, but i just finished my undergrad in music performance and international affairs(from a conservatory/university), and am heading to a reputable MA program for curatorial practice(yes different, but maybe still applicable) this fall.

The program just made sure to supply me with an art history reading list for me to read over the summer. If you can demonstrate strong methods/research bridging politics and art, that will be super helpful. Coming from a different field will definitely put you at a slight disadvantage, but don't count yourself out yet.  Also have a strong writing sample or two relating art and politics(or just art tbh). Just show that you're actively putting in a lot of effort to redirect yourself and career. 

[hats]

Can you tell us anything about why they didn't think you'd be a strong candidate? Just looking at your resume, it looks like you'd do great, so I'm wondering if there are any remediable red flags.

[patrykt]

Let us not forget about Jane Sharp, who is a foremost specialist in the Russian avant-garde (among other things, she wrote an important book on Goncharova and Larionov); Rutgers has a very good terminal MA program. And if you would want to delve deeper into Eastern/Central Europe and their respective avant-gardes, Steven Mansbach at University of Maryland is the right person. I believe they also offer a free-standing MA degree.