Acceptance rates/application numbers from this year?

[Sparky]

Hey y'all,

Next week I'm meeting with a few of the first-year MA students in my program who are planning on applying for PhDs in the fall. To help them realize the gravity of the situation (one of them mentioned applying to BC as "backup"), I would like to share acceptance rates or at least the size of the admissions pool, number of admitted applicants, number of spots per subfield....really, anything you've got would be useful. From this cycle, please (i.e. applying in 2009-2010, to start fall 2010).

Thanks!

The only one I know for sure thus far is that History of Christianity at ND had 50 applicants for 2 spots. (So, 4%, but really, when you get as low as 2 spots, does percentage really matter?)

[redreverend]

I heard from a prof at Fordham that they had 110 applicants for 8 spots.

[anp22fab]

My future advisor at Union Theological Seminary (NYC) told me that they had 150 applications for 8 slots. I got one in New Testament.

[Rat]

I heard at Indiana that only 4 of 129 applicants were offered admission. Yeah so about 3%. The economic crisis devastated their admissions.

[peppermint.beatnik]

I know in this information for the Fall 2009 Ph.D. application cycle at Columbia (from a personal e-mail):

"In addition, because of the financial crisis, the number of students that the Religion department was allowed to admit last year was cut substantially--in the end, we were awarded funding for only five students despite having an applicant pool of roughly 140 . . . we can expect no more than one acceptance [per sub-field] in the years to come: we have been asked by the administration to decrease our number of acceptances given the economic downturn."

[lovethequestions]

I'm afraid this was less specific--but at UChicago's NELC program, out of "well over 150 applicants" I believe they admitted 3-5 students.

[jacib]

I'm afraid this was less specific--but at UChicago's NELC program, out of "well over 150 applicants" I believe they admitted 3-5 students.

Duke's info is here: http://gradschool.du...s/admitrel.htm. Totally applicants were actually down this year. But they accepted 41 people in 2005 and nine or ten every year since then for a 4 or 5% acceptance rate.

Edit: And I'm sure the Judeo-Christian fields pretty consistently have more applications than the others, so that's an even lower acceptance rate by subfield.

I heard Chicago didn't even accept anyone into my subfield this year for PhD (Anthropology & Sociology of Religion). So that's a 0% acceptance rate, I guess.

Edited March 18, 2010 by jacib

[Postbib Yeshuist]

SMU (Perkins) had, I believe, over 100 for what I think is 5 spots (based on previous years' acceptance rates). I don't have good numbers, but it was a single-digit acceptance rate. For what it's worth, I was wait-listed in spite of in-person contact with the director and two of the profs, and a third prof there who is a personal friend. Granted, I was applying to their "new" program in Religion & Culture, so I think I lost out to the primary focus on Systematics. Still, I felt like SMU was my strongest app and I really thought I was a shoe-in. Guess not. Add to that the fact I am finishing a Th.M. with a 3.9 (in addition to an M.Div.) and have strong GRE scores, I can only assume it was one of the toughest years in recent history. I got into Iliff School of Theology straight-up though, so I may just take that. Drew was a flat-out rejection (even had a prof who was an alum write a letter for me).

I say the above not to toot my own horn but just to add that it's not only a tight year, but apparently a VERY competitive one. I felt like I had a strong app, and I still struggled. I can't imagine MA students who choose BC as a backup would fare well.

FWIW: Topic = American Empire/Constantinian Christianity's influence on dialogue between Jews, Christians & Muslims.

Edited March 22, 2010 by Postbib Yeshuist

[Thanks4Downvoting]

SMU (Perkins) had, I believe, over 100 for what I think is 5 spots (based on previous years' acceptance rates). I don't have good numbers, but it was a single-digit acceptance rate. For what it's worth, I was wait-listed in spite of in-person contact with the director and two of the profs, and a third prof there who is a personal friend. Granted, I was applying to their "new" program in Religion & Culture, so I think I lost out to the primary focus on Systematics. Still, I felt like SMU was my strongest app and I really thought I was a shoe-in. Guess not. Add to that the fact I am finishing a Th.M. with a 3.9 (in addition to an M.Div.) and have strong GRE scores, I can only assume it was one of the toughest years in recent history. I got into Iliff School of Theology straight-up though, so I may just take that. Drew was a flat-out rejection (even had a prof who was an alum write a letter for me).

I say the above not to toot my own horn but just to add that it's not only a tight year, but apparently a VERY competitive one. I felt like I had a strong app, and I still struggled. I can't imagine MA students who choose BC as a backup would fare well.

FWIW: Topic = American Empire/Constantinian Christianity's influence on dialogue between Jews, Christians & Muslims.

That does sound really rough, but congrats on you acceptance to Iliff!

[Postbib Yeshuist]

That does sound really rough, but congrats on you acceptance to Iliff!

Thanks, I appreciate it. I think SMU had as much to do with the program to which I applied as anything. Drew was likely that I didn't do my legwork with the profs.