Anyone at Duke familiar with the application process for applying to both the ThD and the PhD?

[dkhp124]

Submitted my application to the Divinity School for the ThD. The PhD is through the Graduate Program in Religion, and it's due on Thursday. I'm planning on submitting the same writing sample, CV, and then just tweaking the SOP to address the GPR rather than the Divinity School. It seems like the Divinity School and the GPR, the ThD and the PhD, all share the same resources. The profs I want to work with are in both departments. Anyone know if the 2 departments expect 2 completely different applications? 

If anyone with insight on this can help, that would be much appreciated!

Edited December 18, 2018 by dkhp124

[Epaphroditus]

3 hours ago, dkhp124 said:

Submitted my application to the Divinity School for the ThD. The PhD is through the Graduate Program in Religion, and it's due on Thursday. I'm planning on submitting the same writing sample, CV, and then just tweaking the SOP to address the GPR rather than the Divinity School. It seems like the Divinity School and the GPR, the ThD and the PhD, all share the same resources. The profs I want to work with are in both departments. Anyone know if the 2 departments expect 2 completely different applications? 

 If anyone with insight on this can help, that would be much appreciated!

While the ThD and PhD share the same resources (since they're both in Duke University), the admissions process is completely different. For the ThD, you're competing for a limited number of spots among applicants to all fields (biblical studies, theology, homiletics, etc.), and so the adcom who will be reading your SOP and materials is composed of people from all departments of the div school. Because of that, it helps to have a more interdisciplinary SOP for the ThD to impress faculty outside your field. For the PhD, only the faculty in your major field look at your SOP. Having the same application to both will not help your chances of admission to both.

[dkhp124]

31 minutes ago, Epaphroditus said:

While the ThD and PhD share the same resources (since they're both in Duke University), the admissions process is completely different. For the ThD, you're competing for a limited number of spots among applicants to all fields (biblical studies, theology, homiletics, etc.), and so the adcom who will be reading your SOP and materials is composed of people from all departments of the div school. Because of that, it helps to have a more interdisciplinary SOP for the ThD to impress faculty outside your field. For the PhD, only the faculty in your major field look at your SOP. Having the same application to both will not help your chances of admission to both.

Thanks for the response.

But from what I understand, the ethos for the PhD at Duke GPR is to encourage their candidates to engage with other fields in their study, no? Would not the PhD also be a great place to do interdisciplinary work? 

[Epaphroditus]

51 minutes ago, dkhp124 said:

Thanks for the response.

But from what I understand, the ethos for the PhD at Duke GPR is to encourage their candidates to engage with other fields in their study, no? Would not the PhD also be a great place to do interdisciplinary work? 

The PhD also encourages interdisciplinary work, but the faculty from other fields aren't reading your SOP. I guess if both of your statements are highly interdisciplinary, it might not matter much.

[sacklunch]

As already said, the admission process is very different. I'll add that while you are competing for a limited number of spots in the ThD, it's more or less the same for the PhD. Each year the number of accepted students changes for each subfield of the PhD and there is no way to know beforehand how the subfields are divided. It's not purely luck, but it's nothing you can control. 

[dkhp124]

Thanks for the responses guys!