A Few Questions Before the Apps Come...

[NyarkoSan]

Hey all,

It's been a long time since I last posted here, and all of a sudden I'm standing down the last two semesters of my undergraduate... I guess this is one last post to fully tamp down what I'm doing before application season get's fully underway.

First, a quick rundown of my credentials:

I'm a Religion and Middle Eastern Studies double major at a top 30 school in the US and my overall GPA sits at around a 3.55 but my in-major GPA is a 3.8. I am currently preparing to take the GRE. Unfortunately due to a personal tragedy last year my grades suffered a bit, and has sorta become a cause for concern. I have six years of Spanish (near-fluent) and three of Arabic (proficient on a good day) under my belt, and I hope to focus on Islamic art/expression in Umayyad Andalusia. I would prefer to go straight into a PhD but am willing to go into an MA if there is some degree of financial aid available. I have one paper out for review/publication and another getting prepped for the same treatment. I will also be presenting at an undergraduate conference come October. 

With all of that out of the way, I've been running into a few issues in my time exploring various programs. The first is simply that I'm struggling to find a good fit for what I want to do in the United States. Beyond UMich and UFlorida, there hasn't been much in the way of Islamic art/material studies, and this fact seems to be at odds with the recommendation of applying to around ten schools that I see frequently. I also just don't want to waste the time and money it'd take to apply to a bunch of schools if I don't fit in with their focus. I am willing to shift focus in my applications if it means maximizing my chances at admission, but I am also wondering if I should just broadly be less focused/specialized in my statement of purpose/application at large. 

A second concern is that the vast majority of the places in which I have spoken to professors have I recommended that I just apply for an MA rather than a PhD. Is it just usually the case that undergrads don't get offers for PhDs, or should I just go for it and apply anyways? 

That was a lot, and for that I apologize. I appreciate all of the help I can get. 

[xypathos]

If you're wanting to do Islamic art/expression, you could go off and do several fields - art history, history, religious studies, etc.

A decently funded MA, at a school that'll have resources for your area, will be hard to come by. You can certainly expect some funding but north of 80% is lucky, probably closer to 40-50% if you take into account the real costs of the MA.

Going straight into a PhD post-undergrad is not the norm for significant chunks of the humanities. For a field such as yours, that sounds even more interdisciplinary than most - that's probably even more so going to be the case.

You could, easily probably, do a MTS at Harvard Divinity and focus on Islamic Studies, catering courses to your focus. I'd probably look at several large universities like Harvard, Yale, Chicago, etc that would allow you to leverage resources from multiple areas.

[Averroes MD]

On 9/12/2019 at 11:44 PM, xypathos said:

If you're wanting to do Islamic art/expression, you could go off and do several fields - art history, history, religious studies, etc.

A decently funded MA, at a school that'll have resources for your area, will be hard to come by. You can certainly expect some funding but north of 80% is lucky, probably closer to 40-50% if you take into account the real costs of the MA.

Going straight into a PhD post-undergrad is not the norm for significant chunks of the humanities. For a field such as yours, that sounds even more interdisciplinary than most - that's probably even more so going to be the case.

You could, easily probably, do a MTS at Harvard Divinity and focus on Islamic Studies, catering courses to your focus. I'd probably look at several large universities like Harvard, Yale, Chicago, etc that would allow you to leverage resources from multiple areas.

Good advice.