MTS/MA: How to be a more competitive candidate?

[memoriah_7]

I recently made a career change from pre-law to religious/Islamic studies. Places like HDS, Columbia, etc. are perfect but I am very new to this field and desperately want to make my resume look better.

BA: Social Policy

BA: Philosophy (my undergrad was 5 years because I did two degrees)

independent study: Islamic Philosophy

Senior thesis related to U.S. Muslims won me an honorable mention at one conference and granted me membership to a religious studies symposium.

Graduated: 2022

GPA: 3.8

SUMMARY: Muslim activism experience:

I want to study gender and Islam, and have some advocacy work in the area. I held a lot of leaderships positions in feminist conference planning and numerous social justice student organizations. I am also facilitator for a Muslim womens book club, started a Muslim Womens Caucus at my college (a State school), created a Muslim Feminism panel event, and am a volunteer administrator for a Muslim Autism Resources group at my mosque. I have also been very involved for the past some years getting my local Muslim community to vote in elections through another Muslim non profit as a canvass organizer for several years, and overall I have held multiple internships positions at social justice non profits.

 

HDS Mts has exactly everything I’d love in order to study gender and Islamic Philosophy. I am looking at other Ivies as well for religious studies, and am currently taking a beginner Arabic class at a nearby college while I work in another Muslim non profit and museum. 
 

what makes an applicant stand out? What can I do to increase my chances when I apply for Fall 2024? I know my background is not really relevant, but what do these divinity schools prefer?

Edited September 7, 2023 by memoriah_7

[kor_to_nola]

On 9/6/2023 at 9:43 PM, memoriah_7 said:

I recently made a career change from pre-law to religious/Islamic studies. Places like HDS, Columbia, etc. are perfect but I am very new to this field and desperately want to make my resume look better.

BA: Social Policy

BA: Philosophy (my undergrad was 5 years because I did two degrees)

independent study: Islamic Philosophy

Senior thesis related to U.S. Muslims won me an honorable mention at one conference and granted me membership to a religious studies symposium.

Graduated: 2022

GPA: 3.8

SUMMARY: Muslim activism experience:

I want to study gender and Islam, and have some advocacy work in the area. I held a lot of leaderships positions in feminist conference planning and numerous social justice student organizations. I am also facilitator for a Muslim womens book club, started a Muslim Womens Caucus at my college (a State school), created a Muslim Feminism panel event, and am a volunteer administrator for a Muslim Autism Resources group at my mosque. I have also been very involved for the past some years getting my local Muslim community to vote in elections through another Muslim non profit as a canvass organizer for several years, and overall I have held multiple internships positions at social justice non profits.

 

HDS Mts has exactly everything I’d love in order to study gender and Islamic Philosophy. I am looking at other Ivies as well for religious studies, and am currently taking a beginner Arabic class at a nearby college while I work in another Muslim non profit and museum. 
 

what makes an applicant stand out? What can I do to increase my chances when I apply for Fall 2024? I know my background is not really relevant, but what do these divinity schools prefer?

I would believe you to be already in good shape. The key would be to come up with a good SOP, and to have it match with your application materials like CV, recommendation letters etc. Every school has different focus and measure, so make sure you check them out. I would also recommend to look further and deeper around, since there are lots of Middle Eastern departments. 

One thing I would ask is that, what are you exactly wanting to do after you get the degree? Do you want to go into the academic field of Critical academic study of Islamic history or Modern Islamic history and international relations? Or do you want to do work for Muslim non-profits? I'm not well versed around Islam topics and studies, but I would imagine an academic research job and a non-profit job to be very different fields which would require very different skill sets and knowledge. This also has great impact on how you should present yourself as an applicant, since it has effect in how you form your SOP story. If you want to do Muslim non-profit, simply describing what you've been doing, and presenting yourself wanting to do similar work in the future would suffice, but if you want to do research work, then that would take some extra thinking to make your non-profit work experience and research work as a coherent trajectory.

If you want to do non-profit work, then finding a Divinity School that could offer you some training opportunities might be more crucial. Applying to Divinity schools will probably be your best bet, since they have lower admissions competition, more scholarship, and often times lower tuition rates compared to other MA programs that are held within Middle Eastern Graduate Schools. When you look for programs, make sure to look at their course offerings, the actual amount of courses offered might be different, and may not meet your needs. 

[memoriah_7]

1 hour ago, kor_to_nola said:

I would believe you to be already in good shape. The key would be to come up with a good SOP, and to have it match with your application materials like CV, recommendation letters etc. Every school has different focus and measure, so make sure you check them out. I would also recommend to look further and deeper around, since there are lots of Middle Eastern departments. 

One thing I would ask is that, what are you exactly wanting to do after you get the degree? Do you want to go into the academic field of Critical academic study of Islamic history or Modern Islamic history and international relations? Or do you want to do work for Muslim non-profits? I'm not well versed around Islam topics and studies, but I would imagine an academic research job and a non-profit job to be very different fields which would require very different skill sets and knowledge. This also has great impact on how you should present yourself as an applicant, since it has effect in how you form your SOP story. If you want to do Muslim non-profit, simply describing what you've been doing, and presenting yourself wanting to do similar work in the future would suffice, but if you want to do research work, then that would take some extra thinking to make your non-profit work experience and research work as a coherent trajectory.

If you want to do non-profit work, then finding a Divinity School that could offer you some training opportunities might be more crucial. Applying to Divinity schools will probably be your best bet, since they have lower admissions competition, more scholarship, and often times lower tuition rates compared to other MA programs that are held within Middle Eastern Graduate Schools. When you look for programs, make sure to look at their course offerings, the actual amount of courses offered might be different, and may not meet your needs. 

Thank you so much for the advice!

and that’s the thing, I am interested in academic research in Islam and Gender Ethics, but I have more non profit experience than I do research, and that is why I am worried if a program like MTS at HDS would like me. My non profit experience is mainly because I was a pre law student before I decided on a career switch.

I do have some research experience in Muslim American sociology like mentioned in my original post, but then what more research experience can someone accumulate in philosophy once they’ve graduated?