Catholic University of America

[JeremiahParadise]

Hi, recipient of admission offer from CUA! Congrats! Now, who are you? I haven't seen many folks on here who are interested in CUA, so I'm wondering what you're studying and how you managed to navigate their website! It drives me crazy. Tab after tab after tab. Bleh. Anyway, would love to hear. Thanks.

[hawkeye7269]

Hi! That was me.

I haven't seen one solitary mention of CUA on here thus far, for whatever reason - I know it's not a highly 'ranked' program, according to the US News and World Report, but that's an exercise in subjectivity if ever there was one. Nonetheless, I was particularly attracted to Catholic University because it's a sensible successor to my UG alma mater, Providence College. So that's how I first got interested (I don't have a MA).

I'm a Renaissance Lit. person myself, particularly Milton. I've been doing more traditional methods of scholarship, versus theory oriented approaches, which was another thing that attracted me to CUA - there are professors there who are solidly interested in old school methods. Also, there's a number of Renaissance professors there (including a Miltonist) who's writings I liked a lot.

Hmm, not sure what else to say - I'm just glad that I got accepted somewhere I was really interested in going. And I didn't have to apply to a dozen programs to do it. And that they seemed to like that my UG degrees are in Biology and History, not English. Are you interested in CUA?

[tamarasager722]

I applied there! But I haven't heard from them yet.

[hawkeye7269]

Awesome! You're the only other person I've heard of applying there thus far. What's your area? I hope you get in!

[tamarasager722]

My area is American Lit pre-1865 haha the Puritan stuff not many people seem to enjoy. I still have yet to hear from them, but I have my fingers crossed. I hope you get in too!

[hawkeye7269]

See, I like that area of literature. I'm a Miltonist in terms of my primary interest, but I still love 19th century American, and the earlier stuff. I'm from New England, so I spent a lot of time learning all that stuff growing up, and coming to love writers like Melville and Fenimore Cooper. So I definitely appreciate and enjoy what you research.

I actually have been accepted at Catholic, and I plan on going. Any word for you yet?

[short22]

I recently got accepted into Catholic as well, with no notification of funding. I heard that funding letters go out separately... did anyone hear back about funding yet? Also, if you did receive funding, did it come up on your cardinal station under financial aid or anything? I am constantly checking on there to see if anything changes.

[hawkeye7269]

I was notified of my funding along with the acceptance, because I got a TAship (which is an awkward word). So they outlined the tuition remition, stipend, etc, right there in the initial email. Cardinal Station doesn't have any of that information, though, so I imagine whatever funding you get won't appear on there until well on in the process - you'll likely hear by email or phone first.

Good luck with all that! Are you very interested in going to CUA? What's your area?

[JeremiahParadise]

Congrats, all who've been accepted! I'm really looking forward to applying, but I'm afraid the program's website will kill me. I remember applying for my MA in 2008 (didn't end up going there) and having the hardest time with the website. Tabs n tabs n tabs.

[hawkeye7269]

Once you actually get to the application, it's all just one window/program, which is pretty widely used by schools. So that won't be too bad! But yeah, aren't all college websites bad? Notoriously so?

[Mattd4488]

I applied to CUA last year to do a PhD in Moral Theology. I was accepted, but just missed getting funding. (Apparently, the department only had one scholarship to offer, and it went to the guy ahead of me after the guy ahead of him turned it down.) I deferred my acceptance after a professor told me that he was "confident" that I'd get an offer of funding from them the following year. They just e-mailed me saying that they've reassessed my application and that they are "optimistic" about funding prospects, but will not be certain until they hear from the university how much money they'll have to offer.

Having lived in DC for over half a year now, I've found out that my experience of getting in without funding is rather typical of CUA. Well, hopefully things work out this second time around. If not, I'll have to go somewhere else. I can't wait around for another year.