Fall 2017

[igotangels]

Congrats to the Courtauld admit! Care to share your option? 

Just one more month for many of us MA applicants - best of luck!

[rheya19]

There was some mention about USC a couple weeks ago. Does anyone know if their decisions are out? (I'm looking to work with the archaeology folk there, if that makes a difference.)

[baddie]

Such a busy day for the results page.. 

[skydancer]

Does anyone else feel like the results process is just slightly delayed from previous years? I honestly wonder if the national turmoil resulting from cheeto-mussolini delayed some preliminary readings and committee meetings.  Or maybe I'm just paranoid and looking for more things to blame on our political state.

Anyways, it's been quiet here! How's everyone holding up? What are you reading now? What's the best exhibition you've seen recently?  I'd like to give a shout out to the Art of the Qur'an at the Freer|Sackler, an especially relevant exhibition these days, and stunningly beautiful.  

[la_bouche22]

6 hours ago, skydancer said:

Does anyone else feel like the results process is just slightly delayed from previous years? I honestly wonder if the national turmoil resulting from cheeto-mussolini delayed some preliminary readings and committee meetings.  Or maybe I'm just paranoid and looking for more things to blame on our political state.

Anyways, it's been quiet here! How's everyone holding up? What are you reading now? What's the best exhibition you've seen recently?  I'd like to give a shout out to the Art of the Qur'an at the Freer|Sackler, an especially relevant exhibition these days, and stunningly beautiful.  

Hi! I agree with you. There's a general delay that I also seem to ascribe to the political climate. UCSC, for instance, is almost a whole month late, that is, unless I wasn't admitted and noone's updated the results board. 

Which application is causing most of the anxiety?

I want to read something that's well written, has a solid narrative, and is set in a fascist context. The writer, experienced with words, a historian at heart. Would you, by any chance, have any ideas? I'm mostly reading long form articles these days...

 

[moonshineacademy]

Looks like several people were waitlisted at Pitt. Anyone who got accepted not planning on attending? 

[skydancer]

Congrats to all the admits today!!

I shouldn't be too too anxious now as I'm applying to masters programs and not phds. The plan is to get a masters, work for a few years, and go back or not as my career demands and interests focus.  Right now there are too many subjects I'm interested in for me to pick a PhD program!  Still, there were a couple places that had released some masters acceptances by now and I'm ready to have a response or two while I wait for my top choice programs to respond in early-mid March. (I'd love to hear back from the Courtauld soon, ack! ...but only if it's positive.....)

So, it's funny you ask for those books. I just went to a talk last night at the Holocaust Museum, with six writers dealing with the inheritance of trauma-memory.  They spoke about post-memory, non-archival memory, and their searches for people lost to fascism.  Quiet Americans by Erika Dreifus is a collection of short stories set during World War II and inspired by her grandfather's moments.  Paper Love by Sarah Wildman deals with her search for her grandfather's true love, whom he had to leave behind in Warsaw, and There Was and There Was Not by Meline Toumani grapples with the Armenian genocide, Turkish denial thereof, and what that means for her as an Armenian-American.  If you want a full novel, The Sympathizer or The Refugees by Thiet Van Nguyen just won tons of awards, and Han Kang's new book Human Acts (she wrote The Vegetarian which won the International Booker Prize and I would highly recommend for magical surrealism and subtle, disturbing feminism) explores the ramifications of a violent student uprising in South Korea, and is a very slim novel that you could get through quickly.

[jessieluna19]

On 1/31/2017 at 2:52 PM, VAMuseum25 said:

Thank you so much for your advice & for sharing your personal experience with the Courtauld. I chose the option "Continuity and Innovation: Reframing Italian Renaissance Art from Masaccio to Michelangelo". And like you said, I already have two positive answers, at UCL and St Andrews, so even more reasons not to let the pressure get to me too much. We might not end up being a right fit in the end, so I'll definitely be asking them questions as well to get a better idea of what the program is really like. For my MA I would like to specialize on female art patrons of the Italian Renaissance, which I've already started looking into while doing an undergrad independent study (something to mention). Thank you so much for your help!

Hey there! I'm currently in the Continuity and Innovation course for the 2016-2017 school year. I'm happy to give you tips on the Skype interview. They tend to reference your application and ask more detailed questions about it. They will also quiz you on images from the Renaissance. Regardless of whether you know them or not, you should do your best to connect them to works/artists/movements that you DO know, and express your skills of visual analysis to the best of your abilities. Do let me know if you have more questions about the interview or course in general! 

[VAMuseum25]

@jessieluna19 Thank you so much for your advice! It went much better than expected, I think

[la_bouche22]

@skydancer I settled on Orwell's Homage to Catalonia for now. But will definitely look into Thiet Van Nguyen's work. Thank you--that was super resourceful!

[MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou]

On 2/9/2017 at 1:55 PM, la_bouche22 said:

Hi! I agree with you. There's a general delay that I also seem to ascribe to the political climate. UCSC, for instance, is almost a whole month late, that is, unless I wasn't admitted and noone's updated the results board. 

Which application is causing most of the anxiety?

I want to read something that's well written, has a solid narrative, and is set in a fascist context. The writer, experienced with words, a historian at heart. Would you, by any chance, have any ideas? I'm mostly reading long form articles these days...

 

Hi, la_bouche - I was accepted to UCSC yesterday. I think they did notify later than last year, and I fully expected to be rejected. Did you hear something? I hope so!

[skydancer]

Does anyone have any thoughts/feelings about the University of Oregon's MA program? I'm one of the admits and while the research fit is pretty perfect, I'm having some trouble discerning the general reputation of their program and where their MA grads end up. Feel free to PM me if you'd like! 

[la_bouche22]

4 hours ago, MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou said:

Hi, la_bouche - I was accepted to UCSC yesterday. I think they did notify later than last year, and I fully expected to be rejected. Did you hear something? I hope so!

Hi @MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou

Congratulations! I saw your post on the results board. I can't say I heard anything. I thought I was a good fit though, so I'm not sure what happened. Anyway, I'm happy for you! What's your area? Are you, by any chance, an international student? I wanted to work with Tj Demos... oh well.

[MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou]

5 minutes ago, la_bouche22 said:

Hi @MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou

Congratulations! I saw your post on the results board. I can't say I heard anything. I thought I was a good fit though, so I'm not sure what happened. Anyway, I'm happy for you! What's your area? Are you, by any chance, an international student? I wanted to work with Tj Demos... oh well.

Thanks so much! I'm sorry you didn't hear. :-( I hope your app season is going well otherwise?

I'm American - I actually live in NorCal right now (did my master's here). My area is contemporary, particularly American identity and memory. My advisor is Derek Conrad Murray. 

I must say this was my second year applying to most of my chosen schools (including UCSC), so if you happen to need to reapply next year, it is certainly worth doing so at Santa Cruz. My conversation with the DGS was fantastic - she was so pleasant and welcoming.

[la_bouche22]

@MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou It's going slow...painfully so. Thankfully I did get admitted to the University of Toronto with funding. Top notch faculty, but not the cold. My top choice was NYU, but these went out already and I heard nothing. I was excited about UCSC too, given the emphasis on ecology. I'll wait and see what was the matter, I guess... I suppose round two may be in the stars for me too.

I imagine UCSC to be a progressive hub where you can make solid connections of friends, intellectual and political comrades. Do you think you'll take it?

 

Edited February 15, 2017 by la_bouche22

[feelthebern16]

I just saw the columbia posts on the boards so I figured I'd ask here in case anyone knew. Did any of the Columbia people receive official notices yet? feel free to private message me thanks 

[waiting1111]

hey guys, any courtauld applicant still waiting? heard nothing since the submission, looking at post from past year first round of result should be out by this time. Does that mean first option decision are already all out ? 

[elisewin]

Columbia admitted here. I only got a phone call from my POI and an email from the Department inviting me to the open house.

[VAMuseum25]

@waiting1111 I'm still waiting as well. Hopefully we'll hear something soon, either good or bad. I interviewed for my first choice but haven't heard back yet

Edited February 16, 2017 by VAMuseum25

[la_bouche22]

@MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou I got in!!!

[MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou]

17 minutes ago, la_bouche22 said:

@MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou I got in!!!

CONGRATS! Are you going to the admitted students day?

[la_bouche22]

@MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou I doubt it. It's a long, long way for me and I'll be in Thailand just a week prior. Also, can't take an extra week off work + dent in my tiny pocket.

Will you let me know how it goes?

[MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou]

19 minutes ago, la_bouche22 said:

@MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou I doubt it. It's a long, long way for me and I'll be in Thailand just a week prior. Also, can't take an extra week off work + dent in my tiny pocket.

Will you let me know how it goes?

Oh, are you international?

[la_bouche22]

@MaytheSchwartzBeWithYou totally.

[Storico dellArte]

Congratulations to all admitted candidates (and fingers crossed for all who are still waiting)! I was also accepted at Columbia. So far I have been called by my POI and have received a letter from the Department. I probably also won't be able to make it to the Open House (I'm an international student). But they certainly put a lot of effort into this event, in particular their current second years who emailed me with more details.

I also got into Yale. Any thoughts on the differences between Columbia and Yale? International student here, so totally new to the American system and both universities have, of course, a great reputation. However, it seems that Columbia requires a lot of teaching, while Yale provides better funding for less teaching. But then New Haven seems to have a lot of social tensions, and New York certainly offers endless opportunities to network within the art world. What do people think about Yale versus Columbia? Any thoughts would be appreciated!