Catholic University of America for Master's Work?

[inprogress]

Is there anyone on here who has had some experience or interaction with CUA who would be willing to share their experience? I am especially interesting in the school's placement history in PhD programs and funding for MA students. I'm looking for M* programs in early/medieval Christianity with one or more faculty members working in Syriac and Coptic, and CUA has a faculty member working in each of my fields of interest. Also, I come from an evangelical background, so I think I would be more comfortable there than I would be in some secular departments. 

[menge]

I can only generally comment about CUA, but I believe it is a well regarded school though I have heard that funding can be on the low end. A couple other notes: in my experience, the opportunity to do a lot with a particular faculty member in a field of interest depends on a lot of things like required coursework, current course offerings, will the faculty member want to supervise an independent study, etc. It's great when this works out at the MA level, but it doesn't always. It may be worth asking what the chances are that you will be able to do some of the things you want there.

As an aside, have you looked at WMU's Medieval Institute? Not sure how the faculty might fit with your interests, but I know they do fund students.

[dr. t]

CUA's funding, last I checked, was fairly terrible. With respect to experience, I've heard mixed stories, but they tended towards the low end of acceptable. I'm not sure that a Catholic school would be that compatible with an evangelical background, but YMMV.

FWIW, I did my M* at Harvard Divinity in the History of Christianity on a 4/5 tuition package. I know other students received full tuition remission and a stipend.

Edited August 2, 2016 by telkanuru

[sacklunch]

I've heard mostly positive things regarding their program and placement. FWIW, I have interacted with half a dozen of their PhD students in related subfields at a few conferences (e.g. I was at the recent Syriac conference at CUA). I know one doctoral student at a R1 religion program who did a masters at CUA (though I don't remember what department they were in). If you want to do Syriac Christianity, CUA is currently the best place in this country. No other school has as many scholars working in the field (Butts at CUA was previously at Yale and Van Rompay is retired from Duke). The 'bad' part of this is that when the time comes to apply to doctoral programs, CUA might still have the best (only....?) program. It's no secret that CUA has little money for (fully) funding its doctoral students. I think most of them have to work on the side (or take out tons of loans) to complete the PhD. On the other hand, I know of two recent faculty hires at two great schools (with more funding than CUA) that may be of interest. At least one of them is a dedicated Syriac person and the other works quite some with Syriac sources. If you don't mind studying out of country, there are some other great options (which may be relatively 'cheap' too). PM me if you want some more info. 

Edited August 3, 2016 by sacklunch

[inprogress]

On 8/2/2016 at 9:01 AM, menge said:

I can only generally comment about CUA, but I believe it is a well regarded school though I have heard that funding can be on the low end. A couple other notes: in my experience, the opportunity to do a lot with a particular faculty member in a field of interest depends on a lot of things like required coursework, current course offerings, will the faculty member want to supervise an independent study, etc. It's great when this works out at the MA level, but it doesn't always. It may be worth asking what the chances are that you will be able to do some of the things you want there.

As an aside, have you looked at WMU's Medieval Institute? Not sure how the faculty might fit with your interests, but I know they do fund students.

I have looked at WMU. It looks like a solid program, but it doesn't look like they have anyone working in my areas of interest. 

[inprogress]

On 8/2/2016 at 9:25 AM, telkanuru said:

FWIW, I did my M* at Harvard Divinity in the History of Christianity on a 4/5 tuition package. I know other students received full tuition remission and a stipend.

I'm planning on sending an application to Harvard Divinity. I'm just looking for programs that are better suited to my current interests, and/or are less selective. I don't think my chances of getting into Harvard Div. are that great. 

Edited August 6, 2016 by inprogress

[sacklunch]

On 8/5/2016 at 10:58 PM, inprogress said:

I'm planning on sending an application to Harvard Divinity. I'm just looking for programs that are better suited to my current interests, and/or are less selective. I don't think my chances of getting into Harvard Div. are that great. 

It's different every year. But compared with most of the M* degrees at Harvard, the Divinity School has a very high acceptance rate. I believe for the MDiv, acceptance the rate varies between 40-60%. This means that, quite contrary to what many imagine, it may be easier to get into Harvard for an MDiv than getting into, say, a classics MA at a selective state school. Take heart, friend.