Long-time followers of this blog may remember that, two years ago, during my senior year of undergrad at IU Bloomington, I applied to four different PhD programs in classics and ancient history. Unfortunately, although one program—the Graduate Group in Ancient History at Penn—did interview me and seems to have seriously considered me for admission, in the end, none of the programs I applied to made me an offer of admission. As a result, I entered the terminal MA program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at Brandeis University, which I had applied to as a backup option in case none of the PhD programs I applied to accepted me.
I am now in my second and final year in the program at Brandeis. I am in the process of finishing my master’s thesis and am on track to graduate with my MA in May of this year. In December of last year, I submitted PhD applications a second time for the current application cycle. This time, I applied to six different PhD programs. I had a much stronger application this time all around than I had the first time, including much stronger statements of purpose, a stronger writing sample, much greater experience, significantly stronger Greek and Latin, and an almost-complete MA. I was sincerely hoping to receive better results. Sadly, I now know the results of most of the applications I submitted and I am disappointed to say that, although there is still a possibility that one program may admit me, so far, my experience this time has not gone much better than it did the first time.
Continue reading “Update on My PhD Applications (March 10th, 2024)”