As many of my readers are already aware, since I have mentioned it in various places, unless something goes horribly wrong at the last minute, I am going to graduate from Indiana University Bloomington with my BA in history and classical studies (Latin/Greek), with an honors thesis in history, on 7 May 2022. I am naturally very excited about my upcoming graduation and the completion of my degree that I have worked so hard for.
In December 2021, I applied to four PhD programs in ancient history: the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate Group in Ancient History (GGAH), the University of Michigan’s Interdepartmental Program in Ancient History (IPAH), the Princeton University classics department’s Program in the Ancient World (PAW), and the University of Chicago classics department’s graduate track in ancient history. Later, in February of this year, acting partly on the advice of one of my professors, I applied to Brandeis University’s terminal MA program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies as a backup plan in case I was not accepted to any of the PhD programs.
I have now officially heard back from all the graduate school programs to which I applied. I would therefore like to update my readers on how the process went and give some information about what I will most likely be doing this upcoming fall semester.
As I am sure many of my readers are aware, ancient history is a very small field with limited funding. Programs in it are inevitably quite small compared to many other fields. Additionally, the PhD programs I applied to are all among the most exclusive and difficult-to-get-into programs in the world. Each of these programs is usually only able to enroll one or two new PhD students each year.
I knew from the very beginning that there was a decently high likelihood that none of the PhD programs I applied to would accept me. One of my Greek language and literature professors at IU, Dr. Bill Beck, recommended to me that I apply to some terminal MA programs in addition to PhD programs. He told me that he went straight from his bachelor’s degree to his PhD program and he really wished he had gotten a terminal MA first.
He told me it would give me an opportunity to expand my network and make connections with faculty and graduate students at another university, it would give me more time to improve my abilities in Greek and Latin, give me a chance to take more courses on areas of ancient history that neither IU nor whichever university I end up going to for my PhD will offer courses on, and allow me to improve my chances of being accepted into a top PhD program.
I researched several different terminal MA programs and ultimately decided that I would only apply to one of them: Brandeis University’s MA program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies, which I decided that I really liked for a variety of reasons. For instance, among other things, I liked that the faculty seemed especially committed to reforming the field that has been known as “classics,” to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, to moving away from the classism and white supremacy that have been so intertwined with the history of the field, and to promoting public scholarship.
I also liked that the program offers courses both in Greek and Latin languages and literature and in ancient Greek and Roman history and cultures and that it allows an unusual degree of flexibility for students to choose the areas in which they want to focus and to what extent. The other MA programs I looked at, by contrast, were all generally quite philology-focused and did not have nearly as much flexibility. I probably could have done well in a philology-focused program, given my already-strong background in the Greek and Latin languages, but that’s not what I decided that I wanted.
I also liked that Brandeis has a very large department in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies (NEJS), it regularly offers courses that are available to graduate students about the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible, and at least two instructors are shared between the classical studies and NEJS departments. As people who have been reading my blog for a while are doubtlessly aware, I have a very strong secondary interest in the ancient Near East and am interested in exploring connections between the Near East and Greece.
In the meantime, while I was thinking about all this, I was starting to hear things from the PhD programs I had applied to. On 7 January, I received an email from Dr. Julia Wilker, the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s GGAH, in which she informed me that the admissions committee had had its first round of meetings, that they were “very interested in [my] application,” and that they wanted to meet with me over Zoom “to learn more about [my] plans for graduate school and [my] scholarly interests” and to give me an opportunity to ask questions about their program.
Thus, on 14 January, I had a meeting over Zoom with Dr. Wilker and Dr. Jeremy McInerney from Penn. Overall, I think that the interview went ok. Dr. Wilker and Dr. McInerney both said some things during the meeting that gave me the impression that they really liked me, that they were impressed by my writing sample, and that they both thought that I would be an excellent fit for their program. Nonetheless, I was extremely nervous for the meeting because it was my first time ever being interviewed for any kind of academic program and I don’t think I gave the best performance that I could have given.
They both told me that I should feel free to email them if I had any more questions, so I exchanged a few emails with both of them afterward, asking questions that I hadn’t had time to ask them during the meeting and clarifying a few of the things that I had said that I felt needed clarifying.
On the evening of 28 January, I received a form email from Dr. Ian Moyer, the interim director of the University of Michigan’s IPAH, informing me that this year IPAH had “a very competitive pool of applicants, with a large number of highly qualified candidates whose interests are well suited to the resources of our program,” but, unfortunately, they will only be able to enroll a total of two students into their PhD program this year and that they would not be able to make me an offer of admission.
I left a brief, courteous reply thanking him for letting me know. I was not expecting a response, but he actually sent me a personal reply in which he complemented my writing sample, saying that he had greatly enjoyed reading it, and told me he really hoped that I would find admittance to another program of my choice, which I thought was very thoughtful of him.
Three days later, late in the afternoon on 31 January, I received notification from the University of Chicago that they would not be able to make me an offer of admission. Seeing at this point that two of the four PhD programs I had applied to had already informed me that they would not be making me any offers of admission and that I still hadn’t heard anything definite back from Penn or Princeton, on 15 February, I submitted my application to the MA program at Brandeis as a backup plan.
I heard back from Brandeis surprisingly quickly. I received notification on 28 February that I had been accepted, which was a huge relief, because it meant that I had at least been accepted somewhere. The next day, on the evening of 1 March, on the advice of my ancient Greek history professor Dr. Eric W. Robinson, I sent an email to Dr. Wilker to inquire about the status of my application. The next morning, on 2 March, I received official notification from Princeton informing me that they would not be making me an offer of admission.
Later, that afternoon, Dr. Wilker emailed me back to inform me that she was sorry to say that “at this point” they would not be able to make me an offer of admission. Nonetheless, she assured me that the admissions committee “very much liked [my] application” and that she and Dr. McInerney “enjoyed the Zoom conversation” they had with me back in January. She added: “. . . while we are not in the position to pursue this further for now, please don’t hesitate to be in touch again with any questions or concerns, now or in the future.”
I emailed her back to tell her that I had not been accepted to any of the other PhD programs I had applied to, but that I had been accepted to Brandeis’s terminal MA program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies and that I was planning to apply to PhD programs again after finishing the MA. She replied:
“Congratulations on getting accepted for the Brandeis MA! This is such a terrific program, and I’m sure you will thrive there. It will also make you a very strong applicant for any PhD program afterward. I very much hope you’ll apply to Penn again. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out again with any questions you may have.”
I received an official letter notifying me that Penn would not be able to make me an offer of admission on 17 March.
Given these events, I have decided to accept the offer of admission to the MA program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at Brandeis in fall of this year. Obviously, I am disappointed that I was not accepted to any of the PhD programs I applied to, but I can see myself flourishing in the MA program at Brandeis and, in the long run, this may be for the best.
I am planning to apply to PhD programs again after I have completed the MA. I am planning to apply for more programs than I did this time when I make my next round of applications. If I am not accepted to any PhD programs the second time around, I will leave academia and see if I can find a career doing something else, hopefully doing something connected in some way to ancient history.
In the meantime, I still have almost exactly one month left of my time here at IU Bloomington. In that time, I will be writing final papers for my courses. I will also be finishing up my honors thesis, which is about the religious practices of the Galloi (i.e., a group of mendicant, self-castrated, feminine-presenting devotees of the Phrygian mother goddess Kybele) in Hellenistic Asia Minor in the third and second centuries BCE.
I am very excited about what I am writing and, although my thesis is almost finished, I will most likely be spending quite a lot of time over the next few weeks working on it. I may therefore be busy in the coming weeks and, as a result, may post on this blog less frequently.
It’s all very exciting, and though it’s disappointing not to be admitted to a PhD straightaway, it may well be much better for you in the long term. You’ll end up with a really broad, strong base from which to make your next round of PhD applications. (And you got positive feedback too.)
Good luck!
Thank you so much!
Congratulations and best of luck with your future endeavors! Keep the faith in yourself, you are bound for great things, you show natural talents and anywhere you choose to go will be lucky to have you join them.
Thank you! I appreciate your words of support.
Good luck with your next steps in the studies you are pursuing. All those efforts will certainly have a good outcome:)
In order to better prepare the Future, it is necessary to better know the Past, and nothing fits this aim more accurately than analysing Ancient History in depth.
Thank you so much! I appreciate your optimism, but I am still always aware that the job prospects in academia are utterly abysmal and basically nonexistent.
Congratulations with your acceptance into the MA program. I agree with Dino Karas that this may well end up to be for the better, very much like your IU professor, Dr. Bill Beck, also suggested.
Btw, I don’t know to what extent you’re open for continuing your studies oversees, but if so, have you heard of the Ancient History and Classics Civilization department at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands? They, too, have an acclaimed department in that area:
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/education/study-programmes/master/classics-and-ancient-civilizations
Thank you for your congratulatory words! That being said, I am not currently interested in moving to another country for a PhD program, since moving to another country would inevitably bring extra obstacles and complications and the United States has some of the most reputable ancient history PhD programs in the world. I just don’t see any incentive to move to another country to acquire an education that I could just as easily obtain in my home country. Also, I don’t know Dutch and, although I am aware that most Dutch people speak English, I figure that not knowing Dutch would probably be a bit of an obstacle to me living in the Netherlands and studying at a university there full-time.
You make some excellent points regarding the language barrier in Dutch academia (or European schools in general), and perhaps it’s a more distinct challenge at the doctorate level. But my step-daughter, who speaks no other language than English, achieved a master’s degree in food design (her B.A. was in Culinary Arts) from a university in Milan, which included a six-month internship with a company in Arnhem, Netherlands. While this is hardly the academically challenging atmosphere your discipline exhibits, I urge you to take another look at this opportunity as you approach completion of your next degree.
Finally, I truly enjoy reading your posts and I’m always pleasantly surprised when one shows up in my inbox. I hope you will continue to entertain and challenge your devoted cadre of readers. I wish you all possible success.
Congratulations on getting into the MA programme at least! In time, you will go far, I know it. I will be jostling in the queue to buy your first publication!
Thank you so much! I imagine my first publication will most likely be a paper in an academic journal somewhere, so it may not be something you can really go out and “buy,” but I certainly appreciate the sentiment.
I was more thinking of books aimed at the general public (albeit a demographic with certain interests). If you decide to go into that field, I’m sure you will do well. Your writing style is so engaging!
Thank you once again! I am glad you like my writing style; I am always trying to improve it.
Ah, I remember the process well. Very frustrating. Since you have chosen a small field you will face very tall odds, which I am sure you already recognize. Please note that this does not necessarily reflect upon you or your studies as there are many, many criteria that are being considered for each applicant.
It is my hope, whether or not you get into a Ph.D. program or an academic position that you will become a popularizer of ancient history. Your writing is exemplary, your interest level is very high, and the need is great.
Please keep us updated on your progress.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate your positive feedback and I will certainly continue to make updates on this blog as matters progress and my situation changes.
Sorry to hear you were not accepted to a PhD programme, but I am glad you can still continue your studies at a higher level. Good luck!
Thanks!
Congrats on the MA program! I’ve been through that PhD process myself and also was not accepted to several programs. I did get my MA (Anthropology, with focus on gender, Southeast Asia studies, and the anthropology of pseudo-science) but could not progress and I instead went into teaching with an idea that I might build a publication history further before re-applying. Then I got a government job offer outside of academia and ended up taking that. It also did not work out well. Ten+ years later, I now own a game company and publishing house. Shrug. So, weird stuff happens but it works out eventually. I love your blog though, and wish you the very best.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoy my blog and I appreciate you sharing your own experience. It’s always reassuring to hear about people with background in the academic humanities finding success in other areas.
Spencer, thanks for the update on your illustrious academic career. Don’t be forlorn about the PhD rejections, I know you’ll thrive at Brandeis.
Best wishes in your graduate school endeavors. I hope that you continue to write and publish your blog. It is excellent.
First off, sympathies or whatever is the best/most appropriate respect for your disappointment. I didn’t even know one could go from a bachelor’s straight to a PhD program. On to excitement about Brandeis — congrats and good luck. You’ve painted it in such fascinating colors, which I am sure are all accurate. I have one good HS friend who went there. TBH all I know about it is that at the time it was the most expensive school in the country, I believe, so I hope you’re getting good financial aid.
Thank you so much! I appreciate your kind words and your concern. As you have noted here, Brandeis is indeed very expensive, but they are offering me considerable financial aid. I will admit that the financial aid is not nearly as much as I had hoped it would be, but, if I remember correctly and I am not mistaken, they are offering me enough money in scholarships to cover a little less than half the total projected cost of tuition for the degree.
More congratulations on your acceptance to Brandeis and its program. I am sorry to read that your Ph.D applications were not successful (THIS time). But I am happy to hear that your studies can continue. I once worked as a Graduate Program Coordinator at the Univ. of Texas at Austin (French & Italian dept.) so I am well acquainted with the challenges of gaining admission to small graduate programs with limited funding available. (I was not a faculty member, I was only a university staffer working in support of the academic dept.) Many extremely qualified candidates fail to gain admission through no failing of their own whatsoever. Sometimes there are many subjective reasons involved in the decision making, there are background issues among the dept., their are the personal foibles and biases of the Admissions Committee professors — and not infrequently, some applicants admitted fail to make the grade over the long haul. It’s a very imperfect system. So don’t feel down about it, you will do well in the MA program and perhaps advance beyond that in a few years after all. If that’s what you choose to pursue. Curious, why would you leave academia if you only achieve an MA? Would you not be interested in teaching, or other opportunities you’d be well qualified for?
By “academia” I mean higher education. A PhD is basically a minimum requirement in order to become an academic. Moreover, the academic job market is utterly abysmal right now and it is inexorably growing even worse, so only a tiny minority of those with PhDs in a given field are likely to ever find tenure-track employment in that field anyway. If someone wants to even stand a chance on the academic job market, they don’t just need a PhD, but a PhD from a top program. If I can’t even get accepted into a top PhD program even after earning an MA, I figure that means that I’m just not a good fit for academia and that I should find a different career path. As a backup plan, if I can’t get into any PhD programs, I may try to become a high school history teacher.
Ah, I see. Understood! I truly sympathize, it was a hard row for our French and Italian grad students to find jobs at the college level, too, and that was ten years ago. The lucky ones found teaching posts (if not tenure-track ones) at smaller universities or private colleges (including some overseas); a few went to public school districts; others spun off into the private sector. (I’d like to think a few went into foreign service, but I can’t say for sure.) The life of a lecturer or Assistant is a thankless one, ofttimes. I know several professors at the university level who are always scraping for their next job or in some cases have given up entirely, and resigned themselves to a “day job” if only for the sake of a pension someday. Wherever you may end up, I am confident you will excel. Any high school would be privileged to have you (and it’s a shame hardly any of them offer Latin, let alone Greek, as a language course). Stay the course; durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis!
Congratulations dude.
Thanks!
Congratulations!
Thanks!
Congratulations! You’re a gifted writer and very fortunate to have such good counsel to encourage you to hedge your bet. I’m very happy for you and excited to see where your journey takes you next.
Thank you so much! This is very kind of you.
Hey Spence! Thank you so much for the book suggestions on the Yahweh tablet post and also, I hope that your graduation plans are going well! I know that you’re going to shine out there!
Thank you so much, and you are welcome for the book recommendations! I am glad you found them helpful.
While I have had serious disagreement with you over the last couple of years of your blog, I am sorry you were not admitted to any of the Phd programs you applied for. I surmise that credential inflation means that masters degrees barely qualify one to apply to teach at a university these days. Still, you like the Brandeis program, so, as you write, it may be for the best. I’m sure you’ll make good use of your time there. Good luck on finding accommodations and making friends in Bean Town. I will find your impressions of your new home interesting.
Well done, Spencer!
The Brandeis course sounds like perfect deep preparation for Ph.D. studies and a great step up. The positive, if unsuccessful applications for doctoral studies also help you keep your foot in the door.
Every good wish in the unfolding future,
Ian
Hi
Like everybody else I really enjoy your blogs. They are shining examples of how knowledge of the ancient world can help us understand the modern world. Good luck with this next step in your education and life.
Mark
What is your career goal?
Well, ideally, I would like to become a professor of ancient Greek history, but, as I mention in one of my comments above, the number of extraordinarily brilliant and talented people with PhDs in any given field in the humanities who are competing for tenure-track positions vastly exceeds the number of tenure-track positions in that field that are open or that will become open. As a result of this, the vast majority of people with PhDs in any given humanities field will never end up in a tenure-track position and it really just comes down to sheer luck who ends up getting one.
On top of this, the job market is only growing inexorably worse each year as universities are steadily downsizing or even outright dissolving their humanities departments entirely. When an old tenured professor retires or passes away, the university will often decide not to hire a new tenure-track professor to replace them and to instead simply put the burden of teaching onto the already-overworked remaining faculty, onto adjuncts who are paid poverty wages, or onto graduate students who are paid poverty wages or may not even be paid at all.
Yeah, that’s pretty much all standard procedure though the zoom interview indicates that you made it to the final (or at least, one of the final) round so you should be proud of that. I’m glad you got into a good MA program though I feel bad for you since you run a fairly popular blog that has gotten good feedback from people who have worked in Ancient History for ages and so would have had a large competitive advantage over everyone else. NORMALLY, only people who already have master’s degrees are granted admission into Ph.D. programs. I think I only knew one or two people from my undergrad days who were admitted directly. My one friend graduated magna and he couldn’t get into anywhere higher than a terminal MA program. Things more or less worked out for me but U Mich is notoriously difficult even for 4.0 students to get into so don’t feel too bad. I knew a girl in high school who got straight A’s who couldn’t get in there: as an undergrad! Once again good luck on your future.
Very sorry to hear that you were rejected (this time). But congratulations on being accepted to Brandeis.
I greatly enjoy reading your blog. I’ve learned a great deal about ancient history from you.
Thank you so much! I have several more articles that I should be publishing within the next week.
Hi, I read your post about Schliemann and you mention that “his favourite ‘tool’ was dynamite” dynamite. Having read some of his excavation logs, I find no mention of dynamite or explosions. I find the claim that he literally blew his way down quite extraordinary, even for his character. It is a claim I have heard several places but never seen backed up with sources. Where did you get the info from?
Thanks in advance, Linus.
Schliemann post: https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/09/24/heinrich-schliemann-debunked/
Schliemann’s excavation logs (I only read Assault on Hisserlik and searched the entire biography for mentions of dynamite and explosions): https://archive.org/details/memoirsofheinric00deue/page/124/mode/2up?view=theater&q=explosion
Congratulations on your acceptance to the MA program! While not what you’d originally planned it still sounds like a wonderful next step, and who knows where it will lead in the future. I believe you have a very bright future ahead and look forward to continuing to follow your progress and learn from your growing knowledge of the ancient world!
Thank you so much! This is very kind of you!
I was going to say that someday, when you have your PhD, the field will be richer for your presence in it, but honestly, that’s already the case, just from the wonderful work you’ve put into this blog.
Congratulations on your upcoming graduation, and your acceptance into the MA program! I myself am on track to graduate with my BA in History this June and hope to go on to get my MA in ancient history within the next couple years–I have no doubt that by then, you’ll be well on your way to that PhD.
Thank you so much! I certainly hope things work out, both for you and for myself. Good luck!