Loading...So, now finally to get to the question I was asked, which led me into a discussion of what our graduate program entails. Here was the original question
QUESTION: Can you write something about the background of your PhD students, how you selected them, what makes a prospective doctoral candidate stand out against the pack, whether there is a huge academic gulf between knowledge and argumentative skills of your undergraduates and research students.
RESPONSE: Like all good graduate programs, ours is very difficult to get into. In a typical year, we will have maybe 30-35 students apply to study the New Testament/Early Christianity. We can normally admit only one, or maybe two. So competition is very stiff.
All of the students who apply have undergraduate degrees, usually from good schools. A lot of them already have masters degrees. Most of them (the applicants) have lots of background in the field and one or more ancient languages.
I tell prospective students that we look for a range of things in our applicants, all of them obvious to me, but maybe not to outsiders. We look for very high Grade Point Averages; lots of courses in the field of interest; languages – the more the better, and with some established proficiency; strong GRE scores (the GRE is the Graduate Record Exam; it is the exam that gauges Verbal, Quantitative, and Writing skills/knowledge; it is the equivalent of the SAT or the ACT, only it is used for graduate schools rather than undergraduate); solid letters of recommendations; and very clear statements of purpose, indicating the student’s background and what he or she wants to do research on. Students also submit a writing sample so we can see what their best research to date is.
So, some clarification of all that. It is very difficult to get into our program without having a two- or three-year master’s degree already. That’s because…
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Do you take any students from evangelical schools? Like DTS, Fuller, Wheaton, NOBTS, Liberty, etc. I will venture to guess it happens but fairly rare, given the intense competition for the top programs like UNC-CH.
Yes, we look at the entire package, not simply at which school a person came from. This past year we admitted a student whose degree was from of those schools you named, but who went on to do a degree in Classics somewhere else.
It sounds like a really terrific graduate program. But I can’t help wondering about something you’ve acknowledged may be a problem: whether there are going to be positions available, somewhere, for these wonderfully talented, learned professionals.
So far virtually everyone has found a permanent position.
Very informative, Dr. E.
Ok bart I know you
Dony believe in jesus but do you
Believe in ZUES ?
When it’s all said and done who you gonna pray to ? Dang I wish I can speak to you in person or verbally. Bart give me 5 min with you. You will know where I am from ! 🙂
If you’re looking for an idea on a future series of posts, perhaps you can talk about things in the Bible that generally resonate with you–that helps informs in someway your own views and how you live life. If I recall correctly, you have said portions of Ecclesiastes and some of the moral teachings of Jesus do. Elaborating on these things and others would be interesting.
Good idea!
Our father and our god watch us while we pray
We pray as you watch our father and our god my faith is still as strong as ever bart
Ask me how long it’s been that way
” Ever since I can remember ”
You will believe again you know it
Your heart tells you that not me
I know Bart simply doesn’t get reactive to or bother with religious dogmatists like yourself but I still find it hard (at 69) to not at least say, There is something seriously missing in your life if you cannot understand that a secularist can be quite happy, moral, and at peace with him- or herself and have no interest whatsoever in praying or being saved nor any belief that he or she needs to be saved. I dare say most of us secularists don’t think you need to be saved either and that it is more of a psychological condition that makes you feel you need to be saved. Certainly some book saying so does not make it true.
I think I now understand the playground bully. I feel small and green after reading this post.
“In my field we normally do not take into account the quantitative score, since no one in Religious Studies can add anyway.”
Not anticapting Bayes’s theorem revolutionizing our approach to historical studies anytime soon then, are you?
Ha!
Interesting. You have focused on ancient and modern languages as minimum prerequisites. Between two candidates one of whom have high-level proficiency in several ancient and modern languages but less background in specific areas of biblical studies, another have intermediate proficiency in only 2 ancient and 1 modern languages but have taken many examined courses in biblical studies (e.g. Patristic history, Roman history & society, historical Jesus, Dead Sea Scrolls), all else equal, whom do you prefer?
The reality is that all else is never equal — so we decide on the basis of other factors!
1. Which universities (worldwide) doing intensive research in New Testament studies and/or early Christian history do you consider as the best?
2. Which New Testament scholars in the world do you consider as the best?
Please give the top 10 of each. Thanks.
Ah, sorry — I don’t have time to give a top ten. Plus it wouldn’t be fair to the other universities and scholars! Among universities, though, I will say that I think particularly strong programs historically in the U.S. have been Yale, Harvard, Duke, Chicago, and so on. But who can top UNC?