And it’s a big fat rejection. The program I applied for was Ph.D in Near East Languages and Civilizations (Egypt) at UChicago. Now, I thought February through March is when they send acceptance letters and letters saying you’re on the wait list and then don’t send rejections until late march through April. So does the fact that I recieved my rejection that quickly mean they thought I was extremely unqualified for the program? If that’s the case, then I need to work on my back up plan for next year when the other rejections come in.
They send rejections immediately to those who don’t make it past the initial screening. There is nothing that says you will be rejected by all the other schools unless you applied only to highly selective programs.
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You should work on a backup plan regardless of what you think your chances are - just in case. Always have a PlanB.
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Update: just recieved my rejection letter from Brown. Starting to panic now :-SS
Be happy. The respond is saying you need to work hard and study hard for the GRE.
I already was in at least 90th percentile for all 3 sections of the GRE and my professors said they don’t matter that much, so I doubt that’s it. Also, how on Earth am I supposed to be happy about this? “Congratualtions, you are not good enough!”
It looks like you applied to hard graduate schools. If you were to apply somewhere like other schools you would have been accepted.
Here’s the problem: the only schools that offer Egyptology doctoral programs are the hard schools. If I could have applied for one at a really easy school to get into, I would have.
University of Memphis has Egyptology. You could apply there
I looked at Memphis but they don’t have an Egyptology doctoral program; they only have an Ancient History doctoral program with a concentration in Egyptian history, which would not be helpful for me since my research interests are more cultural.
If for any reason you get rejected to all of your other schools, apply to university of Memphis. Make university of Memphis as your last option. For now just wait and see what the other schools say!
Don’t worry too much, some school process the admission quicker than others. My professor told me I could recieve some rejection as early as January and would hear back from all the schools February and early March. Usually when it comes to grad school admission, the later, the worse. And another thing I noticed is that they usually send you an email directly to tell you that you are admitted. When you receive a reminder to check your admission status, that often means rejected.
I also got rejected by Uchicago last Friday and my friend got into master program today, so I really think this is the time when they have all of their decisions. Don’t worry too much about the ‘extremely unqualified’ myth…
Best luck on your other schools!
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@gbmabuoc , I don’t know if I necessarily agree with the idea of “the later, the worse”. For some schools, it’s “no news is good news”, as I’ve heard that, in some cases, rejections might go out first. It’s dangerous to make that kind of generalization.
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UPDATE: just got rejected from Penn, the school I considered most likely to accept me. 
I’m so sorry. It looks like you’ve only chosen top schools. Are there others on your list that aren’t so competitive? If not, and you really want to do this, maybe you should look at your undergraduate studies and see if they really line up with your intended graduate course of study.
Years ago, my husband graduated from Stanford with degrees in mathematics and computer science. He decided to apply to PhD programs in philosophy and was rejected everywhere, probably because there was little continuity between his undergrad and master’s degrees and philosophy. If you’re in a similar situation, maybe taking some additional courses in Near East civilization and languages could bolster your application if you try again.
^I don’t necessarily agree with the advice that applying to a less selective program is the answer, although I think it depends on what you want to do and what you’re willing to do.
Frankly put, the academic market in the humanities is a mess right now. Even graduates from top programs struggle to secure tenure-track positions at universities that pay a middle-class salary. Fields like Near Eastern Languages/Civilizations are some of the hardest because of the limited number of undergraduate departments across the country that offer that kind of curriculum vs. the relatively high number of people getting a PhD in the field.
And this is also a field with more limited non-academic options. You can, of course, get a non-academic job - but it takes some deliberate planning and will probably be relatively unrelated to Near Eastern studies. I don’t think too many people go to a Near Eastern studies PhD program expecting not to work in academia.
The bottom line is the BEST way to increase your chances of getting a TT job in academia is to go to a top program. And my unpopular opinion is that if your goal is to be an academic and you’d be unhappy if you spent all that time getting a PhD and weren’t able to be a professor, it may be better not to get a PhD at all than to not go to a top program (and when I say top, I mean whatever the number is in your field that has good prospects of an academic post. In English literature or history that might be top 15; in economics that might be top 50 and in engineering it may be top 75 or anywhere, I don’t know).
If you just want a PhD in general and you’d be happy studying Egypt for 6-8 years even knowing that your chances of an academic post are quite low after graduation, then a lower-ranked university could be a good choice for you. I personally wouldn’t recommend that choice of action, but it’s a valid one.
It doesn’t really work like that…doctoral program applications are usually due between mid-December and late January. By the time mid-March rolls around it’s too late to apply to doctoral programs for the same year.
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