Admission to the doctoral program in Classical Studies is the first step on a path that can have a variety of outcomes.
Here are some salient data from the most recent snapshot of Classical Studies cohorts from application to PhD (CLST Data.pdf):
1) the completion rate for cohorts entering from 2008-2012 was 83.3%. Most students who left the program early earned a Master’s Degree (11 of 15).
2) the median time to degree for those finishing in 2003-2017 was 5.8 years. Funding for the sixth year of study was obtained internally (e.g., with a Dissertation Completion Fellowship or a Critical Writing Fellowship) or externally (e.g., through the Fulbright program or the American School of Classical Studies at Athens).
Our students continue to find jobs primarily in academia in both schools (roughly 10%) and colleges and universities (roughly 80%). For recent cohorts the percentages of those in tenure-track positions rises from 15% immediately upon graduation to 45% within 5 years of graduation. In the immediate post-graduate years many have advanced their careers while holding postdoctoral positions, including in Europe, or lectureships at a variety of colleges and universities.
A number of our graduates (both MA and PhD recipients) are teaching middle-school and high-school students about ancient Greece and Rome in the Philadelphia area and beyond: at the Buckley School of New York, Episcopal Academy, Germantown Academy, the Haverford School, Northern Highlands Regional High School, St. Timothy’s Classical Academy, and the Trinity School, for example. Others have taken their deep understanding of language, culture, and history to professional contexts outside the academy, including law firms, online journals, fundraising consultancies, non-profit foundations, learned societies, government agencies, and a variety of successful business ventures. The Department of Classical Studies and the Graduate Division at Penn support the endeavors of these students, which extend the impact of the field and of graduate education well beyond their traditional venues. Recent graduates (2000-present) hold tenure-track or tenured positions at the following institutions: Brandeis University, Christendom College, College of Charleston, Grand Valley State University, Haverford College, New College of Florida, Oberlin College, Purdue University, Rutgers University, Swarthmore College, Texas Tech, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, University of Pittsburgh, University of Puget Sound, University of South Florida, University of Texas at Austin, and Williams College.