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Eric Schwitzgebel has some sample statements hosted on the Underblog part of his blog: http://schwitzsplintersunderblog.blogspot.ca/

Quite a lot of Canadian MAs are comparable to the top US MAs. IMO, the list of really good Canadian MAs is much longer than the list of really good US MAs, and I tend to think that the best Canadian MA programs beat the best American MA programs. But that's probably just me feeling misplaced patriotism. In all seriousness, all of the MAs above are very, very good. Toronto is huge, and as a result MA students do get less attention (although that varies a lot depending on your supervisor). As for the other three, I've only ever heard good things about faculty supervision there. Recommendations matter, but mostly inasmuch as they should be very strong, speak directly to your abilities, and come from established philosophers. That's not quite the same thing as superstars. The reality is that philosophy is pretty small, and a lot of us know one another pretty well. You're not in a great position to know how well your recommenders are known, whether they enjoy a good reputation, whether their letters are typically taken seriously, etc. For some perspective, I know that at least one super-major guy in my subfield is widely known to write super-inflated letters for his students, and so they get discounted. As long as your recommenders know your work and are relatively active, don't worry about it. Even if they're not especially active, there's no point sweating it. Literally hundreds of other applicants are in the same boat. Similarly, school prestige does seem to matter, but not as much as people here sometimes think. It seems to matter a great deal that your school be recognized as a good or really good one, but that doesn't mean PGR-ranked. (PGR rank does seem to matter a whole lot more for job placements at PGR-ranked schools, however. There, it matters a whole lot.) Don't worry about it. What matters is that you took the course again and aced it. It might be worthwhile to explain the situation in a sentence in your statement of interest, but I wouldn't worry about that at all. Especially since you have a decent math background, and did well in those courses. Nobody's going to hold it against you. I think you're wrong. At a glance, I'd say you're competitive for PhD programs, even very good ones. Of course, an MA will only make you more competitive. But I wouldn't rule out applying to PhD programs, too. Especially if you've got a good writing sample and statement of interest. Those are the two most important elements (and the statement is a document whose importance prospectives constantly and consistently underrate. The rule of thumb is that the higher up the academic ladder you are, the more attention you get. Unless you're at a small, primarily-undergraduate university, undergraduates are a dime a dozen. And you have to realize that, despite appearances, faculty aren't actually there to teach undergraduates. Teaching counts for almost nothing with respect to tenure and promotion (again, the exception being small, primarily-undergraduate institutions). As long as your teaching isn't a total disaster, anyway. Publications are all that count. That means that every hour spent cultivating a meaningful relationship with an undergrad is an hour that you're not devoting to your tenure and promotion file--and besides, undergraduates turn over at a really high rate. The other thing to consider is that not all your profs are tenured or even tenure-track, which means that they're actively applying for jobs while teaching and trying to publish. And since the only way to get even a temporary job is to apply to 100+ of the things, and since every job requires around 100 pages of documents (many of them personalized), faculty often just don't have the time to spend on undergraduates. They're too busy surviving. Things are different at institutions with graduate programs, because the faculty with which you have the most contact are tenured and tenure-track, and because you're a future colleague in the broad sense (or, at least, more likely to be one). These faculty are research-active, which means they spend time on the conference circuit. And since you're working with them, that means you'll see them again after you graduate. So there are many more incentives to actually mentor students. Like the others said, under no circumstances should you pay for your MA or PhD. Even at Tufts. Just don't do it. It's a scam. Even at Tufts. It's important to realize these things early on. Most of the people who get into ranked PhD programs (and many who don't) are very, very, very good students. Scary-good. The students at NYU and Princeton are good, but they're not all better than the students at CUNY, or at WUSTL, or wherever. PhD admissions are incredibly competitive, and they're not a straight-up meritocracy. And professors are really bad at scouting talent. Wherever you end up, remember not to look down at students from lower-ranked programs, and don't look up to students from higher-ranked programs. Just remember that students at higher-ranked programs generally have access to far more resources than students at more middling programs, and that can make a really big difference. It's also worth observing that once you're a grad student--especially once you get to the PhD level--you're entering an extended period in your life when you're going to get precious little positive reinforcement or validation. You won't get enough feedback on your dissertation, and you'll feel like your peers are all better and better off than you. You'll get rejected from conferences and from journal after journal after journal (acceptance rates are generally around 2-5%). Referees will say really mean things about your work, and about you and your abilities. You'll spend years applying for hundreds of jobs, competing against 650-1200 other excellent candidates, and be rejected from everything (or just never hear back). Your hopes will be dashed and your dreams crushed over and over, and if you're really lucky then at the end you'll get to live in a shitty place and make decent money (though still less than what you'd make doing almost anything not in the service industry). It's a really hard slog, and it's good to go in expecting it to be hard. Just remember what applying to grad school felt like, because then you'll know what to expect from the job market. It's much worse, but it's the same kind of deal. Anecdotally, those of my colleagues who have the hardest time of it are those who seem to have forgotten what it was like to apply to grad school.

Absolutely!

As others have said, you're not "handing it off" because it's distasteful. You're doing it because you don't have the standing to deal with it appropriately, and because going it on your own is likely to result in a number of bad consequences from your point of view. As a TA, you often have a fair bit of latitude. But that doesn't mean you're supposed to handle everything on your own. I don't see what the problem is. This is a pseudonymous internet forum, and grading (where the "absolute professionalism" applies) takes place in the real world. Obviously you shouldn't use coarse language in your comments on a student's work. I wouldn't have thought that needed to be said. I would give that paper a very high grade. It happens all the time. Literally. Every single time I grade an assignment, that happens. But as Bumblebea observed, that's not the kind of case we're talking about here.

Maybe. But, look: if you give the student a bad grade and tell them off for their misogyny (or whatever), you open yourself up to a lot of unpleasantness that's well above your pay grade (complaints to the dean, to media outlets, a lawsuit [with near-zero chance of success, but still], etc.). Even if you just grade it as I suggested above, you can still be almost certain that the grade will be disputed. And that means an angry student coming to your office hours and being unpleasant (perhaps even aggressive, especially if he's a man and you're a woman), and then going to the instructor to demand a re-grade. At that point, if the instructor doesn't want to deal with it then they will give the paper a better grade and move on. But if that happens, then what little authority you have as a TA has just been significantly undermined. And that news will get around to the other students in the class, and make it into your reviews at the end of the year (especially if you're a woman): you'll get a bunch of comments about how you're a biased grader and don't know what you're talking about. So there isn't really any pitfall here: that could happen regardless of what you do, but if you let the instructor deal with it then you're safe from any potential negative consequences. It's far better and safer for you, as a TA, to short-circuit that chain of events. If you get an egregiously offensive paper, send it up the pipeline. The instructor will then deal with it as they see fit, and you won't have exposed yourself to any backlash or erosion of your authority. My experience has always been that the instructor is on their TA's side in almost any dispute (for one thing, it's way easier for them to stand by their TAs). I'm sure there are exceptions but they're rare, they're not the norm. Besides, if you're teaching feminist theory or some other feminist class, the odds are really, really good that the instructor will have the exact same problems with the paper as you did. Remember, you're a TA. You're paid to grade and to lead discussion sections (or whatever else is in your contract), not to change students' minds or ensure that justice prevails in the world. I know that doesn't sound glorious or especially attractive, but it's true. You're a university employee, and you have to cover your own ass. It's not worth the potential fallout to handle it yourself unless the instructor tells you to do so.

This happens all the time, especially when you're teaching a subject like feminist theory. As a TA, the best strategy is not to deal with it. When you encounter a problematic or vitriolic paper, you tell the course instructor about it and let them handle it. When you're the course instructor, what you do depends on just what you receive and what local laws look like. If you're in Canada and the paper contains threats of violence, or advocates harm to people in protected categories, you probably have to pass it up to the head or dean. But if it's not that bad, then you just ignore the fact that you vehemently disagree and strictly apply your usual grading criteria. So, you check to make sure it's coherent, that the arguments are valid, that it offers a charitable interpretation of its dialectical opponents, etc. And you make lots of suggestions as to how the paper could be improved. Cover your ass by taking a little more time to read and comment on it, and whatever you do, don't explicitly indicate that you find it offensive or stupid. The student is almost certain to come see you about it later, and you need to project absolute professionalism in that interaction. And don't attribute anything to the student, only to the paper. (So don't talk about what you say, talk about what your paper says.) FWIW, whenever I've gotten papers like these they've been crappy rants. That makes them pretty easy to grade, and it makes it easy to explain why it got such a shitty grade: it's not because your views are stupid and you're a moron, it's because your critique of X is uncharitable, you haven't considered any counterarguments that might be raised by your dialectical opponent, the argument from P to C is clearly invalid, etc.

Copy editing can be very expensive (I spent some time as a copy editor myself). If you've got research money to spare, then it's fine. But if you don't... While it's a decent short-term solution, you need to think about what you're going to do when this comes up again. And again. And again. For most fields, English-language publication is a must these days (largely due to the quality and reach of the venues). And unless you manage to snag a job in a francophone university with low research output expectations (e.g. UQTR), you're going to have to do it again. Lots. (Note: I say this as a Francophone myself.) In the long-term, you're going to have to start getting comfortable writing in English. If I were you, I'd ask my Anglophone friends and peers to look over my lit review and other English-language writing. Most of the time, they'll be happy to do it, and they'll do it for free. You obviously can't rely on the same person to do it over and over, but there's no harm in having them help with high-stakes stuff. You can offer them help with French-language stuff in return. If you're at an English-language university QC, then you can offer to help them with translations for their dissertation abstracts, for FRQSC applications, conferences or journals, job market materials, etc.

Like Sigaba (and yourself), I'd go for A, since a strong letter from a person familiar with your work beats any kind of letter from someone who can't speak to your individual strengths and progress. While it's true that a letter from an Associate or Full is better than a letter from an Assistant is better than a letter from an adjunct/VAP (is better than a letter from a postdoc), you've already got two of those. Besides, candidates tend to overestimate the importance of having a known recommender (in addition to the problem that they aren't in a good position to know who's 'known' in the first place, or whether their letters are known to be hyperbolic, etc.). You've already got two who are well-known, and it seems to me that the most important thing is having someone who can say unreservedly good things about you, your work, and so on. I wouldn't sweat it. FWIW, my own letters included one from the VAP who supervised my honours thesis, and I did just fine on the MA and PhD markets.

It's not necessary by any stretch (especially where smaller, less well-represented subfields and topics are concerned), but it's a good idea nonetheless. Some journals ask for a cover letter (not many any more, but still some), and pointing to the fact that the journal has published work on the topic in the past is an important touchstone for those. And as DataCrusader says, you can expect that one of your referees will come from the pool of people who've recently published on the topic in that journal. DataCrusader and Be. are right. Journal articles are the gold standard in philosophy. And journal articles in the top "generalist" journals and top subfield journals are the gold standard of journal articles. Edited collections--at least in philosophy--are largely composed of papers solicited by the editors. While that's not a guarantee of publication, it does mean that the odds are strongly in your favour, so long as you produce something decent. A few edited volumes openly call for papers, but for the most part these things are made up of people in the editor's professional network, or of people suggested by those people. Your best chance for inclusion in one as a graduate student is if your supervisor is one of the editors, or if she declines and suggests to the editor(s) that they contact you instead. Alternately, if you're well known on the conference circuit and are more or less an authority on some niche topic, the editors are more likely to extend you an invitation. The revision process can vary pretty widely depending on who's organizing the volume, but often the main reviewers are just those in charge of the collection. Sometimes these things go out for blind peer review, but not always. As far as prestige is concerned, journal articles are the gold standard. Chapters in edited volumes certainly count, but unsolicited work that's passed peer review is more desirable. For comparison, the unofficial internet advice for those on the TT at R1s is to aim for two articles a year, two smaller things (book reviews, proceedings, chapters in edited volumes) a year, plus a book every four years or so (every two years for book fields, but philosophy isn't really a book field).

Disciplinary norms may differ, but in philosophy, a rejection is a rejection. Some rejections come with comments. Others don't. But you absolutely can't resubmit rejected work. What you can do is resubmit work that garnered a verdict of 'revise and resubmit'. That said, I think your advice of not thinking of rejections as rejections or verdicts on your ability is sound. It's too depressing to do that!

It's not unusual for programs that do accept transfer credits to only credit a class or two. It's not really in anyone's interests to have students ploughing through super-fast and pre-satisfying the bulk of the distribution requirements. Writing skills and philosophical knowledge need time and practice to develop.

Oops. I meant 6 per year for two years. Although as you can see below, I was only sort of right in my intent: Alberta: 9 Toronto: 6 (4-year PhD), and 12 (5-year PhD) UBC: 8 (w/ Master's), and 10 (no Master's) McGill: 9-12 (depending on the inividual student's background) Western: 7 (w/ Master's), 12 (no Master's) Calgary: 6 (w/ Master's), 12 (no Master's) Queen's: 6 Waterloo: 6

The PhD programs with which I'm most familiar in Canada all require around 6 courses, plus whatever other requirements there are (comps, logic and language, prospectus, etc.). Similarly, my MA was six courses plus a thesis; two-year non-thesis MAs have more courses, of course. Remember, however, that an honours Bachelor's in Canada is typically 20-22 courses, compared to around 10 for most American institutions. And since it's still common here for students to get a Master's degree before the PhD, that means that they've been through a lot of courses, even if they take fewer as PhD students (which I'm not sure they actually do). I'm also not sure what you mean by 'contact potential supervisors directly'. You certainly can do this, as you can in the US, but it doesn't make any real difference to the outcome. At least not officially, and it's certainly not the norm to do so. It's not like the UK or some European countries, where admission is closely tied to supervisor say-so/grants. AS for the OP: If time to degree is really that big a concern for you, then I'd forget about transferring and just buckle down, get my work done, and start working to cultivate relationships outside my department. Set your sights on spending some time as a visiting student somewhere really nice and fancy, figure out what you need to do to get that funded, and reach out to the people with whom you'd like to work. The most important part of the PhD is just getting it. It's (at least in theory) the start of your research career, not its culmination. Just get it, and position yourself so that you'll be market-ready when it's all over: pubs in hand, some teaching experience, at least one external letter, a postdoc proposal that's ready to go, etc.

Chime. Comments at the conferences I attend are usually about 10 minutes. Nobody will be angry or upset if you take less time, though. Remember that your job is to help the audience engage with the paper. You're not a peer reviewer, you're a facilitator. So take some time to go over what you take to be the main points of interest, in case the audience missed them. And then offer a worry or two about the argument, or suggest a line of questioning that you think might be fruitfully discussed in the questions. Then stand back and let the author do their thing.

Ask on the Philos-L listserv. A fair few copy editors with philosophy credentials advertise their services there. Just be aware that it's going to be very expensive. Some journals also offer a similar (but free!) service for non-native speakers of English. I can't remember which ones offhand, but I do know a few pretty prominent ones do. Just have a look at their sites. If they offer those services, it'll be somewhere on there. Probably in the author guidelines.

Yeah, most European (including UK) jobs don't make it to PhilJobs, and the same is true for most other regions of the world. Even a lot of Canadian jobs don't hit PhilJobs. But most of those markets are pretty terribly over-saturated. I applied for jobs in more than a dozen countries on my last job run, and I'm not at all exceptional in doing so. A lot of Americans confine themselves to American jobs (and a lot of Britons and Euros to Euro jobs), but the number of people who don't isn't insignificant. It's like the difference between 600 applicants and 50-100; that's a big numerical difference, true, but in the end it doesn't do much to actually improve your chances.

Don't sweat it. Even for analytics, the GRE doesn't matter much. It mostly matters because sometimes you can qualify for a university-level scholarship on the basis of high GRE scores. As long as your scores aren't abysmally low, they're pretty much irrelevant. Everybody on admissions committees knows that the GRE is worthless, and it's pretty common for philosophy applicants to have higher verbal than quantitative scores. It's no big deal. Just do your best. Practice is the key.

I think this is all exactly right. It's also worth mentioning two other things: (1) Your topic may not be quite as novel as you think (and this is where supervisor guidance can help: both to steer you to the relevant literature, in assessing the topic's potential contributions, and determining whether it's worth the effort). As Sigaba mentioned upthread, novel dissertations can be really hard to write, let alone to sell to your peers. I know from personal experience; the sum total of pre-existing research directly on my topic was a single recent article. That makes the literature review and framing issues especially hard, although it does open up space to distance yourself from the pre-existing literature. The trouble is that that literature is your only guidepost through the topic, and that makes it more difficult (emotionally and intellectually) to open up the space you need between your work and theirs. (2) There's a fair bit of doctoral and post-doctoral funding out there (mostly through the government of Canada) for issues that pertain directly to Canada. This is especially true for areas of research in which there's a significant Canadian lacuna. As long as your supervisor is supportive of your project, it might be an especially good bet on future funding. But start chasing that funding starting in your first year. Your supervisor should be able to help steer you towards the right grants.

I have known four students there. Three transferred out because the funding was so bad, and the student::prof ratio was so bad. One stayed because he had external (governmental) funding and has a rich family. Tuition is something like $20 000 a year, and their best funding package is something like 40% of that. Plus there's the cost of living in New York. The philosophy department has just eleven full-time faculty, and 74 PhD students alone. They no longer list how many MA students they have, but the last time they did it brought the total to over 100 graduate students. You should never, ever attend a program that doesn't fund you, and the New School is one of the worst offenders. It's as close to a scam as you can get without actually being a scam. The best place for contemporary European philosophy is probably DePaul, but you should also check out programs like Columbia, Duquesne, Emory, Guelph, Memphis, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Penn State, Riverside, Stony Brook, Toronto, Vanderbilt, and Villanova (in addition to Chicago, UPenn, and Boston College, as you're planning to).

Don't go to the New School. Their funding is woefully inadequate, and their ratio of graduate students to professors is horrifically high.

Just about every field is related to philosophy. There's no strategic set of minors or double-majors one can pick that will help one's chances of admission. One should pursue the things that interest one, rather than trying to game the system (especially since that's not the way to game it). As a sophomore it's too early to know what one's AOS interests are going to be (frankly, it's too early for even a senior to know), but odds are good that whatever minors one picks will be complementary or otherwise related. That proving ground is the writing sample, and the statement of interest. Yes, pedigree and prestige play a big role in the profession, and even in graduate school admissions. But that's not something over which the poster has any control. Having solid recommendation letters is important; having letters from all-stars matters a whole lot less at this level. This is PhD admissions, not the job market (and even there, they matter less than you might think). Yes, they're very competitive. And the number of slots at each one is a tiny fraction of the number of applicants. And quite a lot of those applicants are very, very talented. That's where the luck comes in; there, and at a few other steps, too (e.g. your prospective supervisor isn't currently overburdened and the balance of interests among current students and other prospectives is in your favour, you've managed to be perceived by the admissions committee as being a worthwhile investment in the program--note also that committee judgements are highly fallible in this regard, as they are in sports, etc.). The grad school admissions process is like a kinder version of the job market (since there's more than one slot, and fewer than 650-1200 applicants for it). The job market involves a lot of luck; grad school admissions involves a lot less, but it's still not inconsiderable. I have to say, it's kind of funny that you think the people here are naïve to think that luck plays a role. Most of us have been through one or more rounds of admissions, have witnessed people going through the process, etc. Hell, some of us are even all done with grad school, and have been through the market's meat grinder. That's not to say that we're right, of course. It's just to say that maybe we bring a little more experience and perspective to the table. It's pretty easy to lose sight of the things that matter when you're worrying about admissions, and it's even easier to spend way too much time worrying about factors beyond your control.

Don't worry about that. Those factors aren't relevant. Age is completely irrelevant (and being in one's later twenties or early thirties is quite commonplace in PhD programs), and being out of academia isn't bad in the first place (in fact, many think it's better to have spent some time doing something else first). Besides which, you're graduating this year, which means that you haven't been out of academia at all. Don't sweat this kind of stuff, it's irrelevant. Just pay attention to the things you can control, like your statement, writing sample, and choosing schools that fit your interests well.

Your chances of getting into a good philosophy department are good. Your chances of a job in philosophy afterwards are not--nobody's are, even when they come from top-notch programs. For every job you apply to, you'll be competing against 600 other applicants (many--probably even most--of which are more qualified than you are. Sometimes it's 1200 of them.). Being able to fall back on your law degree might help offset some of the desperation of not getting any academic interviews, however. Don't let that discourage you. Just go in with your eyes open.

Nah, it's too early to worry about it. Just enjoy yourself and do your best work. You don't need to really start thinking about this stuff until the summer before you're applying to graduate schools. Just focus on learning what you can as best you can. TA opportunities are good because they're extra money and give you a taste of what's to come, but they won't make any significant difference to your application. Any scholarships or awards you receive might make some difference, however, so seek out those opportunities if you can. Exchanges can be fun and rewarding, but you should consider them for their own sake. They won't make much difference as far as graduate applications are concerned. The best you could hope for on that front is a good letter from a well-known philosopher, but you can't count on getting one, and it's unlikely to make much difference anyway. Most undergrads don't have hotshot letter writers, and committees know this. The admissions committee is looking for reassurances about your abilities from your letter writers, and fame doesn't really do much on that front. It certainly doesn't do anything that your writing sample won't be doing for itself. The most important thing is that your letters exist, and that they heartily recommend you. So just enjoy yourself and do your best to learn what you can. You might not want to pursue graduate study in a few years, and that's OK too. You don't need to worry much until just before your last year, when you'll have to put together your list of target schools, secure your letters, write your statement of interest, polish your writing sample, take the GRE, TOEFL, and other tests, etc.

I would only submit the chapter if it's done--that is, if it's been through several drafts and your supervisor has approved the final draft of that chapter. I'd also want it to stand more or less alone, of course. Provided it meets those criteria, the chapter is the better choice, since your pub is more tangential. Otherwise, stick with the pub (in its final, published format).