Needle in the Hay

Thanks so much for this. I just emailed one of my letter writers who is likely to know people on admissions at Colorado and asked if he could do this for me. Here's hoping it works! Thanks also for this very helpful reply! I might end up pursuing this in tandem with DontFly's suggestion above.

Right, that all makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

Hi, I've got a general question about waiting lists. Basically, my inclination is to think that once you've been waitlisted somewhere there's really nothing you can do to improve your chances and you just have to wait it out. But I am wait- listed at Colorado Boulder, and I am somewhat tempted to see if I can submit more of my work there to try to improve my chances. I probably won't do this, but I'd still like to know what others think about whether or not it would be appropriate.

Another aspect of this story that has not been mentioned is that Schafer- Landau will be taking Jan Boxill's place as the director of the Parr Center for Ethics at UNC. The latter was just fired at UNC due to her involvement in the academic scandal that took place there. It seems likely that this is part of what motivated UNC to bring Schafer- Landau on board. I should add that this is speculative, as I have not spoken with anyone at UNC about this.

I see, thanks. Good luck at South Carolina and with getting accepted off of those wait lists!

I'm sorry to hear about your bad news. May I ask, are you just presuming this or did you get an email? If you got an email, was it generic?

For what it's worth, one of my UNC professors (who has sat on admissions boards for a very long time) told me that it is very common for schools to decide upon and release acceptances in rounds, so not all at the same time. He didn't say what the spacing between those rounds normally was, and I really don't if there is a point at which enough time has passed since an initial acceptance (or set of acceptances) at which one can certainly conclude that they have not been accepted. However, it would not surprise me if that time frame was large if existent at all (of course, if April 15 comes and you haven't heard back then that is bad news, but that is another matter). You seem to me to be right- there is A LOT of speculating on this forum. I wouldn't let that scare you too much. At any rate, if you are not successful this time around, that needn't be the end of the road for you. If you still want to pursue this goal, take the year off, re- work your sample or write another one, and this time try to get help from faculty. It is also not too late to apply to some MA programs (GSU, for instance) and that may be of help for you.

Hi all, Quick question. Most places say that the statement of purpose should be 2- 3 pages. This means double- spaced right? I have been assuming so, and that the same holds of the page limits for writing samples. I just wanted to make sure. This is one reason why I prefer the UK's style of giving length requirements in terms of word counts...

oh, wow, sorry for the confusion! Is this new? I applied to PhD programs in the winter of 2012 and I really thought I remembered having ETS send a report with all of my best scores. Yes, I'm pretty sure I remember being advised by my GRE tutor that if I was satisfied with my verbal I could simply sit through that section the next time I took the test because I could combine my best scores… am I hallucinating this?

https://www.ets.org/praxis/scores/send "Additional score reports indicate the highest score earned on each test" If you're willing and able to spend the extra money then I think you can just opt to have "additional score reports" sent to each institution you are applying to, in which case it would not matter if you did worse on the verbal reasoning section the second time- in that case, what would be reported as your verbal reasoning score would be your verbal reasoning score from the first time. And if you did better on the quantitative section the second time then this would be the score that would be reported as your quantitative score. Though I do realize that this would be costly.

Oh right, FSU looks like it would be a good place to work on action theory. I think the others might be beyond my reach, unfortunately, but good to know about anyway. Will look into the situation at Colorado. Thanks! At this point I have conceded the point about safety schools! lol. See my last post.

Thanks to all for the helpful replies!

I guess I could just try to turn the sample into various complete papers of lengths appropriate to the word limits of the different places where I will be applying.

I have been intending to use a section of my dissertation as my writing sample. I take it there would be a number of good things about doing this- the section reflects some of my strongest philosophical thought, the matter it deals with is relevant to the interests of the faculty at the places I will be applying, etc. But I was just reading the FAQ on the Univ Coll London website about the samples they require for their MPhil programme and they had the following to say- "Although longer pieces with highlighted sections can be submitted we would caution against this as it is not always possible to get a feel for an argument from a section." Of course, I am already trying to make clear from the outset what I am doing, to not make many (or any) references to things I have only said in the beginning phases of the paper that are not included in the sample, and to include enough of the argument from my dissertation for it to be an interesting sample even if not a complete paper in its own right. But I wonder- does anyone know of it being generally discouraged to use a section of a broader work as one's writing sample? I know U Chicago encourages it, but they are also very unique in a number of ways…

Thanks, Pedanticist and overoverover. I understand that all of the top 50 programs are very difficult to get into. I will change my phrasing one more time- instead of "relative- safety- schools", perhaps I should say, "schools that I might have at least a slightly better chance at getting accepted to". Hopefully it is clear why I would want to apply to some schools of that description that are nonetheless within the top 50.

what a helpful link that is, Monadology! I will be referring to it as I go forward. Even if, as you say, the data is incomplete, it should at least be helpful to the extent that it flags that certain schools that I may have discounted are worthy of further research: placement records, after all, are located on most schools' websites. One worry to flag about the list is that it does not show where students have gone on to get jobs. It might be that students who attend certain schools (perhaps lesser ranked or unranked schools) are more likely than students who attend other (better ranked or simply ranked) schools to accept teaching positions at four- year schools without PhD programs, for instance. In any case, the "placement" sections on the programs' webpages should be helpful in this respect. As per primenumbers remarks to the effect that there aren't safety schools in the top 50- in a sense that seems right. Maybe if I had been more precise I would have said "relative- safety" schools- surely it is not as hard to get accepted to Boston University as it is to get accepted to Harvard. It is true that there is high- variance, as you say, but it is of course not all chance. HegelOuroboros- that is helpful data and it is making me think that maybe applying to Oxford is not such a bad idea despite its intimidating ranking! Rig- Cornell seems like it would be an excellent fit for the reasons you mention and especially because of MacDonald who would really make the ideal supervisor for me. But those acceptance rates!!! O______________O At any rate, if I suggested before that I will not be considering non- top- 50 schools I should not have. Especially in light of re- considering their placement potential, Baylor, Fordham, and St. Louis actually seem like they might be wise choices for me. And they are in any case great fits for me given my interests. Thanks again for those recommendations; I will be considering them seriously. To whom it may concern, here are some more places I've found at this point that look good for me given the interests I listed in my original post- UC Irvine (Bencivenga, Perin, Kent!), U of Wisconsin- Madison (Paul, Schafer- Landau, Gottlieb), U of Minnesota, Minneapolis St. Paul (Peterson, Tiberius, Mason), CUNY (Jacobs, Vasiliou, Baumrin, Ross) Thank you to all respondents! Everything has been helpful.

Thanks, I'll look into that! Ideally, however, and I suppose this applies to the Fordham recommendation as well, I would really like to go somewhere that is at least in the top 50 somewhere. So if anyone has more recommendations for anything in that range that will also be appreciated. When I said "safety" I more had in mind places roughly in the #29- 50 range.

Yes, I do have an MA from Univ College London. You've given me another reason to be happy about that! Thanks for your concern. Thanks jjb for recommendations! Jozef Muller at UC Riverside ( http://philosophy.ucr.edu/jozef-muller/ ) looks like a good potential supervisor for me. Will consider the other two schools as well!

oh right, I've read part of Eleanore Stump's book on Aquinas and I found it very helpful. I'll have to look into that. Thanks for the tip!

Hi all, I'm wondering if you can suggest PhD programs for me to apply to given my interests. My main interests are in Aristotelian and Thomist (St. Thomas Aquinas) Meta- ethics and Philosophy of Action. As such I'm very interested in the more recent attempts to revive these lines of thought by Anscombe and Geach and also by more contemporary people influenced by Anscombe and Geach like Foot and Thompson. I'm also more broadly interested in Aristotle and Aquinas' thought in general, so if you can think of any places that are particularly great for either of those philosophers that would also be helpful. Lastly, recommendations for places that are just generally very strong for Philosophy of Action and/ or Meta- Ethics are also welcome. Here are the places I'm already considering applying to- USA- U Chicago, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Berkeley, Stanford, Colorado, UNC- CH, UK, St. Andrew's, Oxford, Cambridge, Univ Coll London, King's, Birkbeck, If you can think of any schools in addition to these that seem like they would be a good fit for me that would be much appreciated. Here is the caveat- my grades are not that good. Undergrad GPA around 3.27 from UNC- CH and I don't know my dissertation score from my MA at Univ College London yet, though I know that the first term was very strong and the second term not so strong. A lot will be riding on the writing sample and the letters of recommendation, both of which I think will be strong. But still, it is probably a good idea for me to have several "safety schools". So if you can think of anything in that category that will also be helpful. Many thanks!

That's very helpful, thanks STM! And I'm glad to hear your experience has been so fulfilling. Anbody have any information about UCL's MA in particular?

Hi all, Does anyone have an informed opinion about whether UCL's MA program in philosophy is a "money- maker" program, similar to U of Chicago's MAPH program? A professor of mine was suspicious that it might be. I'm not sure what gave him this impression, but he mentioned that it seemed like it would be easy for UCL to take advantage of international students who were so enfatuated with the idea of studying at a prestigious university in London that they wouldn't scrutinize the program carefully. To be clear, in asking whether the program is a "money- maker" I am not simply asking whether it is expensive: obviously this information is available online. Rather, what I am asking is whether it is the kind of program that takes a hefty sum of your money and then gives you a backseat to the PhD, MPhil, and perhaps even undergrad students in terms of ability to work closely with and be taken seriously by faculty. If anyone could shed any light on the subject it would be greatly appreciated, as I have put in an application there.