isostheneia

How have I never seen this before... this is a fantastic resource. Many thanks.

Sounds fun! And gotta love the pop quiz paradox. I think there's a corollary for grad admissions: "We'll make a decision regarding your application which you cannot predict." We just have to assume that we'll get rejected everywhere and then they'll have to let us in everywhere!

Yep, I am. Currently auditing a seminar on the third book of Hegel Science of Logic, the "Logic of the Concept." After being away from philosophy in a university setting for a few months, it's fantastic to remind myself why I'm going through the application process.

Very cool to see that your primary interest is in space and time. Wish I knew more about what's being done these days in that field. Welcome. I'd also encourage any lurkers on this site to make an account, stop in, and say hello. It's always nice to see who'll be sharing in our collective anxiety/nightmares over the next few months.

Thanks for the clarification, yoink. It's hard to tell from TGC, but one professor wrote to Daily Nous expressing a similar trend: http://dailynous.com/2014/12/03/drop-in-graduate-applications/

I feel like all the other fields on TGC are nice and friendly and interdisciplinary, talking to each other and sharing stories. And we philosophy students are by ourselves over in the corner, heatedly discussing the merits of semantic holism or something. Which is to say that I don't know what you mean either.

I think the reason you tend to find so many recommendations for funded MAs over unfunded is that most people recommend not going into debt to attend graduate school, especially in a field with such poor job prospects as philosophy. But if you are independently wealthy or some other way of paying for graduate school, then I don't think there's any general correlation between funding and quality. At that point, I think considerations of which MA programs to attend should depend heavily (as overoverover notes) on placement record.

Absolutely. If I'm writing a paper in a day, once I finish, I almost always need to go back and edit the introduction or first few pages to reflect what I ended up saying. And this goes even more so for papers like writing samples - the version I'm turning in to grad programs might as well be a different paper entirely from my first few drafts over a year ago. I've also had the experience with shorter papers of going through my argument, coming to an objection, being totally unable to respond to it, changing my opinion on the issue, and rewriting the paper entirely in favor of the opposite position.

I don't have as much info on MA programs as some other folks on here who have already attended one/are currently enrolled in one. But I don't think attending an MA program makes you a less desirable candidate - I'm inclined to say the opposite. Regarding the Committee on Social Thought: I've also heard that it's difficult to finish, or rather that many students take a long time to finish. And I've heard that they're trying to counteract that in terms of hiring strategy. So at least at that program, it may be advisable to present a more specific research project than at other programs. (That's what I did in my current application to that program.) I don't know how they treat MAs; from their current students, it seems that fewer have MAs than at many philosophy PhD programs. But that could be purely coincidental.

Agreed. There are parts of my paper where, upon coming back to them after a month or two away from the paper, I wondered why I had expressed my ideas as I did. I think my focus while writing the paper was rather different from while I was revising and editing it. At the former stage, I was mainly concerned with working out the ideas, while in the latter stage I was focused instead on the intelligibility of my writing. I think it's quite important to undergo both stages in order to have a writing sample that's both conceptually sound and clear/easy to understand. I also want to add that, regarding the issue of the sample aligning with one's interests, it's certainly beneficial but not necessary. Adcoms see plenty of papers that aren't on an applicant's AOI, so I don't think they'll be confused why one would submit such a sample. The advice to submit one's best paper is widespread, and adcoms are aware of this. But having one's sample align with one's AOI is beneficial because it allows adcoms to assess one's ability to work on these AOI. So even if a non-AOI-related paper is really strong, there's still some risk for the adcom - "What if this applicant can write a great (e.g.) historical paper, but isn't in fact very good in what s/he wants to study?" If the paper is both strong and on the applicant's AOI, this element of risk is absent. Of course, this being said, a strong non-AOI-related paper is preferable to a merely decent AOI-related paper. Assessing the relative strengths of one's own papers is difficult, so asking one's professors what they think of two potential samples is advisable.

I agree with this. Just to clarify what I said earlier, I primarily wanted to say that it's not necessarily crazy for an applicant like MAE to apply to some PhD programs next year if the remainder of the application materials turn out well. But I agree that an MA would likely improve both grad school and job prospects for such applicants, so applying to MA programs pretty heavily (or exclusively) would probably be a good idea.

My favorite: Three logicians walk into a bar. The bartender asks them, "Can I get you all something to drink?" The first one looks at the others and says, "I don't know." The second says to the bartender, "I don't know either." The third one says, "Yes."

That's odd. If you feel comfortable sharing which school, perhaps others who are applying would have some insight. As long as you're providing everything that the department asks for, you should be fine. So for the second spot, you could upload your writing sample again (this seems like your safest bet), upload a document stating that their admissions website is idiotic (don't do this), or upload a document with some funny philosophy jokes (maybe do this, but still probably don't do this).

I'm probably not the most knowledgeable person regarding the whole process, since the current round of grad apps is my first, but I'll try to give some advice. Others should correct me if I'm wrong about any of the following. There are a lot of unknowns with your app - your GRE scores, the quality of your letters, and the quality of your writing sample especially. Given how important these are, it's hard to say whether you'd be competitive at PhD programs. It's entirely possible - you could ace the GRE, manage to get fantastic letters from trustworthy professors, and be an incredibly strong writer. However, it's just hard to say from the information given. The professors you would be asking to write you letters, on the other hand, have considerably more information about you (as well as control over one part of your application), so I would definitely suggest asking them for advice. It would be a good idea to start having a steady dialogue with them in general, since it's been a couple years since you graduated. It's much better if they can write "I had MAE in a class a few years ago, have continued to work with him/her since then. S/he is developing quite well in terms of philosophical ability" than if all they can say is "I had MAE in a class a few years ago, and I remember him/her being a good student." Depending on whether you're located near universities with philosophy departments that do work in your areas, it could be very beneficial to sit in on some classes, graduate classes especially. If you audit a professor's grad class on a topic you're interested in, this could turn into a strong third letter of recommendation. Again, you want your letter writers to be familiar with your work and to be passionate advocates for you, so I would approach your letters with this in mind. Some professors may agree to write you a letter simply because you received an A in one of their classes. But this is more of a last resort than a desirable letter. Basically, work hard at improving your relationships with your professors as much as possible. You want them to be excited about your potential as a philosopher. The writing sample will, of course, be the most important part of your application (at least in most cases). So it would be advisable to contact one of your professors and ask to work closely with them in order to develop an outstanding writing sample. Once you're done, do another round of edits, and then another. Show it to everyone who will look at it for you. You'll have to compensate for a slightly below average GPA, but this is doable with work (and coming from Williams should help). In terms of approaching the content of your writing sample, my one suggestion is to make the issue your discussing specific. Work with a professor to think about a general area you want to write on, and keep narrowing it down repeatedly until you can't be discussing a more specific issue. Adcoms want to see your ability to engage with philosophical issues clearly and effectively, not to see your ability to create crazy metaphysical systems (or deal with less crazy but still overly broad problems). Taking a GRE class should help substantially. Eat and sleep well for the week leading up to the exam. If you're able to get really solid letters of recommendation, produce a great writing sample, and (perhaps slightly less important, though probably still more important than many of us would like) do well on the GRE, I think you could apply to a mix of MAs and PhDs. But most of all, I would listen to your professors' advice regarding where to apply and what mix of MAs/PhDs, as well as whatever other advice they give you throughout the process.

Congrats on the acceptance, reixis! In terms of letting other programs know, I don't think you have any obligation to tell them, at least not before you accept the offer. In terms of using your acceptance strategically, you might try something like this: hold off mentioning it for now, but if there are schools you haven't heard from and the deadline by which you have to make a decision regarding Otago is approaching (so, in late February or early March), you might let the departments you haven't heard from know at that point. That way, they might be more motivated to get back to you quickly, whether or not you get accepted to these programs.

I think you've got the right idea. It's a good idea to look up the work of the people you'd be interested in studying with regardless of whether you try to convey some deep knowledge of their work in your statement. (Otherwise, you're more picking names out of a hat than making an informed decision based on fit.) But one certainly needn't refrain from applying somewhere just because one hasn't done some huge amount of research into all the relevant faculty members.

You better not pout, you better not cry You better not be continental, I'm telling you why Because Daniel Dennett is in charge of admissions

This is the one that most worries me. At one department, for instance, I emphasized that I would like to work with professor X, since X is a big name in the stuff that I do. X introduced a certain position/interpretation, so I made sure to mention that and how influential it's been on me already. But citing the fact that X came up with this position/interpretation could look like I only know the most basic aspects of X's work. Personally, I think it was still worth mentioning - it shows that I know why I'm a good fit at this department in terms of interests. This is certainly a good point. The personal preferences and attitudes toward applicants of members of adcoms certainly vary considerably. But I suspect that, on the whole, adcoms tend toward being decently reasonable. Maybe I'm just being naive. Right. I don't think that a stellar statement of purpose can really do much to improve your application. It can show that you're capable of speaking intelligibly about your interests and can display professionalism, but if you're capable of doing that in your statement then it would likely come across in the other parts of your application as well. So I think the main goal here is to avoid making glaring errors, while providing adcoms knowledge of your areas of interest.

I wouldn't worry too much. Adcoms are used to professors sending in letters after the deadline. I would still try and get your letter writer to send it in as soon as possible, because I've heard that if it's not in by the time the adcom reads your file, it probably won't be read. But I don't think it's too unusual for letters to arrive late.

Do you think naming professors you'd like to work with is a bad idea? It seems to me that there are only a couple situations in which this could really hurt you: The professor(s) you name don't work on what you think they do You overlook some noteworthy people in the department who work on your areas of interest, while naming professors with only tangential interests Someone reading your app works on your areas of interest and feels slighted by your failure to mention them specifically The first two seem easily solved by actually looking into the research of the professors you mention, rather than rattling off names based on a cursory glance at the department website. And the last point just seems a bit unreasonable to me - of course prospective students will mention well-known professors at a great rate than newer assistant/associate professors. So mentioning professors doesn't seem too harmful to me. Of course, it probably doesn't matter a whole lot either way, since (as Schwitzgebel points out) statements of purpose tend to be poorly written in general, and adcoms are mainly looking to see whether you can describe your research interests in a halfway coherent manner and whether you seem like a good fit with the department. Whether you mention specific professors doesn't seem to have a tremendous impact on those, at least to me.

I'm mentioning the name of a professor who taught one of my grad classes. I don't think there's any general benefit from mentioning particular names, so I certainly don't think you have to. I'm only doing so because I think that having taken a class from this professor in particular lends credibility to my claim that I have some expertise in this area.

TGC = The Grad Cafe

What are other folks doing in the couple of weeks before admissions decisions start coming in? Reading more philosophy (like the studious prospective grad students we all are)? Catching up on some pleasure reading? Doing first-hand research on the relation between pure aesthetic judgment and Netflix marathons? Personally, I would like to work on some papers that I've been wanting to write but haven't had the time, but instead I'll probably just be refreshing TGC about 200 times per day.

I'm a fan of Chicago style, or footnotes more generally. It can be a bit distracting, especially when the footnotes include both notes and a fair amount of citations, but I still find it better than in-text citations. Regarding writing samples, though, I think pretty much any citation style is fine as long as you're consistent (and as long as schools don't state a preferred citation style).

Just sent you a PM - I really appreciate your comments, but don't want to clutter the thread with my long response. Regarding the point you made about mine, I think the difference in our approaches may be chalked up in part to the sorts of commentators we tend to read. In short, I do think both parts of the dialectic are important, and I don't think it privileges a social reading. But I can definitely see why one would argue that, particularly when reading the text in combination with a certain (largely French) interpretive tradition.