gatewayselect

It's not a joke, he literally has schizophrenia by the symptoms displayed here: a tenuous grasp on reality, incoherence, all sorts of blunders regarding conceptual relationships

It would be silly. ASU's PhD program will be unranked without a placement history. Look at Texas A&M. They had/have a very solid MA program that places people into top PhD programs. Then they introduced their own PhD program. By no means should anyone want to go to A&M for a PhD, when they can get an MA there, and end up at USC or Princeton.

I suspect your writing sample will backfire hard. That your professor from a small liberal arts college OK'd it doesn't really mean much. I've gotten bad advice from professors before, and those experiences taught me that I shouldn't listen to some professors. Those I should l listen to are those who don't hand out compliments, and who are well integrated in the field of analytic philosophy with a good track record of publication in top journals (something which many liberal arts college philosophy professors lack). Some of your programs I can't speak with any knowledge about, but for the remaining: although UConn's rank doesn't reflect it, they are a very competitive program and are building up an impressive looking faculty. UC Boulder is very appealing program with strong faculty as well. This past year they had 240 applicants for 4 slots. I cannot fathom at all an admittance with such a writing sample. I know it's too late at any rate, but I think honesty is the best policy.

To be honest, I liked it when you called me "professional student scum" before you edited it out.

Grand words coming from someone who was just trying to tell another person that they have poor interests, bad opinions, and are disingenuous in regards with their interests.

Shouldn't you be busy trying to find two other letter writers?

Shouldn't you be busy trying to get a second and third letter writer?

My undergraduate school was pluralistic, so I got an introduction to both sides. That said, I went into undergraduate already wanting to do continental philosophy. However, by the time of my graduation, I had corrected my sinful ways and chose the One True Philosophy which is analytic philosophy. The rest, as they say, is history.

To be fair, Chicago is still pretty analytic. I'm only personally familiar with their emeritus professors Tait and Wimsatt, but glancing at their current professors they've got people in solidly analytic subfields. Your point probably still stands though, because I doubt they'd be pitting continental vs analytic applicants. Instead they probably have some sort of quota they want to meet in terms of analytic/continental or in terms of individual professors who were open to taking on new students in their subfields.

I hope you realize that at no point in your statement did you mention to the university why you thought you would be a good fit for them. Regardless of everything else, your money will be wasted because you will get rejected everywhere since there aren't any professors there who are interested in the work you're doing.

This might be a good frame of reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXSgp755DSA&t=1m54s In short, it's a lecture from a physics professor about all the "crank" theories that they've received from random persons. There are a lot of people out there who are completely deluded. They have no formal training in a subject, but think they've solved some major problem or created some completely new theory. You actually see this associated a lot more with philosophy, because on the surface, philosophy is a lot easier to fake. Whereas if you try to fake science, you have to incorporate data and write down formulas which is harder to do. But if you watch the video, you'll see the professor describe this phenomena in the crank theories they've received regarding physics. That they've received a number of different papers that deal with a lot of data, and have a good number of formulas written down... but as he goes on to explain, these formulas don't actually represent anything significant or non-trivial. It's the same with a lot of amateur non-academic philosophy, much of it doesn't really represent anything, it's just words stringed together in a fancy way. It's the same sort of mindset/thinking processes that you see with conspiracy theorists. Actually, I don't know if this is comforting or not. I just find it a bit comforting to know that there's decidedly something going on here that may be treatable or preventable.

I'm confident that this guy is real given that he has posted his real name and the university he graduated from, not to mention the self-published book and the copy-pasted statement here are far too elaborate to be hoaxed. This thread (and this person's mental illness) is delicious. I'm a terrible person.

You've got to be good to get into a program, but there are a LOT of really smart, talented, excellent people out there applying along with you--many more, in fact, than there are funded spots at philosophy programs. To sort of emphasize the point in another way, not only are there a lot of very talented undergraduates you are competing with... but you're competing against these MA students as well, which is all the more reason to apply to MA programs. An undergraduate is going to be severely disadvantaged to a student who has had two extra years of studying philosophy, and nothing but philosophy (when you consider an undergraduate has a lot of other course subjects to be concerned with). MA programs are much more professional in nature. You're getting paid effectively to study philosophy, and the program is going to work with you over the course of a year or so in producing a writing sample. The odds are stacked against undergraduates when there are MA students out there.

Literally no one will care.

Based on this: http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/concordance_information.pdf, no. And besides, if you could only raise one of your scores, verbal would be the one.

This is false. There is an incredible variability and just dumb luck with admissions, which is all explainable with the subjectivity of the admissions process. With every change up in the admission committee, how one fares varies drastically with each year they apply. And how one fares will differ randomly across different universities. An applicant may one year get accepted by only lower ranked schools and rejected by higher ranked schools, and the next year rejected by lower ranked schools and accepted by higher ranked schools, despite having the same exact credentials as he had before. The only way anyone is going to be able to objectively rank you on a ranking between 1 and 2,000, is if there are maybe five or six different block ratings, such that persons 1 through 400, are all equal in rank, and all persons 401 through 748 are all equal in rank.

WashU has been sniping senior professors from top programs. And I think it's going to work.

Ah, sorry, my bad. I think I got lost in my own thoughts. I really only meant to say that bad GRE scores can keep you out, but that a 4.0 on the AW isn't low enough to do that.

The writing score is by far the least important part of your application. By this I mean that they're not going to get you into a program. The admission committee is not going to read your writing sample, find themselves disappointed, but take a glance at your GRE scores and say: "Gadzooks! We must admit this fellow!" That said, significant question can be raised if your scores are poor. The way you write for the GRE Writing is different from how you would write a good philosophy paper. So, a 4.0 is fine. It indicates that you're able to write to some degree, but just not in the way the GRE wants you to. If you were to score a 3.0 or below however, then this indicates to everyone (the GRE committee and the philosophy committee) that your basic writing abilities are flawed. The verbal portion of the GRE is more important, but the same rule applies. A 61st percentile on the verbal is, to be frank, atrocious There are rumors that some programs have GRE cut off scores. These may or may not be actual rules, or rules that are easily broken, but I think that just because there are rumors to this effect, that there's some truth behind the mentality. Even still, a 81st percentile still falls below the typical GRE cut off point. Which signals to me that my main point still stands, that low GRE scores are not going to be the cause of your downfall unless they are egregious. (Just try to aim for a 1400 or above on the old standard)

A line mentioning your clinical experience and research experience would be good in your SOP. It's not that it's required of students, but professors I've met have enjoyed meeting philosophy students who do philosophy of science or philosophy of mathematics who also did science or mathematics in the past. There are benefits to a philosopher who is familiar with the actual practice.

Here are the links to the SOP's from applicants who were accepted into graduate school: http://schwitzsplintersunderblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/sample-statement-of-purpose.html http://schwitzsplintersunderblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/sample-statement-of-purpose-b.html http://schwitzsplintersunderblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/sample-statement-of-purpose-c.html For what it is worth, my SOP resembled the second one most closely (excluding the unnecessary opening joke). I had four paragraphs - an opening, and then a paragraph for each of my large interests. I then used the rest of the paragraph to list the figures and particular topics in which I took an interest, as well as how these interests would be facilitated by professors at the university to which I was applying. I listed names and evidence. I showed evidence largely by listing a publication that evinced there was a common research interest between the professor and myself, though sometimes I showed evidence by indicating the professor had once taught a graduate course on a topic matter that was important to my research interests. This was also the preferred manner in which to write a SOP of the professor with whom I worked. A one page, incredibly no-nonsense and concise approach in order to let the department know that I (a) have specified interests I want to work on, and (b ) have demonstrated a compatibility with the department faculty. I don't think the third SOP is all that much different from the second, but I did not have as much concrete evidence to discuss my involvement with these interests, like they were able to say they took such and such graduate courses or did a honors thesis on such and such. I'm also not a big fan of the first SOP because it includes a lot of details that can be gotten from an applicant's CV or application. It should be noted however that the second and third SOP fall short for not displaying compatibility with a department. This is an important part of the SOP. These applicants may have been successful, but don't take that for a reason to skimp on your SOP. I think it should also be noted what all these SOP's have in common: which is that they are strictly concerned about graduate school work in philosophy. I have seen far too many SOP's which are much too biographical. No one cares how you got your interest in philosophy. No one cares about how you were a successful musician but are now wanting to come to graduate school. Etc.

The usefulness of my advice will largely depend on where you are applying and hoping to attend. So, to begin first of all: both of your papers seem to fall short in terms of general strategy. A stereotypical undergraduate paper is a "compare and contrast" paper. Some of these papers won't suffice for a good grade because all they do is... compare and contrast two different positions without actually producing an argument. Other "compare and contrast" papers will work fine for an undergraduate course because the undergraduate gives arguments as to why one philosophical position is better, or why both are mistaken, or what have you. Either sort of strategy won't work well for graduate school, but this is the strategy I see your papers as following. In the first paper, you draw similarities between two different positions. In the second, you address two different positions and argue what is wrong with their interpretations. That said, your second paper sounds more promising of the two. First, as you note, it is more technically sound. Second, the content but style of work will be more in line with how contemporary analytic philosophy is done today. In this way, a paper that is less bold would be advantageous. Third, you have a simple way to improve your second paper. Argue for an original position that is your own on whether experience is private or not.