Jarrod

Also: how do you be "literally mentally ill"? Edit: I love how the troll is upvoting my posts XD. Bar_Scene_Gambler, would you agree that the voting system on forums like these is a great modern example of how herd morality functions in lower human beings?

I was actually talking about the alienating going on in this thread. And don't even try to pretend the "he has a mental ilness, let's ignore him" was a result of any of either the sexism or the moderator conflict (I am fairly sure that the accusation of being mentally ill occured before either of these things happened!). Maybe you should re-read the thread where that took place (and this one!), and reconsider who is being aggressive and belittling.

You seriously can't find anything more constructive to do with your application angst than randomly alienate people in an internet forum? Some people :X

Interesting! Reading this forum over the past month or so has made me think the same of philosophy majors!

Which reminds me: read all of Jon Cogburn's internet posts on speculative realism. Y'all seriously underestimate the perseverance of the philosophy troll.

Why is it so impossible that a troll found a shitty philosophy book on amazon and decided to pretend it was their own?

Well, you seem to have gotten at least half my point by getting super defensive about Nietzche's mental condition. It feels super bad to be dismissed because of stuff like that. Maybe try not to do it to others so freely? Anyway, how does having a chair at uni before having written anything establish you as respected? It just establishes you as somebody with connections.Take a look at the inital print runs of Genealogy, Zarathustra, BGE or anything else that matters. Take a look at the reception of the Birth of Tragedy! Nietzsche laboured in sad obscurity for his entire life.

The point is that the whole "he has mental health problems so it is easy to ignore him hur dur" is the exact kind of thing that people (read: professional philosophers) say about Nietzsche today. And Nietzsche wasn't respected at all in his lifetime, which makes this line of rhetoric a lot easier to make from people who don't like him.

ps this guy is trolling the fuck out of you

I imagine that is what a lot of people think of dr moustache in your portrait. Or me. I guess it is reassuring that I have chosen not to disclose my disability on my philosophy applications :/.

Could you find a less shitty way of saying you dislike someone than saying they have a mental health problem?

The main premise in your response is a bit silly. Anyone proposing to adopt a national curriculum wouldn't claim that "gifted" students or students with disabilities should be deprived of individualized attention or support. If anything, a national curriculum would likely provide clearer standards for how people who fall out of the normal range should be treated differently. I understand that if you interpret the question being asked as literally as possible, it seems extremely stupid (should children with learning disabilities and children in the norm learn the exact same material in the exact same way?) but I think they mean for you to interpret it a bit more charitably than that! Anyway, you don't make it clear how this is a problem for a national curriculum in particular. The contrast case with "national curriculum" isn't "individualized curriculum" (that aint in the budget!), it would likely be some smaller governing body like a state curriculum, and it seems to me that this problem continues to exist (to the extent that it does exist) in that case.

Sarab: Is that advice from a book, or is it your own? I can't help but twitch a little at the suggestion that analogical reasoning and hypothetical illustrations are less useful tools for reasoning than anecdotes! (see eg: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-analogy/ for a good discussion of the former). edit: of course, it is certainly possible that this advice is good for getting a high score anyway (like the advice to use unnecessarily large words and to focus on length), which is why I am interested if it came from a prep-book.

I would add that you should probably be more concerned with placement rates than you are with the strength of the program. I would only apply to programs where you can get detailed information on where MA graduates end up. I haven't done an extensive search on Canadian MA's, but EG Manitoba's placement rate seems to be the same/better than some of those on Maxhgns's list, so it may be worth a look. That said, SFU's placement rate seems pretty darn good! Also: if you are looking at Ontario programs, and you see that they require an "honours degree", they just mean a four year bachelors degree.

I recommend that you talk with someone who knows where previous students in your program have gone to do their PHD's in the last couple of years. With that in hand, you will probably get a better idea of where you can shoot for in terms of selective schools. Honestly, I can't imagine why anyone would want an undergraduate's opinion on what schools they should be shooting for. Ask a few of your professors! Not only do they have knowledge of your specific circumstances, they can also give you an assessment of your writing sample that is, ehm, more accurate than your own (or: [Nietzsche feels are] but a vain conceit of one's own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree, than the vulgar...For such is the nature of men...they will hardly believe that there be many so wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance )