philophilosopher

Oh sure, it's really simple, especially for a Marx class. All you need to do is ensure that in every comment you include, at a minimum, the following phrases at least once: alienation, commodity fetishism, and ideology. If you are met with strong assertions, you have two options: reference esoteric secondary literature so that you can condescend your interlocutor into silence, or, subtly suggest that their viewpoints are bourgeois. The former is less polemical and therefore more ideal. Careful though, if you do refer to secondary literature, you can quickly become enmeshed in an ever-escalating battle about who you have and haven't read. When you find yourself in one of these battles, never admit to not reading someone; it always gives you interlocutor/enemy the upper hand. Also, say everything with total confidence. Don't even entertain potential fallibility.

Declined a GSU MA offer. It seems like a really solid program. I hope it helps someone!

The New School doesn't accept applicants straight into the PhD program, only the MA. Then, once you have gone through their MA, you are eligible to apply for the PhD. At least, this is my understanding of their process.

Got it, thanks! You are definitely not out of your element.

Underdrag, you have done well in you application season, but I have a small question to ask you about your writing style. I have never once in life been advised to use contractions in formal writing, but you frequently say "I'll" and "don't" instead of "I will" and "do not." Is there any reason why you do this or have you never been advised against it? Or is there something else I am missing here?

Try this link: https://apply-humanities/uchicago.edu/status

I will be visiting Emory around the end of March. When will you be visiting Johannes? Also, I have a few questions about the visiting process. Although we are already accepted to the program, I am still anxious about the visiting process. What do you all plan on doing when visiting and chatting with professors and students? Obviously we all want to get a feel for the department, but I am wondering how anyone thinks the best way to do that is. All I can think of right now is determining what the professors are currently working on and what they see there future career plans being (some of the professors I would like to work with have been profs for a long time so I would like to know if they are thinking about going emeritus/retiring soon). Any other ideas or suggestions?

That's a good idea, but there is one problem that strikes me immediately. It is possible that different schools offer different students different funding packages, isn't it? If so, then the current system has no way of allowing that (as far as I saw) to be corroborated.

I was accepted to GSU and I will most likely be declining (also, a friend was accepted and this friend will most likely be declining as well). I am not completely sure yet though. I will keep you posted. Where are you on the waitlist?

A lot of things you just said are extremely cursory and misleading. The issue is that many schools that are primarily continental with well-published faculty are not included anywhere on the list, and part of the reason for this is the allegation of a biased methodology that favors analytic departments. So, obviously there are continental rankings in the report (no one is denying that); what they are denying is that those continental rankings are a fair and accurate representation of the quality of all continental departments in the US. Also, the second issue you raise is somewhat troubling. Many small departments can be of excellent quality if the people in that department publish quality material in their areas of specialization. The PGR fails to properly account for quality qua quality and is instead skewed by quantity. Imagine if your main AOI is Phil of Mind and there was a three-person department composed of David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, and Josh Knobe. This program would be excellent for you but, in the PGR (which is heavily based on the quality and quantity of research), this program may very well be ranked as equal to a mediocre department composed of 10 people working in phil. of mind whose total amount of publishing is comparable to or more than Chalmers, Dennett, and Knobe solely because of the fact that there are more people doing more research. It seems obvious that the small department would be a much stronger in terms of phil of mind, but, the PGR would have no way of indicating it. That is the issue with the larger university bias; it practically eliminates the consideration of a small cohort of strong faculty to be ranked well in the PGR. Note: obviously this is a fictitious example and I am not really familiar with phil. of mind; there is no need to get into nitpicking about who is a good in phil. of mind. Also, though it is probably a rare case that such a cohort of small yet prolific and excellent faculty exists and remains unnoticed, the fact is that the PGR theoretically has now way of accounting for this or factoring it in fairly.

A few notes/comments. I think it is really funny that a lot of us (myself most definitely included) initially characterize our schools based on the PGR; it is quite amazing how dominant and pervasive it has become, primarily because (I assume) it is the only statistically/methodologically rigorous ranking of philo departments by philosophy academics. It is definitely a pharmakon: it can most certainly be useful as a starting point, but over-reliance on it can likely lead to missing out on some really cool programs with good faculty and good placement records. I am interested in continental philosophy and so I definitely applied to some "speppy"schools, like Vandy, Boston College, Emory, etc. Most of those schools have really solid placement records but our almost ignored in the PGR. I don't really know the point of this post, but, it is quite striking to me how easily I am subsumed into adopting one set of rankings (the PGR) simply because it is so easily available and so widely regarded. There is definitely a merit in doing the grunt work and "shopping" around to other non-PGR-ranked schools. EDIT: I also really do not think there is such a thing as a safety school in philo grad admissions, at least for grad admissions with funding. There are so many applicants for so few spots. Even at the lesser known schools, there are so many applicants that the pool is bound to be somewhat competitive. Maybe there are some rare students who know they will end up somewhere. But that somewhere is by no means guaranteed because departments seem to admit candidates based on a variety of factors with varying degrees of import in the components of an applications.

This is an excellent thread! To be honest, I found it very difficult to choose schools and navigate the massive amount of (oftentimes biased) information. Obviously, the PGR was a good place to start, and, of course, I consulted my undergrad profs a little bit. In the end, I really only chose schools based on the faculty they had who were working in my area and who stuff I had read and was familiar with. I told myself that I would only apply to schools that, provided I was accepted, I would actually really want to attend. As a semi-safety, I applied to two funded masters (even though they are not really safeties because they are so competitive) that had at least one faculty member working in my AOI.

I guess the issue then is what exactly do you mean by "pipeline" and also if you think that the eminence of a letter-writer is more effective and successful than the familiarity of a the letter writer with the applicant. Also, I am wondering if you mean this descriptively and prescriptively. If you do mean this descriptively, how could you possibly know?

You're completely missing the salient features of the analogy. The idea was not that the scouts and professors had similar "primary jobs." The idea behind the analogy was that both positions, while not mandating fame or eminence to be a scout or a professor, are in a position to evaluate the talent/potential/capacity for excellence in others and can evaluate others well.

MattDest, that is such exciting news! Congratulations!!!! What made you accept so early, especially before you have heard back from all of your schools? Obviously, I am sure you loved the program and whatnot, but how did you remove the doubt that there may be a program which you like more by the end of the admissions season?

I think it should be enough to have a PhD in philosophy to evaluate one's potential in the discipline. I would hope most adcoms would realize this as well. Baseball scouts are not the most eminent baseball players, but they can be excellent scouts because they recognize true potential and talent when they see it based on their experience and understanding of the necessary elements to succeed. I would imagine the same idea holds in philosophy professors writing letters of rec. they can evaluate someone's potential and write a letter according to the best of their knowledge. Granted they may not be right all the time (but who is?), but they certainly have the experience and familiarity to contribute a meaningful evaluation.

I voted virtue ethics, based on my appreciation for Plato and Aristotle's ethics and various attempts to adjust or re-frame the basic framework that those titans of thought provided us. Such attempts include Nussbaum and Sen, MacIntyre, and most recently Richard Kraut, among others. I am particularly fond of MacIntyre, who writes so well and clearly (though some times makes short shrift of others' thoughts). Establishment, I highly recommend After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre; it beautifully situates virtue ethics within the contemporary climate of moral philosophy, while touching on many other things.

Yeah, but don't you still run into the problem of forcing all participants to perform a certain way (a way that most likely doesn't account for how a significant portion of people actually think and work)? If so, then the LSAT will certainly not be any more objective than the GRE. I am not offering a better alternative obviously, but there are major problems underlying the general notion of standardized exams: the fact that they assume they can standardize the process by which people think and reason. . .

A major problem though is that the GRE imposes a certain standard of objectivity, namely who can do X amount of questions under certain time constraints or who can write X amount of pages in a somewhat coherent and eloquent fashion. This standard of objectivity inherently caters to people who understand and comprehend in a certain way. Although I did well on the GRE, I think it is unfair to juxtapose my scores next to someone equally as capable of me, but who reads a little slower or whatnot, and then to draw the conclusion that I must have better reading comprehension. The way most of us, I imagine, do our work, our research, and our writing doesn't conform to the way one succeeds on the GRE So, while it is objective in the sense that we all take the same (or similar) tests, the problem is with what exactly the underlying norm of objectivity is. . .

Yeah, I definitely think it will not hurt you. In fact, if the sample is on one of your secondary or tangential interests, it may strengthen the application - i.e. if you write this well and thoroughly about something peripheral to what you really want to study, adcomms may assume that the quality of your writing in your primary interest will be equal, if not superior, to the documented quality in the writing sample. Again though, it definitely shouldn't hurt you, and, if it is about one of your other interests (though not your primary), it very well could help you. . .

I was waitlisted at Vanderbilt, but I was told that there are around 4-5 on the waitlist.

Meow

Sure, sure, sure. I see what you all are saying so I guess I should offer a couple of points of clarification and a little bit of backtracking (sorry!). So, when I wrote "inoffensive" in that section you quoted, that was a major typo; I meant offensive and I do think the comments you reference were offensive. And obviously, as you are aware, there is a difference between responding to those comments and indicating that they are inappropriate and unacceptable (which, in this case, Ianfaircloud did aptly) versus responding in kind with offensive remarks. I do see how my comments seem extreme and I think I may have overstepped and extrapolated a little too far. Definitely one of the benefits of this forum is being able to offer some advice in certain situations. But, it still baffles me that anybody think that they can arrive at the conclusion that someone (e.g. Iamparem) should quit studying philosophy or not pursue graduate study based solely on gradcafe posts. This kind of conclusion is absolutely fallacious and ungrounded given the evidence. We have all seen the range of GRE and GPA scores, quality of alma-mater, etc. that many students come from and where they end up going. lamparem's stats are definitely within that range. Given the statistical data and the relative familiarity with the history of admissions, I completely see evaluations and conjectures about where a possible student will go as legitimate and grounded. (This is where I overstepped, FYI). But, in no way can someone conclude that another applicant should abandon the pursuit of graduate studies. . .

Sorry, that was unclear. I just mean that no one (as far as I am aware) is asking that lamparem's comments necessarily be met with encouragement or "empty bromides."

I think you are completely straw-manning the opposition to Ianfaircloud's responses to Iamparem. You accurately describe the lack of information about Iamparem as a candidate; you indicate that the only possible information about Iamparem is the info we have based on his/her gradcafe posts. You then conclude that it is fair to offer advice and judgment based solely on that information, such as Ianfaircloud's advice. There is a logical leap that I am not following here. I don't think any advice can and should be offered regarding Iamparem's situation because we simply do not know enough about Iamparem's capability as a student and a thinker. So, the ideal alternative in this situation, is to respond to Iamparem stating that we cannot comment on his situation and we do not wish to engage in useless, groundless speculation. Do you see how that is different than what you described? Again, this issue is not necessarily about the quality of lamparem's comments, which most of us can agree (I hope) are either trolling or indicative of someone extremely stressed. It is about the ungrounded responses to those comments that completely condemn lamparem's ability as a potential PhD student in philosophy. No one is asking to tolerate lamparem's comments. But we are asking that preposterous or inoffensive comments should not be met with exaggerated acrimony and unnecessary hostility. Offensive comments should be ignored and/or disregarded because they add nothing to the dialogue or discussion. In what way can offensive responses to offensive comments be justified and contribute substantially to the current discussion?