ungerdrag

Okay, this is an absurdly late response, but I finally remembered to ask someone the other day. It looks like it was pressure from the administration that did it.

That's a great question, HHH. I never asked, but I can ask someone this weekend at the department retreat and get back to you.

If anyone has any questions about MIT, I'd be happy to answer them! For what it's worth, I think everyone who gets in there should go, unless they have unusually good reasons to prefer somewhere else. (E.g., they want to work on Plato.) I've heard plenty of other philosophers express the same opinion -- even philosophers at other top departments.

They're broad: metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of action. Whenever possible, I work on all of these at the same time. (Example: metaphysics of pain/pleasure.) I'm also getting really into formal semantics, which is unbelievably fun.

I'm sorry, ZS. I know it's kind of douchey posting about successes like this on TGC, even in the acceptance thread. Maybe there's some way I could make it up to you. (Tossing my copy of The Puppet and the Dwarf, perhaps? )

Great discussion so far. Hypatience, PHLSTUDENT22, monochrome spring and others are making solid points. I'll just add that the writing sample is probably the most important part of your application. Four things about that: Write something you know a lot about. (If you don't know a lot about any one topic yet, get a short reading list from a professor.) Try to keep your main idea simple. Your first couple of paragraphs should summarize it clearly—so clearly that even people working in other areas will know what you're trying to say. You won't win points for sounding dismissive, but you will for sounding fair-minded. Please, please, please: simplify your prose. Avoid clutter, delete fancy words, use short sentences, and stay on topic. Hope that helps. Good luck, future folks.

BPhil puts me at 10/10. What the actual fuck.

Welcome to the forums, lakobos! 1. Yale has sent out first round acceptances; Michigan hasn't. But Michigan did admit one or two people (including me). 2. Wish I could help you, but I don't know anything about this. Good luck!

Thanks, Vineyard! I'm probably going to go to NYU, given how strong it is in all my AOIs, but I'll visit some other places just to be sure. Believe me: I didn't expect to get in everywhere. I applied to some safety schools, but withdrew once I started hearing back from top tens. (The safety schools aren't in my signature anymore.)

Joke's on you—I actually applied for a PhD in communications!

Attaboy/girl, Mavngoose1.

I am freaking the fuck out right now and one school away from buying everybody in this thread a beer.

The email was super short. As in, two sentences.

CONGRATS!!!!

Not that you really need to wait for Rutgers, at this point

Great question. I prefer contractions for "I will," "will not," "do not," "I have," and several others. ("Could've" and "should've" are a bit too informal.) Contractions are unstiff and easy to read, so I use them whenever they don't sound too informal. Formality and informality are both fine, but not if they get in the way of the flow of ideas: you want prose that's maximally clear and minimally distracting. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

This is definitely a great idea for a thread! Here's my sample, FWIW: https://www.academia.edu/6287019/Reason_Passion_and_Conflict_Non-Naturalism_and_Humes_Arguments_in_T_2.3.3

Wow! Congrats

In case people want to see, here's my writing sample. I spent a pretty long time polishing it. (Except the last two paragraphs of the intro, which were just added last week.) Hope you dig. https://www.academia.edu/6287019/Reason_Passion_and_Conflict_Non-Naturalism_and_Humes_Arguments_in_T_2.3.3

Thanks, y'all. Hope everybody gets in somewhere they love!

Got into NYU. Holy fuck...

CONGRATS! I have some friends up there, and they love it.

Got a voice message from NYU... saying that I forgot to upload my transcript. Despite the heart attack, it's nice to know that I'm still in the race, and that they'll be meeting soon.

I should add that only extremely overqualified applicants are going to get into the PR as undergrads, or even as MA students. (Maybe Analysis would be easier; I know it's been done before.)

Fair point. A paper in, say, Analysis or The Philosophical Review would make your application look nice. But I've talked with plenty of admissions people, and not one has ever said they've made a decision based on publication history. If you use your publication as your writing sample, great! The fact that it was published will make the adcomm read it more carefully. But ultimately you're not going to get in unless the committee thinks you can write philosophy, and they're not going to make their judgment based off of the judgment of a couple of journal reviewers. They're going to make that judgment for themselves, by reading the sample. So don't get me wrong: I agree that publishing in a top journal would help your chances. It's just that a published paper isn't necessary for this. A strong writing sample, on the other hand, is both necessary and sufficient. So the following principle seems reasonable: given the choice between polishing a sample and getting published, polish the sample. If you've already put in enough time for the sample, then go ahead and try to get published if you want.