Averroes MD

Two other suggestions I have: 1) If you are struggling, make sure to drop down to the bare minimum number of classes you need to take per semester, usually 4 classes. An extra class can break the camel's back. 2) If you can, try to schedule intelligently. One semester I was able to have two days of back-to-back classes, and the other 3 days (almost) completely off... The off days were great for doing reading and hw... Of course, I was only able to get this perfect schedule once, but it was great!

Good advice.

There is hardly anything more marketable than a CS degree.

You always give great advice and are a valuable presence on the forums. Thanks!

To be honest, I think your GPA will make it difficult to go straight to a PhD program. Also, if your goal is to get into philosophy PhD, then consider philosophy MA's, not an MTS. If you are open to doing a PhD in religious studies with a specialization in philosophy of X [i.e. Islamic philosophy] , then MTS is a good idea.

Hi, Rubab. I am a PhD student at Harvard and have a specific interest in persecuted religious minorities in Pakistan. Are you Ahmadi Muslim? If so, I would be interested in looking at your application and possibly pinging you to faculty if your 'mission statement' and career goals make sense. You can PM me if you are interested.

I also came from a technical background. This was not an impediment to admission. Your statement of purpose is what is probably the most important, then your letters of recommendation. I would not worry about the lack of humanities classes. Good luck!

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Like I said, I respect your view. Yes you are right that many people do try to memorize words using flash cards. But what I meant to say is that the yield of this is low and will result in a minimal score increase. In your case three points. As for the utility of the test my experience has been that intelligent people tend to score high on standardized testing throughout their lives. It’s not just testing how well you take the test but rather it is a measure of general intelligence. Again, I acknowledge that it’s an unpopular opinion. Lastly, I do think that an academic should have a large vocabulary and the GRE vocab bank is a good standard.

I respect your view. In my view though it’s useful as one data point among many. An otherwise stellar applicant could still get in despite a lower score. Also I don’t think many people sit and memorize a bunch of words for the GRE. This is not an effective tactic anyways. Rather, people who score higher in this area tend to be those who read a lot over many long years. Moreover, these are words that an academic should be familiar with. Lastly, what’s wrong with a multiple choice exam? Seems pretty objective to me. I think there should be at least one purely objective metric with which to compare applicants.

Not in philosophy, but I think the GRE and standardized testing in general provides one useful data point and accounts for variances in school grading as well as setting a floor for admission. The point about test prep is not really relevant, since you can buy a used test prep book for like five bucks. That's what I did. I think it's an unpopular opinion, but such test scores do correlate to intelligence.

The issue is that commitment is something that waxes and wanes with time, so they want to see sustained commitment. It's easy to lose weight, but harder to keep it off. It took me four years of sustained commitment before they finally took a chance on me, and even then, I'm sure many programs still had their doubts. Also, age discrimination is a real thing. Lastly, I would say that I myself would not have accepted myself a few years ago, nor would I want to admit you as a PhD applicant at this point in time. Being a PhD student means you have a certain level of expertise in a field, not brand new to it. I understand your background in finance but I still think that this is different than the history of finance. But, I might be wrong on this, as I am in the study of religion, not history or finance! The flip side of this is that you can get accepted to a shiny Ivy League masters program and then use that as a stepping stone to an even better PhD program than what you might get into it now. Just a thought.

I think you will need to get an MA first. This will be beneficial for you and them. You to make sure this is what you want. And them to make sure you’re a good fit for academia and also to show how serious you are. As someone with an MD, I will tell you that success in another career helps with admission to masters programs and hurts when it comes to PhD programs. A PhD is a long road and many people worry that someone with a successful higher paying job would just bail when the going gets tough. And this is in a career trajectory that already has so many students that fizzle out in their dissertation phase. This is not to to discourage you but only to encourage you to apply to masters programs as a stepping stone for the PhD.

Your language skills are good. I recommend doing a masters to work on languages for a couple more years—maybe HDS? Also might want to study some French and German for reading as well. But overall good to see you are taking languages seriously.

No.