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Everything posted by Establishment
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Subfield rankings will probably be more important for you AOI considerations, but also keep in mind that your overall interests may change thus a school with an overall good ranking will be important. The most direct thing to do however, is to compare the placement records of the professors you'd want to have as an advisor between the different schools and see which one has a better record if they're not both equal. EDIT: Also, fully agree with the below regarding all the finer details to consider.
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Oh, I see what you mean now. Yeah, that's unfortunate. The way most students handle one year MA programs is to not apply during their first year but after they've graduated. Of course, if for whatever reason this isn't an option, then your hands are tied.
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Are you happy with where you got in, or do you wish or think you could have done better? If the latter, I'd say do the MA. I turned down two top-50 spots to do the MA, and I've heard of many others doing the same. A good MA statistically improves your chances at top programs.
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Oh wow, I hadn't noticed that. Yeah, I thoroughly recommend redoing the GRE. I took it my freshman year and got (what is now equivalent to) 164V/158Q, yet I plan on re-taking it this summer because I feel my scores are still too low.
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That'd make for a great reality TV show. "How desperate are you for a funded PhD spot at NYU?" Bring together a haphazard group of prospective philosophy graduate students and have them commit acts of increasing desperation and depravity on national television. NYU would recuperate the cost of that funded position just from the show's proceeds. It'd be a win-win.
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Seriously. I know you won't appreciate this since you're future is hanging on the line here, but from the outside it's incredibly hilarious how fickle/random admissions is. (Not to poopoo on those who got in. You can only get admitted if you're super duper qualified in the first place. It's just that there's so many super duper qualified persons that it does become just a matter of chance at the end.)
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Dear 2015 applicants, here is what we have learned from the 2014 season: Write on Hume. GG,
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I had a Protestant Priest bless my writing sample. Clearly, I should have gone with a Catholic.
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The way you posed your question is kind of disturbing. You're going to attend an MA program and come out with a "slightly edited" writing sample from what you had before?
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On the other hand, I feel like a year at St. Andrew's would improve your chances a lot on your second application cycle. Although it'd be nice to get deferrals from your two schools, I can't imagine you'd be needing to make use of them.
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You are literally Hitler.
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Saul of Tarsus was blinded for three days by the light of the divine, I imagine we must give Leiter some time to recover from something even grander than that which Saul saw.
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I'm disappointed to have not seen such sublime verse reposted on Leiter Reports today.
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Anyone have anecdotes about if programs will let you defer admission for a year in order to do a Fulbright?
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I tried to find it earlier today but didn't have too much luck. It was a discussion on Leiter and maybe some other blogs. I remember some professors/grad students complaining about these findings because they felt this was an unfair privilege. It's pretty reminiscent of Eric Schwitzgebel's findings on undergraduate prestige and PhD prestige admission. People were complaining that top universities were hiring these unpublished students because of some illegitimate belief that they had some inner, unknown potential for greatness compared to published students from lower programs who might be seen as safer by having a published track record, but less exciting picks. I think this is exactly my point. Prestige isn't anything objective, if we're just thinking like someone off the street. Prestige is always relative to some community. As a hopeful analytic philosopher, I belong to the community of analytic philosophers which I believe the PGR purports to represent, which is sorta what you've just claimed. I make no claims that the PGR is relevant for continentalists. So yes, what you've just said, I agree with, and is completely my point. Top-Leiter-ranked programs will seek to hire from other top-Leiter ranked programs. Which is why I, and the majority of us philosophers, value the PGR so much, because it has some influence on our potential hiring success.
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Depends on your definition of detrimental. Obviously students coming from lower ranked programs can get TT positions, but it seems they have to put in more work for it. For instance, students from top-10 programs can snag TT positions at top-ranked research universities without a publication history. Students from lower ranked students are going to have to be published in order to be as competitive.
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Despite the appearances of his blog, I've heard very pleasant things about how Leiter actually is in person.
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This is an absolutely disgusting and inaccurate characterization of Leiter.
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Our philosopher who art in Chicago, hallowed be thy name. Thy postings come, thy blog be read, in all programs as it is in top-10 one's. Give us this day your daily post, and forgive us our trepidations, as we forgive those who trepidate against you, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from Zizek. For thine is the blog, and the rankings, and our thanks, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Time to make the profile: badiousucks
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You might want to contact them. I and others had to contact them last year to find out we were waitlisted. I don't know if they contacted waitlists this year, or maybe they only let those who are high on the WL know. (UConn, that is) (I'm actually curious if UConn actually ever rejects students until April 15th? My suspicion is they just waitlist everybody they don't give an offer to right away just as a super safety precaution.)
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This is going into my quote box.
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This brings up a good point which I don't know if has been mentioned yet here, but was brought up in a different thread. Check into the placement records of professors you suspect may be your future advisor. That'll be a far more accurate representation of your future than the general rankings will. You may have to email the department to get this information, but I suspect this information can be very important. I know that at my BA institution, which also had an MA and PhD department, the MA department is a top-10 program if you considered it's overall placement. But if you only counted the placement records of the analytic students, it'd probably be like equal to Tufts if not better. There was a ginormous difference in placement depending on who your advisor was.
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On the other hand, I don't disagree with most of your points. There are other things to consider than just TT placement, and one ought to also find a way to weight various placements. Not all TT placements are equal. And better placement correlation can be gotten from looking at particular faculty. That's why when you finally get accepted to a PhD program, you'll want to ask the departments for placement records of the professors you expect you'll be working with, because that information will be much more accurate. The use of the PGR/PhD-Placement-Ranking that late in the game then is mainly to speak towards the school's average placement record, which can be useful when we consider that students often change interests. If a school is overall strong, then a student will be able to switch interests without having to face lower chances of success. Although, it might also be possible that a schools overall reputation, regardless of it's more specific area record, plays a influence in hiring, and so shouldn't be entirely discounted.
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Yes, there are flaws, but it's not a wholly useless study. In fact, Leiter mentions that one of the study's flaws results in a weaker correlation than there actually is. And here's another attempt at rankings (http://phiplaces.wordpress.com/introduction/) which also finds a correlation. Now, regardless of these sorts of empirical studies however, professors are giving such advice. Now, professors are often wrong about things. They try to give you application advice despite the fact that adcoms differ so very widely, etc., etc. Yet, we still consider their opinions because they've been through the process, they've sat on adcoms, and they're rather integrated in the field and have some intuitions about how others work. So the mere fact that professors are adopting this line of not attending programs below the top-20, is evidence itself. It's weak evidence, but any sort of evidence you can expect to acquire regarding these sorts of complicated events is going to be weak.