Establishment

Because the stronger ranked your program is, the easier your time on the job market. I've seen some professors who advocate a variant of the once standard advice that you just shouldn't go to graduate school in philosophy (unless you can't imagine yourself doing anything else). This variant is that, you shouldn't go to graduate school in philosophy at anything less than a top-20 program. http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2013/10/philosophy-job-placement-data-redux.html There was another Leiter post, or some study, or some discussion which had to do with the placement trend differences in the PhD departments. The trend was that students from top-10 programs got jobs without any sort of publication history, but those from lower programs found it more required of them to publish in order to succeed on the job market. Now sure, many people misunderstand what these (or any) rankings mean, and misuse them. But that's not to say that rankings are without any sort of foundation, or don't serve a useful function. But I don't think there's anything too wrong just with a general fetishization of rankings. Humans love rankings for all sorts of psychological reasons, and we have a lot of fun with them even if deep down we know we sometimes are just playing things up.

I dunno. If you have a publication, then I feel like you just send that sucker in and make the bank. Just because your writing sample got you into some good programs, doesn't mean it's Philosophical Review good. Whereas Philosophical Review good is probably more than enough to get you into the best programs. Of course, if you're an undergrad, this is pretty unheard of. But if you've got an MA, there's the occasional student that'll achieve such a thing. (Of course, we have to understand a publication as being in something like the Philosophical Review, or some other top, professional journal. We're not talking about some regional journal, or some undergraduate/graduate journal, which really aren't ever worth your time and if anything can come back to bite you.)

We even have the GRE scores to prove it.

I might visit the local art museum tomorrow. Haven't decided yet.

Feel free to add me as well. Or don't. I-It's not like I want you to...

I'll have you know my ancestors were puritans and I don't take kindly to associating puritanical moralizing to something negative.

I've met one professor who mentioned that SOP's are worthless. That said, a SOP as described above won't hurt you if he's on your adcom, but lacking a SOP as above for adcom's that do care could hurt you. So it makes sense to invest a little into your SOP. Regardless, I second the above advice. I've generally been told to tailor my SOP's.

This sounds right to me from what I've heard as well. The placement record of even a place like Oxford or Cambridge (in PhD to jobs) doesn't reflect as well as it should given either school's prestige, if one is concerned with employability in U.S. universities.

So rustled.

Damn. I failed that test then, and I'm still failing it now.

Pretty sure I saw more complicated examples of sarcasm from Jonathan Swift in my public middle school education.

He was saying that we have an acceptance thread which has the great potential to harm person's feelings when they see how well other people are doing and how unwell they themselves are doing. He was saying that surely if this thread still finds a way to be of use to applicants (which it does), then surely a thread for people to discuss the various considerations there are to make when deciding on a program should useful as well. The latter actually serves a unique purpose, whereas the former isn't as necessary since acceptances/rejections will come through either way to the applicant, or can be found on the gradcafe result page. Are you sure you got into a top-5 program with reading skills like these?

He was being sarcastic in order to make a point. WOOSH.

I don't know why we're talking about consensual relationships between students and professors. The linked article has to do with a person stalking and harassing another person to the point of suicide.

RE: The GRE, I was told explicitly from one school I was waitlisted at that my lower than (their) average GRE score was what held me back. But as someone earlier intimated, there are few ACTUAL answers. Admission committees are composed by people with a diverse set of preferences. How your SOP, GRE scores, letters, and writing sample will weigh together and be individually judged will depend on the particularities of the persons on the adcom. The best attitude to have is this: everything matters. Give it your best shot. Apply to a wide variety of programs. Don't think you're too good for an MA. Don't think you're not good enough for a PhD. If you get shut out, don't get discouraged. You just had ad luck. Apply again, and keep on working on your application materials.

My understanding is that at most programs it's mixed. You'll teach some years, have off some others. Either way, with constant incoming students, you'll have graduate students available.

Graduate students are cheap labor.

Nah, you gotta do logic on paper. That way when you finish a proof, you can store it away with all your other stacks of proofs. Then when outsiders go rummaging through your things, they'll marvel at your work. With a whiteboard, they at most see one instance of you proof working.

I don't disagree. I guess I should have been more careful with my words. The PGR does give continental rankings, but these rankings are of a particular kind that might not be satisfiable to certain continentalist groups. Perhaps the "bias" or tendencies of the rankings have to do with the members selected for those particular area rankings. (Although I wonder. Riverside and Brown are popular because of their coverage of "19th century continental philosophers", such as Nietzsche. Except that the students who attend there that I know wouldn't consider themselves continentalists, but analytic philosophers interested in the work of Nietzsche. Which is perhaps where I got the idea that the PGR, even for its "continental rankings", isn't for continentalists.) So although the PGR is inadequate for those certain respects, I was surprised by the thought that for general analytic, the PGR might be considered deficient or misleading and was curious for more information. (keeping in mind certain assumptions about what the PGR is and how to properly use it) This is really what I wanted to get at, the contrast, had I said what I meant or had wanted to mean.

The PGR makes no claim to be relevant for continental pickings. So, I'd be curious to hear more about the perspective about finding schools not picked out by PGR for analytic based schools, if there are any. For next year, I've browsed through the universities listed under the PGR specialty listing for my particular areas and looked at their departments and faculty members and will probably be selecting programs largely from that. I honestly don't really know what went through my mind my first application cycle last year. My interests in philosophy had been undergoing a radical change at around the time of my application cycle, so that was unfortunate. At the time I felt like I knew what I wanted to do, but I really didn't. I was just dealing with some superficial interest in some areas I hadn't done any work in yet. In any case, I applied mainly to MA programs because I knew my application was overall going to be weak despite coming from a strong school, and having good quantitative stats. The reason for this is largely because of my writing sample. I wrote it from start to finish in under 48 hours (that is, a two-day cram session during finals week), and spent less than 5 hours editing it before sending it off to programs. (Pro-tip: Don't do this. This kills the applicant's chances.) I then applied to 1 unranked PhD, 1 low ranked PhD, and 1 medium ranked PhD. I did the unranked because I thought it'd be a safety (which it turned out to be), the low ranked because of interests based on the PGR, and the mid-ranked because I independently knew some of the faculty there that I wanted to work with. I didn't really have any help from my list. One of my professors mentioned the professors they knew at my school. He also indicated I rethink about applying to one of the top-10 programs, which I ended up heeding. Next year should look better. My interests will be a lot more firm and I'll be applying to a large amount of places rather than just six. I think my general method of picking out places is fine. I never did apply to a program just purely out of its PGR ranking. It was always because they had faculty I was interested in.

I'm curious if you would spell out what sort of things your professors did to help further your list. Did they say that you were missing out on a few schools who were strong in your AOI? Did they say that you shouldn't apply to certain schools because the professor who you thought had X as an AOI, wasn't an entirely strong figure for X?

Welp, time for me to give up. More seriously though, assuming all things being equal (i.e., your WS is as you say it is, etc.), it's possible that (1) you've just had rotten luck this season, (2) you could still have some acceptances from top programs incoming. Now, it's also true that philosophers do have various biases for the type of philosophy they like seeing done, both in terms of content and method and structure. This could explain your great feedback so far, but lackluster results. But I wonder what you mean by Schiffer's largely negative reaction and how substantive his criticisms were.

Congrats! Best wishes to you at your final place of residence,

One thing I've found at my MA program, is that teaching is fun, reinvigorating, and something I'm somewhat competent at if my student reviews mean anything. Actually doing philosophy on the other hand, is stressful, tiring, and something I seem incompetent at. Which... is probably for the best given the availability of teaching positions compared to research positions.