[PGR top programs hostile to MA's?]

I'm a little confused by the question. Would you decide not to apply to places that have a record of not admitting students entering with an MA? I tend to think that people should apply to the programs that are the strongest in their areas of interest regardless of how likely it is that they'll admit you (pretty much everyone's chances of admission to any given program is low anyways). Besides, graduate admissions in philosophy is sufficiently unpredictable that trying to evaluate your odds of admission seems like an unfruitful enterprise (not to mention that any predictions are probably being made based on relatively small sample sizes). So, apply to the programs that you would want to attend were you admitted and let the admissions committee decide whether they want to admit you or not. To end with what is probably an overly trite cliche: the only way to ensure that you won't get admitted somewhere is to not apply.

[Leiter's ad hominem against critics]

1 hour ago, iunoionnis said:

Since we know that Leiter personally hates continental philosophy, this should come as no surprise.

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. There are lots of criticisms that one can make of Leiter and many of them are apt but saying that someone whose work centers on Marx and Nietzsche hates continental philosophy is just silly. (For the record, I strongly disagree with Leiter's reading of Nietzsche, but I also think it's a formidable reading that anyone working on Nietzsche needs to take into account).

 

9 hours ago, lyellgeo said:

The specialty report ranking is more or less useless when it comes to 20th century continental, mostly because many if not most of the evaluators aren't even working in that area. Methodological problems aside, one would think that would be at least a basic criteria for including someone as an evaluator.

By my count, 4 of the evaluators for 20th Continental philosophy are really Kant/19th Century scholars (Clark, Guyer, Novakovic, and Leiter) although most of them have a legitimate claim to some degree of engagement with later continental traditions. As far as I'm aware, however, the rest have some serious research interest in the period with interests ranging from phenomenology to existentialism to the Frankfurt school. A fair criticism might be to say that phenomenology, and a specific reading Husserl/Heidegger/Merleau-Ponty at that, dominate the rankings. One might also note the nearly complete absence of post-structuralist thought. But claiming that many or most evaluators aren't working the area doesn't seem to hold up. For a variety of reasons, 20th Century continental philosophy seems to produce a greater variety of opinions as to what counts as "good" scholarship that other subfields, which makes rankings here tricky. The other issue is that many of the programs strong in this area are unranked (some by choice)  and are thus listed at the bottom. From how I understand the sub-rankings, this doesn't mean they are to be understood as any weaker than the ranked programs in this area, just that evaluators weren't given a chance to evaluate them but thought that they would do as well as other ranked programs in this area had they been evaluated.

10 hours ago, lyellgeo said:

Also, it's sort of odd that they still include Leiter's original "analytic vs. continental philosophy" guide, even though it's misguided about a whole range of points, e.g. that analytic philosophy is about style. (A much better explanation can be found here.) 

I agree that Blattner's account of a sociological distinction is much more convincing than Leiter's stylistic distinction. However, it's interesting that both accounts point towards the uselessness of this distinction, whereas many posts on these boards recently seems to be reifying it in one way or another. You're certainly right though that Leiter can't seem to stop himself from making unnecessary parenthetical remarks.

[emails from faculty of the school that accepted you - how to reply?]

Be aware that it's possible you'll only see waitlist movement in the second week of April and maybe even on the day of the 15th. It would be good to have a good read on your schools before then, so that you can have a series of contingency plans in place. Waiting to compare schools until after you hear back from the waitlist sounds like a recipe for disaster.

If you've already decided you won't attend this school, then you should decline your offer. Otherwise, I'd say it's probably a good idea to speak with the professors and get a feel for the program.

[Overall Vs. Speciality?]

Questions to ask yourself:

1. What is the likelihood that your research interests will change over the course of your graduate career? (This is obviously highly variable depending on the person, but generally speaking someone entering with an MA is less likely to change focus than someone coming in with only a BA.)

2. Insofar as you want an academic job, where are the former advisees of the professor at University Y? Have they gotten tenure track positions at the sorts of universities you would like to work at?

3. How confident are you that you and the professor at University Y would have a good working relationship? I've heard more than a few stories of students (and current professors) who entered a program intending to work with a particular professor, but realized that for one reason or another that wasn't going to work. 

4. How important is it that your advisor has exactly the same are of research as you do?

 

I'd say the right choice depends a lot and your answers to these questions. University Y seems like the riskier choice, because  if your interests change or you decide you don't work well with this professor, you're sort of up a creek without a paddle. But, those concerns could be mitigated if you have a good reason to think that won't be the case. I'm also skeptical about the idea that one's advisor needs to have exactly the same interests as you. Obviously, they need to know your subfield, but I think that having someone who approaches things from a slightly different perspective can be helpful as can have a committee whose overlapping expertise provides you the support you need, even if no single individual on the committee does exactly what you do. But that's just my 2 cents. YMMV 

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

2 hours ago, lyellgeo said:

Received phd funding at Memphis, So, right now, the decision is between them and GSU.

Anyone have thoughts on how to navigate that decision? Some things to keep in mind:

a) I'm not particularly concerned with eventually ending up at a research institution—teaching at a community college or elsewhere would be nice. If I had to move into the private sector afterwards, that's not a huge deal either. I get the sense that I'm somewhat unusual in this way with respect to other applicants, so any thoughts on it would be helpful. 

b ) GSU has great placement, though obviously even a good MA doesn't guarantee landing up in a ranked phd (and even a ranked phd doesn't guarantee TT placement). 

c) Memphis is a close fit for my research interests

d) The phd funding is (as one would expect) much better than GSU's, which means I won't have to use my personal savings (unlike if I were to do the MA). 

If you have thoughts, definitely feel free to discuss over PM or respond to this post
 

I think @ThePeon and @machineghost have pretty well covered the practical aspects of this decision. I will, however, add one comment about the psychological aspects.

If you take Memphis's offer, to what degree will you be plagued by "what if" questions? This is, I think, no easy question to answer. I'm enough of a Nietzschean to think that most people (myself most definitely included) are masters of self deception. So, saying this will not be a problem now, doesn't guarantee you won't feel otherwise in a couple of years. I'm not sure this is a good enough reason to go with GSU, but it's something to keep in mind. Part of this depends on whether there are other "dream programs" that a terminal MA might open up for you. Of course, PhD admissions being as unpredictable as they are, there's no guarantee of anything. 

[Warning about offers]

Yikes! This sounds like it at least goes against the spirit of the April 15th agreement if not the letter. If you or others have hard evidence, it might be something worth contacting Leiter and/or the Daily Nous about. I have mixed feelings about public shaming, but this seems like a situation where it could be helpful, if only to alert potential graduate students.

[Campus Visits]

21 minutes ago, melian517 said:

In general I agree with this, but I think it does depend a little bit on the program. I was just at a campus visit, and it's an amazing department at a public university in a relatively poor state (they're still able to fully fund students though). The DGS told me that they are only given the funds for one prospective student per subfield, and I was it for mine. So even though as a rule I think programs should pay for people to visit, it also really depends on the financial situation at the university.

This is certainly something to take into consideration when deciding where to attend. A program that can't afford to cover the expenses for prospective student visits probably also doesn't have much in the way of extra money for attending conferences, doing research, etc. That's not to say that it might not be a great department otherwise, but the overall financial state of the program and the university as a whole will have an impact on your graduate education as a whole (this is especially true for PhD, although perhaps not as important for MA).

[Campus visits? Worth it?]

If you're asking about a PhD program, then this is a decision that could affect the next 5+ years of your life and beyond. I think if you can, it's best not to make such decisions sight unseen.

[Current state of English departments & PhDs: traditional vs. interdisciplinary]

2 hours ago, Minttrope said:

Yeah, I'm getting the sense that figuring out the specific difference is more a matter of talking to people.  Also, I'm now wondering how the ongoing shift in English departments toward innovative/interdisciplinary is affecting the job market (especially since my knowledge of the job market is, I think, pretty surface-level).  Like, in looking at Stanford MTL's record of placement, and I'm sure part of that is simply due to its ranking as an interdisciplinary program and what work is coming out of there, but I also wonder if there's a growing demand (perhaps not just in English departments) for people to fill these in-between niche specializations?  Not posing this because I'm explicitly seeking and feel I need an answer, just that the thought struck me.  Although, if you or anyone has thoughts, I'm certainly all ears, particularly since I could use some further, more specific thoughts on the job market.  

I'd be curious to see data on this. 

One way to get an idea for how the job market is responding to these developments would be to look at  position descriptions on the jobs wiki (http://academicjobs.wikia.com/wiki/English_Literature_2017-2018) . Even more informative (but also more work) would be to look at past years position descriptions and see who got those jobs (e.g. if a department is looking to someone working on Victorian literature, do they hire someone who is fairly traditional in approach or someone with more interdisciplinary research).

My suspicion is that the more innovative/interdisciplinary approaches are more heavily represented at R1s, whereas non-R1s (where the majority of the jobs are) are somewhat more traditional in approach. Academia is slow moving after all, and I think there's something of a trickle-down when it comes to new ideas. However, certain approaches that are apt to fill classrooms, such as feminist/gender/sexuality studies as well as minority/multicultural literatures, are probably in relatively high demand, at least in so far as the humanities are in demand these days. I sort of doubt, on the other hand, that regional public universities or small liberal arts colleges are actively seeking out people working on object-oriented ontology. That's all just a combination of speculation and educated guessing though. 

[Question on writing research on Chaucer]

This is something you should probably ask your professor about. Regarding (1), some scholars see this as a useful way to look at literary texts, others do not. Still others (probably the majority) well think it depends on how you intend to make this connection. So there's no way for us to know in the abstract, whether this is a good approach for your paper. Run your paper idea by your professor and see what he/she says. Same goes for (2). Some professors are open to any citation style, so long as it's transparent and consistent. Others are sticklers and will expect you to use a particular one. If it doesn't specify on the syllabus, then it's probably the former, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

[Post-Acceptance, Pre-Visit]

7 hours ago, unicornsarereal said:

dr rather than professor?? dr seems very odd to me. 

I've always preferred Frau Professor Doktor ______ / Herr Professor Doktor.

[Languages Comparative Literature]

Congrats on getting waitlisted! Hopefully that works out and you don't have to worry about reworking your application.

If, however, you do end up needing to reapply, I can think of at least a couple things that might be helpful. One would be to deal with a non-English language text in your writing sample and cite from the original. If you can demonstrate that you can use foreign language texts in your academic work, that should assuage any fears about your preparedness to produce scholarship in comparative literature. Another idea would be to make sure that at least one of your letters of recommendations is from a professor who can speak to your language competencies (or at least your competency in your primary foreign language). 

I would think that these steps should mitigate concerns about your language skills. The one exception to this might be if it is a department that will expect you to teach language classes. If that's the case, the aforementioned steps might be insufficient. In this case, a detailed history of your language education and time spent abroad might be something you'd want to add to your CV. 

[Self Care in Grad School]

35 minutes ago, GreenEyedTrombonist said:

Part of this can be choosing the right program for you. Do grad students seem to live out of their offices or does the program encourage getting work done on your schedule and then doing what you want? The second is usually less stressful than the first. A program that doesn't care if you're in the office all day, as long as your work gets done, is one that allows for activities like exercise and game nights. If I go to one program, I've learned at least one grad student teaches a spin class on campus and two in my potential cohort want to teach other exercise classes. I could take these classes as a way to be social with my fellow students, decompress from all the work, and stay fit. It's also important to me to have a walkable campus so, even if I don't get to the gym, I can get in all my steps for the day.

This is really important! When you're visiting programs, try to get a sense for how life is beyond academics. Yes, you're choosing a program based on how it fits academically, but in choosing a PhD program, you're also choosing a place to live for 5+ years. Try to find out what sorts of lives the graduate students live, academically and beyond and think about how that fits with the sort of lifestyle you want. (Keeping in mind that a healthy lifestyle may very well go out the window during the last couple weeks of the semester, no matter how diligent you are and that's ok.)

[Post-Acceptance, Pre-Visit]

2 hours ago, bumbleblu said:

Hey folks, I'm looking for some advice/input. 

Currently, I live/teach in Europe, so going to a campus visit wasn't really something that I was considering. However, on Friday I heard from UW-Madison that they'd managed to increase the reimbursement for international travel to $1,000. So now it's financially feasible, and I'd just have to see about getting my classes covered. However, it seems an awful lot of bother just for 4 days. On the other hand, this is the school I'm leaning toward, so I might be spending the next 5 years of my life there and it would be good to get a feel for the department and the city.

What do you guys think? Did anyone not go to their program's open house and wish they had? Or did go and think it wasn't really necessary? I haven't seen an itinerary or anything, so I don't know what to expect in terms of interaction with faculty members (I'll probably ask about this tomorrow -- I really wouldn't want to deal with international travel for an experience like @jrockford27 had at School A.)

I think that if it's feasible to visit the programs before you make a decision, then it's a good idea to do so.

One thing you might consider doing is waiting until you've gotten all your acceptances and then trying to visit the programs you're most interested in back-to-back. If you are open with the programs about this, they may even help coordinate it. I did this when I was applying and it made for a crazy week but I felt a lot more at ease making a decision than I think I would have if I'd had to choice without visiting. 

[Do Adcoms 'assign' incoming students to faculty members?]

In philosophy (unlike in history or in many of the sciences and social sciences), you are generally admitted to the program and not to work with a particular faculty member. Often, you won't even have an official advisor (aside from the DGS) until the second year or later. That being said, in terms of admissions, they will certainly take into account the compatibility of your research interests and those of the professors in the departments. If you want to work on Hume and there's one Hume scholar in the department, they will probably expect that you will end up working with her, even if you don't mention her name in your application. If it turns out this professor already has 3 advisees and doesn't feel she can take on any more, they may decide not to admit anyone whose primary focus is Hume (that's not to say that every department would operate this way, but it's certainly a possibility). 

In other cases, especially if your interests are more broad, they might admit you (assuming they like your app) but with no expectation that you'll end up working with any particular professor. I don't think it's necessary to name drop. If your interests are clearly articulated, it should be pretty clear which professors are good fits. If it turns out that nobody matches with your research interests, you probably won't get admitted. Name dropping can be risky. If you mischaracterize someone's research, name someone who is leaving the department, or fail to name someone who would be a good match, that may look poorly. On the other hand, if you have a specific connection to someone's work and can speak intelligently about how it has influenced your philosophical trajectory, that's probably worth mentioning. 

1 hour ago, apophantic said:

I also wonder about whether the applicant is chosen on majority or whether a strong liking from one faculty member (or a couple) is enough. My guess is that it depends. I bet they generally go for applicants widely agreed upon as deserving, but if a faculty member feels particularly strong about an applicant, and the member is the person who likely would end up being their advisor, then I bet that could do it too. 

I know for a fact that at one of the places I was admitted, there was a faculty member who was very interested in my application and pushed for me (and helpfully, that professor was on the admissions committee). Now, from talking with people, it sounds like my application was received pretty favorably by the committee as a whole at the program, so I may have been admitted even if this hadn't been the case. But if someone on the committee sees your app and decide they want to work with you and go to the trouble of convincing everyone else, that will definitely help your odds. 

[Guidance for Kant and German Classical Philosophy]

2 hours ago, iunoionnis said:

The Leiter report is pretty bogus, especially when it comes to the history of philosophy and anything remotely continental.

I would look at the list of schools on the SPEP page instead. 

Lol.

It might be helpful to provide arguments for this position as opposed to just name-calling. Nobody is saying that the Philosophical Gourmet report is the word of God, but it's a useful starting point for researching grad programs, especially if you focus on the specialty rankings. The Kant ranking in 14-15, for instance, consisted of evaluations from Anne Margaret Baxley, Andrew Chignell, Maudemarie Clark, Paul Guyer, Stephen Houlgate, Pierre Keller, Michelle Kosch, Derk Pereboom, Peter Poellner, Michael Rosen, Helga Varden, Eric Watkins, Robert Wicks, and Allen Wood. Those are opinions I would probably want to consider if I were looking to write a dissertation on Kant

The SPEP list you mention, on the other hand, lists no methodology whatsoever. However, the note on top stating: " If you wish to submit a departmental description, or to report a broken link, please click here to email us" suggests that this is merely a list of those graduate programs who have contacted SPEP and asked to be included. It's a strange list too. It includes, for instance, UT Austin and WUSTL. Now, Austin has a few people working in German philosophy but the department is by and large focused on rather technical areas in analytic philosophy, so I doubt I would suggest that some one interesting in "continental" philosophy attend there. WUSTL, while certainly a strong program, strikes me as having even less to interest someone focusing on German or French philosophy. UCSD, on the other hand, is no where to be seen, despite being one of the strongest places to study Kant right now, as @be. rightly notes. Neither is UChicago, which has a breadth in German philosophy that few departments can rival.

2 hours ago, iunoionnis said:

Most of these programs will have someone working on Kant/19th century philosophy.

Having someone who works on Kant/19th century philosophy is hardly a sufficient condition for a being a good place to study Kant. This is doubly true if one hopes to attain an academic job afterwards.

[Living On a Budget?]

If you're asking about Chapel Hill (which I'm guessing you are from your signature), then one certainly shouldn't need to pay $10,000 per year for rent and utilities assuming you're willing to share an apartment/house with one or more other people.

[Guidance for Kant and German Classical Philosophy]

A new edition of the Philosophical Gourmet rankings should be coming out soon (by the end of the month, I think), so keep a look out for that. Lots of people on these boards are highly critical of those rankings, and for some good reasons. I do think they're useful though, as long as you take them with a grain of salt. The specially rankings are compiled by an anonymous survey of (a selected group) of specialists in the field, in which they are asked to evaluate programs on a scale of 1 to 5. (Anonymous in the sense that we don't know how a given person ranked each department. There is, however, a list of evaluators). 

All of the programs you list are strong in German philosophy. However, with the information you've given us, it's hard to say which programs you should be looking at. People who work in Kant and 19th C German philosophy approach it from wildly different perspectives. The best thing to do is probably to try to read some papers from different people in the field and see which approaches align with your own. You could start with some of the professors at the universities you list (Paul Guyer, Beatrice Longuenesse, Allen Wood, R Lanier Anderson, Pierre Keller, Robert Pippin, Eckart Foerster, Clinton Tolley, etc.). Philosophy admissions are extremely competitive, so it may not be a bad idea to apply to many departments with the hope that you can get into at least a couple of them. 

There are certainly people working on Kant and German philosophy in German and religious studies departments, but they tend to gravitate towards different approaches than what you'll find in philosophy departments, so it definitely depends on what you're looking for. Keep in mind though, if you go to a German studies department, you will be expected to deal with German literature to some extent and in a Religious studies department, you would likely be expected to take into account other aspects of religious studies as a field.

[2018 Blooper Real*]

26 minutes ago, Warelin said:

I ended up cutting a different part because I felt the works cited page was too important to cut.

That's the beauty of Chicago style.

[Importance of Non-philosophy Classes in Grad Applications]

While @kretschmar makes some good points, I think I would disagree with the overall force of the comment. If your cumulative GPA remains above 3.7 and and your philosophy GPA is really a 4.0, then I think your grades are high enough that your application would get a serious look, assuming everything else is in order. Philosophy grad admissions are notoriously competitive, so that's no guarantee of anything. However, I don' think you will be rejected merely because you had some poor grades in non-philosophy classes (with the possible exception that you want to specialize in philosophy of science or a particularly technical subfield). Generally speaking, I think the quantitative aspects of your application are what make sure you get past the first cut. After that, they don't admit students because of good scores but because they think that will be successful graduate students in that program and, eventually, successful philosophers.

[Do people transfer PhD programs ever?]

16 minutes ago, TakeruK said:

Established profs already have funding in place for their students so as far as I understand, taking on new students isn't a major financial burden for the new school.

This may be true for the sciences but is typically not the case in the humanities from my experience. In the humanities, students are usually funded by the department as a whole and teaching positions, not through individual professors.

[Transfer and Statement]

I do know of a couple of cases where a student has "moved up" from one philosophy PhD program to a higher ranked one, although it is extremely uncommon and requires an exceptional applicant, I think. Your application will probably be held to a higher standard than someone applying from their BA or terminal MA and it will be very important to explain why the new program better suits your needs than they current one. Philosophy is a small world though, so it would be best not to bash your current program but rather frame your move in terms of what the new program offers you that the current one doesn't.

Also, a "transfer" here is probably something of a misnomer. If you are accepted, you will probably have to start back from square one. At most you may be able to get credit for a couple classes taken at your previous institution.

[Contacting POI]

If you've already submitted your app, don't contact them now. At this point, it would probably come across as you trying to win points, which is not what you want. I think earlier in the process it can make sense to contact people, but primarily if you have an actual question about the program or its fit for you. I tend to think professors see through it pretty quickly if you're just contacting them to increase your odds of admission.

[Tax Change Impact - Tuition Waivers Taxed!]

The Republicans have a joint tax bill: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/us/politics/tax-bill-republicans-deal.html?_r=0

No word yet on the status of tuition waivers.

[2018 Applicants]

2 hours ago, renea said:

Anybody else struggling with SOP word count requirements? Any tips for cutting out all those precious lines I spent weeks crafting? I submitted my first application last week which had a page count of 3-5 pages (open to both single and double spaced), now I've got to cut my 1100 words down to 500 or less... Let's not even get started on some schools wanting a 15 page writing sample and others wanting a 20-25

This may or may not be helpful for you, but one good thing to keep in mind is that your entire application functions as a package. So, try to minimize any overlap between what your CV and SOP accomplish. If something can easily be listed, then put it on your CV and leave if off your SOP. So don't bother listing awards, experiences, or classes in your SOP (unless absolutely necessary) and focus on clarifying your research interests. What is it that makes you tick as a scholar and why? This is what your SOP should focus on and anything else should be fit in elsewhere on your application.