Mather

Hi! I'm happy to provide some info. 1. The department aims to admit, on average, 6 PhD students each year. Of course, the actual number admitted for any given year will depend on various things, including, sometimes, the number of students admitted in previous years. 2. I think it's common for the department to admit students off the waitlist. Each of the last four years (and maybe more, I'm just not certain), at least one person has been admitted off the waitlist. Some of those years, there's been more than one.

Said this elsewhere, but while I'm at it, I'll say it again: If anyone has questions about Columbia, shoot me a message, and I'll answer to the best of my ability. I'm in my second year in the philosophy PhD at Columbia and currently serving as one of the grad student reps. My precise areas of interest are hard to pin down, but, roughly speaking, I'm interested the history of philosophy (esp., Kant), normativity, and agency. As a quick, general remark, I've found Columbia to be a wonderful place to study philosophy with a supportive faculty, an active and friendly graduate community, a healthy range of diversity with respect to philosophical interests, and plenty of other great academic resources within and outside of the university. I'm also a former UW-Milwaukee MA student. So, if you've got questions about that program, I'm happy to throw in my two cents, though, naturally, I'd encourage you to contact current students in the program, too.

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to put this, but: If anyone has questions about Columbia, shoot me a message, and I'll answer to the best of my ability. I'm in my second year in the philosophy PhD at Columbia and currently serving as one of the grad student reps. My precise areas of interest are hard to pin down, but, roughly speaking, I'm interested the history of philosophy (esp., Kant), normativity, and agency. As a quick, general remark, I've found Columbia to be a wonderful place to study philosophy with a supportive faculty, an active and friendly graduate community, a healthy range of diversity with respect to philosophical interests, and plenty of other great academic resources within and outside of the university. I'm also a former UW-Milwaukee MA student. So, if you've got questions about that program, I'm happy to throw in my two cents, though, naturally, I'd encourage you to contact current students in the program, too.

I just sent you a PM. For anyone else interested, the gist of my response is that I think Columbia is a very good place to study German philosophy. Also, Honneth is here one semester each year.

I don't think it is the case that we have full access to the placement records of MA programs. At least, not all such placement records are equally transparent. Take for instance, the placement records of UWM and GSU. Whereas UWM indicates the school at which each student enrolled, GSU indicates the school(s) at which each student was accepted as well as the one at which he or she ultimately enrolled. Sure, UWM also lists all the schools at which any student in the program was accepted. But, for any given year, it is possible, as far as one can tell by looking just at the placement record, that those additional acceptances were received by just one student. Yet, it seems, to me at least, that how widely distributed students' acceptances are for a given year makes a significant difference when it comes to evaluating these sorts of programs. And, just taking a quick peek, it looks as though at least Tufts and Brandeis provide just the same sort of info as UWM. Even after having graduated from one of the programs listed and spoken with some students from most of the others, I still don't feel confident that I know enough to rank the programs in any helpful way.

Congrats, buddy!

I also have not yet heard back about my application for the summer intensive language course.

I applied for the Intensive Language Course. I have not yet received any news, though the people at the NY office informed me that they had received my application when I called them in January.

I'm a current grad student at Columbia University and recent MA graduate from UW-Milwaukee. I'm happy to answer questions about either program as best as I can.