jjb919

It's really hard to give you advice without a little more information about your interests and preferences. There is no undisputed ranking or "best" school for Continental philosophy (or any philosophy for that matter). Choosing the best school for you will be a mix of many factors: placement record, department strength, department size, location, funding, department dynamics (relationship among student cohorts, relationships between professors, mentor-advisee relationships, and so on). This web-page may be useful to get a better sense of placement records among Continental schools (note that Columbia isn't listed here because although they have strength in European philosophy, it is not a main focus and they are generally more considered to be an analytic program) : http://www.philosophynews.com/post/2013/11/29/Graduate-School-Placements-in-Philosophy-Continental-Programs-Job-Type-Placements.aspx For what it's worth, Stony Brook seems to do very well placing its students in TT positions in recent years, as does Vanderbilt and Oregon. Each of these programs have different strengths: Boston College, being a Jesuit school, has a lot of strength in medieval philosophy and philosophy of religion (Fordham as well); Oregon is one of the best schools in the country for American Pragmatism; Stony Brook has a lot of strength in contemporary French and German philosophy, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and they have an interdisciplinary seminar requirement. Do some work to figure out the general strengths of the program and see which ones mesh with your interests the best. You have to ask yourself what kind of departmental environment you are going to enjoy. Will you be comfortable with a lot of students all vying for teacher attention, or do you want a smaller department with more close-knit relationships? From what I've heard, Columbia is a very large department with lots of students and they can be very competitive and stressful. Oregon, Vanderbilt, Memphis, and DePaul, for instance, have much smaller programs with less students and more attention from the professors. You have to consider location and stipend as well. Will you be OK living in a large city? Or will you be bored out of your mind in a rural environment with not much in the way of entertainment? Is the stipend livable (taking into account the cost of living in respective cities)? I hope this points you in the right direction, but you have to do the grunt work to find the departments, and more specifically the professors, that are closely aligned with your interests and would be a good match for you to work with.

Does anyone else share my suspicion that Nikolay and LetsGetMetaphysical are the same person with two accounts trying (unsuccessfully) to boost agreement with Nikolay's posts?

This is a forum for admitted and non-admitted students to talk about the application process, not your personal projects.

Congrats!!

I took on about $50K in debt to complete my MA at a private institution. I do not feel like it obligates me to continue down that path. Personally, I feel more obligated to cut my losses and walk away. This being said I was in a program that required you to complete the MA before going on to the PhD, so there was less psychological baggage involved in stopping (completing the MAS and simply not applying to continue on vs having to drop out of the program with 'just an MA'). I am still applying to PhD programs next season, and a lot of that has to do with stubbornness and selfish desire on my part rather than smart practical reasoning. The smart move would be for me not to go for the PhD, and just work on getting a better paying job that will allow me to better handle my high but not yet unmanageable monthly payments, and maybe even pay them off in less than 30 years. Even if I am accepted into a great program next year, it is not a given that I will go. Echoing something that alethicetic mentioned in a previous post, if I end up enrolling in a PhD program (and assuming that I am able to complete it in 5 years), the amount of interest that will accrue while my loans are in deferment that will then capitalize once I graduate and go into repayment will be close to $30K. Even if I don't borrow another penny while completing the PhD. That's a heavy burden and a real financial cost if I decide to continue.

Hey thanks, better late than never! If I may ask, what kind of things have you heard? You can PM me if you don't feel comfortable giving details publicly.

Congrats!!! That must feel incredible! I've heard from several sources that students at Georgetown are very happy there.

Very cool.

Congrats. I'll be applying to Stony Brook next year so I'm just living vicariously through those who are accepted this year. what are your AOIs?

Can anyone claim the Stony Brook acceptance? I'd be interested to know.

I plan on making one final attempt at entrance to a PhD program next year. If I don't get in anywhere (or get in but without funding), I'm walking away. Even if I do get in with funding, it's not an automatic yes that I'll go. I'm currently working at a non-profit in higher education, and all of the issues LennyBound so articulately laid out above have become oh so salient to me. I'll take a deep long look into whether or not I want to go through all of the trials and tribulations that come with the package for such an uncertain end-game. Even if I do get in somewhere with funding, and I do decide to go, it is not worth it to me (already in my late twenties with a wife, and wanting to start a family in a couple of years) to string myself and my family along on a series of postdocs, VAPs, or adjuncting positions for 4-5 years just to have an elusive TT job slip through my fingers anyway. If I get to the point of trying my luck on the academic job market, I will do it once as an ABD and once again with a PhD in hand. I'll give it everything I have, using all the resources my department has to offer, and probably even hiring a coach like Karen Kelsky. While some may say that I'm crippling my chances by only giving it 1-2 go arounds, in my mind my chances are not going to significantly increase by going back on the market 4, 5, or more times, so it is not worth putting my family through the repeated anxiety, uncertainty, impermanence, and poor salary. I do not expect to land an academic job, at any kind of institution. Luckily I now have solid experience working in the non-profit sector. If I don't get in to a graduate program, I may continue down the non-profit road (ironically, if I want to go any higher at my organization or similar ones, I need a PhD, haha), or I may test the waters in other sectors; I'm not yet 100% sure which way I will go, but I know what kind of work I find enjoyable and could make a decent living at. If I do get the PhD but strike out on the academic market, I will probably go back to non-profit work, focusing on higher-education or social justice foundations. Or I'll look for alt-ac opportunities at a university, in administration or something similar (which might still give an opportunity to teach a class or two if I'm lucky). Maybe I'll go into consulting work, or maybe government work (I've even flirted with the idea of applying for a job with the CIA or FBI or something. I was told that a lot of philosophy MAs go into that work when I was finishing my degree). I don't know precisely what kind of job I will go for if I don't get into a PhD program or if I strike out on the academic market; but I am much more aware now of the kinds of opportunities available to PhDs on the non-academic market, and it is not nearly as limiting as I first feared.

Hey, for what it's worth, I worked in a graduate admissions office for 2 years while completing my MA. Take what I say with a grain of salt, because each school will do things differently and have their own protocols (the school I worked at had a rolling admissions policy, so that may have had an effect on the way we did things). The status "in review" usually means that the file has gone over to the department for review and has not yet returned. We would send files over to all the departments (including philosophy) as soon as they were considered complete. Each department would handle them differently. Some would start reviewing immediately and would send them back once they made a recommendation; others would wait until the deadline and review all applications together and send them all back in one large chunk. Once they were back at the office, their status would be changed to "pending decision" until the Director(s) of addmissions would have a chance to look them over, approve the department's recommendations, and have them sent to the Dean for a final decision on funding. In short, just because you submitted your application two days before the deadline and it is still under review, does not mean anything bad or foreboding at all. This is completely in line with typical procedures.

I am applying (next year) as a Masters student.

I think it would be interesting to see where that approximately 50% of admits with no MAs come from. I remember a post Eric Schweitzgebel made (I can't find the link, sorry) where he did an informal study of graduate admits to UCR. Of those who were admitted with no previous MA, nearly all of them were from other top programs. If we can extrapolate from this, then while top programs don't only accept applicants with MAs, you almost certainly need an MA if your BA is not from a top institution.

My gut feeling is that it is completely unnecessary. At best it provides another reason for why you *really* want to go to this university, but unfortunately one that has nothing to do with the department or faculty. At worst it could come off as an attempt to pull at the heartstrings of the adcom, with perhaps a latent suggestion that they should let you in because it would make your life easier and you won't have to deal with a long distance relationship. Again, completely irrelevant to your merits as an applicant. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh. I think this information is entirely superfluous and has no bearing on their decision to admit you, even if your husband happens to be studying in the department you're applying to. This is graduate admissions, not a tenure-track hire search. They do not need to (and will not) worry about a two-body problem. Best to leave it out and focus solely on your philosophical background and interests relevant to the university and department.

It depends on the school. Many (if not most), will allow you to transfer a certain number of credits. Not all of them, but enough to knock off about a year of coursework. I'm not sure if they will also let you transfer credit for other requirements such as the logic or language requirement. As long as you are focused and complete your dissertation on time, you could complete your PhD in 4 years instead of 5 (although most people don't finish in 5 anyway). It's not a huge difference, but it's something. Other schools, usually the top ranked ones, will not let you transfer any credits and so even if you have a Masters degree you still have to start out as if you were just coming our of your BA. Chicago has this policy, for instance.

I wouldn't count yourself out for a Master's program just yet. Your 3.7 GPA in philosophy is decent, If you take your time to work on a really strong writing sample, mention your illness that led to your poor GPA in your Statement of Purpose and have your letter writers also attest to that, then I think adcoms will be willing to overlook the poor cumulative GPA. Focus on the writing sample and getting good letters of recommendation; circumstances explain your GPA and I don't think you need to worry too much about it.

Sadly I can vouch for this; I got my MA at The New School. While the professors are top notch, the funding is abysmal. I ended up taking on about $50,000 in debt just to cover tuition (not living expenses). As far as placement goes, NSSR is very well respected in its own niche of philosophy--granted this is a small niche that people like Lieter look down upon (which it putting it mildly). While I think I will be an attractive applicant to places like Oregon, Fordham, Stony Brook, etc. I can't help but feel that the fact that I have an MA from NSSR is going to count against me at some more traditional, analytic schools. We'll see how well I do next year. I strongly advise against taking on debt to get any advanced degree, especially an MA. Of course I was too stupid to listen to this advice when I enrolled at NSSR. While getting an MA was an excellent, and I think necessary, route for me coming from an SLAC with not the greatest philosophy department (one of my advisers said that trying to get into any of the big name schools from my alma mater is like trying to get into West Point after coming out of the boy scouts), I wish I had had the wherewithal and patience to wait another year and apply to MA programs with funding instead of jumping on the acceptance. With the amount of student loan debt that I have, even if I don't borrow another penny while completing my PhD, if I don't pay the >$400 a month in interest while completing my degree it will effectively cost me nearly another $30,000 by the time I graduate with my PhD, just in interest. I will be paying this debt until I retire, maybe longer. I think getting an MA, for a large number of philosophy undergrads, is a really beneficial stepping stone toward getting into a great PhD program. I think it can close the gap and turn out-of-your-league schools to attainable schools by giving you the time and training and maturity to take more philosophy, deepen and widen your knowledge base, work really in depth on a thesis which can be turned into a stellar writing sample, and help you narrow and better define your research interests so you can better present yourself to adcoms. But I don't think it is worth going into great amount of debt for (20/20 hindsight is a pain in the ass, isn't it?) Any debt is going to follow you and snowball while completing your PhD program, and if you're shut out of PhD programs and end up having to move on, you won't be any better situated on the job market than you were out of undergrad, competing for the same low-paying entry level jobs but with a lot more debt hanging over you. I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone may have regarding my experience at NSSR.

I know that Oregon requires you to send two copies of your transcript, one to the graduate admissions office and one to the philosophy department. Maybe the online application system wants you to upload two copies of your writing sample so that one goes to the admissions office and the other goes directly to the philosophy department (allowing them to start reviewing it sooner, instead of having to wait to receive it from the admissions office). I can't say for sure, though.

Someone please feel free to correct me here, but I was looking at Brown my senior year of my undergraduate, and my adviser told me not to bother applying there. On top of their poor placement record they lack structure in their departmental requirements and are a bit 'loosey-goosey'; graduates don't come out very well prepared (which, if this is true, could lead to such a poor placement record). I'm not sure why they are so well ranked. The only one of their faculty members I know of is Paul Guyer, and he is a relatively recent hire. Take what I say with a grain of salt, this was 5 years ago and I haven't given any deep look into their department on my own.

I've seen schools specify both word counts and pages. For those that specify word count, 500 words seems to be the norm, which is approximately 2 pages double-spaced.

isostheneia, I have heard from a former professor of mine (who graduated from Chicago), that because there is such a large faculty there, certain factions and allegiances have been formed and it can potentially be difficult for a student working with professors who may not be in the same 'circles'. Have you heard anything like this?

I worked at a graduate admissions office while completing my MA. Standard practice is to hold on to GRE scores and letters of recommendation for up to 1 year. At that point they are disposed of. This being said, some offices have better organizational and archiving practices than others, so it is possible that a admissions office may not be able to find your GRE scores even within that 1 year window. If you find yourself in the position of reapplying, give a call and ask them to find your old GRE scores to make sure they have them.

Thanks, this is still helpful! Yeah, I've heard the faculty is big on Sellars/Pitt epistemology as well, and Pinkard is an attraction for me as well. I was mostly attracted to the work the faculty does in feminist philosophy, vulnerability, applied ethics, and European philosophy (I would love to work with Carse, Little, Blattner, or Kukla).

While no one I have come across so far specifically argues against that position, this is because modern philosophy has been committed to the idea that our moral standing that is connected to our subjectivity or agency is something transcendental or non-material. It has been taken for granted that mind, subjectivity, agency, etc. is distinct from physicality and the body. While there is no specific philosopher I am arguing against, I think of myself as joining camps that are attempting to buck the trend of the way traditional moral philosophy has been done. While embodied cognitivists have argues against the mind/body dichotomy, by and large they do not talk about the moral dimensions of the body (Mark Johnson has discussed morality in the context of embodied cognition, but his focus seems more on how the body gives rise to complex and abstract metaphors of conceptualization which would include or lead to moral thought, rather than looking at the body as a moral object in its own right). While feminist philosophers have worked on this subject in the most depth and breadth, much of the literature has been focused on the body as an inherently vulnerable and intersubjective thing that calls for moral attention and caring. But many feminist philosophers, despite this, still seem to adhere, at least in part, to the idea that what is really horrible about torture, or what is really horrible about rape, is not the physical violence brought against the vulnerable body, but the fact that this violation destroys the victim's agency. While the body is implicated in the destruction of agency, it is not what is central to the inherent wrongness of torture and rape. In other words, the logic of agency-harming wins out over the logic of body-harming. This would seem to be understandable; many rapes that are traumatizing do not involve physical assault, and there are forms of torture that do not impinge on the body (psychological torture, for instance). I want to take these arguments a step further and bring them together. Anyway, I'm still outlining the paper and thinking about how to bring all the parts together. Hopefully it will come out well written and interesting.