Kantianisms

Yeah, I think it would be weird if an institution got your highest scores unofficially and then received scores from a particular date that didn't have all your highest scores.

It depends on what you mean by tailoring. Have you sufficiently shown why you would be a good fit for that program? Perhaps the explanation of your interests is sufficient for every program you're applying to. If not, you should do some extra tailoring.

What I really want to know is why the president is applying to philosophy programs... Seriously though, those scores are awesome and the fact that your worried about them makes me more worried about mine. I think you'll be fine.

Georgia State also seems to be strong in political philosophy.

Arizona is one of the schools I am considering. Somebody mentioned that placement is poor. Could that be elaborated on? Is that a symptom of the program? If so, what may be the cause? Is it that Arizona is such an awesome state that nobody wants to leave and are willing to take lower prestige jobs? Or does the program truly not prepare students well for the job market? Is it similar for most advisors, or do some advisors have better placement records?

How is UConn for ethics and political philosophy? Also, could you elaborate on the downsides of Storrs?

Just took the GRE. I received a 166 verbal and 153 quant. I'm still waiting on the writing portion, but I don't feel that I did much better than my previous 4.0; 5.0 at best. Assuming that the rest of my application would be good enough to get me into the final round of cuts but not good enough to clearly be the best, do you think that it's worth applying to top programs with such a score?

That would be extremely helpful, especially since that type of information is so hard to find and/or to know who to ask or how to ask them. Not to mention that contacting multiple people from multiple schools would be quite time consuming.

Google is your friend Paul Canetti, founder and CEO of MAZ Media Amol Sarva(Peek), Ken Reisman (TLists), Damon Horowitz (Aardvark), Patrick Byrne(Overstock), Josh Snyder (Treeline Labs), and of course Chris Dixon (Hunch) http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-philosophy-majors-2014-1?op=1 Larry Sanger - co-founder of Wikipedia http://healthcareethicscanada.blogspot.com/2008/12/philosophy-degrees-and-famous-people.html That's just to list a few. Now, if you mean individuals who were PhD students and entrepreneurs at the same time, well, I have no idea. However, I suspect that this would be an extremely bad idea as both take up an inordinate amount of time, and that doesn't even ensure that you're going to be successful in either. So, it would seem to be a surefire way to fail at both if you tried to do both at the same time.

That is extremely helpful. Thank you so much! However, I wonder whether or not it is worth it to add debt for Tufts or Brandeis considering the placements of other top MA programs. Ian Faircloud has a nice chart (which hopefully will be updated soon) http://faircloudblog.wordpress.com/masters-program-placement-record/ UWM definitely did better than Tufts this year, and Georgia State was comparable to both UWM and Brandeis. NIU didn't seem to have a great year, but they did get students into both Toronto and USC, and generally do comparably. I wonder what others think, but it seems to be a better idea to go with MA programs other than Brandeis or Tufts since you are just as likely to be placed in a good program without adding additional debt. What do others think?

I was just wondering what you all thought about taking risks with the writing sample. Of course, there are many different types of risks you could take, but I am specifically wondering about organizational risks. That is, making the paper extremely structured vs. intertwining parts of the paper. For instance, you could start with the intro, then give the exposition of the view you are challenging, move on to your 1st criticism, then field some objections, then move on to the 2nd, field some objections to the 2nd, and then conclude: Intro Opposing View Criticism 1 Objection Reply Criticism 2 Objection Reply Conclusion Or, you could perhaps intertwine the criticisms with the "opposing view." That is, rather than having clear-cut sections in which you finish the entire exposition and then move on to your 1st criticism, you could raise your criticism at the point in the "opposing view" that you take issue with. Then, you could field some objections, strengthen their argument, give a reply, and then perhaps grant them the point for the sake of argument and continue with the exposition until you come to the 2nd criticism. There are, of course, other ways one could intertwine parts of the paper, but this is the most straightforward example I could think of. The dilemma I see here is that, on the one hand, the very structured way of doing things is extremely clear, straightforward, easy to follow. However, I think that in some sense it is "easy," in that it is simple and expected. I also think that it can be somewhat boring to read a paper like this - it's almost mechanical. On the other hand then, I think that having this riskier structure is more interesting to read - it's almost like reading a philosophical story. However, I think it is much harder to pull off, and if you don't do it right, it becomes unclear and difficult to follow. So, I'm wondering what people think. Is it better to attempt a riskier type of paper? The pros may be that pulling off this type of paper looks much better to an admissions committee, and, even if it isn't consciously recognized as "better," it still may be a more pleasant read (which is a plus with so many applications). However, you may spend a lot of unnecessary time attempting to fiddle with the organization of the paper when you need to be working on other parts such as argumentation, clarity, fielding more objections, etc., and you may ultimately fail.

I was just wondering what information people have regarding funding for top (PGR rated) terminal MAs. In particular, I was wondering about Tufts and Brandeis, both of which don't seem to offer much information. Brandeis: Tuition Remission and Scholarships Financial aid from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is available. Most students qualify for some financial aid. In addition, the department offers several teaching assistantships to incoming candidates, thus helping defray the cost of graduate study in philosophy. http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/philosophy/mastersprogram/whybrandeis.html Tufts: We provide partial tuition remissions to most of our successful applicants who demonstrate financial need. The average tuition remission is about 60% of the total tuition cost....After their first semester in the program, students in good academic standing can apply for a Teaching Assistantship. These are granted on a course-by-course basis and currently pay slightly more than $4,200 per course (or, when a course breaks into discussion sections, per section, though students rarely are assigned more than one section per semester). Though we ordinarily can accommodate all M.A. candidates in good standing, when there is a shortage of Teaching Assistant positions, priority is given to students with less teaching experience--all other things being equal. Except under unusual circumstances, we do not assign teaching to first-semester M.A. candidates. http://ase.tufts.edu/philosophy/graduate/financial.asp This is opposed to a program like UWM: Teaching Assistantships A number of graduate teaching assistantships are available, offering full tuition remission and salaries of $7,659 for first year TA's and $7,745 for second year TA's. Normally, provided they make adequate progress toward the degree, students who enter with graduate teaching assistantships will have them for the full two years. All applicants are automatically considered for teaching assistantships. No special application form is needed. http://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/philosophy/graduate/ So, I am wondering if anyone has an idea of how much a graduate student has to pay for school (if at all) for Brandeis or Tufts, or any other MA program. Also, if you have information on a program like UWM, it would be nice to know how well the stipend covers living expenses, whether you need another job (besides TAship), etc. Thanks!

You must mean a MA at BGSU? They do have placement records for PhD http://www.bgsu.edu/arts-and-sciences/philosophy/graduate-program/phd-dissertations-and-placements.html Although, I don't think that they have a terminal MA, but they have tried to keep track of those who leave after finishing their MA http://www.bgsu.edu/arts-and-sciences/philosophy/graduate-program/masters-program-graduates.html Hope that helps!

Undergrad: I went to a small, non-prestigious, Catholic, liberal arts college. It's known in the region for being a good school, but nobody outside of the region has heard of it. I changed my major from history to political science with a minor in philosophy in my junior year, and realized my senior year that I wanted to do philosophy. Of course, I foolishly decided to apply that same semester and go absolutely nowhere - I had only taken 3 philosophy courses (2 more in progresses), had no writing sample, hadn't studied for the GRE, done very little research, and had no relationship with my professors. I had an average GPA with a 3.55, a 3.75 in Philosophy, and a 3.65 in Political Science. I also studied abroad in Ireland for a semester. After failing to gain admission to graduate school, and receiving my BA in Political Science, I decided that I would get a second BA in Philosophy at a larger state school, work on my philosophy, get to know professors, and work on a writing sample. This is what I am currently doing. Other: I took the GRE late November of the same year that I applied and did about average (compared to the general population) but did slightly above average for verbal. I tutor in both writing and philosophy and am the president of philosophy club. Writing Sample: I'm not sure what I want to use yet, but I may use my paper on Korsgaard's constitutivism, defending it against objections to the possibility of accounting for bad action. Interests: I have many interests. My main interests are in value theory/normativity - social and political philosophy, ethics, metaethics, philosophy of action. I have some other interests in metaphysics and epistemology, philosophy of law, feminist philosophy, philosophy of social science, philosophy of mind, and game theory. As for the history of philosophy, I'm particularly interested in Kant, modern philosophy, continental, analytical, and I'm also really interested in the historical progression of philosophical thought (rather then particular historical views).

Thanks everyone! Your advice is much appreciated