The Pedanticist

I'm in the process of getting my application materials together as well as emailing POI's. My main interests are in rhetoric (of science, philosophy, religion and pop culture) and philosophy of communication. I'm actually equally a philosopher and communicator, so I'm also applying to philosophy programs. My stats are as follows: Grad GPA: 3.95 Undergrad Comm GPA: 3.93 GRE: Good verbal, low quantitative, very high analytic. I'm likely applying to Kansas, USC, Pittsburgh, Michigan State, Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, UT-Austin and Georgia.

Anyone know if it's different when applying to universities in the UK?

There really are only a couple of safety schools out there. Heck, I only know of a couple of places that have acceptance rates above 50% and even those places are super specialized in certain areas. The other problem that goes unmentioned with "safety" schools is that many of them provide less funding.

At the very least, I cannot imagine that contacting POI's would hurt your application.

One got back to me in less than 4 minutes.

This was super helpful! Thanks!

It is nerve-wracking! Best of luck. I'm still working on my e-mails.

Leiter has an interesting post, with even more interesting comments, on writing samples. http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2011/08/choosing-a-writing-sample-to-submit-with-grad-school-applications.html I found the last comment by Alistor Norcross (of Colorado) the most enlightening.

Wichita State has a good communication program. Probably more focused on applied communication than its academic counterpart. However, we've got good people in the department, great resources and a lot of funding. We doubled the size of our program this year and added 9 funded MA Comm students.

That's too bad. It would seem odd for one department too poach from another.

I thought so. Just wanted to make sure, because in philosophy it can seemingly get you blacklisted.

I think it depends on the type of program. Some schools like Baylor add into the FAQ that you can contact professors whose work you are interested in. While I recently read a forum where several other professors from different schools said they considered contact/visits before applications negatively. In the absence of any clear statement on the subject it seems risky to email a professor without a great reason. If you had a great reason to contact them, i.e. a serious question about their work as it relates to your thesis, than it might be extremely wise to contact them.

Is it a good idea to e-mail professors who I might be interested in working with before applying to their programs? The only reason I ask is that in philosophy, the other field I'm applying in, it is sometimes viewed extremely negatively.

This is sad. However, its not as bad as with some disciplines like philosophy where certain programs are not even announcing whether they are taking applications until Nov. 1.

The difficulty I'm running into is that I will be using a part of my thesis, which necessarily make things more difficult. I've started splitting my chapters up into separate papers, but that has its own problems.

I have not yet, no.

I'm applying to mostly rhetoric and philosophy of communication programs. I will be applying to the following schools: Minnesota, Iowa, Northwestern, Pitt, UT-Austin, Kansas, Penn State, Illinois and UPenn.

I don't think that's bad. If you feel that you can improve your score and have the funds then you should definitely consider taking it again. But since you are an international applicant I don't think the verbal score will hurt you too much.

You may want to use separate samples for at least a couple of different places. I know Fordham really like Kierkegaard. However, Georgetown might prefer the one on reproductive ethics since they are major in applied religious ethics. If you are interested in philosophical theology and Kierkegaard you might want to check out Baylor. They have a ton of scholars who work in Kierkegaard.

Will look into it. Are the Comm and English departments close at UW-M?

I believe they will. Hopefully, people get put off by waiting to November to see and don't apply. Best of luck.

I took the test yesterday and scored lower than my practice tests were predicting by around 5 pts in each area. (I was hitting 170 easily on the practice tests). I think that it is very likely that the actual test is tougher than the practice tests. I think another significant cause of lower scores is that people don't take the "extra" section when they are practicing. For whatever reason the people at the test center were also clueless. I had to remind them how to do some of the procedures. They ended up costing me time on the test because of incompetence. I'm going to retake and kick this test's ass or die trying.

Thanks. I have looked at the NCA website. Some of the statistics that might be helpful are in the subscription only section. It seems like big 10 schools provide the best reporting of statistics (esp. Northwestern, Minnesota and Wisconsin.) I'm interested in phil of comm and rhetoric mostly, so sadly OU will not be on my list.

Anyone know what the average GRE scores are for those accepted to communication programs? I've seen lists at Northwestern and Minnesota, but not anywhere else. The ETS website doesn't list communication as a separate discipline so there aren't any averages on that list. Also does anyone have a good idea how important GRE scores are in the application process?

I think that would be a good idea. More specifically I think it would be helpful to get information about the atmosphere at each school.