Infinite Zest

I've caught a handful of typos in my writing sample since I've submitted it to my first two schools. Oh well, that's life.

From the Tufts philosophy page: "Many admitted students have studied philosophy as undergraduates, but applicants with little formal training in philosophy are regularly admitted to the program as well. However, we usually do not admit students who have never taken a philosophy course or who do not seem to be familiar with the analytic philosophical tradition." You seem at least somewhat familiar with "the analytic philosophy tradition."

I would try to get feedback from a native English speaker, preferably an academic. Also, take the time to do research and structure your thoughts before you begin writing.

And this is all the history of philosophy that I want or need.

Also, completely contemporary. The most "historical" source that I used was from 1970.

Without getting into the specifics, my sample is a shortened version of my senior honors thesis. I've spent a little over a year working on it (mostly with a well known philosopher). I've also gotten feedback from a few other professors, a couple graduate students, and a lot of philosophy majors. The paper topic is pretty related to my primary research interests. I've tried to fill the paper with as much original argumentation as possible; for me, this means pointing out flaws in the reasoning of others, putting forward a couple of solutions to dilemmas in the literature, making sure my points were not assumptive, considering objections, and staying coherent throughout the paper. I also took the time to break down arguments into a series of premises and showed problems with certain premises, strengths with others, etc.

Agreed. Maybe use the money to apply to another program or two.

Hey FellowSufferer! For a minute, I thought your name was FellowSurfer. Are you planning to apply to philosophy PhD programs or MA programs?

Yeah, props to reading 100+ philosophy books.

I think you'd be a great candidate for some really good MA programs. You could also use the chance to work on your writing sample. Based on the feedback I've gotten from various professors, previous candidates, and other prospective candidates, there's no such thing as polishing your writing sample enough. I'm "done" working on my sample and that took me over a year of work. I am very proud of it, but I know it still could be better.

This is great.

Funny... I have deeply analytic interests, but I love reading existentialists. Being and Time is still probably my favorite work of philosophy. On the other hand, I liked Philosophical Investigations a lot less than I thought I would. I think I read it too quickly, and I will definitely reread it more carefully at some point.

Haha! Plato's Republic was actually the reason I started studying philosophy!

My ancient class was taught by a well known philosopher who was specialized in the field, and we completely skipped over Nicomachean Ethics. Luckily, I got to read it down the line, but it still seemed like too major of a work to skip. Instead, we read most of Aristotle's shorter works. Still, I'm glad we spent our time going through smaller works such as De Anima more carefully. In my opinion, these works are less accessible than Nichomachean Ethics. On the other hand, I wished we hadn't spent so much time on Plato's Dialogues. I found that the class didn't really help my understanding of these texts, and I wish I had read them on my own.

Reading this post makes me wish I valued the history of philosophy more. I know it's a central field of study, but I have trouble appreciating works that are over a hundred years old. Maybe I'll grow into appreciating the greats a bit more, but, as of now, I don't seem them to be very relevant to my intellectual interests. On that note, I still haven't read Critique of Pure Reason, so you can all laugh at me for that.

This is one of my all time favorites!

And the Examined Life!

Waking Life is a classic, too!

Not philosophical per se, but I liked "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?" It's a very good documentary on Noam Chomsky.

On a related note, I just picked up How to Solve It by George Polya. I've heard good things.

Yeah, I almost think the ideal scenario to retake the GRE is if you have a "decent" score. In my case, a decent score allowed me to relax a bit while retaking the GRE.

Their application page looks like it was made in the 80s.

Yes, this is annoying.

I was filling out a grad application today and got to a section entitled "test information." The page asked me to report my GRE scores. I've taken the test twice and the second time my V/Q scores went up but my A/W score went down by half a point. The page, however, simply asks for my GRE scores. There's no mention as to which exact scores I'm supposed to report. Should I just report my highest scores or is this a dumb move?

I'm done with my writing sample (took long enough), and I'm now waiting for my letter writers to submit their stuff. I'm still polishing up my statement of purpose. It's trickier than I thought it would be!