ThePeon

Social and Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Science (in general and of the Social Sciences), Applied Ethics, and the History of Philosophy (especially from the early modern period to the present day, including both the analytic and continental traditions). As to where I'm applying, I'll probably apply to most or all of the top terminal MAs: Tufts, UW-Milwaukee, Georgia State, Northern Illinois, Brandeis, San Francisco State, Houston, and Virginia Tech. I'm also considering the MA programs at George Washington University and Cal State LA. I'm still undecided on PhD programs.

This is something I'm thinking about a lot. I think there is intrinsic value to graduate study in its own right, and that I could be happy in a teaching job if that is where I ultimately ended up. However, I feel like I'd be unhappy if, once I hit the job market, my (lack of) graduate pedigree prevented me from ever having any realistic chance at a research job no matter my merits. I'm mostly targeting MA programs this season given my weak transcript, but I will apply broadly to PhD programs too just in case I get lucky. Given the state of the job market, I personally would strongly consider turning down a lower ranked PhD offer for a top MA if I am (lucky enough to be) in a position to make that choice. I believe somebody on this forum from last application season was in such a situation and ultimately went with the MA due to job market concerns. This is broadly correct. With respect to the bolded part, I would just add that my (possibly false) impression is that the more desirable teaching jobs are often (but not always) taken by graduates from top-20 schools as well. What I mean by "desirable teaching jobs" are those that are at prestigious undergraduate universities and SLACs, those that are in more desirable locations, those with relatively larger departments, and those that have a lower teaching load. There's a difference between, on the one hand, working a 2/2 or 3/3 job at a well-known SLAC or undergrad university where you have significant time to mentor individual students, be involved in campus life, and even do a little research (though less than at a research job obviously), and on the other hand a 4/4 job at a third tier university branch campus or community college located in a less desirable location where you have little time to do anything but teach. Now, there's nothing wrong with the latter set of jobs that I described, the people who work there are doing very important work for philosophy and for society by exposing larger swaths of the population to philosophy. But I think most people would generally consider the former set of jobs to be more desirable.

Sorry, that was a loaded phrase. What I meant was less strong than that, really just any PGR ranked school, or a school that isn't ranked but is notably strong in my AOI's. Thank you for the responses! What you all have said confirms what I had suspected: there's enough unpredictability that I should apply to a few PhD programs just in case, but that I should focus more on MAs.

Another 2018 applicant here! I have never applied before (I intended to apply in 2017, but I decided it would have been a bad idea for various reasons), and honestly I am nervous. Though my application is far from complete, my undergrad is a PGR ranked school and I am pretty confident that every piece of my application will be strong... except for the transcript. I have a low cumulative GPA (3.3) and even my philosophy GPA is not as high as I'd like it to be (3.6-3.7). Worse, the only C I got in a philosophy class is the class I took in one of my big AOI's (I got an A on the final paper, but my disorganization at the time led to some late assignments that dragged my grade down). A mix of bad decisions (mainly biting off more than I could chew on multiple occasions when I should have known better), bad study habits, and a little bad luck led to the low GPA and the C. I take full responsibility for it, but I do feel I have learned from these mistakes over the past few years and that I would be a good graduate student if I get the opportunity. I do have two questions if anybody is willing to answer them: Should I just apply to MA programs, or do I have a shot at PhD programs that are worth attending? If I retook that class I got a C in this coming fall and got an A, would the application committees get to see that before they looked at my application?

Ugh, so I recently found out that I got an unexpected bad grade in a philosophy class this semester. In fact, I got a 'C' in the class. This grade does not reflect my academic abilities, I got an A on the final paper and averaged an A- on the shorter response papers earlier in the semester. I got a C because the professor is really anal about and harshly punishing about attendance and deadlines. I probably would have gotten an A-/A but for the fact that I forgot to sign-in on the attendance sheet a couple times and because I was 1-2 minutes late to class a couple times, which docked me a whole letter grade, and I turned in one short paper in a day late because I misread the deadline, which cost me at least 7-8 percentage points. The professor, of course, hasn't violated her own rules here, technically all this is on the syllabus, but up until know I've found professors to universally be a bit lenient on such matters when they're clearly honest minor mistakes. I'm mad because I essentially lost 1.5 to 2 letter grades because I am a bit disorganized and occasionally make minor mistakes (though honestly, I don't make them very often, it just happened I was unlucky to have a couple happen in this particular class) even though my actual work was A level. Sorry for the venting. Anyway, I'm posting here because now I'm really worried that my relatively low cumulative GPA combined with this big fat 'C' in a philosophy class in my second-to-last semester, will just kill me with adcoms. I did get an A and an A- in my two other philosophy classes this semester, and I also got a B+ in a graduate level critical theory class I took in the German department, at least. Does this 'C' really hurt my chances overall? I will be taking three philosophy classes in the fall, so I will have one more set of (likely good) philosophy grades when I apply (and I will be much more careful next semester to not have a situation like this again).

Hi all, I've been lurking around here for the past year or so, and have definitely learned a lot about the application process from this site and links found here. I hope you don't mind a bit of a wall of text here. I'm sure you see posts like this from time-to-time, so I apologize in advance for that. I know that the 2016 application season is just now winding down, and is still ongoing for those of you on the waitlists, but as I already am starting to think about working on aspects of my application right now, especially in a few weeks once the semester is over, I feel the need to have some outsiders evaluate my chances. I'm already worrying a bit about my odds of getting into graduate school. I am well aware of how competitive the process is, and how people with stellar applications can sometimes fall through the cracks. Anyway, my biggest worry is about my cumulative GPA. I anticipate that by the time I'm submitting my application, my cumulative GPA will be roughly 3.3 or 3.4. The main reason is that I'm a double major, with philosophy obviously being one, and math being the other. My math GPA will probably be a mere 3.0 by the time I apply. My philosophy GPA is and will be much better, and I think it will probably be a 3.7 come application time, but that still doesn't seem to compare favorably when it seems like countless applicants have philosophy GPAs of 3.8, 3.9, or 4.0. I should also note that I spent my first two years of college at community college, where I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life, and thus mostly took core curriculum classes without putting in my full effort, and as a result my GPA from there was only 3.2. The GPAs in the previous paragraph are from the university I'm at now only. I'm not sure to what degree grad committees will notice or care about my community college GPA. I've talked to one professor of mine (who is younger, having just got his PhD a year ago, and more familiar with how the process works now) about this, and he told me not to worry about it, and that he got into a good masters program with similar GPA numbers. Of course, that was almost 10 years ago, and I fear that things have gotten much more competitive even in that time frame. I definitely have some advantages. My current university is a PGR ranked school (in the 30-40 range), I've always received very positive feedback on my papers, including one that was in a graduate level course which I intend to refine into my writing sample, I anticipate I will do very well on the GRE (I am good at standardized tests, and I feel like a philosophy and math double major makes me uniquely prepared for all sections of the test, though of course I will be studying for it anyway), and my letters should be good (though I am a bit worried about finding a good candidate to be my third letter writer). I worry, perhaps irrationally, my low GPA will make admissions committees ignore the rest of my application. Anyway, will this GPA hurt my chances? Is it in an acceptable range or not? Should I worry about it? Do I even have a chance of getting into a PhD program out of undergrad?