thatsjustsemantics

Hi everyone, I'm a bit worried about my application to Cornell. The PGR ranks them well in metaphysics, but Ted Sider recently left and it's been 2 years since Eklund left as well. There's K. Bennett, who does excellent work (especially in metametaphysics). Nevertheless, I am worried that Cornell will write me off because they may not be looking for students of my stripe. In fact, Bennett is the only full time professor who lists metaphysics as an interest on her page, and I've noticed that she's been teaching a lot of undergrad. courses lately. I feel like I should be worried given my interests? What do you think?

Yup. Those departments tend to be the ones I was iffy on to begin with . . . maybe if their apps weren't so expensive.

I'll share the backbone of my statements of purpose: 1 I want to concentrate on x, but I understand that my interests may change for very good reasons at the graduate level. Nevertheless, my application to school is informed by # philosophical interests: a, b, and c. 2 Here is where I spend a paragraph explaining what questions or issues in a interest me. 3. Here is where I spend another paragraph explaining what questions or issues in b interest me. 4. Like (2) and (3), but concerning c. 5 Why this School? 5.1 I chose to apply to school because there are potential faculty who might be interested . . . list faculty, their research program, and how that program intersects with my areas of interests, etc. 6 Diversity Statement - this may be optional, depending on who you are. My ethnicity and class are important factors in my life and they shaped my decision to continue studying philosophy at the grad level.

I agree with gughok's sentiment. I dropped Syracuse, for example, because although I would join a PhD program for the sake of continuing my philosophical learning, I at least wanted a chance at getting a job at a liberal arts college or a university that is not solely for profit, etc.

Hi, I believe the following schools do not require the GRE for admission or funding: Cornell, UM Ann Arbor, U-Madison Wisc Moreover, there are a lot of schools that will accept unofficial scores until they receive the official ones at a later time; the point is that you could take the GRE soon, record your unofficial scores for application deadlines coming up, meanwhile sending your official GRE scores to all of your schools even though you will not receive them for a few weeks; For example, UNC Chapel Hill accepts unofficial scores during th admission process until tey arrive a few weeks later, I bet:

correction: I still include an abstract au lieu de 'writing sample', (second line of the first paragraph)

Par contre, I recommend an abstract because it gives a sense of what the entire piece covers even if the piece is short. For instance, my writing sample is atypically shorter than 5000 words. I still include a writing sample so that readers can quickly see what my paper is about, substantiate my abstract with the introduction (which I put just in case adcom members don't work in the philosophy of time), and then readers can see whether I was true to my abstract by the end of the paper or not. In any case, my advice is motivated from some cynicism: I assume that there will irregularly be at least one adcom member who glances through abstracts before committing to read more than a page of the paper; I also assume that there will irregularly be at least one adcom member who does not at all work in the area in which you are writing, which substantiates my claim that even an introduction may be wise.

The letters help to give a sense of what your professors think about you, and not just the work you did. You'll be working with your advisors for several years, if all things go well. What advisors want is a sense of what it might be like to have the person in question in the letter around the department, in their classroom, etc. The letters may also be helpful because philosophers will take note of what seemed to be important to letter writer #1, #2, and #3, and whether the differences are significant or not. For instance, I have two letters from faculty whom I know well at my institution. However, I also have a letter from a faculty at another, even-better-according-to-PGR department who knows me much differently (although for less time). Although I'm sure each letter will say something nice about my potential as a student of philosophy, for example, they'll emphasize that potential differently -- giving adcoms a unique insight into the way I may or may not have impressed each letter writer.

In response to your first question, the answer is this: Leiter suggests that decent PhD programs should admit fewer students. How does that not suggest that it would be more difficult for people to get into a decent place, if all else equal -- every PhD program sets a limit of 3-4 graduate students instead of 5-6, or something along those lines. As for your point about non-decent schools being cut down, I agree that this would probably change very little for competitive applicants.

Some may argue that the image of graduate study in philosophy is tarnished in virtue of the significant number of PhD programs that reward underqualified students with PhDs, where we measure the qualification of a student by such qualitative factors such as publications or likelihood to publish, quality of dissertation (its rigor and its impact), as well as candidates' potential to teach and research within both of their AOS and AOC. In turn, some may argue that the tarnishment of graduate student in philosophy is making the profession worse off; but how would one argue that? I'm not sure. Even well qualified candidates cannot find jobs. But the alternatives aren't better! Prospective students pay hundreds of dollars to apply to grad schools. Even if Leiter et. al are right that there should be fewer PhD programs and fewer admitted students, it just means that the prospect of becoming a graduate student at a decent place would be even slimmer! And what reliable indicators could graduate programs use to assess whether they should admit a student? I smell a lot of structural injustice implicit in any attempt to control the academic market as Leiter et. al suggest, just because it's biased in favor of those who are already privileged. I wouldn't be suprised if the new norm is for everyone to get an M.A. first, which I wouldn't mind doing -- i just wish there were better M.A. Programs, that's all. (On this point, I agree with Leiter).

I would say go to Georgia State University's MA Program, as Leiter has repeatedly mentioned their strengths in Kant and Post-Kantian philosophy (in the continental tradition esp.) Afterwards, look at where students who wrote on Kantian/Post-Kantian philosophy were placed. That may give you a good idea of where they wanted to go assuming their interests were still in Kant and Post-Kantian philosophy, and then you can just research for yourself to confirm the assumption.

You know... I started this list early. Their websites could have changed from last year's, so I'm really not sure. It's kind of annoying, but I'll note it at this point as well!

I'm fairly certain all you need to do is send your GRE report to MIT (2804). I have not come across an application that asks for a scanned PDF of a score report. Edit: I looked at the application and you're right! They do request a scanned PDF of the score report, which is just really strange. I don't know what to say. I'll probably call and ask myself sometime this week. Let me know if you get a response by e-mail as well. Edit #2: it appears the practice is the norm at MIT. You can request a PDF from your GRE account, that is my guess. I'll do that soon!

I'll note that! As for MIT, I've started it already. I'm focusing on the four programs due soon.

Here's my list, just in case anyone wants to cross-check deadlines (in brackets). 1. UNC, Chapel Hill (Dec 17) 2. Princeton (Dec 15) 3. U Mass Amherst (Jan 2) 4. MIT (Jan 2) 5. UM Ann Arbor (Jan 7) 6. Rutgers (January 11) 7. Cornell (Jan 15) 8. U Virginia (Jan 15) 9. Syracuse U. - dec 15 10. UC San Diego - Jan 4 11. U Madison Wisconsin -- Jan 2nd? 12. Uni. of Arizona - Dec 15 13. Columbia jan 15

Princeton isn't due on the 15th, is it? Or do they just start earlier than their deadline? I understand Arizona starts on the 15th. EDIT: looks like I just got wrong information. It's due on the 15th! Looks like I'll have to send out letter requests for that today.

I agree with what has recently been said about the correlation between PGR rank and career placement, but I would like to add that I am suspicious about our dependance on the notion of 'fit' in our analysis of which schools we should cut or should not. First of all, as far as I know, 'fit' designates a correspondence between applicants' philosophical interests and the research interests of faculty at the program to which one is applying. I will go ahead and reject that we can quantify the correspondence. Applicants research what courses are regularly offered by faculty at the program and whether there may be faculty who are interested in supervising the course of applicants' study at the program. I do not think that one should apply to a program, whether ranked high or low according to the PGR, if one cannot make a reasonable case for why their application is a sensible choice given their philosophical interests and academic background. However, I think it is worth mentioning that lower-ranked programs have an incentive to offer admission to more applicants than higher-ranked programs because many assume that between two schools where there is some fit and there is a significant difference in rank, applicants tend not to choose the school with the lower rank. My reasoning is that due to such an incentive, it would be wise for applicants not to cut lower-ranked schools if there is good fit, as opposed to cutting a higher-ranked school where the fit is less clear. For instance, I am having some trouble explaining my fit at Cornell now that Ted Sider and Jill North moved to Rutgers, yet I still think the school is a good fit given my interests. Between Cornell and UMass Amherst, however, I would rather cut Cornell, even though it is about ~10-15 ranks higher than UMass (according to the fallible PGR). My judgment is that UMass would help me develop my potential as a philosopher more so than Cornell would, based on the correspondence between faculty research and my interests.

Hey sidebysondheim, how's UNC? I'm applying there this season, interests in metaphysics (phil. of time) and metametaphysics. Is L.A. Paul taking students? Are there a disproportionate amount of students specializing in metaphysics?

UMass Amherst & UW, Madison ask for official ones to be sent to them.

My conjecture is this: it depends; you might have already figured that out, however. According to the admissions FAQs of some schools, adcoms judge MAs differently than BAs. As in, they have a different criteria for determining whether someone with a BA or someone with an MA has potential relative to their competition. Lots of schools admit that MAs do help make an applicant seem more competitive. In your case, however, I'm not sure since it's a different field. I'm going to guess that it will improve your chances of getting into a PhD program, but only if you're going to do something political philosophy heavy and you can demonstrate how your MA helped you write a kick-ass political philosophy writing sample. Otherwise, probably not.

At first blush, it seems like we are in agreement. The upshot of my impression, however, was that non-native speakers have a greater incentive (than native speakers) to have better verbal scores than the average anglophone philosophy major and the average international philosophy student; the reason why there is a greater incentive consists in my presupposition that adcoms place greater attention on the way GRE scores might indicate how well non-native applicants communicate in English, or something like that.

Strangely enough, I get the opposite impression. I'm bilingual, but I'm nowhere near as fluent in French as I am in English. Writing philosophy in English is difficult as it is, so I can't imagine doing that well in French. A lot of anglophone professors are like this as well. So if I were remarking on the GRE score of a non-native speaker, I would be impressed by scores that would otherwise not impress me if the applicant were a native speaker. In that case, some greater weight will be put on the GRE than normal because among several other impressive applicants who are non-native speakers, you'd want the applicant who seems to have the "best" command of English.

Yes, it really is surprising how few people talk about the "counterfactual grief" that some applicants anticipate: say I apply to 10 programs at a cost of $1100; out of those ten programs, I get into at least two of my top five choices. I counterfactualize: "so if I had applied to my top five choices only, I could have saved over $500! Hells Bells!"

Everyone is making good points on the ambivalent decision of choosing which graduate schools one should apply to. Ultimately, I decided to cut two schools (UT-Austin & UC San Diego). Although I envisioned enjoying studying in both places, I decided that applying to schools with at least some notable strengths in metaphysics (according to the Philosophical Gourmet) would be a better idea, given my interest in metaphysics. As for cutting schools at the "bottom of the list," I'm not so sure that that is wise. Given that one's chances of attending a lower leiter ranked school is better than a much higher one, if there are low ranked schools that are a genuine fit then of course one shouldn't cut them, especially if at this stage you're thinking more about getting shut out than getting tenure.

Dear GradCafe community, It's fairly quiet this season, but maybe that will change after application deadlines. I have a question: how many schools should one (at least or at most) apply to? I'm considering 15 programs, but that's nearly $1800 in application fees (Application fee + GRE scores). I was thinking about cutting off 3 to 5 programs. The problem is that I have a lot of top 20 schools in my list. Should I just cut NYU, Princeton, Rutgers, and Ann Arbor from my lists because of how competitive they are? What do you think? S.