ABrown

I'm a member of both the 2016 and the 2017 groups. The facebook group is a closed group. I'm not positive, but most facebook user's profiles don't usually show membership in closed groups. Of course, membership lists for closed groups are still searchable by nonmembers, but someone would have to know that the group exists and then go searching for you in the members list of that group. The admins for the group may be able to make the group "secret" (see here: https://www.facebook.com/help/220336891328465), but that might cut down on membership since new members have to be invited by current members. Perhaps you could make a separate FB profile just for the 2017 application season. If the 2017 group turns out to be anything like the 2016 one, then I would highly recommend finding some way to join. The 2016 group was more lively than the discussions here on grad cafe, and members where pretty generous with advice and recommendations despite the fact that many where competing against one another for many of the same spots. It was also a great support network during the pretty stressful waiting process.

Just finished rereading Philippa Foot's Natural Goodness. Currently working on reading the following: Jesse Prinz, The Emotional Construction of Morals Michael Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism Justin Fox, The Myth of the Rational Market Next up, but not yet started: Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind Michael Thompson, Life and Action

Someone in the Facebook group for 2016 philosophy grad school applicants posted a link to the Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) program a few weeks ago. The organization has chapters at many American and UK universities. I'm not sure where you are planning to attend grad school, but if it's an institution with a MAP chapter and you can't get any more useful information out of your current grad student contact, then you might consider reaching out to the contact for the MAP program at the respective school. I would think that they would be more receptive to talking about climate issues regarding sexism within their program. I hope this is helpful and I hope you can get the information you need in order to make a decision about where to attend.

The first three sentences of the above paragraph are, quite honestly, silly. I don't think anyone here is suggesting that (1) is an analytic truth. You're not going to be able to discern the truth or falsity of (1) by analyzing the definitions or meanings of the constituent words in (1). Instead, as you've suggested, (1) is made true by "facts about the world" relating to the human suffering and one's ability to mitigate such suffering. I don't really see a problem with the previous posters who have presupposed that there exists an incredible amount of human suffering in the world. This should be pretty obvious to most people, since they need only to step out their front door, turn on their TV, or browse the internet in order to bear witness to the vast amount of human suffering in our world. Of course, it is true that there are a number of factors that could potentially impact a person's ability to mitigate the suffering that one sees around them. This isn't really relevant to the initial question that we seem to be discussing and the comments to which you are responding. (How is one productive as a philosopher? How does this productivity compare to the kind of productivity we might have if we choose an alternative career path?) In fact, what some of the previous posts seem to be suggesting is that by foregoing a career in philosophy in favor of something else (e.g., law, medicine), one can put oneself in a position to be a lot more productive with respect to reducing suffering. Sure, it's often necessary to have some set of background assumptions or some kind of "ideological perspectives" in place in order to pass value judgments. However, I'm not sure that calling something an instance of suffering necessarily has to be a value judgement. For example, I think the fact that person is experiencing gratuitous, unwanted pain is a good reason to think that one is suffering. Of course, many individuals will argue that the existence of suffering provides some reason to act or intervene, but simply identifying something as an instance of suffering need not always require some background assumptions about value. More importantly, is it really reasonable to assume that there exists anyone in this thread who actually holds the "ideological perspectives" necessary in order to completely discount the value of reducing suffering in our world? If not, then the point that you are trying to make in the above paragraph is moot, and most people who have commented on this topic will have some reason to believe that mitigating suffering in some way contributes to being productive in one's career.

The philosophy MA program at University of Houston seems to be doing well this year.

RSS feed aggregators are useful for staying up to date on philosophy blogs and philosophy related sites. I used to use the now defunct Google Reader. I now use Digg Reader to follow blogs, such as the daily nous, leiter reports, the splintered mind, pea soup, flickers of freedom, experimental philosophy, and a number of other philosophy related sites. I also occasionally peruse new issues of specialty journals in my area of interest (e.g., Ethics, Utilitas, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy). However, most of this content is behind a paywall, so you usually need to be academically affiliated (i.e., current college student or employee) to have access to this content.

@philoguy I believe Georgia State plans to make their decisions for the first round of admissions and funding offers around March 3, or at least that is what they said in an email that was sent to me at the beginning of February.

Anyone else notice the acceptance posted for University of Michigan for "applied philosophy"? I'm assuming this was a mistake and the poster meant to write "applied physics".

Was the message personalized or do you think it was an automated email? I haven't heard anything from Boulder yet and my application portal says my application is still under review. Probably rejected, it would just be nice if they told me in a timely manner.

The acceptance that was reported said it was via phone, so it might not be until Monday until they've reached everyone.

Ha! Yeah, I don't know how to feel about getting referred to the MAPH program. (I'm not the one who wrote angry message on their rejection post.) On the one hand, it feels pretty terrible to get a rejection that says they thought you weren't good enough for the PhD program, but they will gladly take your money if you're desperate enough to attend their poorly funded masters program. On the other hand, they seem to be at least somewhat selective on who they refer to this program, so this gives me a slight bit of hope regarding the competitiveness of my application at other schools.

Yeah, you're probably right. I've been spoiled by the low cost of living here in Pittsburgh for the past couple of years.

With fees, I would expect the cost for MAPH to be just slightly over $50,000 for the year long program. Even at 50% tuition remission, that is still way too much money to spend on a maters degree in the humanities. Add probably $10,000 for day-to-day living expenses throughout that year, and suddenly you've just sunk $35,000 into a masters degree!

I think there were at least a couple of rejections with MAPH recommendations sent out at the same time. I got mine around the same time that at least two others were posted on grad cafe. It seems like Chicago likes to notify everyone at once, so I would speculate that the rejections with MAPH recommendations have all been sent out. Just a guess though.

Just got my rejection from U Chicago for the PhD program. They did think that my application was strong enough to be recommend to their Master of Arts Program in the Humanities; however, I don't think that this program has a lot of funding or fellowships available.