gughok

Case in point: my Yale grieving cookies

For what it's worth, a plurality of the people in my cohort at UCLA (i.e. us current first-years) were on invisible waitlists. Moreover, the state funding situation means the department can only afford one international student per year. I was #2 and waitlisted without notice until the first person they gave the offer to turned it down... the Tuesday before decisions were due. It might end up being a long wait for some of you but it does happen, and not infrequently.

1) Changed my dissertation topic
2) Supervisor is apathetic 
3) Program doesn't care enough about placement 
4) Hostility between "analytic" and "continental" faculty, making the formation of a committee difficult for my topic
5) Not enough opportunities to teach your own courses 
 
Tennessee is not ranked as high as my current program, but it does significantly better on all of the preceding, most importantly placement - most (close to 80%) of its grads get TT appointments at LACs or even better (graduate from 2013 got tenured at UI-Bloomington). So I'd definitely take my chances there even if it's my only offer 

Having attended a high-level terminal MA program with perennial funding issues, I have a somewhat different take. While I completely agree with posters above that the purpose of graduate study in philosophy is, or at least ought to be, focusing less on academic job placement, the purpose of terminal MA programs is not changing in this way. While other options are (lightly) discussed at my program, and choosing not to go into academia isn't stigmatized, the curriculum, organization of the department, and baseline social expectation is that students will at least be attempting to continue into a PhD program. This is an explicit primary goal of the program, and funding someone who wasn't on that pathway would, to a degree, run counter to its mission.
With this in mind, here's what I want to ask you: why do you need the degree? Is it because you think having an MA will be good for a nonacademic career? Unless your specific situation gives you strong evidence for this, it's probably less true than you think (cf. here). Just in case you do in fact want to adjunct later? This may be harder to do with just an MA than you think. Because you want to do some graduate-level work and/or write a thesis? You can do this without even formally enrolling in many cases - my MA has a guy in it who's been auditing classes for more than 10 years, and he works just as hard as everyone else. Because you want to be able to get the formal reward for the work you plan to put in? I think this one's actually a decent reason for wanting the degree, but I'm not sure it justifies seeking a funded spot.
I think if you have the ability to sit in on or audit some graduate classes, you should start there. Departments are often very accommodating of people who want to be in their classrooms just because they really like philosophy, especially if they're also actually good at it. I suggest this as a starting point because you may find that this is "enough" for you, solving your concern about taking funding without costing you a lot of money. If you still want more, you can always formally apply to programs, at which point having audited grad classes can only help your applications - and at which point you should have no qualms about accepting funding.

Loyola. 

I was looking up old acceptances, and someone who was rejected from -redacted- posted that he found a video of the admissions committee handling his application: 
 
 

Someone posted this list of questions to ask when visiting graduate programs on the Facebook group. With this person's permission, I am posting the list here, because I thought others who may not be part of the Facebook group might find it useful:
Topics to ask grad schools:
(1) What is the climate for women/minorities like?
(2) Teacher accessibility
(3) Opportunities to teach (TA vs. teaching)
(4) Are grad students happy?
(5) Placement / prep for job market?
(6) Guaranteed 6th year of funding?
(7) How long does it take people to complete program?
(8) Teaching workload (how many students; grading help if a lot)
(9) Summer opportunities
(10) Transition from coursework to dissertation
(11) Opportunities to do Phil outside classroom
(12) Course selection
Questions to ask professors:
1. Are there opportunities to teach or only TA?
2. How does [school] prepare students for the job market?
3. What is financial support like beyond the fifth year?
4. How long does it take people to complete the program?
5. What is the teaching workload like? (How many students? Is there grading help (if a lot)? / How onerous is the teaching + grading load?)
6. What summer opportunities are available to students? What do students typically do over the summer?
7. How does [school] handle the transition from coursework to dissertation?
8. What opportunities are there to do philosophy outside f the classroom on campus? (E.g. reading groups, talks, philosophy society, school-sponsored philosophy conference, etc.)
9. How is the collection of the department library? How often is it updated?
10. Do all grad students /TAs get office space?
11. Links of the dept with professors in linguistics and other areas of cognitive science?
12. What do people typically do in winter and summer vacations?
13. People retiring in the next 2-3 years? New hirings planned in the next 1-2 years?
14. How many students is [professor] planning to take in the next few years?
15. Proto seminar- what is it like and what will it look like this fall semester?
16. Support for publishing in the initial years at _______ university?
17. Department fellowships which one can apply for later which can give time off teaching?
18. Your (professor's) current research interests and upcoming projects?
19. How often do the professors meet with students especially during the coursework stage?
20. Do professors come to reading groups and other department activity apart from colloquia?
21. What is the level of support available from the Department to attend conferences, workshops and seminars? How far does the stipend go in that area?
22. Is the funding 9 month or 12 month? What are the avenues for summer funding?
Questions to ask grad students:
1. How often do you meet with professors?
2. How often do you talk about philosophy with professors when you're not in meetings/classes? (To develop as a philosopher, it is very important to develop your in-person philosophy skills--thinking on your feet, asking good questions, responding to objections, etc.)
3. Do professors come to reading groups? (Or any departmental events that aren't colloquia?)
4. Do grad students ask questions at colloquia?
5. Do you feel comfortable talking in group settings? Have you felt comfortable talking in group settings since you first came? If not, when did you start feeling comfortable?
6. Do grad students share their work with one another/give feedback with one another?
7. How often are people around the department?
8. What do you like most about being here?
9. What do you like least about being here?
10. Do older grad students spend time around the department?
11. What kind of guidance do you get from your professors/advisor? (very important- you want faculty who really read your stuff carefully and make your papers better. if the faculty are mia or not very careful when they read your papers, you may not get this.)
12. Does the culture feel combative or one-up-y? Do you feel like you have to be "on" when you're in a philosophical setting?
13. Are the students here happy?
14. What are faculty and student working on in [area]? What is doing [area, e.g. metaphysics] like here?
Questions about climate:
1. Is there a MAP chapter? (You can usually find this out yourself)
1. If so, contact MAP coordinator
2. What is the climate like at [school]?
3. What has [school] done for women and minorities in philosophy?
4. What percentage of grad students are women?
5. Sexual harassment issues? [prob best to ask a grad student discretely]

Dailynous made a post recently, for those who may be interested, seeking information about funded programs in Europe that're still open to applications. There are several in the comments. They mentioned that some Canadian departments have pledged to support students who're affected too. @gughok this may be of interest to you, if you're hoping to transfer. 

Thanks for starting the thread. I have been wondering the same thing. 
One thing I've seen mentioned on twitter is that some academics are considering boycotting US conferences. (On this point, I've only seen it mentioned—I do not have specifics.) To me, this move makes sense. But I find it so depressing. 
I've also been wondering if applications to other-than-US programs went up this year. 
Perhaps the scariest/strangest thing will be if (when?) so many philosophers continue to go about their work as if it were business as usual. I hope not. In any case, I'm having a very hard time focusing on the work I've been trying to develop. It feels hollow at the moment. So instead, since the election, I've started to read as much philosophy of race and feminist philosophy as possible. I know its not much, but I'm not sure what else I can do (academically) at the moment.

I'm from the previous season, but I'm Iranian-Canadian and LGBT. The visa ban has me functionally trapped in the US for now - while dual nationals are ostensibly fine, the situation is too unstable for me to risk leaving the country. If conditions for me continue to deteriorate, though (there are rumours of a massive anti-LGBT executive order in the works, for example), I think it's genuinely possible I'll be forced to drop out for my own safety and go back to Toronto.

I'm from the previous season, but I'm Iranian-Canadian and LGBT. The visa ban has me functionally trapped in the US for now - while dual nationals are ostensibly fine, the situation is too unstable for me to risk leaving the country. If conditions for me continue to deteriorate, though (there are rumours of a massive anti-LGBT executive order in the works, for example), I think it's genuinely possible I'll be forced to drop out for my own safety and go back to Toronto.

I'm from the previous season, but I'm Iranian-Canadian and LGBT. The visa ban has me functionally trapped in the US for now - while dual nationals are ostensibly fine, the situation is too unstable for me to risk leaving the country. If conditions for me continue to deteriorate, though (there are rumours of a massive anti-LGBT executive order in the works, for example), I think it's genuinely possible I'll be forced to drop out for my own safety and go back to Toronto.

I mentioned in the venting thread that were I accepted and decided to go to a US school, I would feel like I'd be trading in my safety for an education (am POC).  I'm factoring this into any possible decisions, and I do think that most of my Canadian schools have been bumped up my preference list.

Has anyone here been affected/ expect to be affected by the Muslim ban? I expect this will complicate quite a few visits this year and I'm wondering if there are plans to accommodate those affected. 
 
Additionally, are there any foreigners who are considering NOT attending a US university because of the Trump presidency and Trump policies? 

I mean they also know that what's being tested in the AW section of the GRE (whatever it is that it actually does test) has nothing to do with academic philosophy. Also, every published philosophy article these days is heavily edited with lots of feedback. So being able to do that well may actually be a sign of professionalization. 
Everything I've read indicates the the verbal and quantitative sections of the GRE are of some value to admissions committees (how much varies), but the the AW is pretty much useless unless perhaps it's alarmingly low.

I can't imagine AW matters much. They'll have your writing sample, so they'll presumably judge your writing ability based on that. 

For what it's worth, I did no reading related to my AOIs outside of coursework and writing sample (which was basically an extracurricular activity for me). I don't think there's an expectation that you "do" philosophy outside the classroom all the time as an undergraduate. If you've taken enough philosophy courses that should be good enough, and if you take the "right" courses then you should be on the "cutting edge" (e.g. I took multiple seminars on contemporary issues in language and mind). Presumably it could help if you've done a lot of independent reading and can speak on a wide range of issues, but it doesn't seem to me that that's expected. The only extracurricular philosophical reading I've done as an undergraduate is in continental philosophy, which is totally disjoint from what I've professed interest in.
If you're mostly worried that your AOIs will seem out of date, do a little reading on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and see whether there's anything new you can talk about related to your interests. If you can plug into some more contemporary references you should be fine.

Not important enough to worry about so long as you're managing a 310, 320. I've seen people get into practically all the programs I was rejected from with those sorts of scores (consider e.g. one person with 157/165/5 who got into NYU and a number of other places, also with a 3.69 GPA). We're talking correlation much more than causation when it comes to GRE and success.

This is tremendously snarky, and I apologize for that, but it's all I can think of reading this thread. Are you sure you're not the new Russian Presidential Chief of Staff and inventor of the nooscope, Anton Vaino? Because what I can extract from your writing looks an awful lot like this:

If so, can you explain to me what a three-stage mix level is?

The thing is that content does matter, and your content just might not be up to snuff, or you might be pitching it to the wrong crowd.
To be honest, from what you wrote it sounds like you're one of those cranks who saw the cult of personality in some philosophical circles, noted the 19th-century German tendency towards systematic philosophy, and figured that you could come up with a system too, since that's what philosophers do. And then you tried to pitch it to people directly, and encountered resistance. And now, rather than trying to get your work read through the usual channels (viz., publication), you've decided that the key missing ingredient is a credential: if only you had a PhD, people would listen to you.
Well, that's not the case. Your approach is wrongheaded, and doesn't jibe with the conventions that operate in academic circles. It's not your credentials that are the problem, it's your hard sell. When philosophers today want to convince one another of some fairly revolutionary new ideas, we break them up into component arguments which we separately present at conferences and publish in journals. Once we've had success with a few of these component arguments, we tie them all together in monograph form, which we then pitch to a reputable academic press. The process is slow and conservative, but it also does result in truly novel ideas--even systems--getting out there, and gaining wider acceptance. Just look at Graham Priest's work on dialetheism.
It sounds to me like your reasons for seeking out a PhD programme just don't really mesh well with the way we tend to think of the doctoral education process. We don't undertake doctoral education to sell people on some prepackaged "system" of philosophy. We undertake it to become academics, to explore the field in depth and participate in its development at the highest level.
 
Maybe I'm wrong, and that's not at all what you're up to. In that case, I'm sorry for mischaracterizing you and your motives. But that's pretty much all the sense I can make out of your post.

Take two Advil and post again in the morning.  

"(please correct me if I'm wrong) religion and philosophy is a bit more difficult to separate in much Islamic philosophy, is it not?"
I hate to say this, but as one who has taught Islamic philosophy--this is absolutely false. 

Hello,
I am an undergrad at a small school. I plan on applying to Notre Dame, Toronto, Marquette, Catholic University of America, Vanderbilt, Duquesne, Purdue, Kentucky, UC Santa Cruz, UM-StL, and Tufts.
AOI medieval islamic philosophy.

Hello everyone!

I am well aware that it might be way too early but is there anyone preparing for the upcoming application season?
I am finishing my 2y Research Masters Program in the Netherlands and I planning to apply to both North America and Europe: 
Princeton, Columbia, GSU, Pitt, Toronto, Oxford, Birmingham, King's College London, Central European University, Stockholm and Helsinki.
My interest include philosophy of psychiatry and bioethics.
Cheers!

You're exactly in the right position. Small liberal arts college, published, specific interests, this is exactly what those applicant committees want to see. State what your interests are. Do not say anything about what your interests aren't.