MentalEngineer

Option C (warning, cynical): Send it to the journal your adviser tells you to send it to - their former student/grad school roommate/spouse is the editor, and at least you won't get desk rejected. Option D (warning, depressing if you like good philosophy): Find a narrower subfield that nobody cares about to decrease the quantity and quality of your competition. I'm having one of those days, OK?

FWIW, I think UIUC is significantly weakened by Dan Korman leaving for Santa Barbara, so probably the right move on your part. Even if you don't do metaphysics, he's a really good person to have around and he'll be hard to replace.

Does your top choice school know that you have another offer? If not, I would tell them. They should understand that you need to make a decision and do their best to give you as much information as they can as quickly as they can. If they don't, that ought to be valuable information in making your choice.

I know two people who got in; one has definitely taken the offer and the other is almost certain to do so.

Of the two, I only got into/visited Cincinnati, but I was really impressed. If you're interested in phil of mind, especially new and interesting approaches, it's a great choice. Plus it's starting to draw some notice in the rankings, so whatever value that holds is likely to increase during your time there.

I made my decision between three largely equivalent programs mostly on the basis of yearly average temperature, and secondarily on a desire not to move back to the city I grew up in. You might be able to guess something like the first criterion. But weird individual things like the second? Good luck. Get to the Winchester, have a pint, and wait for everything to blow over.

Looking specifically at PhD chances, I would say FSU is the better option. Completing the MA here essentially guarantees admission to the PhD; you basically have one PhD offer in the bag already as long as you do well in the MA, and then you can apply out and aim higher if you like. Unlike at many PhD-granting schools that offer an MA, FSU also puts quite a bit of effort into offering MA students the same support as the PhD students. UF's course offerings are a little bit more well-rounded than ours IMO, but I don't know what their PhD placement is like. If I met you last weekend, I would have told you this at greater length in person If I didn't and you're in Florida (which I infer from your choice of applications), I hope you'll have the chance to get up here before you make your decision!

This issue comes up every year. It is basically a scam, at least if you want to get into academic philosophy. Someone in my MA cohort took the offer after having been told about how it would get him visibility with the faculty, a chance to write papers to their standards, etc. He has yet to secure admission to any PhD so far as I know, let alone NYU's. The money was a drop in the bucket to his family, but that doesn't make it acceptable for NYU to do this.

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.

Yes! You're getting in this year, I can feel it.

I know someone who did his undergrad there. Nothing but good things to say about it!

The ~$2000 in academic fees. There's bipartisan support for a reduction, including from the governor, so those are likely to fall by some as-yet-undetermined amount. The union will continue lobbying for a 100% waiver, and might actually get it. (Yes, I'm heavily involved with the union, how could you tell?)

And I thought my voyeurism was bad!

A note on funding for FSU acceptees (@Naruto, @Nichi, @PhDorBUST, and especially any others who haven't posted): annual collective bargaining between the GA union and administration and possible Florida legislation on graduate student fee waivers are both likely to affect the value of your funding package between now and your visit/final decision. You don't have to talk to me specifically, but please keep abreast of this somehow before you commit - the shift might be on the order of a couple thousand dollars depending on how things go, and you should know where things stand before you lock yourself into anything.

Yay! You should message me! And come visit if you can!

Anecdotally, almost everyone in my MA cohort(s) told me that they "don't look at GradCafe because it makes [them] neurotic" and relied on the few of us who did to tell them when notifications started. I'm pretty sure that more people view the results page than any other activity here. If many applicants have learned by experience (bear in mind that about half of them are in their second-plus season for one reason or another) not to even do that, they're unlikely to show up on the forums either.

As with most questions about application timing, if you have to ask at the end of December, you're probably cutting your deadlines too fine. Snarky (sorry!) but true.

In the vein of Bryterlater and Turretin, I'm happy to answer questions about either UW-Milwaukee or Florida State.

As with many things, I credit the UWM writing workshop for the lesson: upping the production values on your paper can do a lot for you. If it looks like a journal article, it's easier for someone reading it to think of it that way. Plus, single-spacing brings down your page count, so it helps with schools that set a page limit and not a word limit. And you can do it all in Word! I use a lot of headings in most things about 5K words or more now for three reasons. First, it's easy to give a specific reference to an earlier part of the paper. Second, it's easier to address (and give, I've found in reading other people's writing) specific criticism if the paper is very explicit about which pieces are for what; I can say that in words, but I can also structure my paper to fit the structure of my argument. Finally, it makes papers nice and modular for dealing with different word limits or audiences. When it's not so easy to break down the elements of your paper or I'm actively trying not to do that, then it's not as helpful. But when I'm already organizing things along those lines in my head it's usually good to do it on the page as well.

Here is a link to the sample that I got into UW-Milwaukee with. The one that got me into FSU is in my signature, but (I hope) that's not undergraduate work.

I have heard that MIT has a minimum quant threshold, but I don't know exactly what it is. One might think that if you have to ask, your score's too low.

2016. A 160 Q will still disqualify you from quant-heavy programs like Carnegie Mellon, so you should go with the report that has higher V and AW scores. FWIW, I did fine with a 159 Q.

Century Schoolbook looks like a thrice-scanned, nigh-illegible PDF of a British paper from the 1930's, the sort of thing Bertrand Russell might quietly 'harrumph' at in approval. I can see why a certain personality might get attached to it. I can't help but see it as a bit stodgy.

I have no advice on margins or spacing, but I will pass along something I learned from Luca Fererro in my MA writing workshop: change your font to Garamond. It's both better-looking and actually easier to read than Times New Roman (Luca claimed there are studies about this). A lot of books are set in Garamond, so it still looks professional. And it's slightly smaller than TNR, so you can squeeze in a little bit more. If you're using Calibri, we need to have a serious talk.

Mention things that you were doing related to philosophy (cognate fields count too, if you work on interdisciplinary stuff). If you've been (with an MA) adjuncting, great - say what you taught and what you've learned from it. If you've been (in the right city) auditing or sitting in on grad courses, great - talk about how that's prepared you for the step up to grad level or not let your skills get slack. If you've been going to conferences or summer workshops, great - yes, it might be hard to do, but you learn a TON from them. If you've been auditing or sitting in on undergrad courses, good - talk about how that let you cover more than just doing your degree. If you've been writing, good - talk about the seeds of more polished papers that you've got planted. If you've just been reading, not great, since this is the bare minimum expected of any applicant, but it's good because it shows you've at least stayed engaged as best you can. Make sure you've been reading stuff relevant to your interests, though. If you haven't done any of this, you should probably definitely ask yourself why you want to go to grad school. It'll be obvious from your transcript that you were shut out anyway. As long as you can show you've done something with your time, it's not a problem. I think adcomms give some side-eye to people who've been "out" for less than a year and have already stopped doing philosophy yet claim to want back in. (Note: this applies to people reapplying the cycle after a shutout. If you've been out of academia longer, you don't need to prove you've been preparing for philosophy grad school the whole time!)