anonphilgrad123

Here are some answers to your questions. It's probably best to submit only one writing sample; the potential advantages of sending a sample that's more tailored to a particular department are likely outweighed by the disadvantages of working on each sample less. If you feel like your GRE score is going to be abysmal, take some classes; if you think you can manage 160+ verbal and 150+ quant, you still ought to take practice exams and maybe buy one of them study books. I don't think having other students in your department apply to the same programs is much of a strike against you. You can place into very good PhD programs in the route you describe, but you are disadvantaged by not having good undergraduate pedigree. I think you ought to make it clear that you have some specific interests, but don't sound overly narrow at the same time. So I'd use one or two examples that specify your interests without making them sound like that's all you like. I wouldn't contact POI's. Here's some general advice for being the best possible PhD applicant, in no particular order of importance. You should: be a woman from a highly-ranked undergraduate institution who went on to attend a highly-ranked MA program, has strong letters of recommendation from professors who know her well, like her, and are famous and likable, has an excellent writing sample that makes a substantive argument within a relatively small and recently popular corner of one of her stated areas of interest, does ancient philosophy, has perfect GRE scores, has a statement of purpose that makes it clear that she is up to date on recent developments in her field, but has long-term projects beyond those, and has presented and published papers in reputable venues. If you do all of those things, I think you can be sure you'll get into a top 10 PhD program. The extent to which you fail to meet all of these criteria, combined with the inherent randomness of PhD admissions, will determine how much worse you do.