goldenstardust11

sorry! I'm hardly ever on here. I applied from a BA program. Now, I'm a second year PHD student. Term paper season doesn't really kill me, but it does make me feel like a horrible scholar since it requires one to write on material that I'm woefully unfamiliar with by comparison to how much care and attention I took to ensuring my sample was thoroughly thought through.

Lol I spent about a year thinking about it and a year writing and revising (I'm a wreck. Term paper season kills me).

I love my program and my colleagues. But I've heard that it can be cutthroat in general, so I imagine ymmv. I think what @psygeek indicates about lack of supervision and interest is the normal negative experience, though. Hyper-competition happens but (thankfully) not ubiquitously.

Some applications ask for "related coursework" so I put those there. Otherwise, I uploaded an annotated transcript in addition to the regular one, but only because my undergrad degree was a bit unconventional in its approach. If you're including your phil courses on your CV or something, you could always asterisk non-phil, but related one? with a brief account of the authors you read or any major paper you wrote for it. That's the kind of thing I did for the annotated transcript (in addition to the official one, of course).

Fair. Also Gjesdal's incredible.

Yeah; I guess it depends what area of Aesthetics OP is interested in. I'm partial to German idealist aesthetics so Maria Acosta is enough of a draw to include DePaul in my favorites for aesthetics ?. But your point is well-taken.

As far as more under the radar programs go with strengths in philosophy of art, I'd go with DePaul and Temple.

Yup! I wrote on Hegel and Antigone while that's one of my interests most of my work in grad school so far has been on Plato and I highlighted my interest in ancient philosophy in my SOP, so I think the most important thing is submitting work that you're most confident in.

Meh. I actually chose a language professor over a philosophy prof for my third writer since the language prof knew my work a lot better than this particular phil prof (even though I’m sure he would have written me a good letter, there was also another student applying at the same time that I knew he connected better with and would write a stronger letter for and we were applying to many of the same schools. and the language prof was an absurdly enthusiastic supporter of my academic goals. I had two other very strong letter writers in philosophy: one somewhat well known in a niche area and another relatively unknown but happened to be known personally by a few people reviewing my apps. Honestly, you can’t plan these things. Conventional wisdom would say that three well-known philosophers is ideal but if the other writer would a) write a much better letter b) contribute to painting an even more holistic portrait of you as a scholar and c) their perspective amplifies strengths of yours that are relevant to your application then why not? ymmv. There’s no reason one of my letter writers should have been a strong factor since it’s from an unpublished person at a small lac but people in the field actually knew of them. It’s wild how things work out sometimes.

Once an institution becomes involved, it's quite different. Best to represent yourself well (which is wholly under your control) and adopt a charitable stance towards the kind of bulk e-mails that schools send out on departments' behalf. With over 200 applicants annually at some schools, it's not feasible that the department can reach out to everyone independently and thus the institution itself has a mechanism by which they communicate with applicants once the department has made its decision. It's a frustrating process on all sides, but it is what it is and the least we can do is be grateful to the people who have taken the time to consider our applications (imo at least!) Thanks to the frustrated faculty member for voicing their frustration.

The thing that's weirdly hard to remember is that they go through this every year. They know that it's a big decision for you and that such a thing takes time to consider. I would just be candid and should they write you asking for an update (which they do because they'll also be trying to secure their cohort for next year and because they'll be getting questions from their waitlisted students too), let them know that you're still considering their offer and are very grateful for the opportunity, but are waiting to hear back from another school you're waitlisted at before making your final decision. They'll understand. Congrats on a successful app cycle either way!

I wrote a thank you note and gave them each a couple bars of organic dark chocolate. I intentionally did this before I had heard back from any schools (but after their letters were submitted) so they got thanked for their efforts regardless of the end result.

Gotcha! Well, generally, I waited until I heard back from programs to research more into them. For instance, once I heard back from somewhere, I'd scour their department's website and make my list of questions that I wanted to ask during visits. That way, you're not pointlessly looking at information now for a program that you won't wind up considering down the road. Generally speaking, I'd recommend researching every program you get into upon hearing back and trying to visit as many as you can reasonably visit (should you be in the fortunate position of having multiple offers to consider!) Visits made the ultimate decision for me, but the research I did helped me get the most out of those visits :). As far as what to look into - check out the faculty pages for a sense of the direction the department's heading - do a lot of the younger faculty tend to work in related areas that are different from the longer-standing faculty? Delicately ask current students or maybe a faculty member about the direction of the department. Research additional funding opportunities (languages, summer funding, conference travel) and start to make a comparison among the offers you receive - does one pay for health insurance? etc. All these factors add up. Also research cost of living/commute differences. During visits, check out faculty you're interested in working with and ask students who have experience working with them what they're like as an advisor. Check out your research and teaching obligations and talk to the students about how they balance their workload. Offers may be the same in terms of funding but one place might require much more work than another - check out what kind of work it is, whether you can envision yourself being happy doing it, and how you'd get it done! I really think the best way to prepare now is to take a break from thinking about it, but hopefully these ideas will help once it comes to be time to start making decisions

First off, congratulations on finishing all those applications! It's awesome to be done so early and now it's out of your hands. I'm with you on speculation being tempting but utterly fruitless. It is a fairly unpredictable process. (I applied to programs last year and I remember after I was done I just went into despair over not having a clue what was gonna happen and I spent entirely too much time on this site looking at threads from years' past trying to conceive of some kind of prediction. There is no predicting!) So, my advice would definitely be don't do what I did. Try to the best of your ability to stop thinking about it altogether until you start to hear back for interviews (or better yet acceptances!). Instead, crack open some of those books (probably the nonfiction ones ). The one thing that did get me through was I watched like the entirety of Gilmore Girls over again and got into some pretty dreadful reality tv - just trying to empty my mind from the stress/all the work that apps take out of you. If you're still in school, throw yourself into your studies. Go out with friends a LOT and do anything to keep your mind off of it - there's really nothing you can do now and that should ideally be liberating . Good luck!

Yup! it should still be worth applying. The departments themselves don't typically care about the GRE as much as the graduate school; I would recommend taking a look at the graduate division's requirements for the school you're applying to and see where you fall before applying. If some schools have a cut off above what you scored, then it might be worth saving the time, but I think your verbal score will be enough for most departments to shrug off the lower quantitative score - especially if you're going for a more historical area