daseinplushie

Sure, I'll ask him when I email him (probably in the next day or so--we talk about once a week). I can't promise that he'll know a lot, but he probably has a good idea of the general rep, as well as how the school is overall these days

My father did his grad work at NYU, in English Lit. At the time he went there, it was very good. He still has several colleagues there, and always has good things to say about the program. Of course, this is second-hand information, so you should take it with about a pound of salt. Also, like anywhere else, grad programs vary wildly from department to department. If you want, I can ask him what he's heard from colleagues about your department...I owe him an email

As unprofessional as it may be, unfortunately that's the truth. There are also a couple of places that, as of a week or so ago, were still trying to decide (these are typically places with later deadlines). It's always a good idea to follow up, though. I contacted a lot of places by email, and most were pretty good about answering me with 48 hours--whether it was good news or bad.

I've never really paid much attention, but then most of my friends tend to be male so I don't tend to get intimidated if I'm one of only a few women The first school I went to had (I think) only one female on the faculty. In my undergrad/grad mixed classes, out of fifteen students there were usually between three and six females, IIRC. In the school I'm getting my BA from, the faculty is 2/5 female. Classes are pretty evenly distributed, between male and female, although we have very few students overall that have philosophy as their primary major. Most are history, political science or English majors that have philosophy as a second major. I know I'm the only person in my graduating class that applied to graduate school in philosophy.

Oh no, it's not silly at all. I just know this because I happened to spend my first three years of undergrad at a state university during the height of a budget crisis. I spent a lot of that time working in labs with grad students, so I became pretty familiar with some of the departmental budget issues

Is this is a state university or a private school? Since state schools are so dependent on money from the government, cuts in state funding to schools sometimes results in drastic--and unexpected--cuts in departmental funding. It's possible that they anticipated being able to fund a lot more students, based on the amount the department had received in previous years, but were blindsided at the last moment.

I agree with Optimistic. I'm entering an MA program in philosophy, and will be taking out loans to do it. In my case, I took out nearly 50k in loans as an undergrad to pay for my education. I figure, my debt will already be substantial, I may as well do everything I can to ensure that I get into a career that I'm going to enjoy. Also, most people take out loans one way or another. A lot of people who say as undergrads "I have to get funding, I can't take out loans for graduate study" wind up taking out loans to help with their living expenses, since most stipends aren't realistic for what the cost of living is in most places. And for the humanities, the job outlook is so grim that you really should only be going to grad school if there's nothing else you'd be as happy doing. In fields like philosophy, English, classics, etcetera, you're pretty much in for a lifetime of self-sacrifice. I figure that if a person isn't willing to make initial sacrifices, such as taking out loans, then they probably shouldn't pursue that career path, because there will be much bigger sacrifices later on (having to choose between a social/romantic life and working on one's dissertation, salary, choice of geographic location, etcetera).

I doubt it's an issue of not having self-respect. Grad school is a pretty big step for a lot of people, but going someplace where your professors and fellow classmates speak a different language and doing grad level work is a pretty intense thing. It's natural to feel some intimidation. If there's one thing I've learned on my trips overseas, it's that you don't appreciate the challenge of a language barrier until you have to navigate in a strange city where everyone speaks a totally different language from your native tongue...

Wow...I have mixed feelings on that. On the one hand, the new format seemed like it would have *a lot* of problems associated with it. On the other hand, I was kinda looking forward to the quantitative portion having more statistical/data interpretation questions since I have a bit of a background in stats ;-)

Philosophy MA, Marquette University.

You know that the test is going to be revised, right? I believe the last day to take the old test will be late July. Since the new test is going to be twice as long, and a completely different format, you won't have the "second time benefit" that people usually have when they retake the GRE. Depending on just how difficult the new test is, there's always the risk that you'll do worse on the new one. Since your scores are already high enough to be more than competitive on that particular aspect of the application, I'd focus on other aspects of the application (e.g. attend conferences, publish, focus research interests, etcetera).

If you have the chance, and haven't done so already, it might be worth it to visit the town/campus to sort of get a feel for what it's like. Indiana gets a little "God and Country" for my tastes, although it does have some decent pockets here and there. Also, since you don't drive, here's a link for the South Bend bus system: http://www.sbtranspo.com/

Heh. Just to add to this, I've learned that Jesuits are very proud of being Jesuits, and of the Jesuit model of education. The Jesuits, historically, were the skeptics of the Catholic church and were the most educated of all the orders. They also have a history of being more politically involved, originating in civil disobedience during the Vietnam War, and community service is a big part of the undergraduate curriculum. So, when schools boast of their being Jesuit, that's (at least partially) the tradition they're referring to The "educate the whole person" bit tends to refer to approach that's supposed to be more personal and accessible than is typically found at large state universities. In my personal experience, this has held true. For example, during the admissions process, the grad director of a program at a Jesuit school--after breaking the news to me that I didn't get in--offered to give me advice and input on any other programs I might be considering. Another grad director at a Jesuit school, whose offer I declined, also offered to give me input on the program I'd decided to attend. I thought this was pretty cool.

Quite likely...Milwaukee's not that big ;-)

I have two cats and two turtles. My fiancee and I have been talking about getting a pug for a long time, but we want to see what sort of place we get in Milwaukee first. It's a little easier for us, since he has a home office and therefore, there would usually be someone around the house for the pug...but we still don't want to get a pug unless we know we're going to have a yard.

It's my understanding that if it's an MA program, you can sometimes defer, but if it's a PhD program, you usually have to re-apply the next year.

I voted to wait. The reason for this is that it sounds like you're suffering from work burnout. You mentioned that you like your job okay, but are exhausted from long hours and travel. Getting a PhD will be exhausting, for a longer amount of time, and considerably less money. I think you should wait a year to see if you still feel as strongly about grad school before you walk away from your current career.

Anyone else going to Marquette?

I figured I'd revive this topic I just accepted Marquette's offer of admission for their philosophy MA program, so I'll be moving there. I'm not sure where I'll be living (my fiancee and I are going in May to look at apartments downtown-ish as well as on the east side). I have some familiarity, since I used to go to Milwaukee a lot when I lived in Chicago. It's been several years since I've spent any significant time there, however, so I'd be eager to hear others' thoughts on the city.

Heh, it's okay. It can be hard to tell without a user pic ;-)

Actually, I'm a "she" ;-)

It's pretty simple. You want to evaluate the cost of living in each place to see how far the money goes, rather than just look at the dollar amount. If the $7500 is in a small, midwestern farm town where you can get a one bedroom for $400 a month, and the 18k is in LA or New York where the typical rent runs somewhere in the area of two grand, you actually come out ahead with the $7500. Gradcafe and who_got_in both have forums to ask about various cities. You might want to inquire about how far your money will go there. A lot of current grad students frequent them, and can tell you not just how much it costs to live there, but where to look for good deals on rent, as well as any "hidden" costs (e.g. if food is more expensive, transportation issues, etcetera).

I think the money issue is going to depend a lot on where each place is located. If the school offering $7500 is in, say, Ohio and the school offering $18k is in New England, it probably would wind up being six of one, half dozen of the other.

A lot of schools seem to wait until the end to send out rejection letters. There seem to be a few reasons for this--one is that programs contact you via phone or email a lot of the time when you're admitted, then have the official letter sent out by the graduate school, which tends to be slower in general. Another reason is that a lot of programs don't reject applicants until they have a good sense of how many applicants are going to accept their offers, so that they have a "back up" round. In general, I've found programs to be pretty good about communicating decisions--if one has been made--if you inquire via email, though. I've received both rejections and acceptances in response to email inquiries. Ambiguous answers seem to mean a decision hasn't been made (either specifically or in general).

I go to a Jesuit school, I'm not Catholic or Christian, and it has never been a problem for me. I won't say it never comes up. I'm a philosophy major, and I have professors that are atheists, but I also have professors that are very religious Catholics. I find that most of my professors talk openly about their beliefs (and this has been the case in both philosophy and English lit classes I've taken) so if a professor happens to be religious, they may segue into that on occasion. I've never felt that it's forced on me though, and the environment is genuinely tolerant of different belief systems. Both of the grad programs I've been accepted into thus far are also Jesuit, and from what I've seen, I think it will be even less an issue at the graduate level.