anonphdstudent

as a follow up, the department has now added placement to their website, in case anyone finds it helpful: https://wp.nyu.edu/centerforbioethics/people/graduate-placement-record/

to anyone who might be curious about the bioethics MA at NYU, they've now added placement to their website: https://wp.nyu.edu/centerforbioethics/people/graduate-placement-record/ and feel free to reach out to me with any questions! i know a lot about the department.

feel free to pm me! *edited to add* same goes for anyone else who has questions about NYU bioethics though i will also add that if anyone who applied to NYU was then offered the "opportunity" to apply to the draper program, that i would have serious, serious reservations about.

i think having a high average GRE score at a top school doesn't contradict my point- people with strong enough writing samples, letters, grades, etc to get admitted to a top school are also likely going to score pretty decently on the GREs. competitive students tend to be quite successful at standardized testing (though of course there are exceptions). but you're certainly right that some schools value it more than others (though i would be shocked to learn that it has ever been the deciding factor between two otherwise similar candidates, unless the lower score was both 1) substantially lower; and 2) actually bad, but you could be right), and it is certainly considered at a university-wide level in some cases (for instance, for fellowships, though i don't know which schools actually do this). i can just say, based on my experience as an applicant soliciting advice from faculty, as well as speaking to people who have been on adcomms, that their position was- unless the score is really bad, it doesn't really matter. and indeed when i told a particular professor my actual score to ask if he thought i should retake it, his response was "is that good? how many points are there?" now that doesn't mean one should blow it off - indeed, i did, and i regretted it on test day (though my score was more than good enough for my purposes) - but one absolutely should not devote huge amounts of time and energy prepping for it. the benefit to your application is not high enough relative to the cost. by contrast, though, such effort would DEFINITELY be worth it when applying to, say, law school, given that law school admissions can be pretty reliably predicted by LSAT scores. you should prep just as much for the GRE as is required to get an acceptable score and then focus on parts of your application that will have a higher return on your time investment- namely, your writing sample.

a few pieces of advice from my experience: 1. don't worry about the GREs. i have spoken to faculty who don't even know how many total points are on the GRE (seriously), let alone what constitutes a good score. my impression is that it can be disqualifying if egregiously low, but otherwise no one cares (actually, that's more than my impression. i have explicitly been told this). i do, however, recommend taking at least one practice GRE before you actually sit for the test. i didn't do this, and i found the experience of taking the test on a computer stressful (there's a countdown clock ON THE SCREEN as you're taking it, which created a lot of weird psychological pressure for me. i also tend to skip around a lot when i take tests, which isn't possible to do on the GRE given its format. this ended up requiring a big, impromptu adjustment in my test-taking strategy, mid-test, which didn't help with the whole psychological pressure thing). but definitely don't make the mistake of thinking the GRE is anywhere near as significant for your PhD applications as the SATs were for undergrad. it's not. 2. application fees are expensive, so ask for fee waivers whenever and whereever you can. i only applied to 6 schools, and got fee waivers from 2 of them, just by politely saying i didn't make a lot of money at my job. some schools will ask for your tax returns- you can decide if actually sending those is worth it to you. but this is a seriously easy way to save hundreds of dollars during the application process, which will be especially useful if you apply to 10+ schools. 2b. on that note, i might be a bit of an outlier on this forum, but i kept my list of schools i applied to really tight. why? because i didn't want to spend money and time applying to a school i knew i wouldn't want to go to. think about what your priorities are. for me, i didn't apply anywhere i wouldn't want to live. for example, i know arizona is a great school (and i would have been extremely lucky to be admitted there), but i have no interest in living in the desert so i saved myself the $100. if you know in advance that you can't imagine moving somewhere, don't bother paying them to read your application. 3. your writing sample is definitely the most important part of your application. have a good one. ideally, have one that one of your letter writers gives you feedback on. 4. people give various kinds of advice about whether to "name names" in their statement of purpose (i.e., name who you want to work with in the department). i ultimately didn't, and i think it was the right call. no matter what you know about a professor's work, you probably don't know 1) if they're taking on more students (they might have an upcoming sabbatical, or a full roster of advisees); 2) if their interests haven't moved in a different direction (specifically one they haven't yet published much on); 3) who's on the adcomm. imagine a case where professors x and y both work on z, and you write in your letter that you'd love to come to school a to work with x on z. lo and behold, y is on the adcomm. they may well feel slighted that you don't want to work with THEM, and that could color how they read your application. i think it's much safer to just say you're interested in z. besides which, who KNOWS who you'll end up working with? this is often far from obvious several years into grad school, let alone before you've even started. 5. it's a long and stressful process, this admissions thing. try not to put too much pressure on yourself (hard i know), and try not to let your self worth get tied up in what schools accept or reject you (this was even harder for me). best of luck!

also, in this case, it might well be the case that doing a 2nd MA in bioethics after already having an MA in philosophy might not be the best PhD admissions strategy, independently of whether the NYU bioethics MA is worth doing. i can imagine adcomms being skeptical about why someone would need to do a second MA in order to make their PhD application competitive.

I can confirm they do not send this to everyone who is rejected (whatever that means to you).

It may not be on their website, but they have indeed had people go on to PhD programs in philosophy- I know they have alums at Berkeley (who got a good number of acceptances and waitlists), CUNY, Riverside... I believe they also have someone who's at Tennessee? Kansas? All within the last 4 years. Though note that most of the Bioethics students at NYU are not actually pursuing academic Philosophy long-term, so it's hard to tell what percentage of students who do want to go on to PhDs succeed. *edited to add* they also have an alum doing a PhD at Johns Hopkins, though I think it's in Bioethics or public health