kretschmar

*here you go*

With the same caveat others have given, that I am a current applicant myself – 2) I would advise against the year off for the writing sample, unless you have other reasons for taking a break. I left academics for a period, and found that the lost momentum was costly. It is perhaps counter-intuitive, but the structured context of school, however demanding, actually facilitates the application process. This is especially true if you can take independent study credit for your sample. Applying at large, distant from my institution and while working an irrelevant job, felt lonely and required great discipline. On the other hand, if you have any uncertainty about your graduate school direction, your intellectual self-concept, etc., time off can be golden. For instance, I would not be pursuing philosophy had I proceeded directly to graduate school in 2015. 4) You could reference your independent studies directly in your statement of purpose. Especially if those studies influenced your proposed research direction, you should explain that. 5) If you know you only want to go to a top-20, then do not apply to any "safety" PhD's below them. Instead, as you suggested and others have said, only apply to PhD's you want to attend, and make an MA your back-up route. The last thing you want is to be wedded to your own discontent for 5-9 years. 10) A faculty member at a top-15 program advised me to include on my CV activity that was not strictly philosophical, but that I considered relevant to my intellectual project. My statement of purpose expressed highly interdisciplinary interests; I thought it relevant to bolster my profile as "interdisciplinary/non-trad applicant" by detailing some of my work in music, languages, and literature on the CV. Was this a good idea? Jury's out. No doubt some faculties – with whom, as far as I am concerned, there would be no value in working – are too narrow to consider a student's wider interests as relevant to philosophical inquiry. (This, of course, reflects the exceedingly insular quality of certain quarters in American philosophy.) If it's that direction you're headed, then I imagine you should not only leave "extra" items off your CV, but avoid such activities themselves!

Congrats. Your ambiguity is at least as anxiety-inducing as specificity... but I understand!

TTU was on my list until the final cut. I admit that it was a decision with overtones of regional snobbery. The program itself was attractive.

Welcome, and admirable work applying to such a monstrous number of programs! I, too, am emotionally attached to my long-shot choice, God help me. I keep telling myself I should forget I've applied there at all. No luck with that strategy. .

I've applied to a smattering of MA programs, of which I prefer GSU, and to two PhD's. My undergraduate major is not in philosophy, so I anticipate heading the MA route and reapplying to a far longer list of PhD's for 2020. I have similar observations regarding programs strengths. The two traditions rarely coexist in elite contexts. Ideally, I would like to get a PhD in a department that is both prestigious in mainstream analytic circles and genuinely pluralist. That list, of course, is a short one.

Nice work applying to 25 programs! Are you determined to work in continental philosophy? Your interests seem to include a little of everything. Did you happen to apply to Columbia and/or Stony Brook?

Nice list of schools! Let us know what happens. Out of curiosity, is your MA in philosophy, or religion, or something else? (My background is in religion.)

Congratulations!

I received a call this morning from an admissions director at one of my MA programs. He asked me if I would like to be considered for their PhD, which is funded (whereas the MA, it turns out, was not). He noted that the committee "quite liked" my writing sample and that if I didn't wish to remain in the program beyond the MA, that was no problem. This seems like a pretty good sign. What do you think?

No doubt the above responses are correct: a few lower grades in non-philosophy coursework are relatively minor blemishes. I would maintain, however, that given the option to voluntarily study more and get good grades in such classes, or to neglect them out of disinterest, it seems obvious that the best advice is to get good grades. That seems to me to be the choice implied in the original post. Any aspect of one's application that can be improved should by all means be improved. @Glasperlenspieler - while an applicant might not be rejected merely for having bad grades in non-philosophy coursework, certainly an applicant interested in top-ranked PhD programs should avoid having a C on her transcript, in any class. Again, the original post seems to concern best practices for a current undergraduate student. Furthermore, as @maxhgns rightly noted, the willingness to work hard at arbitrary tasks is actually quite relevant to graduate school success. Especially if there's significant disparity between someone's philosophy and other coursework, committees might see reason for concern about commitment.

GPA is one of the most important components of your application. Though many programs claim that more emphasis is placed on philosophy coursework, overall GPA cannot escape notice. Besides, every candidate that a reputable program considers will be academically excellent accross the board; this is why the general advice is to have as close to a flawless profile as you can. Especially if the area of philosophy you are considering has a quantitative aspect, e.g. logic, philosophy of math/science, then your undergraduate science grades will be a major liability. Philosophers, especially analytic ones, respect few other academic disciplines as being equally demanding as theirs. Science and math, however, are thought of as academically respectable. So grades in those classes are important.

Thanks guys. Borrowing these ideas, I will take my recommenders out for a celebratory drink, which will be served in a logo mug from my chosen university, and crafted from organic dark chocolate. Fabulous.

I can do little to assuage your anxiety, as I suffer from my own case of it. We both have strong but imperfect applications, and I doubt anyone will be able to judge our chances with any accuracy. Did you apply to any MAs or safety schools? And hey, even if you are going to get shut out, worrying about it only means that you'll suffer twice. That probably didn't help.

How do you thank a recommender? There seems to be a view out there that there should be no gifts of any kind, so as to avoid the appearance of remuneration. But it seems insufficient to just write a note! These people have done a lot of work for me....

AW scores are by far the least important thing on the GRE. Many schools don't even mention them in their admissions data, and I take this to indicate that they mean little. The GRE measures an idiosyncratic kind of timed essay writing, whereas your writing sample is a far better indication of both general writing aptitude and philosophical prose. The only exception to this is if your writing sample shows any signs of being in a second language. If that were the case, then the AW score might confirm worries that you are not fluent. But even in this instance, I would recommend perfecting your writing sample, not wasting time on another GRE. Besides, your overall score is outstanding. Good for you!

Admissions is like a ramp jump: intense acceleration followed by weightlessness. But what would you do, in terms of study and preparation in philosophy, if you found out you were admitted to your top program? For my part, I would be studying as hard as I could, in order to be ready to start strong in the fall. And if I really believe I belong in such a program, hadn't I better be doing as much anyway?

GSU's published admissions numbers suggest that your score is within the acceptable range. No way that it will bar you from consideration. Nor will it be particularly helpful.

You've posed several questions, and I don't have answers for all of them. One thing I will suggest, from my own experience taking a break from academics, is to be able to give a convincing, academically-relevant explanation for your time away from school. Every year away results in more distance from potential letter writers (with whom you claim to have had little memorable interaction as it is), allows your writing sample to gather dust, and gives you more explaining to do in your statements. A PhD application is about telling a story. Be able to tell a continuous one. You've given lots of essentially numeric info regarding your profile. While grades and scores matter, realize that PhD and MA admissions are a qualitative assessment of your individual aptitude for philosophy. Give 300% more energy to your writing sample than to any other part of the application. None of the things you've mentioned as weaknesses in your profile are concerns so serious as to outweigh excellent writing. With such overall high numbers, you could be accepted into any top MA provided you write well and think carefully about which departments fit your interests. These two factors, quality writing and specific fitness for a department, will make or break even the world's most perfect undergraduate student. Also, I will note perfunctorily what anyone on this forum will tell you: don't pay for an MA.

The GRE seems to function mostly as a safety check, for committees. Presumably a stellar GRE can help assuage (minor) academic doubts. Given your non-traditional background, I suspect the GRE verbal would take on more importance in your case than in others. They may ponder whether you are up to scratch in the "humanities" side of things – which is (roughly) what the verbal GRE measures. You could consider it a chance to move your application from "strong" to "unquestionable." I also lack a philosophy major (though I come from elsewhere in the humanities). So I spent hundreds of hours beating the GRE, trying to compensate. Time well spent? We'll see. But again, you already seem to be well-positioned for the MAs you mentioned because of your solid academic qualifications in physics. Besides, the writing sample will do worlds more to indicate your verbal ability than the GRE will. Better focus there.

You seem like the ideal candidate for a top analytic MA. 7 courses is nearly a minor, at least at my alma mater. If your interests lie somewhere in philosophy of science, you could even reasonably apply to a few PhD's.

Agreed. What constitutes a good MA option is just too dependent on your interests. Create your own "rankings" by synthesizing program research and thinking very specifically about what will foster your interests. Start with Geoff Pynn's list of funded MAs. From there, go through departments faculty member-by-faculty member. This may take a bit, but you will end up with a far better conception of what's really out there. One thing to recognize if your interests range much outside of analytic philosophy – and you may know this – there is a profound tendency to overvalue the analytic tradition in the United States. Treat any rankings of philosophy programs like lists of the favorite novels of someone enamored with science fiction.

Questions aimed at the establishment of social status (e.g. "What do you do?" or "What are you going to do with that?") are, in my view, some of the most powerful assertions of cultural assumptions, used to construct an evaluative rubric and constrain the individual to fit it. @Phallosopher –– as you noted, "usefulness" is an empty term filled by whatever the culture deems good. In the mass-consumeristic United States, of course, our idea of usefulness is particularly etiolated. As an anti-representationalist, I would argue that study for study's sake, considered beyond the arbitrary preferences of a specific time and place, is no more or less useful than any other activity. One can answer any question in one of two broad ways: either by challenging or accepting its assumptions. In talking about my academic aspirations – if I do – I approach this dilemma as a contextual and somewhat personal decision. Suppose someone begins interrogating me on the usefulness of my choices. My response depends on how much energy I wish to expend demystifying the questioner and whether she is a friend or merely a dinner-party acquaintance. To begin challenging assumptions in casual conversation is always a risky choice. If I were to begin doing so, I might ask, why is anything useful? What is the point of activity? We are, after all, on an express train to the grave. Etc. etc. If I don't wish to embark on this somewhat impolite conversational sea, then I might merely accept the assumptions implied in the question: "What are you going to do with philosophy?" "The same thing I do with it now. Make no money at all, and yet still feel superior to you."

Can anyone speak to the relative merits of recommendations from philosophy and non-philosophy profs? I have a choice between an academic mentor in Religious Studies for whom I worked as a research assistant (who will certainly write an outstanding letter), and a philosophy professor I've had for only one course. Also, is anyone else going for an MA in 2018 due to a non-philosophy undergraduate background?

I recommend, both for your application's sake and for your own academic readiness, that you take upper-division post-bac coursework in philosophy this summer or fall. A strong grade in even one recent philosophy course will help reassure the MA committee that you are genuinely interested in the discipline. I have found that, even though the coursework is not particularly challenging at my local university, just being around philosophers and students again has gotten me back into a philosophical (that is, rigorous) mindset that I hope will pay off in my applications. By taking a course or two you could also gain a strong, recent, and relevant recommendation – which will be especially useful if the other letters you will have are from theology or religious studies professors. Lastly, if you take a course with a writing component, you can use that work and the feedback you get on it as a writing sample, rather than using ancient work from undergrad or doing the intimidating alternative and starting from scratch. I, too, have been out of undergrad for a few years (graduated 2014), and none of the writing I did back then feels representative of my interests or ability now. Incidentally, I also come from Theology/religious studies. Out of curiosity, what is your area of interest? (Kierkegaard?)