[Doing a Graduate Degree at Australian Catholic University (ACU)?]

Just in general, regardless of the quality of faculty and rankings, there is a very big difference between doing a philosophy PhD in the US (and some top UK programs) and doing a PhD in Australia. In general, there is minimal coursework and often no 'program' to speak of. The idea is basically that from the beginning you are developing and writing a thesis and that is more or less what you are there to do. As a result you typically are funded for 3.5 years with an option for another semester. The university itself often has little control over extending or providing extra funding because the scholarships come from the government generally.

The result of the above (and other factors, I imagine) is often that as you emerge with a PhD from an Australian university you are competitive roughly only for Australian jobs (of which there are not very many and an increasing amount of applicants with shiny US-based PhDs) and a smathering of UK jobs. Of course, the job market is a mess for everyone, and so gambling on certain advantages may not be the best idea. That being said, it is certainly worth considering whether you'd like to go to a program that is extremely unlikely to make you competitive for any US-based jobs.

Now a caveat: I did my undergrad at the University of Sydney and am now at a program in the US, and so while most of what I say above should generalise (for instance, funding situations), some things may not. I feel like ANU are attempting to model their program more on a US-model, as much as can be done within the Australian university structure, and are doing better placement-wise. Perhaps ACU are going to attempt to do something along the same lines. It would be sensible for philosophy departments to at least try to do that. But I strongly suspect that any attempt to get such a reorientation going will take a while, by which time you'll have already started and finished your PhD.

I'm happy to elaborate on any of this and of course it's your life and if the names that are being brought over are the kind of people that get you out of bed in the morning then that's a consideration worth taking seriously. But it's also worth knowing that you are [1] not applying to a graduate 'program' that will look anything like what you might expect from a US-based program, and [2] partly for other reasons and partly because of [1], Australian PhD graduates in philosophy are competitive primarily for Australian jobs (virtually no Australian PhDs get American jobs), an increasing proportion of which are going to candidates from shiny US-based programs. 

In short, there's a reason that there are plenty of Australians kicking around US-based programs. The standard of undergraduate education is (in my opinion) very high, but something of a one-sized-fits-all approach to funding structures, degree times, coursework expectations, etc. makes it a very different PhD experience to the US in ways that are not necessarily good medium-term.

[Advice for applying phd Philosophy 2021]

Apologies also if this is derailing the conversation. I think I agree with you for the most part. What I was thinking was that I have been told a couple of times re: the job market that for certain kinds of jobs (North American research jobs I suppose) that it would be better to have no publications and be on the market then to have a publication in a not-top place. The thought is supposed to be that if you are being evaluated in terms of your potential to produce work in top journals it's not a good sign that you have, given that there is not all that much time pressure on you during grad school (hah), chosen to publish it somewhere that isn't a top journal.

I mean I also think that the mindset that leads to this way of thinking is a little unhinged and it's not clear whether it is even correct as far as results go. But I suppose generally I was thinking, publications pre-grad school don't really reflect in any way upon you for grad school applications (or beyond), whereas the politics of publication location when you get to the job market seem a little more complicated. Of course you're right to say that settling for a not-top place for your paper if you haven't started grad school is maybe giving up the game too soon. I was mostly commenting on how it would be perceived, I think.

[Advice for applying phd Philosophy 2021]

43 minutes ago, Glasperlenspieler said:

And if you can't get an article published in a top journal at this stage of your career, there are good arguments for not publishing it in a lower tier journal just for the sake of having a publication.

This is a good point, though my sense is that it applies more as advice for the post-PhD job market than for pre-PhD applications. I could be wrong though.

[Advice for applying phd Philosophy 2021]

14 hours ago, Idiomorphic name said:

What about publications? 

At least at most analytic programs, publications will not matter unless they are in top journals. At that stage, if you've managed to get something published at a top journal then you should, one would expect, have an extremely good writing sample. 

[Waitlist Department Visits]

At some of the visits that I went to last year, the department had invited a couple of people from the waitlist to join as well. On some occasions these people received offers not long into the visit. The department I'm currently at is doing the same thing this year, in terms of inviting a small amount of top waitlisted applicants. PGR top 10 departments will likely have the budget to invite the amount of waitlisted applicants that they want. I can't imagine it would do any harm to ask if you'd be welcome to visit at some stage (though asking to come on their specified visit days might seem a bit presumptuous) but I don't imagine that it would do all that much to impact the outcome either -- I wouldn't inconvenience myself significantly to go visit, for instance.

[Time spent on Sample paper]

56 minutes ago, Prose said:

True, not strictly a prerequisite, but the writing sample is so important that spending copious amounts of time on it may as well be. An excellent sample can overcome a (relatively) poor GPA or GRE, or sometimes, even undergraduate pedigree. The single advice repeated over and over again by professional philosophers is to make one's sample as professional and rigorous and well-argued as possible. Don't take my word for it, or tmck3053's, just do a little bit of asking around and internet 'research' and you'll find this to be true. It's lucky for tmck3053 that they got into a good program without having put in so many hours into their sample, but it's completely irrelevant and misleading to try and suggest that it's an effective option.

 

*Put as much work into your sample as you possibly can. This piece of advice should not be up for debate.*

Hey sure, of course. I thought it was clear that I wasn't trying to encourage anyone to spend less time on their sample, and that I think it's obvious that each individual should spend as much time on their sample as they are able to manage. I suppose I was unclear on these points. My concern was this: peoples' circumstances are different and their paths to grad school are many and varied and it's just the case that some people, depending on timing, circumstance, income, living situations, etc. (especially if they are non-US applicants and perhaps not on the same academic calendar) might not be able to spend anywhere near the amount of time on their sample that some people in this thread were able to. My point was only to say that those people ought not to feel discouraged, as I can imagine some might.

For context: I know a couple of people back home that almost shied away from applying for grad school in the US (and some that did) because of a perception that one needed to be able to dedicate hundreds of hours to one's sample in order to be even remotely competitive. Trusting that no one would, on my advice, put less work into their sample than they were able to, I simply thought it was helpful to point out to anyone having similar doubts that there are people in good programs that, for one reason or another, did not dedicate this amount of time to their sample.

[Time spent on Sample paper]

My writing sample was just a term paper I wrote for a 4th year Honours course back home in Sydney. After I got the feedback from the professor I originally submitted it to, I submitted it basically unchanged. I was fortunate enough to get a few pretty good offers to choose between, and now I'm a first year at Pittsburgh. 

It's great that some of the people that responded spent so much time on their samples and it's certainly something worth doing if you can. But you also shouldn't think that spending hundreds of hours with your sample is a prerequisite for getting good offers. I suppose all I'm offering is some anecdotal evidence for this, but I'd hate to think someone might read this thread and think that they won't get into grad school unless they can dedicate the better part of a couple of months to working on their sample.

That's not to say, of course, that I think that was the intention of anyone posting above. Also, there are naturally some areas of philosophy where expectations of scholarship might higher for grad admissions (for instance, I imagine historical work might require a bit more thorough approach than my sample exhibited, etc.) But in any case, I thought it was worth pointing out that it's possible to do well with a variety of approaches.

[Choosing between supervisors?]

Also, if you are accepted or waitlisted somewhere you will almost certainly be put in touch with current grad students and will have a chance to ask them questions like that. If you are accepted outright you will likely be able to visit as well and will have even more time to follow up things like that. 

[Help with decisions (Political/Legal, Kant/German idealism, History)]

I'll see you at the Pitt visit also. For what it's worth I have been told by some people in the department that there is a huge emphasis on Kant and Hegel at Pittsburgh. That being said, by that I think they mean that many of the philosophers there take inspiration from Kant (McDowell, Ricketts, Wilson) and Hegel (Brandom) in their own work rather than necessarily meaning that they put a strong emphasis on Kant/Hegel scholarship in and of itself.

[Shut Out Discussion Thread]

I'm not sure how helpful this might be but I was very almost shut out this season and I feel I learned a couple of things from it. I was accepted at one PhD program that I applied to (along with the BPhil) out of about 9 that I applied for, and I happened to have a long chat about the process with the person that called me from the program at which I was accepted.

What he said in short was that I had a sample that they liked, but that my statement of purpose made it reasonably clear that I didn't have a particular tight focus and that I had broad interests (for instance my sample was broadly in social epistemology while my SOP said I was interested in phil of maths and phil of language). As it happened for balance or whatever reason that is something that they found appealing but it could very easily not have been at another grad school.

What I took out of that is that most schools are interested in someone that has a reasonably tight vision for the area that they want to work on, and they want to see (in the form of your sample) some evidence of your ability to work in that area. It might not be the case that having a sample that pulls in a slightly different direction to your stated AOI will explicitly hurt your application, but it doesn't seem as though it will help - given how unbelievably random and competitive the process is, it would seem that you would be giving up an opportunity to appear as a really 'tight' and 'streamlined' candidate.

This is obviously reasonably speculative and all anecdotal, but it makes sense to me on some level. Imagine how many people have a statement saying that they are keen to work in area X and a great sample in X - those are the people against whom you are competing. I think I was, in retrospect, very lucky that my sample fell into the hands of someone who read it and liked it (they weren't the obvious choice in the faculty to read it) and that they were [a] in the right mood at the time to feel positively about it and willing to overlook the fact that I came across as a reasonably broad candidate.

Anyway - this might not apply to many of you, but it's something I feel I learned over the course of my many rejections this season. I'd certainly done things differently if I had my time again.

[Rants, Venting, and Speculation]

2 hours ago, ThePeon said:

Why exactly do most schools wait so long to send out official rejections after acceptances and waitlists? It seems like it would be so easy to just send a mass rejection email to everyone who didn't get accepted or waitlisted immediately after sending out the other letters.

This is just a stab in the dark but I think much of it has to do with jumping through bureaucratic hoops. I got a phone call from one school to let me know I was accepted that was followed up by an email with the funding details etc. but none of the contact so far has constituted an 'official' acceptance. Apparently the official acceptance letters have to be approved by some office at a higher level and it takes a while. I suppose it would make sense not to formally reject everyone until this process had played out successfully, even if it is just a rubber stamp. 

That particular school got in touch with me almost two weeks ago now but hasn't yet sent out rejections.

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

14 minutes ago, shifgrethor said:

I am going for the visit! Really excited to see what the department and city are like.

I have LOTS of factors but the primary is that my main AOI is Early Modern, and Toronto's EM faculty are kickass, and there's so many of them (Donald Ainslie, Marleen Rozemond, Karolina Hubner, Nick Stang... heck even Sergio Tenenbaum and Arthur Ripstein work in or around my AOI). The only person to really supervise an Early Modern project at Pittsburgh seems to be Engstrom, who seems really good but that is sort of limiting as I am still not sure what exactly I want to work on. I also applied and was accepted to Law at Toronto, and the joint JD/PhD program is really enticing.

On the other hand, I am interested in lots of different areas not confined to Early Modern philosophy, and Pittsburgh does have a really amazing overall faculty, and would probably be a 'smarter' choice strategically as far as job prospects down the line. I also did my MA at Toronto, so some diversity of perspectives would be nice too. 

Hey cool! Well that makes a lot of sense and there's plenty there to weigh up. Looking at the list it doesn't seem that Pittsburgh has a particularly strong specialist history of philosophy bent. That being said there's a strong sense of engagement with the history of philosophy in many of the faculty even if they are not specialists (i.e. McDowell, Brandom, etc). Anyway, interesting to hear what is helping other people to make decisions - it tends to help when it comes time to reflect on your own.

Will see you at the visit, in that case.  

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

21 minutes ago, shifgrethor said:

This is correct for Pitt, based on their phone call to me. There is actually, as far as I understood, even an extra step: I was told on Saturday that I'd get an email during this week 'recommending me for admission', and that the official email from the school would come even later. So the phone call was an informal warning that an informal email was coming. And the application portal doesn't say anything for mine yet either (also the Pittsburgh application portal is hella confusing).

On a more hopeful note, I am currently very unsure about whether I want to go to Pittsburgh or Toronto, and I'm still waiting to hear back on Harvard, NYU, UC San Diego, Stanford, and Notre Dame, all of which I would at least consider. So there is a decent chance at least 1 applicant will get pulled up

Yeah I got the first informal email because I missed the original call, but still haven't got the official email. The application portal is a nightmare. 

Out of interest, what would be the factors influencing your decision? I'm still waiting to hear back from a bunch of places also and I'm trying to keep an open mind. Will you be headed to the Pittsburgh visit?

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

1 hour ago, ArendtYouKidding said:

Yes, I have been checking and it still says that my application is under review by the department. There are no messages. The suspense is also getting the best of me! I wish I understood what they were doing. Pitt seems to be doing something similar. 

I'm not sure if this helps, but it seems that what happens at some departments is that the original contact is a sort of informal acceptance, mostly saying that you are 'recommended for admission' rather than accepted officially, since there is some bureaucratic rubber stamp required higher up somewhere. It takes some time after this initial contact before the official letter is sent out, and so presumably rejections are sent at that same time. That is, best as I can tell, what is happening at Pitt. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I think that Pitt called those that were accepted over the weekend. 

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

10 hours ago, Metanoia said:

You'll be flying a long way! 

And yes, I will be visiting in mid-March. See you there!

Lovely! It is a long flight, but they said that would pay for the flights in full. I was very surprised. Do they do this for local students? AUS -> US flights are not cheap.

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

5 hours ago, Humever said:

OMG, just accepted to Pittsburgh!

 

2 hours ago, Metanoia said:

Accepted to Pittsburgh! Got a call from Erica Shumener.

Congrats guys - me too! Spoke with Mark Wilson on the phone. Time zones are a tricky thing so he attempted to call me at 4am Sydney time and I had to call him back in the morning. Will you guys be at the visit in mid-March? I'm planning on flying over.

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

2 hours ago, Swann said:

yea, now that i've thought about it, i should have waited to post until i wasn't going to be ambiguous. i guess i just got too excited...sorry, everyone.

Hey I wouldn't worry about it too much at all! Congratulations on the offer you've received! Hopefully you're excited about it!

As someone from Australia I was slightly surprised that so many people are reporting receiving offers by phone. Barely anything over here is conducted by phone when it comes to university stuff. 

[2018 Philosophy Applicants, Assemble!]

24 minutes ago, Metanoia said:

I think you are right about UPitt's support for Wittgensteinian scholarship. Nevertheless, it may be worth keeping in mind that both Brandom and McDowell are likely to be quite close to retirement. 

Yes that's true - they both are quite old. That's what makes me hesitant about UPitt in the end. Plus Mark Wilson is getting quite old also.

[2018 Philosophy Applicants, Assemble!]

6 hours ago, genderphage said:

Heya gang,

thought I'd say hello, in the waiting period and only just found out about this place (maybe for the best), I just finished up my integrated Masters in Maths & Philosophy at Oxford, where I got kinda average grades (62 average in BA, 67 average in masters year [equivalent to 3.2 & 3.7]), but with a 72 in my thesis on Wittgenstein & Heidegger (with some Merleau-Ponty) on feminist epistemology of emotions (the main argumentative chunk of which I've sent as my writing sample), with GRE 170/169/5.5

 

At the moment main interest would be in continuing that approach from my thesis but talking about animals, so generally looking at more phil of mind stuff from combined analytic & continental perspectives, which made picking places harder - I always thought Wittgenstein was more popular than he actually is haha

 

I've applied to Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, CUNY, Toronto, McGill, Stony Brook for PhDs, New School & Tufts for Masters, would probably go for Chicago if I got all my offers but not fully sure, will wait and see...

It's very true that Wittgenstein is not often so well-received in very analytic parts of the world - he was, after all, one of the strongest critics of analytic philosophy and would have completely derided many of their shining lights (Quine, Lewis, etc.) It does make it tough - it was nice for some of my applications to be able to be a bit more open about my interest in Wittgenstein - especially places like Chicago and Harvard. It's probably useless information for you now but Pittsburgh also has a huge interest in Wittgenstein what with McDowell and Brandom and co.

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

21 hours ago, libraryghost said:

Hey you guys, long time lurker first time poster, I just wanted to put down my first acceptance at SUNY Binghamton SPEL program. My AOI is political philosophy and I'm really excited to be a part of a program so focused on my interests. For those looking to compare stats by GRE was abysmal V:166; Q:148; W3.0 with a 3.94 GPA. Anyways I'm just really excited and good luck to all the rest of you

Congratulations! Always nice to get that first one in the bank!  

It's starting to feel very real given that it's probably a week and a bit till some of the places I applied start sending information out. It seems from the results database that places that get in touch early tend to do so mostly every year, and same for those that are later, etc.

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

9 minutes ago, Goonasabi said:

Thanks! Academically it's not particularly high (although it's a fine school--top 50). But geographically, it's preferable. It's about 2.5 hrs from my hometown, and it helps because my wife and I have a 3 month old baby girl. Being close to family would be nice.

Oh lovely! Congrats (x2) on the little one! Are there any other schools that are similarly convenient that you're holding out for?

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

54 minutes ago, Goonasabi said:

I would say it's loosely correlated. I looked back 4-5 years on all the schools I've applied on the acceptance/rejection board, and it's not always the case that an earlier deadline equals an earlier decision. Either way, FSU was definitely very quick!

A tight correlation would make too much sense for the academic world! Congrats by the way on your offer at FSU - where does that sit in terms of your preferences?

[2018 Philosophy Applicants, Assemble!]

58 minutes ago, wayfarin' stranger said:

Chicago is a world-class department either way you look at it.  I value employment outcomes a lot less than the quality of philosophical training, but I'd still give a tentative 'yes'.  It has an important place in the history of analytic philosophy (John Dewey, for example).  Then again, placement records speak for themselves.  Did you look at that and worry?  From an analytic approach it would likely be a top choice for me (but we seem to weigh values differently); from a CP approach it is a top choice.

I haven't really had a look at their placement records - my worries more stem from what people around here at Sydney say about different places in the states, but then again we are somewhat provincial out here (and our department is dominated by very high analytic types that do tend to look down their nose at other ways of approaching philosophy). 

I do like the idea of being trained somewhere that doesn't buy into the insulation of analytic philosophy from continental philosophy and broader historical themes (as though analytic philosophers work solely at the 'cutting edge'), and Chicago certainly fits that bill. 

What is it about the CP approach that makes Chicago a top choice for you?

[2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread]

I had always assumed there would be a correlation between application deadline and the time that information came out but it looks like FSU's deadline was Jan 10th? That's a pretty short turnaround. Is it not the general rule that places with earlier deadlines will make decisions earlier?

[2018 Philosophy Applicants, Assemble!]

You know Chicago actually has me feeling conflicted! Of course things change when/if you get the chance to visit campuses and meet people, but Chicago seems so incredibly up my alley with some of the people there but also the way that the department presents itself. I am just left with superficial worries about whether because it is known as a slightly non-mainstream department that it might make things more difficult upon completion?

By the looks of things your interests are more continental so it might work differently in that field, but my sense of things is that the world of analytic philosophy can be quite chauvinistic in its own way.

Of course this is all putting the cart way before the horse but I wonder about it sometimes. Would Chicago be one of your top preferences? Best of luck to you also @wayfarin' stranger - perhaps we will see each other at Chicago.