Prose

CEU is fine. If it's your only option and the money situation is good for you, go.

This was an excellent explication, 10/10.

Do an MA but taking another 'long shot' at 34 in something like academic philosophy of all things is risky to say the least. What exactly do you want out of becoming a graduate student in philosophy? Not sure "access, networking, conferences" are clear/good enough reasons. Your money and time, I won't care what you do - just giving things to think about.

just declined

Tufts is your clear best choice, by far.

This is why I have trust issues with you

only 10 hours of productive reading a week? what? If that works for you then great but that's not and should not be the norm. also I'm not sure what the last two bits are about at all - I'll try working less than 70 hours a week and see if I feel closer to writing the next Tractatus? Philosophy is hard work, whether you're Kant or an assistant professor, and the image of some manic, genius mind sketching up groundbreaking work is poor fantasy (this is probably even more true now in contemporary, professionalized philosophy - which everyone here wants to do - than ever).

I'm doing an MA so a full-time job isn't relevant, if by part-time you mean something like TA duties, I suppose I'll have to cut down on my reading hours when I start TAing, but probably not by too much.

ditto @brookspn also I just have certain goals I want to achieve that I can't achieve by putting in 30 hrs per week, just not possible - I also think there's people out there doing 70 hours doing stuff much harder than reading some stuff and writing some stuff, so I say work as much as you can handle and as for how much time is REQUIRED to be 'good' at philosophy depends on you and 'good', but as said, that's not really what's under discussion here.

haha 6, if I get more than that I feel tired

Pretty important depending on the prestige of the program to which you're applying, all else equal (i.e. the famous person doesn't write a bad letter).

I'd stick to MAs next cycle.

70-80 hour 'workweek' 6 hrs. in seminar / ~60 hrs. reading / ~14 hours writing Writing hours can fluctuate depending on time of term.

Read Phronesis or Ancient Philosophy or Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie or British Journal for Hist of Phil

Agree with @Marcus_Aurelius here. But also, it just sounds like you have very little idea what exactly you should be doing; the distinction between historical/philosophical, for example - you really need a better idea of what ancient philosophy done today entails. Read some journal articles. You've said that you're far removed from your studies, so no blame there, but you NEED to talk to an ancient philosopher about this, even if it might be embarrassing to cold e-mail them. Me and Marcus' (amateurish) thoughts probably won't carry as much weight as talking to an actual professional, but I'm willing to bet they'll say similar things.

lmao

'Option' or 'opinion'? No to both.

Tufts is the clear choice. EDIT: Finances aside.

Your options are limited, but as embarrassing as it may be, very kindly asking ancient philosophers to look over it may be the best option you have. I do ancient and I could read over it if you'd like.

Never said it shouldn't be pinned.

I never said it's easy to look at markers of success and predict your outcomes. Just a lot easier than a lot of people think. The 'lottery'/'crapshoot' (not 'chute', LMFAO) narrative is really simplistic, cliche, and misleading, even though it has some truth to it.

I really don't think it's very mystical - there's just a lot of misunderstanding that causes too much uncertainty than is warranted about what should be pretty uncontroversial things. Won't get into it, but this being my second cycle, my view has changed a lot to thinking that it's really not nearly as unpredictable as people think.

Thanks! Haha!

if your GREs are good enough to get you waitlisted then you've already probably passed the mystical threshold of 'good enough' - I'll be turning down my UVA waitlist btw

MA, seriously - it's a no brainer (I personally took this route) obvious caveat: MA is an opportunity not a guarantee