jukeboxhero

Any of the above books seem good. I know this isn't an anthology, but I'd also suggest reading all of Kripke's "Naming and Necessity". Personally, I thought it was a fantastic introduction to analytic philosophy of language (but it also has very important implications for metaphysics and philosophy of mind, and it gives you a good sense of some different debates in analytic philosophy), and it's very accessible in my opinion. The manuscript was originally given as a lecture, so the writing is very casual and easy to follow. I think that's the single most important book-length work that someone in your shoes should be somewhat familiar with.

I don't know much about Plato, but I don't think there's anything wrong with having a narrow set of interests, provided that you can articulate them to a broader philosophical community. However, if that is the case, you should be able to demonstrate a good knowledge of the current state of scholarship and the problems people are working on. What readings are the most recent, and of those, which are standard and which are controversial? What universities have the strongest faculty working on topics you're interested in, and how do you feel about the work of various specific faculty? How has the field developed over the last 10-20 years, and where do you see this going in the future? What do you find to be the most  important books and essays on your topic published within the last couple of years? Which people in your area do you think are doing great work, and what work do you think is not so good? Those are the kinds of questions you should want to have an answer to, if you don't already. 

With regards to research interests, my sense is that Plato (if not also the Timaeus) is too narrow in one sense, but also too broad in another. Rather than honing in on an entire philosopher (or even just one work), it's often more compelling to develop an arc where you show how a small part of a person's text (e.g. a reading of term X) informs a common reading Y of their theory, and how a Z reading might avoid the problems of Y, but that Z also has its own problems, etc. That's for the writing sample. The statement of purpose will be less specific, but should nonetheless exhibit a similar kind of movement: e.g. maybe you're interested in how a specific aspect of Plato's work informs something else, or you'd like to explore how other textual tensions work to address a certain philosophical problem. Maybe there are other problems you find interesting as well. My guess is that there are enough departments with people studying Plato, that you shouldn't be worried being about ostracized because of that alone (I did run into that problem with my WS on another philosopher)—but you do need to focus on how to articulate those interests in a way that shows what kind of scholar you might develop into. 

Aside from that, I would try to solicit as much feedback as possible from faculty and grad students working on ancient philosophy. Going to conferences can be a good way to do this if you don't already have connections, and is often a good way to meet people and get a sense of how the field is progressing. 



  

 

I’ve accepted NIU’s offer with an assistantship. 

Regarding YouTube, perhaps you're familiar with them already, but Wireless Philosophy (or Wi-Phi) are consistently excellent and cover a lot of important topics, so would recommend them!
Apart from that, perhaps just take a look at some syllabi for Intro classes and see if you can find some of the papers?

I've always enjoyed the "very short introduction" series from Oxford Press. Depending on how much you already know, they've got 60 or so topics you could choose from. I'd go for Analytic Philosophy & Continental Philosophy to start - and of course check out the epistemology, ethics, metpaphysics. Good for getting a handle on terminology and contemporary problems if nothing else.
Also YOUTUBE

For the MA folks out there: yesterday I declined GSU (fellowship), SFU (assistantship), and Brandeis (partial merit scholarship + assistantship). I hope that helps allow some people to have a bit of time to make a decision! 

I’ve accepted NIU’s offer with an assistantship. 

I’ve accepted NIU’s offer with an assistantship. 

I’ve accepted NIU’s offer with an assistantship. 

I think Philosophy Tube on Youtube has some useful videos for getting an introduction to some topics (I found their philosophy of time discussion to be helpful). Not for deep reading, but if you wanna get a lay of the land its useful.

There’s a book called “Philosophy for Graduate Students” that I found helpful as a review of some important areas (epistemology, metaphysics, mind, etc.). It’s available on Amazon. For political philosophy, you can’t beat Kymlicka’s Contemporary Political Philosophy.

Your background in economics might serve you well if you studied political philosophy. But I’m not sure if political philosophy is something that you are interested in.

Also, it's sort of odd that they still include Leiter's original "analytic vs. continental philosophy" guide, even though it's misguided about a whole range of points, e.g. that analytic philosophy is about style. (A much better explanation can be found here.) 

And, to use another example of poor thinking from Leiter's guide:
Whatever the limitations of “analytic” philosophy, it is clearly far preferable to what has befallen humanistic fields like English, which have largely collapsed as serious disciplines while becoming the repository for all the world’s bad philosophy, bad social science, and bad history. Surely humanity “celebrities” like Stanley Fish and Judith Butler are fine contemporary examples of “the man of letters who really isnothing but ‘represents’ almost everything, playing and ‘substituting’ for the expert, and taking it upon himself in all modesty to get himself paid, honored, and celebrated.…”) 
Regardless of whether philosophers even agree with this statement, is this really the kind of thing we want to be telling undergraduate students? That English and History have collapsed as serious disciplines? That Judith Butler—one of the more influential feminists of this century (regardless of whether one agrees with her work)—is a fraud? 

Just heard back from Brandeis, which was the last place I was waiting to hear from.
For those who care/those on waitlists for funding, I am currently considering funded offers from:
Georgia State (fellowship)
Northern Illinois (assistantship)
Simon Fraser (assistantship) 
Houston (assistantship) 
Brandeis ($10k merit scholarship + assistantship TBD) 
I am unsure when I’ll decide, but obviously I can only go to one place, so I thought some people on waitlists might want to know! 

I almost forgot why I came here. Accepted to Brandeis with a $20k scholarship, TAship, and fellowship nomination.

I don't believe so; I haven't heard anything from them. It sure is getting late. 

This is a post meant to serve as some unsolicited advice for those of you who were admitted to both a PhD program and an MA, and are considering turning down the PhD offer in favor of the MA, to try to get into a higher-ranked PhD program the second time around. I decided to go one of the top MAs last year, rather than a PhD program ranked around 40, and I learned some things after being in an MA for (almost) a year that I wish I would have known about and taken into consideration at the time:
1. My MA program is fully-funded, I live in a low COL town, and I’m a frugal person. However, my MA stipend is really only enough to cover very basic living expenses. Consequently, I’ve had to borrow money to move, to make a trip or two out of town, and next year I’ll have to borrow more for application fees, to retake the GRE, and to pay for various student fees that my stipend won’t cover. I wish I’d considered how much further the PhD stipend I was offered would have gone for me.
2. There’s a cost in terms of stress involved in reapplying from an MA that I very much underestimated. There’s a lot of pressure to do well, since my future is riding on how well I’ll do at my MA. The first time around was stressful, but I also had MA apps as a backup plan. This time, when I apply out, I won’t have that luxury.
I may have still made the choice that I ended up making; I’m not sure. I'm certainly getting the chance to develop my interests, and to get better at philosophy. It may also pay off next year—who knows! However, I wish I had known about these issues when I made my decision. I just thought I’d share these things I’ve learned as you make your admission decisions. Good luck!

Questions to ask yourself:
1. What is the likelihood that your research interests will change over the course of your graduate career? (This is obviously highly variable depending on the person, but generally speaking someone entering with an MA is less likely to change focus than someone coming in with only a BA.)
2. Insofar as you want an academic job, where are the former advisees of the professor at University Y? Have they gotten tenure track positions at the sorts of universities you would like to work at?
3. How confident are you that you and the professor at University Y would have a good working relationship? I've heard more than a few stories of students (and current professors) who entered a program intending to work with a particular professor, but realized that for one reason or another that wasn't going to work. 
4. How important is it that your advisor has exactly the same are of research as you do?
 
I'd say the right choice depends a lot and your answers to these questions. University Y seems like the riskier choice, because  if your interests change or you decide you don't work well with this professor, you're sort of up a creek without a paddle. But, those concerns could be mitigated if you have a good reason to think that won't be the case. I'm also skeptical about the idea that one's advisor needs to have exactly the same interests as you. Obviously, they need to know your subfield, but I think that having someone who approaches things from a slightly different perspective can be helpful as can have a committee whose overlapping expertise provides you the support you need, even if no single individual on the committee does exactly what you do. But that's just my 2 cents. YMMV 

I relied on this website quite a bit:
http://www.philosophynews.com/post/2013/10/20/Graduate-School-in-Philosophy-Terminal-MA-Programs-In-Philosophy.aspx

I would take into account that not all students who finish an MA end up applying for Ph.D. programs. This might be worth factoring into looking at placement. It might also be good to try to find information about the specific programs where MA students from these programs have been placed. If they have taken MA students from a program before, they likely have a positive view of the MA program. 

i'm wondering about the importance of where each program is making placements... 
take for example niu and uwm. in the last 5 years: niu placed 4 students at both usc and arizona and 6 at indiana-bloomington; and uwm had 4 at both pitt and san diego and 5 at riverside. (i didn't take the time to do this with the other programs, but i'd imagine they would also have schools that they have a pretty good placement connection with.)
 so if you really want to go to arizona, eg, maybe its better to take an offer from niu than uwm; and if your top choice is pitt or riverside, then uwm may be the better option. this is not to say that niu does not place students at pitt (or uwm at arizona). but only that even if the general averages of placement records are similar, it seems that the particular placement locations may also be important to consider.