Marcus_Aurelius

PMing you, happy to share my sample on ancient.

My impression is that some Canadian universities are less likely to give Master's funding to Americans than Canadians, but PhD funding for Americans is quite comparable to America. (I don't know how admissions take into account international status.) When I was applying for F19 start, Toronto offered me iirc $23k CAD stipend, which was later upped to 30k. Toronto isn't a cheap city, but the buying power on that stipend struck me as sufficient, and similar to stipends in America. But I ended up not choosing it for other (benign) reasons, so others would be able to say more.

No, programs expect people to change their interests, and anything is fair game. In my experience, no one remembers one's statement of purpose much, and goes both ways on the sample.

Heads-up, this is the Philosophy forum, @ccomotti00

Yeah, Effective Altruists, and in general some utilitarians okay with demandingness, think something like that. But most folks don't think that living ethically requires doing maximum good, or think pure altruism (i.e. focusing on others) isn't best.

Yeah, big difference where there are semesters in America. I had 11 or 12 courses required for my undergrad major, and some places require even a little less.

Like the vast majority of applicants, you'll sink or swim on the strength of your writing sample, along with letters. So focus on making sure those are great. Perhaps one of your letter writers can speak to the relevant experience you gained in your other major. And you can apply to some funded MAs to increase your odds, so you have more than enough courses to get into those.

Nah, an offer's an offer. Lots of people have gotten offers after the 15th. Sometimes schools aren't able to let people know before (sometimes culpably, but often not). Wafflotron should absolutely do what's most economical, even if it means backing out from where they accepted.

I also know nothing about the MA program but will chime in to say I had a great experience as an undergrad at Rutgers

I know very little about MA programs, but in the interest of a timely response given your deadline, FSU sounds way better. FSU has a good reputation on this board, and its placement is solid, even if not the very tip-top. What matters most for future applications is the work you do in the program, as it translates into writing sample and letters. But during the program, the funding difference here is *huge*. Not taking on the extra financial burden of $8,000/year will give you much more flexibility, whether you decide to apply on to PhDs or not.

Wafflotron, totally fair, that's really frustrating... I think a lot of it depends on how likely the program thinks they are to accept folks off the waitlist. Programs that rarely accept off the waitlist have, from their perspective, little incentive to invest time in interacting with WLed folks.

Just to expand on eleatics' point briefly, my impression is that folks accepted at top programs tend not to make decisions until pretty close to the deadline. Part of it is that visit events for top programs don't tend to happen until last week of March / first week of April. Part of it is that folks at top programs very often have good options to choose between. And top programs are (again, in my anecdotal experience) not at all interested in rushing decisions.

Just spotlighting as well, for anyone who didn't see, that findings from the report have now been featured in a Daily Nous article, which has public comments enabled. Major kudos, Linds, for organizing and promoting these findings: https://dailynous.com/2021/03/22/philosophy-grad-program-applicants-thoughts-about-the-application-process/

Like for pretty much all applicants, your writing sample will be most important, along with letters of recommendation. If you have a dynamite sample, and established professors who can vouch for you (and perhaps contextualize the grading system / address the grades), you should have a shot. So, writing sample writing sample writing sample.

You can try your luck with waitlists if desired, but if WashU PNP has an adequate stipend such that you'll be able to live reasonably comfortably, and you think you'll be reasonably happy in the program, absolutely take it. There are too many risks to reapplying, and also opportunity cost. Chances of a TT job are so small anyway, and if anything (totally spitballing here), a PNP program might give you better non-academic job options than a straight Philosophy program.

Two, as far as I'm aware

I don't have much familiarity with job markets, but an important question seems to be: do you want to study philosophy for 5-6 years, and are you ok with not making more money in that time? If the answer is a strong yes, take the top PhD program, and then you can take advantage of various opportunities during it to boost non-academic job prospects as well.

Cf. the classic short paper about how academia resembles a drug cartel: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/12/11/how-academia-resembles-a-drug-gang/

My guess is that, because (unfortunately, as has been noted recently) the same folks tend to get accepted to the top programs, even this year, those programs will have a relatively similar yield to usual. On the other hand, lower-ranked programs, which some applicants are in some years less keen on, might see more interest and thus higher yield.

I wouldn't recommend a Philosophy PhD to anyone unless they're comfortable with the likelihood that they won't get a good academic job afterward. All this is consistent with giving the academic job market a shot, but one should have an open mind to other possibilities too, and to some extent prepare for them.

Online reading courses are going to be tough to find, except the ones through universities offered for their grad students. French for Reading (Sandberg) is the most common textbook for, well, what the title says, French reading. Besides being dated (read: colonialist), it's a good book, in terms of structure and pacing. It presents all the grammar. And it's designed to be able to be worked through on one's own (though courses tend to use it also). My advice (which you should feel free to take with a grain of salt) is to pick up a book after some research on what seems best, spend some time working through it, and then read whatever texts in the language interest you, preferably (but not necessarily) scholarship on whatever you happen to be working on. (I found German academic vocabulary more difficult than French to pick up, given general knowledge of the language.) But, until you get into a good PhD, focus more on Greek and Latin. Those are the skills that'll actually get you into programs, as well as a really good writing sample.

It can vary even based on subtopic. I think there tends to be a bit more scholarship overall in French, so I'd probably recommend that, but it shouldn't be too difficult for you to pick up either or both if/when needed. (I did French as my second modern after German, but will likely work on Italian in a year or two.)

Sadly many programs also have far lower than 10% acceptance rate... (My impression is 4-5% is also quite common even in normal years.)

You got this! Many interviews are somewhat informal, and they're designed to proceed mainly like a conversation; this one sounds like it'll be of that sort. Be able to talk about your research interests, your sample, etc., and a great question to ask is what the professors' current projects are.

I want to agree with the good interview advice others have offered, and add that different schools interview different numbers of people relative to how many they can accept. So an interview usually means a good shot, but it's far from an acceptance. I think(?) most Classics program do interviews, though, as has been noted, some programs admit people without interviews (including those that only interview folks they're on the fence about). One nice stock question to ask interviewers is about their current research interests. Those interests have likely changed from their published material, so having an idea of what faculty at the program are currently working on can help you get an idea of how the programs fits you.