ellis01

Thanks for the response. The reason that I want to go Chicago is because they tailor well to Wittgensteiniens-- especially to LW's later philosophy. I have a very strong background and interest in Wittgenstein, so I think their program fits me the best. I'd apply to the phd program, but I figure that I'd be better off just going to the master's program for a year and then figure out what program I want to go to from there. (The money really isn't a problem to me... at least at this time.) My interest in CMU is that I have a lot of friends down there, and if I go to their master's program, like with Chicago, I could go through that, which would be a great experience, and then figure out what I want to do with myself. MIT interests me because I really like Stalnaker and that their department works closely with their linguistics program-- and I like their department, as a whole, for epistemology. -- Something that I didn't ask explicitly, but am looking for an answer for, is this: I got a C in Intro to Modern philosophy. Should I retake it, as it must look bad on an application-- especially considering that it is such a low-level class. Will having that C hurt my chances of getting into programs?

I'm going to be a senior. My grades are definitley not outstanding, so I'm just going to apply to the following three programs: U Chicago's Master's of Arts, CMU's Master's program, and MIT's phd program. If I don't get into one of those, I'll probably just move on from philosophy. (Those are really the only three programs I have an interest in entering.) I go to a top 5 school for philosophy. Philosophy Grades: Wittgenstein (A); Topics in Analytic philosophy (A); Symbolic Logic (A-) ; Minds and Machines (A); Philosophy of Action (A-); Philosophy of Mind (A-) ; Philosophy of Language (A-) ; Philosophy of Science (A-); Paradox (A-) Other notable Grades: Analytic Geometry and Calculus (B ); Independent Study on philosophy in literature (A); Game Theory (A-); Statistics (B+); Intro to Linguistics (A); Modern Syntax (B ) With all of that said, I have C's in some gen. ed. classes. Also, I managed to get a C in Modern Philosophy, which is a low level class. My overall GPA is only a 3.2. Next year I'm looking at taking Theory of Knowledge and hopefully an independent study through the philosophy department. I'll have a letter of recomendation from who Leiter says is considered the person who sets the agenda for research in philosophy. And I've had a number of original papers in philosophy that I got A's on-- So I feel I'll have a good writing sample. My primary interests are Wittgenstein, epistemology, and philosophy of action. So, I'm wondering if I have any realistic chance of getting into either three of those three programs. And, I'm wondering if there is anything I should focus on doing my senior year to improve my chances.