Sophia345

Thank you all for your suggestions. I really appreciate it. Right now I'm still waiting to hear back from an MA program in the UK. Meanwhile, I would really appreciate any suggestions about intensive short courses.

Good Day! Congratulation to all of those who got accepted and good luck to those who, like me, have had no luck this cycle. My situation, however , is not a very typical one and I would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions in order to improve my chances for the next cycle. I'm an international student and my background is in science. I hold am MBBS degree (the equivalent of an MD in the US but it is a BA in the British system) and I have practiced in a psychiatry department for a year and a half as a physician. I have also an MA from a good US university (not very prestigious though) in global ethics. The master's was instructed by both the school of philosophy and the school of international affairs in the university. I have had few courses during the MA on political philosophy, Neurotics, feminism philosophy and metaphysics. My interests include moral theory, esp in relation to bioethics and political philosophy, and feminism. 'm expected to start a teaching position soon in bioethics in a local university in my home country. I have been applying to a very very limited number of philosophy schools in the last 2 years. Tbh I have put all of my efforts to get into one PhD program I particularly liked because of its strength in bioethics but I got rejected every time. he best chance I had to make my application stands out during the last cycle was through investing in my WS, my SOP, and the LORs. I have asked a few people with academic experience to comment on my WS, including my mentor (Harvard research fellow in bioethics and the chair of the bioethics committee in a university hospital) and I have revised and edited the paper multiple times accordingly. I did the same with my SOP. As for my LORs, I have had a recommendation from my mentor and the other two from academics who work on ethics, one of them is a philosophy professor in a top 20 philosophy department who was my thesis advisor during my MA. My GREs were not that great; I had an average score in the verbal section:160 and below average scores in both the quant and writing sections. For the next cycle I'm planing to apply to much more schools. but I'm still concerned that me coming from outside the field will always put me in a risky position no matter how hard I try. Do you know people share similar background and got into a good graduate program or is it totally unheard of? Do I have to have another more focused MA in philosophy to stand a chance? since this last option will be very unlikely for financial reasons, are there any intensive courses you recommend to strengthen my application? I know that Harvard has a 7- weeks introduction to philosophy course but I'm not sure how an introduction to philosophy course should make any difference in my application since I already have master's, I was thinking it might hurt it actually. Any thoughts will be highly appreciated.