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thursday

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  1. People on adcoms are aware that what one ends up specializing in is quite likely to be different from whatever specialization one applied with (even if most applicants don't seem to think that's the case!) so although admissions decisions have to do with areas of interest in that, yes, programs like to have a nice distribution of interests, and a specialist in whatever you write your sample on will be reading your work if you get to a certain stage of the process, I don't think that decisions have to do with areas of specialization or fit to quite the degree that people on this forum think they do. Or at least in my experience they didn't!
  2. Going to give you the answer that pretty much everyone on this forum will (because it's true!): not inherently implausible, but a much, much more likely path is getting into a good MA and then a legit PhD from there. Even if you have a great deal of philosophical skill without formal training, you need time to learn the conventions of the field, write a good writing sample, build relationships with philosophy professors who could write letters of rec, etc. This is exactly what terminal MAs are for: helping students with non-traditional philosophical backgrounds learn the ins and outs of academic philosophy before applying to a PhD program. Also, I said this recently to another poster with a similar question, but you should note that even substantial self-study and writing is very different from studying philosophy formally, or doing philosophy professionally! This is certainly not to say you don't know what you're talking about/you wouldn't actually like it or anything like that - just something to keep in mind as you keep exploring this.
  3. It's not inherently unrealistic - there's no particular reason your English background would stop you from doing good philosophy - but to get into a PhD program, you'll need some training in order to 1) familiarize yourself with the conventions of the field 2) prove that you do well studying philosophy formally. As someone who has done both philosophy and English at different points (feel free to message me if you want more info/specifics), the kind of academic work you do in an English program is nothing like the work you do in a philosophy program. Normally in a situation like this people will recommend an MA in philosophy. If you'd rather not do a second MA (or at the very least take/audit a decent number of philosophy classes), then I won't say getting into a PhD program would be impossible, but it would be very difficult. Also, note: exploring some ideas and books and finding them interesting is very different from studying philosophy, or doing philosophy professionally! This is certainly not to say you don't know what you're talking about/you wouldn't actually like it or anything like that - just something to keep in mind as you keep exploring this.
  4. Genuinely asking: is it worth getting a recommendation from someone who isn't invested enough in your success? I worry about the quality of his letter if he's not willing to put in like five minutes to navigate more websites, and about his level of knowledge about the application process if he thinks that five is a reasonable number of schools to apply to. Is there anyone else you can ask for a letter?
  5. I have been just reading threads on here for YEARS and am finally making an account to say that in this past cycle I got into one of the schools mentioned in the post above me (and a few other top leiter-ranked phd programs) with a grade in my undergrad logic class lower than a B+. Do not sweat a B in logic! It's fine.
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