labradoodle

A lot of people apply to these kinds of places purely because of the name and prestige, and fail to see that the fit itself is terrible. If the fit is especially good, why not try?

My language test waiver got approved by Columbia!! whoo (thank god because that test is like 5 hours and I have done enough fill-in-the-preposition and multiple choice questions to boring but ambiguous texts in high school English classes to last me a lifetime)

I'd say it really depends on what kind of philosophy you're talking about. This might be stating the obvious, but I initially thought 'philosophy and literature' was a somewhat comprehensive field, when it's really not. However, I'm mentioning it because I initially thought of Berkeley as a good fit bc I'm interested in philosophy and literature, and even critical theory in particular, only to find out they really mainly do gender and race and not thaaat much else. You might want to check out the journal 'philosophy and literature' (maybe the words are switched around, idk), and see where the people writing on these specific things come from. I've seen that Binghamton has this kind of dual programme, so that might be to your taste, and I think Purdue might as well (though with specifics I can't really help you, unfortunately). Regardless, I feel like usually they have a 'philosophy and literature' tag on their faculty page, so that might be of some help!

To add on to Alyson, I've only come across the proficiency-test-after-the-deadline situation at Oxford and Cambridge, I think, but other UK unis are a lot less strict with proficiency, meaning that you can meet the requirements in many more different ways. For instance, you might meet the requirement if your programme was in English, or even if you got a certain high school diploma with a certain grade. Hope that helps!

It says so on the site of TOEFL itself, and it's just too expensive to gamble with. I just assumed IELTS would be similar, but you're right!! I'm gonna decide today if I'm taking the IELTS next week, lol. Thank you! (I swear I'm not as disorganized as I seem here, haha.)

On a more positive note, I realized the obvious: Dublin is still in the EU, so I might be able to make that work financially, and apply there!

I'm quite salty about something tbh: I couldn't start my applications till last month (when I was too busy with classes starting again,which is on me, sure), but only now I can really find clear info about the language tests and potential waivers (which is probably also on me, sure, but this is a rant more than a real complaint lol), and the applications are open for only 2 months or so, but TOEFL states you need to do the test 2/3 months before your earliest admission deadline, which is basically impossible. But now I'm finding info that I'm probably not eligible for waivers in the U.S. unis I wanted to apply to (most other places, even in the UK, where I'm considering applying waive the tests for me), even though I've literally been studying almost exclusively in English for the last 4 years.. So annoying, honestly. I know I should've just done it earlier, but I wanted to first start the application and figure out all the info to make sure I really wanted to and not waste any money (which turned out to make sense because one of my programmes just didn't open for new applicants this year). I'll contact them anyway with "I literally studied English, in English, what more do you want" emails, but I'm not too optimistic lol. Still, especially because it's clear so late whether they're actually taking on new applicants, I do feel like this is a bit of a shitty policy towards internationals, but whatever haha.

Also, does anyone know with regard to US unis: do they or do they not want you to propose an exact small niche that you want to research (as in a proposal question)? I'm mainly putting all my stress right now into developing my interests further and turning them into a PhD proposal, but would the US really be okay with you just putting down your general interests? I had hoped to receive more information from my teachers, for instance, or from other students applying in my programme, but that's not really happening unfortunately.

Yes exactly! I think I'm going to apply for their English programme now instead of literatures. But I'm so sorry!

I decided quite a while ago to which programmes in the US I wanted to apply, and only now I'm seeing that one of the programmes isn't taking applicants for next year. :'D Fortunately, they have another programme available that's quite similar, so I might try for that one instead (also depending on what they say with regard to language requirements, because my other programme does have my situation listed as a potential one in which you can get a waiver). Still, I hate this moment so much for an application time, as I'm only now developing my research ideas in my programme and will write my thesis next semester, so I might just try for a few this year and if it doesn't work out try again next year.

Thank you so much! I'm thinking of applying to Duke and Columbia now as far as US goes (not because I'm some sort of genius lol, I'm just not moving to a country without health care for a programme that's not worth that to me :P). I applied to Cambridge for my master's, so knowing that their leniency isn't universal does help, as I initially assumed their way of handling things must be the standard one (my home university didn't require anything of me). But I think I'm starting to understand, so you've already helped me out tons! Thanks! (I'm not too stressed by the requirement itself, by the way - I just need to figure out whether I need to schedule the test.)

Thank you! Especially the first half is really good to know, as I couldn't find that info anywhere. I feel like I should be able to get away with not needing proficiency tests for some places, but am still in doubt. Like... as we need quite a high level of English to pass high school, any English requirements are completely wavered here for students who finished high school, and I've even seen Goldsmiths say that if you graduated from this school system with an 8/10 at least, they'd waver it. (But I graduated with a 7, even though I studied both English and an MA fully in English since, lol. An email should probably solve that one at least, haha.)

By the way, does anyone know if you have to submit your language certificate (TOEFL or IELTS, I mean) simultaneously with the rest of your application? For my master application, I only had to hand that one in after, and if I got admitted, but I'm assuming I need to hand it in beforehand here. (I can't figure out if I need to take it as I'm in a fully-in-English type of programme right now, and literally studied English before, and have heard I don't need to, but will need to contact them.) Oh, and another (hopefully final, haha) question: does anyone else feel obnoxious even trying to apply to highly ranked programs? Every time I even click on the website of an Ivy I feel really weird about it, but I simultaneously feel that one of my main problems with previous attempts to apply at "good" universities was that I didn't feel comfortable even applying, and that came across in my application.

I feel like I might finally have found the first university I'm 100% interested in applying to, even when just going on the nausea I felt when I (falsely) realized they required GRE scores. ? It's kind of weird which universities require GREs and which have wavered them - the only one that still required them was one at such an unknown (to me, at least) university that I'd expected them to be wavered (as their requirements are probably less severe than those of top unis), whereas all the top unis don't require them this year, haha.

ohh that's really super helpful, thank you! There are some subfields I'm interested in where I do really notice that, but unfortunately, my main interests are really those classic post-structuralists who are physically dying out at the moment, rather than just their fields. XD Still, I'm definitely going to investigate this further and ask around a bit, cause there must be some current research being done ahaha.