vitaminquartet

Surely what will really determine admissions - provided that grades and gre scores are above a certain difficult to know threshold - is what sort of writing sample you have and what sort of letters of recommendations you have (and importantly, from whom). Since we don't know your writing samples or letter writers or letters, we can't evaluate your chances (and even if we did know those things, we wouldn't be well positioned to know how an admissions committee would interpret them). It seems at least reasonable to think that your application wont be thrown out on the basis of grades and gre scores - but making the 'first cut' is not a great indication of whether or not you'd actually gain admission (though obviously failing to make the 'first cut' means that you wouldn't). So I think thats all that can really be said. Do everything you can to maximize your chances of admission, and apply as widely as you are comfortable. As someone who has done both a Philosophy MA and a JD (in law) I would discourage you from going into law as a backup plan - the atmosphere and work is radically different from philosophy, and the job prospects suck, the first year is a boot camp and you'll only be funded if you go to a school lower in the rankings than one you could obtain without funding (which is just how it works).

Well it seems like you already know the basic reasons to choose both programs: UCL has a stronger reputation, IPE interests you more than EPP. Personally I think if you are neutral between the courses, you should pick UCL, but if the KCL course structure and subject is more interesting to you, you should go with that instead - KCL is still a good university.

I think with income based repayment, if you can survive on US federal loans alone, ae already in enough debt that you anticipate being eligible for income based repayment - for academics, the belief that one should never under any circumstances accept an unfunded position they will have to pay their way through may simply be anachronistic since IBR makes repayments reasonable and offers forgiveness to people working for public universities or 501©(3)s (private non-profit universities) after 10 years. If you know you want to be an academic and you don't mind living with massive debt so long as your repayments are reasonable, this might be an option for you (assuming you don't want to buy a house etc - it will also mean filing taxes separately if you are married to someone with a higher income and don't want to lose eligibility). That said...I think the idea that you can be in this program for a year and then get funding from the second year onward is totally unrealistic. They will have already established two things: 1. they can secure your enrollment without giving you any money 2. they'd rather spend money on other students who aren't you. Why would they ever consider throwing money at a student they already have, who they clearly and they value less than the others in the class, when they need to use that money to secure students who wont attend their program without funding, and who they would prefer to have anyways? That just makes no sense from the departments perspective - they don't have to give any enticements to continuing students because they figure you've already made an investment.

Harvard and Yale have SJD programs (requiring prior completion of their LLM programs) for people who want to be academics, including Americans - other universities have SJD/JSD programs though they are often geared towards foreign lawyers, and virtually all require prior legal qualifications.

Err, they're all poisonous (or rather, venomous) but basically none of them that a grad student in urban or suburban North America or Europe is likely to encounter in their homes will carry the venom that can significantly hurt a person. In any case Killing spiders and insects (apart from those like mosquitoes and others that actively feed on or attack people) is pointless and mean. Respect nature and be decent to the organisms we share our world with. I don't like spiders in my apartment either but I always get them to walk onto a paper towel or piece of paper and glass and then carefully let them outside (windows will probably be fine since, I'd guess, the terminal velocity of a small spider is probably low enough that I doubt they'd be injured)

You seem to be ignoring the fact that Macbook Pros are prettier and shinier and more solidly built than ordinary Macbooks, and since, lets face it, most of the techno-fetish desirability of buying a Mac comes from the fact that they're pretty, shiny, and solidly built - you may as well just get a non-Mac PC then then!

This is the first time I have *ever* heard of that happening. Maybe the first time I've even heard anyone attempt it.

I am a current MA philosophy student, joint JD (law) student, and I did philosophy as an undergrad. I would like to apply to philosophy PhD programs for applied ethics, political philosophy, and jurisprudence and legal theory. My situation is the following: I have respectable but not excellent undergraduate grades (highish 2.i in the British system) My law school grades are mixed (very poor first year, 2.75, but excellent second year, 3.8 with 4.0 in most recent semester) - law schools grade on strict curves and law students end up with much lower GPAs than philosophy grad students or undergrads. My poor grades are in traditional law classes (property, administrative law, civil procedure, stuff like that) and my high marks are in legal theory and jurisprudence courses (including classes where I had the highest paper grade). In my philosophy MA, my grades have so far been consistently excellent (I would guess that I am probably at or near top of my class). I have good relationships with numerous philosophy and law professors - but my strongest 'supporters' are law professors I had in my second year. I have a dozen law and philosophy conference papers and two interdisciplinary law publications in reputable but not excellent journals. Do I: 1. downplay my legal education since I have crappy 1st year grades. 2. talk about my legal education and ignore my 1st year grades. 3. talk about my legal education and explain my 1st year grades as being in subjects that are irreleovant to my research interests in legal philosophy? And should I use all philosophy professors as letter of recommendation writers or a mix? Would it be okay to use 1 philosophy professor and 2 law professors? Do I need to talk about my undergraduate philosophy grades (which, while respectable, are no where near as good as my most recent grades) I am applying for 2012 entry any advice on strategies would be appreciated

In my fields (philosophy and law) it is entirely acceptable to contact British professors who appreciate prospective supervisees contacting them, but not acceptable to contact American professors (who see it as an inappropriate attempt to manipulate admissions processes). This difference is in part because normally supervisors are assigned immediately in UK departments but only after some time in US departments and US programs typically have a larger taught component.

You should never ask anyone who you do not know *very well* for a letter of recommendation.

I think its completely reasonable.

It depends on what you can afford, what your goals are, what your field is.

I am not familiar with that particular program, but UCL is so much more prestigious and competitive than SOAS and Sussex. While its place on various league tables fluxates from year to year, I think generally UCL is considered the third most reputable multi-faculty (or generalist) university in the UK, after Oxford and Cambridge (and amongst the top five universities in the UK along with the specialist colleges, Imperial College London and LSE). By comparison, both SOAS or Sussex are highly reputable universities but neither is probably in any typical top ten list - though both might be top 20 or (though they sometimes place lower in league tables, which unlike the US News & World Report, have less social influence in the UK just because there are many UK university rankings lists that have significant variation between them - but none of them would have SOAS or Sussex above or equal to UCL - some might switch the places of SOAS and Sussex though). UCL is a huge, early 19th century university in central London's Bloomsbury neighborhood (which is itself dominated by the University of London 'campus'). It is the oldest University of London constitute college and awards its own degrees while remaining in the University of London. It has some absolutely beautiful old buildings as well as some ugly buildings. It has many student bars but most of them are gross (it has one excellent one, th Print Shop Cafe). UCL is also notable as being among the very top few universities for research funding. SOAS is relatively small (maybe 1/5th the size of UCL in student body and campus area) social sciences only specialist university that is also located in Bloomsbury about five minutes walk from UCL. Like UCL it is a University of London college but unlike UCL it still awards University of London degrees. The buildings are unremarkable, simple brick buildings. The student bar is wonderful. Sussex is physically distant from its town, Brighton, and has a large campus set apart from Brighton - giving a totally different feel from UCL and SOAS which are in London. Brighton itself is a marvelous cute town. Sussex buildings are all relatively new, the university is only 50 years old, and the facilities are generally contemporary, airy, and nice - though not especially attractive. In terms of student body it is mid way between UCL and SOAS in size - in terms of campus size it is much larger than UCL and SOAS put together. UCL, SOAS, and Sussex all have very politically active student bodies, and all three have a reputation for being leftist activist centers (though, of the three, this reputation has been established at SOAS for a long time and only relatively recently at UCL and Sussex - and UCL retains significant conservative groups although the leftwing groups are more visible). Personally I would always choose UCL above SOAS and SOAS above Sussex, but its obviously a very personal choice.

Your goal is to become a professor. To become a professor you, in effect, need support from your department to place you - you need letters of reference to write how excellent you are. For a very top program that can place every single one of their job market candidates, it matters less how well you compare (in the minds of your department) to others in your program...but for a program like yours (I would guess) that cannot place all of its candidates, well, if you can't get the faculty to even give you an assistantship in their own department, how do you expect that they will convince others to give you a tenure track job at the expense of your classmates competing for the same job. You want to have reference writers say you are their top student in your area on the market. You could turn things around and get them to say just that - but its a huge gamble when you're starting off behind.

I am a post-graduate student in London - and London Met is really not considered a credible university...it is among the lowest performing of all of the 'ex-polytechnics' which are as a category the least well regarded of all types of universities in the UK. There are many excellent universities in London though - LSE, UCL, Kings College, Imperial College, etc...and London is an amazing city - get your MA from one of those instead.