GodelEscherBach

I think you'll be OK finding a 1 bedroom apartment for 1000 if you're willing to bike a few miles. Lake Merritt/Adam's Point is an area that I think would make a lot of sense. It's bikeable to campus, much more affordable than the area near UC Berkeley, and it seems like a nice place to live.

I think there's some reason to believe that it's very difficult to gain admission to top graduate programs unless you have significant pedigree OR your application is just truly outstanding. I don't think the tone was meant to be arrogant -- he teaches at Riverside, a school with a good philosophy department but not of reputation, and he mentions that students from his school can't seem to break into the top tier. He made a follow up post about this later: http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2011/10/sorry-cal-state-students-no-princeton.html Obviously it isn't true that if you don't go to a top school you can't get into (a) a top school -- people do it every year or that ( a PhD program at all -- he never even indicates that this is true. Really the point is just that at top departments the competition is very steep, and without coming from a department that routinely places people in such departments, it can be hard for your or your faculty advisors to know what your application really has to be like to succeed at getting into Princeton or whatever.

I think you could swing $700. It would be a huge chunk of your pay, no question, but the difference between $650 and $700 over the course of a year is "only" $600 dollars. One thing you could try is contacting other people in your cohort and seeing about splitting an apartment/house. Before I found my apartment, I looked into doing this and actually didn't find it to be much cheaper, at least for renting a house even among ~5 people, but you might have better luck. It can also be a bit of a logistical pain in the ass. My main advice would just be to keep looking. It took me a few months of moderately serious searching to find my current place, but I did eventually. I don't think anyone uses that thing. I was advised not to, and to just stick with craigslist. I'd say earlier. There were plenty of August listings when I was looking late last spring and through the early summer.

Well, it depends on what you're looking for. The best way to save money is to live closer to San Pablo, though that puts you 1.5 to 2 miles from campus, so not easily walkable. If you want to be within walking distance, north of campus is probably your best bet. It's more expensive than south of campus, but is much more of a graduate student area, whereas south of campus (though probably a little cheaper) is more of an undergrad area. Not saying you couldn't or shouldn't live south of campus, but that's just kind of how it seems to break down. North of University and east of MLK would be ideal, though a few blocks out from that should be fine too. I'd try to find a place in that zone. I should mention that getting a lower price than ~900 is contingent on living with someone. I split a two bedroom apt. with one other person. Perhaps you're not looking at the "Rooms & shares" listing on craigslist, instead of "Apartments"? That will have better-priced stuff. Some parts of Berkeley are moderately sketchy (South Berkeley on the border with Oakland mostly, and some areas west of San Pablo) as are some parts of Oakland. Once you move here and learn the area, you'll figure it out. In general North Berkeley is nicer than south, and east is nicer than west, though that's just a generalization, and most of "west" and "south" berkeley is fine. Graduate student life here is quite good. It's very common to live in Berkeley your first year (which I would highly recommend) but people do tend to move out as they live here a while, usually into Oakland but sometimes into farther North Berkeley/Albany/El Cerrito or even into San Francisco (if they can somehow afford it). The weather is amazing, there's a lot of fun stuff to do in the area (some people say that Berkeley itself can be a little boring though a) I disagree and it's right beside Oakland and San Francisco, so that's not a serious issue), and life as a graduate student is quite good.

Yes. If you wait to apply towards the end of admissions season (like April) you will almost certainly not get in, let alone into one of the coops you want (since there are some you almost certainly won't want). If you're seriously considering going, you can put a deposit in now. If you decide to not do the coop thing, you can get all but 10 dollars of it refunded (I did this last year). So if you think you're likely to come to berkeley and join a coop, I'd advise putting a deposit down now and getting yourself on the list. Worst case scenario, you go/live somewhere else and are out 10 bucks. Also, I should say that while finding reasonably priced housing near campus is hard, it's not impossible. I pay 650 a month for a 20 minute walk to campus.

I third the suggestion of the Gaslight District. In the Clifton area, that's clearly the best place to live for a grad. student. Farther away from most of the undergrads, lots of good food (3 Indian restaurants in 1 city block), Arlin's bar, and it's safer than the parts of Clifton near UC (But not totally safe -- it's definitely still a "be careful and be smart" area). I would definitely not recommend Corryville south of MLK. A lot of students live there, but I wouldn't. Corryville north of MLK is better. You don't want to live south of campus. It's more dangerous and it's party central. One of the best things about Cincinnati, no question, is how cheap it is to live here. I pay $325 in rent and am less than a 10 minute walk to campus.

On the contrary, I'd heavily advise against "making a contact". The idea is so foreign to me that I've literally never heard of anyone doing this in philosophy. You might know someone at the department prior to applying, and talk to them. That's fine. But actually making a new relationship with a professor, over email or phone, just for purposes of applying is something I, at least, have never heard any advise to do. I've never heard anyone mention that as something one does as part of the application process in philosophy.

Not in philosophy. From reading the other forms, it seems people in the sciences, or even history, contact individual professors during the application process who they want to work with. This is not how PhD applications in philosophy go, I assure you. I've never even heard of anyone doing this in philosophy. What Schwitzgebel means by "contacts" is knowing someone who's a professor at the school you're applying to already, say from a conference or something. In philosophy, the way you make your research interests known is through your statement of purpose. Follow Schwitzgebel's advice on writing that. I don't know why philosophy is different from other fields, even closely related ones like history. But it is. You might mention a particular professor (or several) in your statement of purpose, as being who you'd like to work with, but this is really optional (I didn't, and I've been at several good schools, and a few great ones). What's important is that the interests you list in your sop are something the department can accommodate. I'm of the opinion that you don't need to list names, since the department will obviously know you mean when you say "I want to study ethics at your school". They'll know you mean the people who teach ethics at that school.