MattDest
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Posts posted by MattDest
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Establishment's advice seems right on. Also, you ought to consider the specialty rankings for your AOI, especially if you think they will remain constant during grad school. WUSTL's PNP program is definitely one of the stronger cog sci programs, and I imagine that their placement record in that AOI is quite good.
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Evaluating MA programs is not totally unlike evaluating PhD programs, in my opinion. A lot of the same questions seem to apply just as well at either level. Instead of looking at job placement, however, you want to be looking at placement in PhD programs if that is your ultimate goal. One thing that wasn't really apparent to me until after I left my MA institution was that I think depending on who your thesis advisor/committee was (especially if they are writing your LOR), it might impact your ability to place well at PhD programs when you go through that process. If you have an idea of what area your thesis might be in, you might ask students or the faculty directly how students in those areas tend to do in PhD applications.
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Let him call to reject me then. I'm fine with that.
I'd actually rather have Don Garrett call to accept me. He was my UG advisor's PhD advisor.
BUT CHALMERS! Here is Chalmers with a lightsaber (and me).
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Can I ask a quick question? I have received an email from a graduate chair asking to set up a skype time in the next few days. Does anyone have any tips on how something like this usually goes? Should I have anything prepared for the meeting? Should I say anything in the email besides skype details? Thanks!
Did they already admit you, or is this an interview type situation?
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Sometimes people accidentally press the down-vote. But while we're on the subject, my view is that down-voting is something to do when someone is being offensive, rude, mean-spirited, spamming, hijacking a thread, or commenting in plain bad faith. Down-voting is not properly an expression of disagreement or mild frustration. That's my take. Last year, one person down-voted almost anything that I posted. The person disliked me and really disliked my views. That's fine, but the best way to express disagreement is to do so unequivocally. Otherwise one is left wondering whether one violated the community's standard of conduct.
SHUT UP. *downvote*
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I don't see any reason why they would find it weird to route somewhere else - they should know that you are likely going to visit multiple places.
I don't know what's normal with regard to booking tickets, but my only experience has been booking and then being reimbursed at a later date. I imagine some institutions might be able to just book them for you. Have fun visiting!
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I would ask about the teaching expectations of graduate students, how many students you are expected to have, ask other graduate students about how long they put in towards teaching responsibilities, etc.
I talked with professors about what types of courses were usually available from semester to semester, what the people in my area of interest were thinking of doing seminars on, what the rotation was like for instructors doing seminars, etc.
I think it's good to ask graduate students about their perspective, but even better would be to look at a placement record. You could even look it over with a faculty member or something and get their ideas as to how a graduate from their program might fare.
- cestbon and NathanKellen
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EDIT. I think MattDest's crucial point, if I may say so, is that in a world of very competitive PhD admissions, grades can really undermine an applicant. If you're a young undergrad reading this, and you hope to apply one day to PhD programs, know that your grades are extremely important.
This is exactly what I meant to emphasize. I didn't mean to undermine your general comment (as someone with both a shitty undergrad GPA and a mediocre grad GPA, I'm so thankful for professors like the one you mentioned), but I just wanted to signal to potential applicants that they should actually care about the types of grades they receive if their ultimate goal is grad school.
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Although I did ask professors about this, I would really like some students' perspective on the matter. I know grades are not the only component of an application, but I'm really worried about the B's. Does anyone know of any success stories of students who have gotten B's in their MA and were successful in PhD applications? Should I really be this worried? Am I doomed already?
I got one B+ in my MA, and you can see how my applications turned out in my signature. I don't think grades will necessarily sink your applications, but it's obviously not ideal either. LIke others have said, you can't change any of it now - just finish out the rest of your coursework as best you can and kill your writing sample.
I'm telling you this in complete and utter honesty: At the MA program that I attended -- a very strong program! -- several philosophers in the department care little about grades and disregard test scores altogether! One professor, whom I deeply admire, tells me that it's all about the writing sample for him. If you can't produce a great piece of written work for your one application to the program, that's enough for him. On the other hand, if your work demonstrates promising philosophical potential, he's excited to bring you on board.
I understand this is coming from a good place, but I want to register that I don't think this is the case at PhD programs. These programs are trying to fill an extremely small number of spots, and usually they have over 100 applications to wade through (for example, my incoming class at Arizona was 5 students, and they had over 200 applications). Every piece of your application speaks to some of your potential, even if it is only very limiting. Grades that you received in MA coursework (which are, on average, based almost completely on the quality of a term paper) are going to be pretty strong indicators of how you will do in graduate level coursework.
Most MA programs have less applicants with more spots to fill. It's easier for faculty on admissions committees at MA programs to just look for potential, but I don't think many PhD programs have that luxury.
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As long as it's footnotes, I don't really care. If you use endnotes, you are what is wrong with the world.
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I have to agree with the others - that is mighty impressive! You might have seen this Daily Nous thread about philosophers from poverty awhile back. It is probably nice to know that you aren't alone. I would describe it in any place where they allow you to expand on difficulties you've faced in academia/undergrad/on the way to grad school, but I agree with Gnothi_Seauton that you probably shouldn't put it in your personal statement unless it has shaped your interests in some important way.
Dude(ette), you shouldn't be worried if mentioning that you were homeless provides you with an unfair advantage in the application process. Fortunately, I was able to have a job to work my way through undergrad, but I can't even begin to imagine the type of hardship you would face from not having a place to sleep at night during undergrad. Especially if you were in a rather rigorous undergrad program - which it sounds like you were. Your ability to overcome that hardship is what would give you the edge, not your unfortunate circumstances.
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"Due to miscommunication, two different deadlines for applications for admission to the PhD program at The CUNY Graduate Center have appeared online: December 15 (posted by the administration) and January 15 (posted by the department). This week I have received quite a few emails from justifiably nervous applicants worried they may have missed the deadline. They have not. We are accepting applications until January 15, and we are in touch with the admissions office (conveniently located just 50 feet from the Philosophy Department).
Thank you
Stephen Neale
Graduate Admissions Director"
-Leiter Reports
I'm pretty pissed. I could have had another month to work out kinks in my writing sample. Did anyone else notice this?
You can always re-submit a writing sample and let them know that you would like them to read the revised version. It's possible they don't read through the samples until they have all of the applications in. It's certainly frustrating, but I'll also say that you will NEVER feel completely fine about your writing sample. You'll always wish you had another day/week/month to do the revisions you would like.
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. if you actually want to discuss this without hang a nervous breakdown or highjacking a forum after i said i will leave it be, just message me. otherwise, i will take it that you just want the last word. But if people are curious to my response to this...
I've had some nervous breakdowns, but I don't recognize educating someone on the dangers of implicit bias as being in the same category.
- NathanKellen, Hypatience, solon and 5 others
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Good question, and sorry if I was a bit misleading earlier. UConn doesn't typically (ever?) pay for students to visit unfortunately - it's just not in the budget. I'm not even sure that it's "usually" the case that departments pay for applicants to visit - none of the programs I was invited to did. I think it's become less and less common unfortunately.
I don't know if it's usual, but I know several universities still paid for prospective students to visit last cycle. It's a shame that UConn doesn't offer it, but totally understandable. My entire trip to Arizona was paid (including a few people offering to put me up/pay for meals) for, which was splendid.
I've heard glowing things about UConn. Out of curiosity (I'm not a prospective applicant), how do you find living in Storrs?
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^ I disagree with this. I enjoy a nice, detailed by-line. Your application, PreciselyTerrified, seems quite amazing. Best of luck.
I would report your scores from one test, and then let the ETS report speak for itself. But I don't know how much this matters.
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This forum to avoid working on term papers and grading.
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Very cool, thanks for sharing this. As someone in a program, one thing to think about is how many faculty/grad students are in your area of interest. I imagine that most programs are pretty good about keeping these ratios relatively even, but it's worth thinking about.
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Arizona is one of the schools I am considering. Somebody mentioned that placement is poor. Could that be elaborated on? Is that a symptom of the program? If so, what may be the cause? Is it that Arizona is such an awesome state that nobody wants to leave and are willing to take lower prestige jobs? Or does the program truly not prepare students well for the job market? Is it similar for most advisors, or do some advisors have better placement records?
I'm just starting the program, but all of the evidence I have so far indicates that the students are more than prepared for the job market. The climate here is absolutely amazing. I've been in a lot of different department atmospheres, and this is one of the most friendly places I've been.
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Sure, I'll send you a message.
By the way, against my better judgement, I've decided to retake the GRE. I'll let you all know how it goes!
I was in your situation, and I ended up opting to retake as well. The statistics are pretty clear that most people don't test that much better on the re-try. I went up in V & AW, but down in Q. Good luck, but as someone who has been there, done that... I would suggest that your time might be better spent elsewhere. However, with the rest of your app being stellar, I don't imagine you will have too much difficulty getting into good programs.
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The "Folk (Instrumental)" station on Pandora has been the soundtrack to many of my papers.
I have nothing to contribute here, but you have the greatest philosophical username I have ever seen. Well-done.
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Hey, everybody. Every time I research issues regarding grad school, this forum keeps coming up, so I figured I should finally sign on.
Undergrad: Thanks to a massive lack of motivation and purpose coming out of high school, I wound up going to community college for my first couple years. Fortunately, a philosophy professor there lit a fire under my butt and got me into philosophy. I transferred to Boston College last year, and I'm now about to enter my senior year for a BA in philosophy. While I really did enjoy my time at community college, I feel as though a terminal MA would be helpful in gaining a more well-rounded knowledge of philosophy, gain teaching experience and up my potential of getting into a better PhD program than I would from just two years at BC.
Current interests: Philosophical theology, ethics (primarily applied, but with an interest in meta), ancient philosophy (particularly Hellenistic), medieval philosophy.
Rough list of MAs I'm considering: CSU LA, Biola, SDSU, SFSU, Georgia State, Loyola Marymount, NIU. I have yet to take a good look at programs in the UK.
Other: Have yet to take the GRE. I'm currently working on my writing sample - I'm discussing Christian reproductive ethics in light of David Benatar's recent work in antinatalism.
You might consider applying to Saint Louis U, as they have pretty significant strengths in your AOIs. It's a PhD program, but it might be worth taking a chance on it.
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I would caution that philosophy programs usually vary quite significantly from other fields in terms of advisor/advisee relationships. It is not always the case that you suggest a project at the outset and find someone to work with right away. Because of this, I'm not sure it's worth the expended effort to reach out to every POI at every department. In some cases, they might not be on the ad com and may not even have a say in whether or not you are admitted.
Personally, I would use the time to polish your writing sample and make the rest of your application excellent.
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yes, im aware of the statistics. GRE is a good indicator of grad school success but you cant leave it at that. the people who naturally score really well are often people who have been trained as good test takers most of their life. they get the ETS mentality subconsciously because of training. the point of the GRE is to measure something that goes beyond itself, otherwise no one would care for GRE's since all they would measure is your GRE readiness but when such exams show a preference for one restrictive neurotic student life at the detriment of others, thats when there is a problem. im also amazed at the fact no finds ETS academic monopoly frightening.
I have no idea what it means to "get the ETS mentality subconsciously because of training", but the statistics that I'm showing you suggest that the GRE does predict something beyond itself. That is the entire point of what I just posted. It predicts (with a limited scope) graduate school success. That doesn't mean that people who don't do well won't be able to do well in grad school, nor does it mean that everybody who takes it is going to succeed. But none of the portions of the application reliably predict success, that's why we have so many components.
For the record, I've only taken one class with a grad student. It was one of the best classes I've taken, probably because I was in high school at the time. I have no reason to think the grad students would teach more superficially than the professors. If anything, the grad students I know seem to remember being undergrads and realize we're not all idiots.
My point was that it seems odd to think that undergraduate classes/degrees are bullshit while pursuing a career that will almost inevitably lead to you teaching undergraduate classes. That's like thinking that horoscopes are useless but pursuing a career in writing horoscopes.
Networking Thread
in Philosophy
Posted
^Ditto. The more interesting people populate my timeline, the better!