MattDest

Congrats! Going to England would be pretty exciting. Do they offer any funding? A 3.3 GPA strikes me as a really odd condition of acceptance, but I'm sure you can do that quite easily.

No, I grew up near Phoenix. I've been to Tucson a ton though (many of my friends went to U of A for undergrad, and one is in grad school there currently). If you're wondering what Tucson is like, outside of the immediate area of U of A it's not terribly exciting. The immediate area is nice though, and there is a lot to do. But, the desert is amazing and there are a lot neat hiking trails not too far away.

I think if I end up being lucky enough to have choices between programs, location will play a not insignificant role in my final decision. If you are going to be there for the next 5-7 years, it's important that you like living there. Arizona is probably my top location choice, because I grew up there and most of my family and friends live there. Aside from that, UC San Diego (weather=perfect and it's a fun city) and Wisconsin (Madison is one of the coolest towns I've been to) are probably at the top of the list. How about you?

O rly?

I'm snowed in too, wanda! It's miserable, and couldn't be worse timing.

It is possible to have self-confidence while wanting to have realistic (if not slightly pessimistic) beliefs about one's possibility of getting into a program. It's also likely that people want to air out their negative thoughts here, where people are likely to commiserate rather than say something like our friends and family (with good intentions!) "Oh no, you'll get in somewhere for sure!"

Two sets of official transcripts? Why?

These are all great points. It may be the case for others that an intermediate knowledge of German has helped them (bsg says as much earlier), but for me it just didn't add much. Also, I don't doubt that learning another language is a good thing to do in general, and enriching in many different ways, but I just don't think it should be a requirement of PhD programs in philosophy (or, at least for certain interests).

Agreed with max. I imagine that the JH Philosophy department might just realize that they don't need the official transcripts, and that you can fulfill these requirements after you are admitted.

I brought up the grad cafe results to look at some data from last year and saw that someone already posted a Rutgers acceptance. Nice trolling.

I'm talking about in the philosophy forums. He came in giving awful advice about philosophy applications, and when we called him on it, he spun out of control and started insulting posters, philosophy as a discipline, and a bunch of other nonsense. Personally, I downvote trolls who boast needlessly about their qualifications (which are most likely made-up) and make sexist/denigrating remarks about posters and disciplines ("man up", really?). As the cliche goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. We don't need to upvote the clock when it happens to be right. Anyway, I really don't feel like getting involved in this drama, but I thought I would give you a bit of perspective of why people feel the way they do about Loric in this forum.

Chomsky, you haven't been around this forum for very long. Loric is just wearing on all of us. He/she is an obvious troll, and these dubious qualifications ('a published author who can write a book in 90 days'... sure!) are just adding fuel to the fire. Take a look at his/her post history - that really tells the whole story.

A previous advisor of mine, who is from another country and knows several different languages, told me that learning another language for philosophy-related purposes was essentially a waste of time unless you were interested in history of philosophy or linguistics. His reasoning was as follows: (1) most of the important modern philosophy is done in English, or immediately translated to English, (2) the trend indicated in (1) is only increasing - English is becoming the dominant language of philosophy even in non-English speaking countries and (3) learning a language well enough for it to actually impact your own understanding of an original work is usually not covered by mere reading comprehension (translators usually have a much better grasp than someone who meets a language requirement). I've taken a few semesters of German and was pretty competent in it , but when I read the original work of German philosophers, it gave me no additional insight that a good translation failed to convey. For my own present research interests, learning a language would be time spent that I could better familiarize myself with other, relevant disciplines such as cognitive science, neuroscience, biology, etc. If a university required me to pass a reading comprehension test, I would be very wary of attending there given that it would likely hinder other competencies which were more important to develop.

That's pretty amazing, I really envy this type of self-discipline (and open schedule!). Sorry to keep pestering you with questions, this is just completely alien to me. I know how exhausted I was after the GRE (which was, IIRC, ~4 hours of focused reading/writing) and wonder if it's that same kind of mental/physical taxation that you experience? I can't imagine keeping sedentary long enough to read for six hours every day. As for myself - my own time spent reading varies wildly, because I have to balance it with other things such as teaching, developing materials, grading papers, club/org business, classes, etc.

WHAT? You read *focused* for six hours a day? That's incredible. Is this normal for others in the forum? Do you write daily also? To answer the OP's question, my answers are pretty much the same as Table's (I've read a few books outside of curriculum, though). I think that going through an SEP article that interests you and exploring the bibliography is one of the most helpful ways to introduce yourself to a topic. I would also read widely. Even though you may initially find a subject matter unappealing, it might turn out that you end up liking it once you learn more about it.

I much prefer this conversation (which I do have a lot) to this one (which I seem to have more of): "What do you study?" "Philosophy." "Oh, what are you going to do with that?" "Wait tables."

Deliberate, it varies so wildly depending on what exactly I'm writing. For me, personal statements were sort of like writing marketing lingo about yourself. I had a job for a long time writing marketing copy so it was pretty easy for me. If I'm writing really technical philosophy that I'm sort of unsure about (or just need to be really careful about) it can take forever.

I know how controversial this data is given how incomplete it is, but this statement never fails to make me feel better: "Averaging out the average ratios, we can determine that approximately 85% of MA graduates that apply for PhD programs in philosophy are accepted into one."

I left the finances part blank too. MIT was a doozy.

There are worse reasons to have a job!

There are probably other applicants to the universities you applied to.

This is what I did. I thought "working with" sounded a bit odd too, for some of the same reasons you did philhopeful.

I feel the exact same way. I've been compulsively checking this forum, and WGI just hoping that someone will post something. I'm organizing a conference, writing my thesis, and teaching/taking courses next semester so that ought to preoccupy me some. My wife got me a flying lesson for Christmas, so I think I may try to log hours to get my private pilot license over the semester as well. Definitely a lot of video games. Mostly just stressing out about it, even with some things to keep me busy. If you want to read one philosophy book, I just finished Death & the Afterlife by Samuel Scheffler and it is amazing.

Happy New Year - may it bring about many acceptances for all.

I'm surprised at just how tenacious these advisors are. We're not just saying philosophy is different than biology because we want to be special little snowflakes.