MattDest

I am. All four of my LORs said that I should apply to as many as I can afford, so they dug their own grave. (They are saints!) I agree that none of those mistakes are actually going to help, but I wanted to point out that the risks one might take in identifying specific professors in psychology are not the same risks one would take if they were to do it for philosophy. Your original claim was that if you list a professor in your SOP, you should have had an e-mail exchange with them that they are "1. taking students and 2. interested in your research", but I don't think that this approach is very cost effective (or necessary) for philosophy. Interests are too broad ("Philosophy of Mind" covers a ton of topics), and it's not the same sort of research environment that one has in psychology.

This study is about psychology graduate admissions. Psychology admissions are completely different beasts than philosophy admissions. Psychology is incredibly project-dependent, as often psych students are joining labs or working with a specific professor on a very narrow topic (notice the phrase "is crucial for both the professor and student to gain..."). In philosophy, the only analogue might be that you grossly mistake a program's strengths and/or what a professor specifically researches. ETA: This, of course, will still be a KOD: “students note that they wish to work with a specific faculty member who has retired,died, or relocated.” Haha, WTF?

I don't think listing someone who is not taking students is a "Kiss of Death" (?) in philosophy, as it might be in the sciences or disciplines that are more "project" oriented. If the department you are applying to is strong in that area, and one professor in particular influenced your decision to apply there - I see no harm in mentioning it so long as it doesn't come off as "I'd like to go here if and only if Professor X is my advisor." That said, I think it's probably in your best interest to mention people who are active in taking students and are possible advisors for you rather than people who may be on their way out of advising.

I can just see your letter now... "He is very persistent, and hyper-aware of deadlines." That said, I wish I had this sort of tenacity.

You can certainly send an e-mail, but it does take the systems a long time to report that they have received transcripts/GRE reports/etc.

He Kan pun and he did! As to the question, the first time that I applied out I really did not think I would get in anywhere. My friends and family, all trying to be supportive, said the same sorts of things you all are no doubt familiar with "You'll get in somewhere!" My advisors were pretty honest, and knowing that my undergrad GPA was low and I was coming from an unknown state school, that it was a long shot. Luckily, I got into a great MA program and I'm more confident this time around than I was previously. I'm a rather optimistic person in general (having back-up plans helps), and I do think I'll be able to sneak in somewhere. I have my bouts with impostor syndrome and the pessimism that others share here, but if I let it linger it starts to really negatively affect me. If I really didn't feel like I would get in anywhere, I'd have a hard time justifying to myself why I spent thousands of dollars and the hours of labor applying in the first place.

I met Hawthorne at the Pacific APA and he is an incredibly nice guy. He has a reputation for being ruthless during commenting, but he's really approachable.

It seems like a good idea generally for the reasons that SelfHating mentions about determining fit and desire to attend. However, if you didn't include such a paragraph in your SOP, I can't imagine it will be a huge strike against you.

I'm with Happydays2 - the dream school will be the one that accepts me! But, aside from that, people that know I have applied keep asking me where I want to go (or my "top five") and I have to admit finding it a bit hard to answer! Once the decisions come down, I think it will become easier to decide but there are so many factors to think about. Aside from placement records, fit, and quality of the program there is location, atmosphere, and social aspects of the program to think about. For now - Rutgers, Arizona, and WUSTL are probably my top 3 in no particular order.

objectivity, It certainly makes sense, I just wonder why you have this view about American MA programs. It sounds alien to my own experience at one of these programs, and from testimony from other grad students I've met, quite unlike their experiences as well. As far as feedback is concerned, I can only give my own experience but it is certainly a mixture of "content-based" comments and comments about structure, about clarity, etc. You seem to think this is a negative, but I find it to be immensely helpful. I'm not a perfect writer, and I would expect a good advisor to give me feedback about how I present my ideas, not just the ideas themselves. I don't think this type of feedback stops at the PhD level. In fact, in some of the referee reports I've read on papers I co-wrote with a professor, we got feedback that was content-based in addition to suggestions about how to improve clarity, the structure of the argument, etc. (And this is a paper that wasn't rejected!) This isn't a bad thing, and it's not as if it's hand-holding or "professionalizing", but an important part of philosophy as a discipline.

Well, this is obviously in the context of philosophy, given that it's in the philosophy forum.

Agreed. I also wanted to add confusion to this section of the post you quoted: "For some one who already had a BA from a state school that lacked a graduate program in philosophy it did not make much sense to me to apply to the UW-Milwaukee's or the Northern Illinois's or the Georgia State's." Why did this not make sense? These programs are fantastic, and they do a great job at placing students into respectable PhD programs.

Well, this is the part of the application that every single professor says is the most important. Nearly every admissions site says the same thing. It's hard to imagine that everyone is "vastly" over-estimating it as an applicant when adcoms are consistently emphasizing just how important they are.

You don't think that GPA and GRE scores are weighed at all in the considerations? Fit is important, but fit isn't only accomplished by presenting a really unique SOP to each university. It can require minor tweaking, but this still isn't a reason to not apply broadly.

I disagree, I think people should apply as widely as possible. Consider that there are usually 5 parts of a philosophy PhD application, and certain parts are given more weight than others. Arguably, this is how you might rank each part in order of importance (There is likely to be justifiable disagreement about the exact ordering, but I don't think anyone would ever put, say, the SOP over the writing sample or grades): (1) Writing sample (2) Grades (also where you went) (3) Letters (4) GRE (5) SOP The *only* one which is necessary to tailor for each school (and some don't even do that much!) is the SOP. It's arguably the least important part of the application. While fit is incredibly important, this can be pretty well-identified in a general SOP, by the topic of the WS, by the work that your letter writers identify you doing, etc. The first four do not vary from school to school, and the only time you will spend is sending in scores, transcripts, and your writing sample (plus filling out the personal information on the application - which takes maybe 10-20 minutes). Most applicants apply quite broadly, and admissions are incredibly competitive. Unless you have a completely stellar application, it doesn't make sense to arbitrarily limit the number of schools you apply to because it might exhaust your mental fortitude. You shouldn't apply to anywhere you wouldn't go if accepted - that's just silly - but people with broad interests could easily have good fit at plenty of programs.

I couldn't disagree more, and many of the professors I've talked to see it quite differently. Of course they don't "roll a dice" (not exactly the most charitable reading of 'luck' there!), but there simply aren't enough slots in PhD programs for every person who is qualified. If you think that getting shut out means that you either haven't had an excellent education or you weren't well-prepared, you should talk to some brilliant PhD students who got shut out their first time around. This is an exact description of PhD admissions also. So, why should this be a strike against MA programs? P.S. FWIW, I've met Leiter and I would not describe him as a "pompous ass" at all.

Sure, but you have the option of not attending an MA program if you don't get funding (just as you do with PhD programs). Here was a comment from the recent Leiter post about a similar topic: - GSU funds $15,000 over two years. - NIU $22,600 over two years. - Western Michigan $23,160 over two years - Milwaukee at Wisconsin $15,404 over two years. - Texas A&M $21,000 over two years. - Texas Tech $24,000 over two years. - University of Houston $22,400 over two years. - University of Wyoming $22,700 over two years. - I don't know the raw stipend for Virginia Tech, but I have been told it is more than enough to live on in Blacksburg, VA. - And of course, given that MA's are very common for Canadian students, there are a host of programs up there that accept and fund international students. These wages aren't great, but you aren't going into debt to get an MA. It doesn't disenfranchise the middle class anymore than it does the poor (although your original claim & philstudent's was that it disenfranchises the poor!). If you get funding, great. If you don't, you have the option of not attending, just as PhD programs offer. This is nothing unique to an MA - there are plenty of PhD programs that offer admission without funding. Now the growth of people pursuing MA programs is a symptom of a disease (namely, poor undergraduate education)? Sorry, but that's just silly. It's a graduate education in philosophy, not a supplemental undergraduate education. I was making the point that it *can* function as a way for students from very small, unknown schools to compete with the larger, well-known programs. This isn't a disease, some undergraduate programs don't have the resources/talent to match large scale universities in preparing their philosophy students. It's not realistic to expect Small City State University to compete with Leiterriffic programs when it comes to preparing their undergraduates. When SCSU students want to apply to PhD programs and get shut out their first time, doing a terminal MA that's funded is a way for them to equalize the playing field. Besides that, there are a ton of reasons why one might go to an MA program. People might have had excellent undergraduate instruction, and choose to do the MA because they don't get lucky in the application process. They might not know if they want to get a PhD and would rather "get their feet wet" at an MA institution (many of my friends here were dead-set on getting their PhD at the beginning and are now applying to law school). They might have come from another discipline and would rather not go through another entire undergraduate degree. They might want to teach at a local community college (though even that's very tough with an MA nowadays). As an aside, the claim that more Nietzsche journals is a bad sign for Nietzsche scholarship is a bad inference. There are now more philosophy of law journals than there were fifty years ago. Should we also conclude that philosophy of law scholarship is on a downturn? In other words, Nietzsche work being seen as "not good enough" for other journals is definitely not the only explanation for the existence of more Nietzsche journals, nor is it even the most plausible one.

I see no reason to think that the number of overall applicants to UC Berkeley has any correlation with the number of philosophy graduate applications generally. Also, I think that activity on Grad Cafe and WGI is a really poor measure for the number of philosophy applicants generally (especially this early). I'd just hold off on all of this speculating unless you get some data about the actual trends in the discipline.

Full disclosure: I am in my last semester at a terminal MA, so what I say here is likely to be colored by that fact. I'm wary of the claim that the popularization of an MA disenfranchises poor students (especially given many other MA students that I have met) Many of the people that are served by MA institutions are (1) people who came to philosophy rather late, or from another discipline and (2) people who went to relatively unknown or smaller schools. Many of the people in group (2) come from disenfranchised backgrounds (which is why they didn't end up at a notable program to begin with), and the MA serves as a sort of equalizer. I don't think that MA programs are burdensome in some way that undergraduate tuition isn't. Most MA programs will give people tuition remission, insurance, and a small stipend (many offers are around $10k a year). Unless you were offered an incredibly generous undergraduate stipend - you probably didn't make money taking undergraduate classes. So, why are MA programs being singled out as disenfranchising the poor when it seems that the undergraduate level is - usually - much worse? There are a few things an MA does well that shouldn't be overlooked. The first is that it gives you a sense of what a PhD program might be like, but without the long-term commitment. It gives potential philosophers a chance to "test the waters" at graduate school, and decide if they really want to devote the next 5-7 years of their life to this sort of study. Second, it provides you with graduate-level preparation that might be lacking at smaller, unheard of philosophy departments. If you went to Small City Community College and then transferred to Small City State University - you might not have had a background sufficient for beginning graduate school. A terminal MA at a respectable institution can provide that. I find these claims that getting an MA before getting a PhD is "demeaning" and that MA programs are just "training programs" to be absolutely mistaken. There is nothing demeaning about getting an MA from a respectable program. It doesn't mean that you weren't "ready" to go to a PhD program right off the bat - just that the dice didn't roll your way. Also, while MA programs do spend non-class time helping people with the professional aspects of the profession (the importances of things like journals/conferences, pedagogy, etc. - which are really important, by the way), it has not been even remotely close to the focus of my program. I see no reason that this would become a trend if MA institutions were to become more popular.

Yeah, I would have *preferred* to have applied to just 5-8 programs, but knowing how competitive the process is and how many programs are generally applied to by prospective students, I felt that applying widely was in my best interest. I would honestly love to attend any of the programs I applied to, and could pursue my interests at each of them. As for how I managed to do it - it wasn't too bad. My letter writers didn't think my list was too long (they encouraged me to apply to as many as I could afford), and were very cooperative with sending in their letters. I only re-worked my last paragraph for each SOP, and it was sort of easy given that I already knew the AOI/faculty that I would want to work with at each university.

Ah, I see. That's pretty miserable.

Oops! So sorry, I have all of the info on a Google Doc and read the wrong line. My bad.

Last year, UCR notified some accepted applicants in mid to late January. Given that their deadline is mid-december (January 5th), this is a pretty quick turnaround.

Depends on the program. The earliest some programs have notified is end of January (as far as I know), while some wait until Feb-March.