MattDest
-
Posts
472 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
3
Posts posted by MattDest
-
-
I have also slacked a lot on summer reading. My girlfriend and I moved to Avondale Estates (a suburb of Atlanta) and I've just been relaxing mostly. I read a few books, but not what I wanted to read. I'm probably going to propose in the next few weeks, so we'll see how that goes.
I never knew whether it was more fitting to say congrats or best of luck, but those are the two phrases which come to mind!
-
Ulixes, I found myself with elaborate summer plans to read/write/submit but it also turned out quite differently from what I expected. I haven't done much in the way of preparing. We bought a house in Tucson and now it's an issue of coordinating shipping our cars/stuff and flying with cats. Absolutely miserable. I've mostly taken a break from doing anything studious. In the next few weeks I'll probably go back into the grind, but it's been nice to have a bit of a vacation from it. It seems like I'll be able to better immerse myself in the work when fall comes.
-
Also, for what it's worth, the gradcafe is filled with well meaning people who are all too willing to offer advice about various topics of which they have a varying degree, if any, expertise. Take it all with a grain of salt and learn from people who've actually already been there ie. MattDest. No doubt, someone once told him that he didn't stand a fighting chance with an 2.9X and he ended up at a good, funded MA program, and in a good PhD program.
This is very true! I would even take my own input with a huge grain of salt, because I am willing to bet our applications look significantly different in many other ways (you could have a better/worse writing sample, letters, test scores, etc.) which will impact the decision process.
-
I had an awful undergrad GPA (somewhere around 2.9ish?), and got into a Leiter-mentioned terminal MA program with funding, and managed to get into a good PhD program (Arizona). The things that I learned: (1) the first two years matter little compared to the last two years, (2) philosophy grades matter more than overall grades, (3) if your letter writers can explain the pattern, do it, and (4) work on improving every other facet of your application.
-
Milwaukee's placement is up: http://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/philosophy/graduate/placement.cfm
Wowza, impressive.
-
Well, your materials might be "outstanding", but to invoke the memory of the great dfindley are your "metaphysics awesome"?
Seriously though, did your acceptance offer come with funding? Word on the street is that they have allotted all their TA spots already.
Congrats on acceptance into UA !
Thanks! Yes, it came with a funding offer as well.
My metaphysics couldn't be awesomer.
-
That's helpful to know. From what I understand they made acceptance offers way back at the beginning of March.
I got one just over a week ago, FWIW. I turned it down (I honestly didn't think I had completed the application... it still showed a lot of outstanding materials), so good luck!
-
ARIZONA, ASSEMBLE! (Is there nobody else on this board? I could have sworn...)
-
You're excluding the CSUs. SFSU in particular has had very strong placement in the last few years that compares quite favorably with the programs you're discussing.
Agreed - and UMSL which also has a pretty good placement record the last couple of years.
-
I'm always curious why so many people sign off at the end of a season, instead of staying around and continuing to be a part of the community.
You've obviously met people and made connections, and now are going to be studying in the same fields as those individuals.
You've gone through the process and have helpful advice to pass on to new people coming along.
You'll also likely have questions as you start grad school to discuss, or to get advice on from more senior grad students.
So if you don't mind my asking, why the April 15th signoff?
I don't plan on signing off entirely (hence me posting this!), but I know that I've friended a lot of people on Facebook so that I no longer need to check in here. Plus, TGC can be a huge timesuck, and while it's a really good place to hang out - I think it's better if I can spend that time elsewhere.
-
I would say that the biggest thing that I learned is that this process is completely, utterly, unpredictable. I have a lower-than-average GPA, great GRE's (all >95th % except writing), never got any feedback on my writing sample from a philosopher, went to a mediocre undergrad-only liberal arts school, had a letter from someone who taught for a few years then quit philosophy, and never let anyone read my SOP. I'm a white, upper-middle class student whose family as all been to college. I just really love what I study, and I think that came out in my application. I got 5 PhD acceptances (2 top 20, 3 top 21-50) and a masters acceptance. You shouldn't sell your chances short based on your situation, nor should you assume you will get in anywhere.
One thing that I think helped me that won't help you next year, but might help younger students, is that I was able to study abroad at a prestigious school in philosophy and got a letter from there. I think that gave me a bit of extra legitimacy for grad programs!
Great to hear about your success. I don't know that this would separate you from others on this forum. I think we all love what we're studying (at least, most of the time), otherwise we'd be doing something else. We're not in it for the job prospects, at least.
-
Bummer to hear, ian. Good luck with your law school decisions!
-
After much deliberation, I've accepted Missouri's offer, declined UC Santa Barbara's, and will be declining Loyola's soon. It was an agonizing process because I loved so many things about both UCSB and MIzzou. But, in the end, I believe the latter program is the best fit for me. Best of luck to those who are wait listed at the former, and congrats to everyone on their decisions! I sure as hell am glad for this process to be over.
Congrats, and best of luck at Mizzou! I have a friend who is attending there now.
-
Thanks dude. It's great that you get the opportunity to go to a place like Arizona, especially considering the proximity to your family and all. Most of us did pretty well, all things considered.
Agreed - by the way, anybody here going to Arizona should message me. It'd be cool to see other students who will be incoming.
-
All I am saying, aduh, is that it is a shame some faculty members think they can completely ignore graduate and undergraduate students. I mean, most of the reason they are there and get paid is to work with students. Research is something they should be doing outside of their teaching load. But you tell me, aduh, you tell me, how am I supposed to get great recommendation letters, if not to approach faculty, and how am I supposed to work with faculty, if they will not even get back to my emails? Coming off an especially frustrating application season, I am just trying to improve my chances for next year, and yet I am meeting with more frustration. I am trying, but my efforts don't seem to be paying off.
I certainly hope my identity has not been disclosed. If you think you know who I am, please send me an email. Either way, I am already rejected from CUNY, so am, at least at that particular school, out of options, at least for the time being.
What school are you headed to next year?
I don't think it's really fair to suggest that professors have a responsibility to maintain working relationships with students who are no longer enrolled in their university. Everybody might wish that they had the time to do so, but they've got students who are enrolled that they need to make time for. I understand why you are frustrated, but continuing to send e-mails to these faculty members if they have previously ignored your communication isn't likely to help your cause.
-
I ranked them. But as I've said elsewhere, overall rankings are highly subjective, because they depend on what different individuals happen to believe makes the best programs. My ranking is based on placement. Even that is a bit subjective. Who's to say that CUNY is better overall than Washington University in St. Louis? Yet many of our rankings based on placement would place WUSTL much lower than CUNY.
Overall though, I like polls.
While the highly subjective aspect of polls like this is a problem, I think the bigger problem is that most of us don't know very much about these departments. One of the good things about the PGR is that these faculty have tons of experience in the field, and know about the reputation of various departments. New and prospective graduate students aren't the best people to poll about the quality of graduate programs.
Polls are useful when the target population is well-informed.
-
I'll be interested to hear what others have to say, but I don't feel comfortable ranking them myself. Not only am I partial to certain schools, but I don't really feel I am a good judge about the overall quality of faculty, or about placement records (without having more information from all of them).
-
Introduce yourself in an email and ask to schedule a meeting with them.
Ditto this. logos, are you still at CUNY then?
-
I just turned down funded offers from Arizona State and Iowa. Hope that helps somebody!
- Wait For It..., Dabaliga and wandajune
-
3
-
The Ultimate Warrior, obviously.
-
I'd like to toot UMSL's horn a bit as far as funding goes. The funding situation is decent - a full tuition waiver, and I think it's now up to ~$9k a year for most students. We didn't have an extensive placement record this year (only 2 applied to PhD programs, more applied to and all were accepted into law programs), but I had a pretty good showing and the other person got accepted into Marquette.
-
I'm more excited for John Oliver's HBO show, to be honest.
-
Yep. RA for the first year and TA for the second. I'm pretty pumped.
Damn straight. I'll buy the first round.
Nice! Congrats BSG, was pulling for you.
-
Thanks for the thoughtful response, Wait For It. I'm glad to hear that the courses aren't as they are described, although that seems pretty troubling by itself. The idea that philosophy courses need to be infused with religious commitments to appear less scary is not my ideal version of a philosophical education, but I think that's probably less worrying than the courses being as described.
I don't doubt that Talbot can produce good philosophers, but I'm just not a fan of philosophy that's guided primarily by religious commitments.
Chances with a 2.91 GPA
in Philosophy
Posted
You have to realize the irony in claiming that undergraduate studies are "almost always BS" but attempting to apply to graduate school. Given that the vast majority of philosophy PhDs teach undergraduates, are you just intent on keeping up the "BS"?
It's wrong to think that GREs are meant to point to "superior abilities" - clearly you have them
. They are meant to assess one's ability to succeed in graduate school. The predictive ability is limited in scope (just like the SAT/ACT), but that doesn't mean it is completely useless. GREs are actually a decent predictor of graduate school success [this is ETS' website, but it cites valid research... you can see more on Schwitzgebel's blog about data from UCR]. I don't think that good scores will necessarily be a huge boost in an application, but I would say that low scores would be a strike against an applicant.