PGR top programs hostile to MA's?

[falafelizer]

Hi all.  I had mixed results this season.  I was accepted to a department that is a perfect fit for my wild combination of interests, but without a specialist in my primary interest.  However I do not want to rule out the option of a career in research which would be extremely difficult given this (unranked) program's placement record into research positions; excluding their own department they have about one placement into a research department every three or four years.  I just successfully defended my MA thesis at a PGR-recommended terminal program and my advisors feel that I have a good shot at getting into a ranked dept with a specialist if I try again and revise my thesis into a sample.  Are there any ranked programs which are particularly averse to MA holders?  The depts I'm considering are:

UC Riverside, UC San Diego, Brown, NYU, Stanford, Texas, Columbia, Princeton, Chicago.

I have seen terminal MA's have decent placement into UCR, UCSD, and Stanford, but I'm not so sure about the others.  Also, it is possible I will accept the offer I have received and try my luck getting into these departments in the future.  My thought is that I can content myself with a PhD from the unranked department and a tenured position at a small school if I have to; from there it can only get better and I can only help myself by applying out in the future (obvs. using my MA letters).  What would you do if you were in my position?  Thank you.

[Needle in the Hay]

Good questions. I have a few thoughts:

1) Chicago has never accepted anyone from GSU. They have accepted at least one person from Tufts on the other hand.

2) My uninformed speculation is that it is probably safer to go to a school with a really strong placement record for small liberal arts colleges, i.e., SLACs, than it is to go to a PGR #10-20 with relatively strong placement at research institutions. If you go to one of the former schools, your guarantee of finding some kind of tenure track (or equiv) position teaching philosophy starting out is generally much higher. 

3) I have heard that it is fairly common for teachers to start at SLACS and "work their way up" to research institutions. 

4) A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 

[Glasperlenspieler]

I'm a little confused by the question. Would you decide not to apply to places that have a record of not admitting students entering with an MA? I tend to think that people should apply to the programs that are the strongest in their areas of interest regardless of how likely it is that they'll admit you (pretty much everyone's chances of admission to any given program is low anyways). Besides, graduate admissions in philosophy is sufficiently unpredictable that trying to evaluate your odds of admission seems like an unfruitful enterprise (not to mention that any predictions are probably being made based on relatively small sample sizes). So, apply to the programs that you would want to attend were you admitted and let the admissions committee decide whether they want to admit you or not. To end with what is probably an overly trite cliche: the only way to ensure that you won't get admitted somewhere is to not apply.

[PhilMAGrad]

23 hours ago, falafelizer said:

Hi all.  I had mixed results this season.  I was accepted to a department that is a perfect fit for my wild combination of interests, but without a specialist in my primary interest.  However I do not want to rule out the option of a career in research which would be extremely difficult given this (unranked) program's placement record into research positions; excluding their own department they have about one placement into a research department every three or four years.  I just successfully defended my MA thesis at a PGR-recommended terminal program and my advisors feel that I have a good shot at getting into a ranked dept with a specialist if I try again and revise my thesis into a sample.  Are there any ranked programs which are particularly averse to MA holders?  The depts I'm considering are:

UC Riverside, UC San Diego, Brown, NYU, Stanford, Texas, Columbia, Princeton, Chicago.

I have seen terminal MA's have decent placement into UCR, UCSD, and Stanford, but I'm not so sure about the others.  Also, it is possible I will accept the offer I have received and try my luck getting into these departments in the future.  My thought is that I can content myself with a PhD from the unranked department and a tenured position at a small school if I have to; from there it can only get better and I can only help myself by applying out in the future (obvs. using my MA letters).  What would you do if you were in my position?  Thank you.

Riverside, San Diego, Brown, Columbia, and Texas regularly accept people from MA's. Stanford, Princeton, Chicago, and NYU seem to have something against MA's. Some MA's place into those programs, but not as often as they do into other ones. I think NIU has no placements into any of them (!!), Tufts has plenty into Stanford, but not many into the others, Brandeis has no placements into Chicago, University of Houston has none into Chicago or NYU, one into Stanford, and 3 into Princeton, and GSU has two into Stanford, and none into NYU, Princeton, or Chicago (and not for lack of applicants).

[falafelizer]

3 hours ago, Glasperlenspieler said:

I'm a little confused by the question. Would you decide not to apply to places that have a record of not admitting students entering with an MA? 

Thanks for the insight, Glasperlenspieler!  There's much merit in what you point out. My thought was that I might not spend extra time trying to impress an adcom who's only bound to turn their nose up at my MA despite my school's recent placements into Rutgers, somewhat recently into Stanford, and regular placement into Texas, for example.  So let's say, hypothetically, for at least one of the schools listed, I have a strategy mapped out to set myself up for an admission: say I pick two professors at each school and I figure out a way to connect their recent work with my interests in this cool way that I can use as the missing piece that ties my sample together.  Ok, now that's do-able, but it is a lot of work to do for 8-10 schools while also trying to make a unique and convincing case for your place at each.

So it's not so much a yea vs nay as it is an attempt to gauge the appropriate proportions of energy spent on angle-working for each school I'd like to attend- even if that might mean putting more effort into trying to impress a notoriously MA-hostile school. 

But I may be overthinking. Your advice about trying to predict odds still applies, and yet it must also be true that making connections with faculty in my AOI can substantially increase my odds.   Maybe I'd be better just basing my efforts on degrees of fit beyond my primary AOI; there are some schools where my some of my more pluralistic interests would make it a significant challenge to fit into broader department life. They all have specialists in my top AOI so that's no matter. 

Edited March 31, 2018 by falafelizer

[maxhgns]

I'm not aware of any schools with a reputation for not taking students with a prior Master's degree. But it is worth noting that the BA-MA-PhD trajectory is quite new to philosophy in the US (it started ramping up in the years following the 2008 recession), and plenty of programs are still adjusting to that shift (along with some other, more significant shifts in the profession). I wouldn't read a whole lot into a particular school not having a student with an MA from another school currently on its books. Conversely, if your MA program has a track record of placing into a particular program, or a particular cluster of programs, then I'd tend to think that's all to the better.

Now for the more discouraging part of my comment. There's a rule you absolutely must understand about how academic jobs work: they roll downhill. If you get a job at all, let alone a research job, then you're virtually guaranteed to get a job at an institution that ranks in a tier well below that of your PhD-granting institution. This means that applicants from NYU, Oxford, and Princeton are competitive for all the research jobs (in addition to all the teaching jobs; they're also better placed to get jobs at fancy SLACs). Applicants from UCSB or St. Louis, however, are practically guaranteed not to get research jobs, and have to fight it out with everyone else for the low-prestige, teaching-heavy positions.

Now, to be fair, the situation in philosophy isn't quite so dire. There's some upward mobility (Western Ontario is a great case in point), and the tiers are actually broader than I've made them out to be. But as a general rule, it still holds. So, unfortunately, that's a pretty important element to consider when you're making your decision. Attending a low-ranked program with a consistent placement record (and a good ratio of graduates-to-placements) is a pretty good bet so long as the end goal is any kind of job anywhere. I wouldn't say it makes you more competitive for them, but it is proof positive that the program is doing a lot of things right where its students are concerned. Remember that for every search committee member at a low-prestige institution who immediately throws out applications from fancy PhDs, there's another member who throws out every application except for those from fancy PhDs.

 

(FWIW, I say all this as someone who's trying to work his way up the professional ladder.)

[falafelizer]

6 hours ago, Needle in the Hay said:

Good questions. I have a few thoughts:

1) Chicago has never accepted anyone from GSU. They have accepted at least one person from Tufts on the other hand.

2) My uninformed speculation is that it is probably safer to go to a school with a really strong placement record for small liberal arts colleges, i.e., SLACs, than it is to go to a PGR #10-20 with relatively strong placement at research institutions. If you go to one of the former schools, your guarantee of finding some kind of tenure track (or equiv) position teaching philosophy starting out is generally much higher. 

3) I have heard that it is fairly common for teachers to start at SLACS and "work their way up" to research institutions. 

4) A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 

Thanks for responding Needle in the Hay!  

It looks like 4) depends largely on 2) and 3) here.  And of the schools I listed I think Riverside does the worst at permanent placement (42%) without differentiating between SLAC's and research departments; whereas the institution where I am admitted has a 38% placement into permanent spots.

To me, that looks like enough to raise doubt about 2).  But that's with the caveat that you did say placement "starting out," and the figures I gave reflect not that, but the ultimate (best) result to date.

As far as 3), I would like it to be true, but departments would not forget to include that kind of information in their placement records, which unfortunately do not seem to bear out that claim. I'd love to see some counter examples, but I haven't found any in the records of the 26 schools where I applied this season.  Could you give me a few examples, please?  Otherwise, as it seems now,  3) is also suspect; accordingly, so is 4).  

It still seems like (unless I'm missing something about what you meant) I can only do better by accepting the offer and applying out for the next couple of seasons. 

Edited March 31, 2018 by falafelizer

[falafelizer]

To add important info: the school which made me an offer has a solid placement record for permanent positions, which they publicly share on their website. It's just usually small schools, which I consider fine enough if that's what it comes to; research placements are the rare exceptions here  

The school also has outstanding faculty, many of whom have published in the top journals and been awarded grants from NEH, NAS, and so forth. 

Its main disadvantage is that its strengths are niche rather than mainstream. 

So on one hand I assume they want what's best for me as a student; on the other hand I'm sure they would not be thrilled if a student left their program for another with better job prospects. It's deeply conflicting for me to try to hold both of these claims together. Arghhhh!

Edited March 31, 2018 by falafelizer

[Spinozian]

I'll just say briefly (and anecdotally) that I received a terminal MA from a program listed on the PGR site, but let's just say it isn't near the top (by far). I got into a program in the recent global top 10 pgr. It really is about fit and what it is that the department wants. The more you can learn about those things (hit up grad. students there) the better your odds. And good luck.

[falafelizer]

45 minutes ago, Spinozian said:

The more you can learn about those things (hit up grad. students there) the better your odds. And good luck.

Thank you Spinozian.  That's precious advice, and your wishes are warmly appreciated. 

[Needle in the Hay]

2 hours ago, falafelizer said:

Thanks for responding Needle in the Hay!  

It looks like 4) depends largely on 2) and 3) here.  And of the schools I listed I think Riverside does the worst at permanent placement (42%) without differentiating between SLAC's and research departments; whereas the institution where I am admitted has a 38% placement into permanent spots.

To me, that looks like enough to raise doubt about 2).  But that's with the caveat that you did say placement "starting out," and the figures I gave reflect not that, but the ultimate (best) result to date.

As far as 3), I would like it to be true, but departments would not forget to include that kind of information in their placement records, which unfortunately do not seem to bear out that claim. I'd love to see some counter examples, but I haven't found any in the records of the 26 schools where I applied this season.  Could you give me a few examples, please?  Otherwise, as it seems now,  3) is also suspect; accordingly, so is 4).  

It still seems like I can only do better by accepting the offer and applying out for the next couple of seasons. 

Well, yes, a better way for me to express 2 would have been to say that some unranked programs have way better placement percentages than a lot of the top programs, and specifically 10-20 ranked programs, because they place so many people into SLACs.

I don’t have data to support 3, ie that “upward mobility” is fairly common. I was just told that it was true, namely by Francis Beckwith and Mike Beaty at Baylor, who themselves both started at SLACs, for what it’s worth. One reason it might not show up in placement records is that it takes time for this kind of movement to occur, and also because a lot of people are, reasonably enough, happy with their jobs at SLACs (meaning that even if they could get jobs at research institutions if they tried—which is really what is relevant here—they don’t try).

4 actually does not depend on 3 if you are OK with a career in a SLAC.

Anyway, I’m not interested in debating you about this, so if this advice is not helpful then just ignore it. Good luck! 

Edited March 31, 2018 by Needle in the Hay

[falafelizer]

I am so super sorry if what I said came off as even the least bit argumentative.  That was me trying to explain why it wasn't making sense to me and asking for a clarification. All you've contributed to my question has been helpful; I'm familiar with Baylor's program and in fact applied there and am on the WL. That your insights came from Francis Beckwith I will take to heart. Most appreciative thanks for your contribution and for clarifying. Very best wishes to you this season as well ?

Edited March 31, 2018 by falafelizer

[Needle in the Hay]

19 minutes ago, falafelizer said:

I am so super sorry if what I said came off as even the least bit argumentative.  That was me trying to explain why it wasn't making sense to me and asking for a clarification. All you've contributed to my question has been helpful; I'm familiar with Baylor's program and in fact applied there and am on the WL. That your insights came from Francis Beckwith I will take to heart. Most appreciative thanks for your contribution and for clarifying. Very best wishes to you this season as well ?

That's alright, thanks, and I wish you the best in making this difficult decision, if it comes down to it!