How much do GSU, TTU, and Northern Illinois value previous publications in philosophy MA application?

[Booksaretooexpensive]

I graduated from the law school last year (not US). Although my gpa was 3.40 in the first half and i was in top 10 in the class, as i became more interested in philosophy my gpa  dropped as low as to 2.73 out of 4. During this periodl I publish articles in philosophy so i have two publications in pre reviewed undergraduate journals now.

I want to offer them a good application so I decided to take this year off to fill in the gaps of my knowledge in philosophy, write a good sample and publish more articles. In addition, I already have two professors willing to write very commendatory letters for me.

In three months i will take my ielts and gre. I have no doubts about my ielts success but this will be the first time I will take gre and honesty I am a bit too nervous not only because it is a wholly new exam format to me but also in my country gre exam period ends in May and does not open until after the application deadline of the unis. In other words if I mess my gre up, then I will have to apply with bad gre scores, which would be bad although none of the three unis have cutoffs for gpa or gre scores.

I have been writing more articles and if everything goes well I will have 4-6 articles published in pre reviewed journals (some may be well known) by the time I apply next year. I do know I have to get a high gre score since my gpa is already low but I can't help asking myself this question. What if I messed my gre exam and got some low to average score (say 150V / 150Q). I've got one shot and this possibility really haunts me.

Could anyone please tell me how much gre and gpa matter to these universities in philosophy MA application? They say they have no cutoffs and I absolutely believe them but if they had to choose between me and a student with high gpa and gre but worse writing sample, letters, or publications, would I stand a chance? Could you inform me about what respective values they ascribe to the different elements in an application, especially to the applicant's previously published works?

Thanks

Edited January 25, 2020 by Booksaretooexpensive

[machineghost]

I would suggest writing to the schools in question and asking for their advice. I’ve emailed with several DGAs and have always received helpful replies.

My bunch is that your GRE’s don’t need to be extraordinary but you should try to get your verbal into the 160s If at all feasible. Spend a few months studying and take practice tests so that you know where you are at. Pay special attention to time management/question-skipping strategies, as your test-strategy alone can make a big difference to your score. 
 

Also, I think that your writing sample and your letters will be the most important factor, and while your publication record might help a bit, I doubt it will make much of a difference without a great sample and strong letters. i would prioritize those things over trying to publish more papers in undergraduate journals. 
 

But, again, don’t believe me. Email the schools and get their advice. 
 

Best of luck!

[Booksaretooexpensive]

29 minutes ago, machineghost said:

I would suggest writing to the schools in question and asking for their advice. I’ve emailed with several DGAs and have always received helpful replies.

My bunch is that your GRE’s don’t need to be extraordinary but you should try to get your verbal into the 160s If at all feasible. Spend a few months studying and take practice tests so that you know where you are at. Pay special attention to time management/question-skipping strategies, as your test-strategy alone can make a big difference to your score. 
 

Also, I think that your writing sample and your letters will be the most important factor, and while your publication record might help a bit, I doubt it will make much of a difference without a great sample and strong letters. i would prioritize those things over trying to publish more papers in undergraduate journals. 
 

But, again, don’t believe me. Email the schools and get their advice. 
 

Best of luck!

Thank you for your time and reply.

[Estudiante Graduado]

6 hours ago, Booksaretooexpensive said:

I graduated from the law school last year (not US). Although my gpa was 3.40 in the first half and i was in top 10 in the class, as i became more interested in philosophy my gpa  dropped as low as to 2.73 out of 4. During this periodl I publish articles in philosophy so i have two publications in pre reviewed undergraduate journals now.

I want to offer them a good application so I decided to take this year off to fill in the gaps of my knowledge in philosophy, write a good sample and publish more articles. In addition, I already have two professors willing to write very commendatory letters for me.

In three months i will take my ielts and gre. I have no doubts about my ielts success but this will be the first time I will take gre and honesty I am a bit too nervous not only because it is a wholly new exam format to me but also in my country gre exam period ends in May and does not open until after the application deadline of the unis. In other words if I mess my gre up, then I will have to apply with bad gre scores, which would be bad although none of the three unis have cutoffs for gpa or gre scores.

I have been writing more articles and if everything goes well I will have 4-6 articles published in pre reviewed journals (some may be well known) by the time I apply next year. I do know I have to get a high gre score since my gpa is already low but I can't help asking myself this question. What if I messed my gre exam and got some low to average score (say 150V / 150Q). I've got one shot and this possibility really haunts me.

Could anyone please tell me how much gre and gpa matter to these universities in philosophy MA application? They say they have no cutoffs and I absolutely believe them but if they had to choose between me and a student with high gpa and gre but worse writing sample, letters, or publications, would I stand a chance? Could you inform me about what respective values they ascribe to the different elements in an application, especially to the applicant's previously published works?

Thanks

As someone who is a second year MA student at one of those schools listed I have to say that the majority of your focus must go into polishing your writing sample and ensuring that you can get STRONG letters from professors who are professional philosophers. This is a general rule for all of the top terminal MA programs. If you have some GPA/GRE issues, but you have a strong sample and strong letters from philosophers they will often be willing to overlook the GPA/GRE (I think in general the GRE is becoming less and less important to admissions committees.) They will see first-hand (from the writing sample) and second-hand (from philosophers) that despite the numbers, you can do interesting philosophy.  Do not focus your energy on publishing in journals, because unless they are in the top 20 or so general journals (see Leiter's blog for this) or a top specialist journal no one really cares. I know that sounds harsh but the truth is you MUST focus your energy into your writing sample and try to have a healthy amount of philosophers/philosophy graduate students read it and provide comments on both content and style. The writing sample is the single most important part of your application, followed by your letters. 

[Coconuts&Chloroform]

Publishing will not help your graduate application.

Publishing in general is a waste of time unless you are managing to get articles into Nous, JPhil, Mind, Phil Review, Erkenntnis, Synthese, PPR, etc. Nobody cares but you. Nobody is even reading most of the other journals. In many cases you will probably be paying to get published anyway.

If you do manage to publish in a top journal, then it's unlikely that having been published will contribute to the strength of your application in any serious way. This is because you are not going to publish in a top journal unless you have an exceptional article to publish, in which case you will have an exceptional writing sample. And you are not going to have an exceptional article to publish unless you have been working closely with well-regarded professors, in which case you will have well-regarded letter-writers. And you are not going to be working closely with well-regarded professors unless you come from a decent program, in which case you will have good pedigree. So, unless you are the next Kripke, satisfaction of the necessary conditions for publishing an article in a journal that people will actually care about is already sufficient for having an extremely strong application. And if you already have an extremely strong application, then you are probably going to do very well in your applications anyway.