What are mid and low level philosophy graduate programs?

[kvs214]

Hello, I'm planning to apply to philosophy grad. schools (mostly for PhD but also for a few MAs as backup) for Fall 2012. I want to specialize in ethics with a subsidiary interest in political philosophy (focusing on its ethical component). I already have an idea of what higher tier schools I'd want to apply to but I'm not sure where to start in searching for mid and lower-level schools. I graduated from UT Austin with an overall 3.84 GPA and a 3.9 in philosophy. My GRE is 1220 and I am not planning to take it again given that I am an innately slow test taker (hoping to make up with other factors). Any suggestions would be gratefully helpful.

[scito]

Are you familiar with the PGR? http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/default.asp . It has a good list of graduate philosophy programs, you can also look at the rankings in each speciality, so ethics in your case!

[kvs214]

Thanks for the link but I'm under the impression that Leiter's report deals mostly with top programs that, although there are many listed, are still highly competitive. If I'm wrong about this let me know. I'm mostly looking for safety schools and fairly good schools that aren't on Leiter's list but are worth considering. Anyone know such schools?

[scito]

Ah, in that case I'm afraid I won't be much help because I have very limited knowledge of US grad schools (I'm only applying to UK ones). But hopefully someone else here can help.

[HaruNoKaze]

I applied to MA programs in Phil, got rejected from my top choice, so I stayed in TX and did my MA in my other major. If you wanna stay in Texas, SMU and UofHouston are your best bet for low/mid phil grad programs. UofH is a MA only last I checked a couple of years ago, so the MAs are funded most of the time. SMU has quite a bit of funding as well, and their phil dept is pretty active.

I would say UT, but it seems like you don't want to stay there. They have one of the best programs in TX besides Rice IMO but can be hard to get into. The upshot it that you know profs in the phil program, the downside is you've never seen anything besides Austin.

If you're looking to leave state, I would check out ASU and University of AZ, i went to their normative ethics conference a couple of years ago and thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The two universities do a lot together such as joint conference and the faculty know each other. both are very good programs. I met several of the faculty when I was out there for the conference, and there are some really great people working there.

I know someone who went to U Nebraska-Lincoln and is doing well job placement wise and also knows his stuff wise. It's in the middle of nowhere which is a huge downgrade from Austin, but those are the breaks.

Use the phil gourmet report as a point of reference like the above poster mentioned. it's gold.

[kvs214]

Thanks for the advice all on school applications and how to go about searching for schools. I'm still living near UT so I will have ample opportunity to ask professors on what they recommend and what professors at other universities I should talk to in depth.