Part I: Should You Apply, and Where?
Part II: Grades and Classes
Part III: Letters of Recommendation
Part IV: Writing Samples
Part V: Statement of Purpose
Part VI: GRE Scores and Other Things
GRE Scores
GRE scores are less important to your application than grades, letters, writing sample, and statement of purpose. A few schools don't even require them. In my experience, some members of admissions committees take them seriously and others discount them entirely. My own opinion is that they add little useful information. However, since some committee members take them seriously, it's worth studying for the GRE and retaking it if you didn't do well. Also, since the higher-level administrators who oversee the process and often make the decisions about fellowship funding can really only evaluate your GPA and GRE scores, people who do well on these quantitative measures are likely to get better funding offers -- more years of fellowship without teaching, for example (being paid simply to be a student!). Also, it looks good for the department if the students they admit have better average grades and GREs than the students in psychology, economics, etc. We don't want to send too many 1100 GRE offers up to the dean's office for approval!
The GRE scores for this year's entering class at UCR ranged from 1230 to a perfect 1600, with most in the 1300s and 1400s. At UCR I'd say below 1250 is a strike against an applicant, above 1400 is a bonus. There is no GRE Subject Test in Philosophy.
Awards
Of course you made dean's list! If you list too many awards, the really good ones may escape notice. Among the most impressive awards: Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, departmental or college "outstanding student" or "outstanding essay" awards (if the department only selects one per year and the college only a few), awards from nationally- or internationally-recognized institutions such as the NSF or DAAD. Generally, though, even fairly impressive awards don't count for much. It's your grades, letters, and sample that really matter.
Race and Gender
Some schools give you the option of specifying your race and gender. Letter writers must also choose pronouns and can choose to mention race if they think it is relevant. (Some would never do so. Others think they help the applicant by doing so, if the applicant is a minority. If you prefer to keep the information confidential, tell your letter writers in advance.) Committees will often guess gender and ethnicity based on names.
Philosophy is largely a male discipline right now (and of course historically) and it's overwhelmingly non-Hispanic Caucasian. (Tenured men outnumber tenured women in philosophy by a ratio of about 4-to-1, maybe more. The ratio of non-Hispanic Caucasians to minorities is probably even more skewed.) I believe there are persistent systemic biases. However, I also believe that most admissions committees would like to counter these biases and see a broader diversity in the field. Admissions committees may nonetheless show bias implicitly in how they read a file from "Maria Gonzales" compared to a file from "Mark Johnson", unconsciously expecting less from the first file than the second. However, at least the admissions committees I've worked on have used conscious strategies in attempt to counteract, maybe more than counteract, these biases. For underprivileged minorities, especially, an application might be seriously considered that would be quickly dismissed if the applicant were a white male.
While we white males might feel disadvantaged by this, we should bear in mind that we profit from persistent bias in our favor in other contexts. For example, it's generally much easier to fit a professor's stereotype for a "promising philosophy student" if you have a certain kind of look and diction, the tone of voice and cultural attitude, that is characteristic of upper middle class white men. Decades of psychological studies suggest that stereotype-driven expectations can have substantial effects not only on how one is perceived (and thus presumably on letters) but also on one's performance on objective tests (through being encouraged, supported, believed in, made comfortable, etc., by one's teachers).
Personal Contact and Connections
Such things don't help much, I suspect, unless they bring substative new information. If a professor at some point had a good substantive, philosophical conversation with an applicant and mentions that to the committee, that might help a bit. But seeking out professors for such purposes could backfire if it seems like brown-nosing, or if the applicant seems immature, arrogant, or not particularly philosophically astute.
Some professors may be very much swayed by personal connections, I suppose. I myself, however, often have a slightly negative feeling that I'm being "played"; and even if I know the person hasn't sought me out for the purpose of improving her admissions chances, in aiming to be fair and objective in my evaluations I will tend to discount that person's application somewhat -- maybe even more than it deserves.
Cover Letters
Your cover letters may be thrown away or lost. Don't include any important information in them.
Part VII: After You Hear Back
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Applying to Philosophy Ph.D. Programs, Part VI: GRE Scores and Other Things
Posted by Eric Schwitzgebel at 8:49 AM
Labels: applying to grad school
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29 comments:
Hi Eric,
I know a student from France who is applying to American Ph.D. programs. Do you think low GREs are usually discounted for this kind of student, as I would expect?
This series of posts is a real service! I bet future philosophers will appreciate it if you consider collecting them in a document on your web-page after the series ends.
Thanks, Brad, for that helpful point. Yes, students whose native tongue is not English are generally forgiven for lower scores on the GRE, especially the verbal section. However, if the GRE verbal score is *too* low, that may raise concerns about whether the applicant is proficient enough in English to succeed in a U.S. Ph.D. program in philosophy.
Thanks for the great series. It's really quite helpful.
You sort of addressed it in an earlier post by advising students to consider graduating in the fall, but what about those who don't? Should we inform the admissions committee of the relevant classes, in philosophy and/or cognate fields, that we will take before we graduate?
In some programs GRE scores are used as a way of making a first cut. After the cut, GRE scores may not matter much unless you happen to have gotten a perfect score, in which case it may help you to qualify for a special type of fellowship from the Dean's office or University generally- that's a free line for the department (a student they don't have to pay for- which is very good for the dept.)- so getting a very good score may improve your odds of being admitted.
Eric,
Thanks for this series--as someone who is currently embroiled in the morass of applications, this has been really helpful. A question: my verbal score on the GRE was significantly higher than my quantitative score (95th percentile vs. 70th percentile). Is this going to impact my chances in any significant way? Is the test worth retaking to try to up my quantitative score, even if I did pretty well in verbal and analytic writing? Thanks!
Anonymous: I don't think it's worth mentioning classes you plan to take. Presumably, any classes you are *currently* taking will show up on your transcript (even if the grades aren't in). If there are any that don't (because you're auditing for example), you can mention that.
Jennifer: Thanks for that additional input!
Jon: In my experience, people pretty much ignore the analytic writing score for some reason. (Maybe this varies, though.) If it were strangely low, that might stick out -- but it's probably the least important part of the least important part of your application. On Verbal/Quant, it seems to me that the combined score tends to receive the primary focus, though a low verbal with a high quant might look a little worse than a high verbal with a low quant. If you think you're likely to get a higher combined score by retaking the test, you might consider it. If you're under 1250 or 1300 total, especially, it *might* be worth an investment of time to study for and retake the exam -- but probably not at the expense of polishing your writing sample.
All this said, I think evaluating the GRE is where departments and committees probably vary the most, so it's hard to make generalizations.
Thanks again for your helpful comments, Eric.
I'm very glad to see your most recent comment re GRE scores, as I ended up with a disappointing 5.0 analytical writing score, even though I am, by all accounts, a better than 71st percentile writer. However, I scored higher in verbal than quantitative and over 1400 overall, so based on your experience, my GRE scores should be good enough not to hurt me and might even help me at a few schools.
Nonetheless, I wish that philosophy departments would stop asking for GRE scores. Preparing for them can be an ordeal for applicants, and then most of the schools claim not to take them seriously. Kudos to Cornell and MIT for not requiring them.
Here's a question not related to GRE scores, but since this is your latest post about grad school, I'll ask it here: I've noticed that lots of applications ask about other schools to which you are applying. What is the best way to handle this? Just be honest?
It seems like it may help if you think about it one way, since you may get better funding offers if they think you will be courted by another school. However, perhaps a mid-range school may not even offer you admission if they think you will get an offer from a more prestigious program? That is hopefully, and probably, not the case, but what do you think?
Thanks for that question, Justin. I'd recommend being open in your answer to the question about what other schools you're applying to.
I don't think that question is likely to hurt you unless your list of institutions is very strange or diverges from what you say in your statement (e.g., you say you're only interested in Continental but your applications are to departments without specialists in that area).
Mid-ranked places like UCR will certainly admit strong applicants who we think are likely to get admissions offers from top-ten places (what would we do, reject them?). A place that has a hard cap on admissions or funding (see today's post), however, may pressure such strong candidates to make a quick decision to free up slots for applicants more likely to accept.
The main function of such questions is to give committees and administrators a sense, in general, of what schools are their main competitors. Once you're admitted, you'll also find that the committee is curious what other schools have admitted you; and if you decline, they might ask where you're going instead and why.
Committees can use this information in ways that benefit their program and philosophy education in general. For example, several years ago the university administration forced the UCR Philosophy Department to offer many admittees (without M.A.'s) only four years of guaranteed funding. We lost a lot of them to comparably-ranked programs who were offering five years of guaranteed funding. This helped us make the case to reinstate our former policy of offering five years of guaranteed funding for admittees without M.A.'s.
You're an incredibly poor Sociologist. It's incredible how so many departments have been caught up in the social equity admissions ideas of the day. Flatly, it's embarrassing for anyone who has been gifted into a top program--they, and their corresponding careers will always be suspect. Is it actually the case that having people who possess higher percentages of melanin (or a vagina)improves the quality of a Philosophy program?
Well, the issues around affirmative action are complex! I do think it is hard to see the equity in it unless one appreciates the (sometimes subtle) ways in which upper-middle class white males are given advantages that may result in their applications looking a little better than they otherwise would.
Perhaps, also, I should have emphasized that considerations of race and gender have, in the committees I've served on, only explicitly come into play in taking a closer *look* at certain applications, and in deciding among the ten or so applications near the admissions cutoff. I haven't seen a committee reach deep into the pool to pull out an otherwise unqualified applicant! As a result, the UCR program (like every other philosophy Ph.D. program I know of) remains mostly white male.
Hi Eric,
I recently received a devastatingly low GRE score halfway through my Phd application efforts, and am unsure as to how or whether I should proceed. Although my practice GRE scores ranged from mid 1200's to 1400, I scored 590 verbal and 520 quantitative on the actual test (1110 total). Beyond the sting of humiliation, I feel that this score has possibly dealt a stultifying blow to my long term prospects of graduate school.
Though I do understand that many students have had to face the unhappy reality that they do not and may never fit the standardized image of academic promise, I feel that, with the exception of the GRE, I had everything else going for my application. To give you an idea: I was the top graduate from a department in the UC system with the following: College Honors, a Phi beta Kappa induction, a 3.9 major GPA, solid letters of recommendation, and a polished "A" paper from a preeminent philosopher as my writing sample. In light of the intense competition, I suppose that this profile is rather "average". Nevertheless, I think that I had a fair shot at being accepted into a solid, mid to lower tier Phd program; good chance at a high quality MA program.
Now, however, I doubt that my application would even make it past initial considerations at any department, assuming of course that my score would even meet the minimum requirement of a given department. On the very unlikely chance that I would be admitted into a Phd program, it seems that funding would be out of the question. Furthermore, those programs that don't require GRE scores are few and far between (ie small programs that have relaxed admission standards, such as CSU Long Beach<->rouge upper tier programs, such as Cornell).
Based upon your experience with admissions, I hope you could lend some advice that would be useful not only to me, but also to any others who are suffering from a similarly unimpressive GRE score. Are these scores so low that I should avoid applying to Phd programs now if I think I could apply later with a higher score? In other words, are the chances for admission with poor scores low enough that it would be best to avoid any possible stigma of rejection that would detract from a later application? How do you think second time applications are viewed in general? If it would not be wise to submit an application with these scores for a Phd program, do you think these scores would be any more admissible for a MA program? Finally, because GRE scores last for five years, I wonder whether any substantial increase in my retake score would be tethered back by this earlier low score. In that case, it seems that five years would have to pass before admission into a Phd program with funding was even realistic. Do you know how retake scores are generally treated?
Your advice would be immensely appreciated. Id also just like to note how invaluable your posts have been to me throughout this process. Your series has helped me to put a sober, intelligible face to an otherwise bewildering admissions process.
Thanks!
Kidicarus,
Very sorry to hear about the unexpectedly low GRE scores. For what it's worth, our MA program at SFSU does not currently require the GRE. This might change next year, as we're rapidly building the program, but it's worth putting on your radar this year (especially if you intend to work on the philosophy of science or applied ethics).
And I hope you'll still apply to Cornell, MIT and the other competitive programs that don't require the GRE.
More tentatively, I think you can recover from a bad round of GRE scores in due time, given a better second round score and a good writing sample. Eric would speak with more authority about this, however. Best of luck.
Eric,
Thanks for the great series. They are a great service to the profession (or to the future of the profession). I wish that they were written when I applied last year. They would have significantly improved my application.
That brings me to my questions. I am currently in a almost ranked PhD program. I am going to reapply next cycle (I am getting an MA here; btw, the profs at my current school are ok with me reapplying.) I am glad I am doing what I am because I think my application is going to be much better next time in almost all respects. I have three questions.
First, how much do presentations at student conferences help one's application? I presented at 4 undergraduate conferences the spring semester of my senior year (after my apps had gone out). I am scheduled to present at 3 grad conferences this next semester and have papers under review at a few others. The grad conferences are one's held at top departments with students from top departments presenting. I take it that the undergrad conferences won't count nearly as much as the grad conferences. But how much will either improve my application?
Second, I took many philosophy classes as an undergrad that weren't directly affiliated with the philosophy department (i.e. they didn't have the PHI prefix). Many of them were taught by philosophy professors. Some were honors classes and some were political science classes. Are grades in those classes as important as grades in philosophy classes? If they are, what is the best way to flag to the committee that those classes were very philosophically oriented?
Finally, I received a bad grade in my undergraduate formal logic class. By far my worst grade in philosophy. Mostly this was due to non-philosophical reasons (my brother was having mental health problems). I am taking a grad level logic class next semester. I suspect that I will do much better this time (hopefully an A- at the least). Do you think that my prior bad grade is moot if I do much better next semester? Should I flag that in my PS? I would rather not if it wasn't necessary.
Again, thanks for the service.
Thanks for the kind words, Errol. On your questions:
(1.) I don't think presentations, undergrad or grad, count for much. However, I do think they show that you are likely to continue to be an active and invested member of the profession. I'm inclined to think that bodes well for your success and it might tilt me positively if I am otherwise on the fence about your application.
(2.) It probably won't be possible to tell from your transcripts that those classes were philosophy classes, so those grades will get less weight than grades in classes that are marked as philosophy in your transcript. I suspect the best way to flag them, if you want to do that, is to have a sympathetic letter-writer from your undergraduate institution mention this fact about your coursework in her letter. (Go ahead and how her this post if you think that will help!) Or, alternatively, if the courses are pertinent to your areas of interest, you can mention them in your personal statement, as part of describing how you came to be interested in that area. (It is permissible, but certainly not required, to mention particular courses you have taken pertinent to your interests in your personal statement.)
(3.) Admissions committees generally aren't formulaic in their assessment of transcripts, so we often write off a single bad grade as an aberration, especially if it was relatively early in your studies. Getting a top grade later in the same subject will help even more. I wouldn't highlight the issue about dealing with your brother in your personal statement unless it dragged down a whole quarter's load of grades and did so substantially -- otherwise, it will just seem defensive. If you decide it's in your best interest to bring it up, you might see if you can get one of your letter writers to mention it. The way to broach the topic would be to meet the letter writer to talk about your letter (bragsheet and transcript and essays in hand) and point out that fact about your transcript and your excuse, among the several other things you'll discuss with her. Then the letter writer can decide to incorporate that into her letter or not.
KidIcarus: I advise you not to overreact to your low GREs. As I mentioned in the post, they're probably less important than your transcripts, writing sample, grades, and letters. Some places (as Justin mentions) don't even require them, and some members of admissions committees look at them very skeptically. I'd recommend that you go ahead and apply as you were intending to apply. Based on your description of your application, I think you stand a very good chance of getting into a good graduate program. The only adjustment I'd make to your application process is this -- apply to *more* departments than you originally intended (maybe 12 instead of 8?).
Justin and Eric,
Thanks for the helpful feedback!
Eric - Thank you for your response. I agree that it would be an overreaction to not apply at all this round. If my application does indeed stand a fair chance with those departments who give a holistic assessment of their applicants, then it is just a matter of landing my application with the right committee. It seems then that the more programs, the better my chances. However, because departments are rarely transparent regarding their admissions procedures, it is difficult to determine for a given department whether a previous rejection would negatively stigmatize a subsequent application. Do you think, then, that by increasing my chances of finding the right department for this round, I would simultaneously run a considerable risk of detracting from the potential success of later applications with “fixed” GRE scores, in the case that I am rejected across the board? Is it worth inquiring into a department’s general policy concerning second time applicants?
On another note, do you think that one should address low GRE scores in some way in their application? Of course, I would like to distance myself from the profile that my scores may suggest. I would also like to dissuade anyone from simply tossing out my application based upon them alone. However, I don't want to undermine a department's perspective on the usefulness or significance of GRE scores as admissions criteria. Furthermore, I wouldn't want to come across as defensive - as you warned against regarding another issue - thereby drawing more attention to the issue. Do you think that there is an appropriate way, perhaps in one's statement of purpose, of addressing such a deficiency? Obviously, any applicant is going to think that their weaknesses belie their academic promise - but is it worth mentioning nonetheless?
Justin - Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. Being just on the other side of the bridge, SFSU is most definitely on my radar. But since your post I have been researching the program more extensively. Although my interests do not lie in either philosophy of science or applied ethics, I think that the MA program would be a good opportunity to strengthen my overall background in philosophy. However, because “fit” is often stressed for admission to Phd programs, I was curious if this applied to the MA program as well. Is it a problem if, for instance, one's specific, overarching interests in graduate study are not directly represented by more than one faculty member? More generally, do you think that a close "fit" between faculty and student interests is particularly important in an MA program?
Thanks again
Dear Eric,
Thank you very much for these posts, they are extremely helpful, especially considering the fact that you read and reply to our comments. Thank you.
I have a question regarding extra information sent to admissions, such as an extra letter of recommendation (I know you mentioned this earlier, but while I feel comfortable with my letter writers, I can't but help to have doubt on the stregnth of one or two of them), CV (So as to offer information in an explicit way outside of my personal statement), or a 'philosophy' courses abstract (just to make things easier). Would such extra information be of any help? Could such information backfire some how (aside from being poorly presented or containing information which is just plain negative)?
I am a philosophy student at Southwest Minnesota State University (a small, liberal arts college) in Marshall, Minnesota. I intend to apply to graduate philosophy programs, and I would like to start graduate studies in Fall 2009. The only problem is that my philosophy GPA is currently 3.60; however, my cumulative GPA is a 3.75. Would graduate admissions committees look poorly on this discrepancy?
Sorry for the delay in getting to your questions, Adrian and Michael. Perhaps my responses will still be helpful either to you or others.
Adrian: The risk in including additional information is if it seems strange or irrelevant or not consonant with the good aspects of your application. Why send a c.v., when whatever information from that c.v. that is relevant to the admissions decision can be mentioned in your personal statement and/or by a letter writer? An additional letter can definitely be a bonus to your application if it is an excellent letter, but three strong letters looks better than three strong letters and one tepid one.
Michael: I'm afraid that for students in your situation, it really is the philosophy GPA that matters most to admissions decisions. But it's not formulaic. If your GPA is being pulled down by a single class or by underperformance in your early years as a student, that's not as problematic as if you're consistently an A-minus student in philosophy.
Hi Eric,
You mentioned that completing a Master's Degree may not compensate for a "less than sterling" undergraduate record. Is there any way to recover from sub-par undergraduate course work? I began as a pre-med major and, needless to say, did NOT do well in the hard sciences. Will writing an excellent MA thesis or high GRE scores help me at all? Is the PhD a lost cause?
Meredith
Hey Eric,
You suggest that GRE scores are not as significant as some of the other metrics. Some of the posts also reflect a level of discomfort about GRE scores. While I sincerely hope that Kidicarus can give Chomsky and Stalnaker my regards, or Fodor and Goldman, and that he so gets to choose (I really do, thumbs up kidicarus), on the whole I can only hope for myself that GRE scores are allowed to be the tenor of my 'successful' application. See, I am, or rather will be next year, an overseas candidate from India. And nothing terrorizes my kind more than the thought of how my 'marks' in '%age' are going to be interpreted. Worse are the wide ranging inconsistencies in marking between different (1)universities, (2) departments, and quite unbelievingly ceteris paribus (3) academic years!! While I am at least a top 10% if not a top 5% philosophy student at my univ (4th in class out of 50+ and a known bad exam writer, exams counting for 75 to 85%), my %age just does not compare to a 3.8 GPA. It does not even compare to the neighbouring university's 15-20% student or that of my own univ's last batch. I am worried my 55% in MA might not even be interpreted as the minimum required 3.0. With such unenviable matters of interpreting foreign grades at the hands of admission committees, GRE scores can be one reliable indicator of the applicant's intellectual worth and thereby of great help to the admission committee. It would be just oh so awesome if we in fact had subject GRE for philosophy and GPAs were more or less discounted, at least for foreign applicants. But, I dont expect it to happen anytime soon, at least not soon enough for me.
What say Eric. 55% in MA from an Indian Univ, decent writing sample, decent SoP, no audits (I am not sure I know what that is by the way) at Harvard, 1 letter from a respectable name, 2 letters from people no one has or will hear of, but 1450+ GRE. Any takers?
P.S. but of course standardized tests beg their own perils.
Hey,
On reading my own comment again I think I said more than what I intended to when I said GRE can be reliable indicator of one's intellectual worth. Actually, GRE would be a reliable indicator of the candidate's intelligence, which is not always a reliable indicator of intellectual worth. However, it could be reliable at that if coupled with good written work.
Of course people at times can have a bad day, as kidicarus seems to have had, and that bad day can be extremely unfairly detrimental to their prospects. But, leaving aside bad days and issues of language proficiency, GRE would I suppose be a much more objective and non-erratic measure of what it measures than some other measures are of what they measure.
Anon 7:00: No, don't despair! I just meant that remark to apply to admission to the most elite schools (and even in those cases there are exceptions). Excellent performance in a good M.A. program should be sufficient for admission to a middle or lower ranked Ph.D. program.
Mayank: Grades from foreign universities are often hard to interpret, as are letters from unknown people outside the U.S. I don't think a good GRE is likely to make the difference but a truly awesome sample can do wonders for an application, and a rave letter from an eminent philosopher is a substantial asset. If you have no luck getting straight into a good Ph.D. program in philosophy, you might be a good candidate to us a U.S. M.A. program as a stepping stone.
Hey Eric,
Thanks for the quick shoot back Eric. I see I am considerably more lucky in that respect than a couple of earlier blokes, eh. Aah, just kidding. But, it is nice to see that even though we guys get paid for teaching, we aren't quite all sophists. In other words sincere regards to guys like you and Leiter.
On my own story I shall polish my paper till I can see my reflection on it. Anyways, the post was more of an attempt to make a general case using myself as an example. But, your advice is forever valuable.
Thanks
Mayank
Hello,
I am currently in an MSc program in a top 15 UK university after going to a top 5 liberal arts College in the States. My main concern is that in undergrad I was a double major in Philosophy and Computer science and my "in major" GPA is ~3.5 while my philosophy GPA is 3.8. My concern is that no one will ever get to the rest of my application because my "in major" GPA is substantially lower than the normal requirements, even though in reality that doesn't reflect my philosophical academic work. On the positive side my undergrad had a senior comprehensive exercise that basically was a senior thesis that I worked on for around 7 months, that is already pretty polished and only getting moreso. On the last go round i applied to this program as a back up but since I didn't have a solid writing sample (i was still writing my thesis) and fell into a lot of the traps of Statement of Purpose writing, I was wondering if I would get a better chance this year? Specifically will my undergrad GPA keep me down?
S for D: The admissions process isn't formulaic; people will see your excellent grades in philosophy, which sound like they're good enough to make you a contender, depending on the other parts of your application. Also, of course, the master's might be a valuable addition.
Hi Eric,
I would love to know what are you thoughts on my case. I did the GRE and I got very poor scores due to rusty math skills and anxiety. I feel that I don't have enough practice in of performing calculations with that speed. The level of math required in the GRE is not an important requirement in Mexico's social sciences and humanities academia, so I haven't had a truly direct incentive to keep it fresh. (This is very wrong of Mexico's academia, but it is the case, though.)
I did both 'licenciaturas', in Law and in Philosophy. I kept the Spanish word because that, the first degree in Mexico is not quite a Bachelor degree. For instance, in Latin America, after finishing a 'licenciatura' in Law, you have the right to practice Law. We spend not just 3 to 4 years, but 5 years with a lot of courses. Our systems are not flexible to enable students to do a major and one or two minors. If you take a 'licenciatura' you typically focus on just that with 4 hours of classes per day.
What would you think of an applicant in my case; low GRE scores, two degrees roughly equivalent to Bachelor degrees, one in Law, the other in Philosophy, a Master's degree in Philosophy, probably a good letters of recommendation set and a polished Writing Sample? (probably age is important, so, I am 27 currently.)
I know that I can improve my GRE a lot, but I can't have that guaranteed. I get very anxious with this kind of tests and I find them myopic to cases like mine.
If you were in a case like mine, would you keep going? I have money troubles and I need to save my savings for a really good shot.
Thank you a lot!...
(I am worried by another thing: I am very interested in matters of rationality, normativity and metaphysics. I have studied what are known as gödelian arguments, and getting a low score on the GRE can be... Ironical?... Suspicious? I don't know. I really have the feeling that I might be trusting the wisdom of phi. departments...)
Anon Nov 5: A low GRE is a disadvantage but not a huge one. There's a lot of variation in how seriously different schools and different committee members take it. I wouldn't be too dispirited about it, but I might recommend applying to more places than you otherwise would -- a kind of shotgun approach.
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