[This is an update of the fifth part of a series published in 2007. For the full series, see here.]
I've never read a first draft of a statement of purpose (also called a personal statement) that was any good. These things are hard to write, so give yourself plenty of time and seek the feedback of at least two of your letter writers. Plan to rewrite from scratch at least once.
It’s hard to know even what a “Statement of Purpose” is. Your plan is to go to graduate school, get a Ph.D., and become a professor. Duh! Are you supposed to try to convince the committee that you want to become a professor more than the next guy? That philosophy is written in your genes? That you have some profound vision for the transformation of philosophy or philosophy education?
Some Things Not to Do
* Don’t wax poetic. Don’t get corny. Avoid purple prose. “Ever since I was eight, I've pondered the deep questions of life.” Nope. “Philosophy is the queen of disciplines, delving to the heart of all.” Nope. “The Owl of Minerva has sung to me and the sage of Königsberg whispers in my sleep: Not to philosophize is to die.” If you are tempted to write sentences like that last one, please do so in longhand, with golden ink, on expensive stationery which you then burn without telling anyone.
* Don’t turn your statement into a sales pitch. Ignore all advice from friends and acquaintances in the business world. Don’t sell yourself. You don’t want to seem arrogant or grandiose or like a BS-ing huckster. You may still (optionally!) mention a few of your accomplishments, in a dry, factual way, but to be overly enthusiastic about accomplishments that are rather small in the overall scheme of academia is somewhat less professional than you ideally want to seem. If you’re already thinking like a graduate student at a good PhD program, then you won’t be too impressed with yourself for having published in the Kansas State Undergraduate Philosophy Journal (even if that is, in context, a notable achievement). Trust your letter writers. If you’ve armed them properly with a brag sheet, the important accomplishments will come across in your file. Let them do the pitch. Also, don’t say you plan to revolutionize philosophy, reinvigorate X, rediscover Y, finally find the answer to timeless question Z, or even teach in a top-ten department. Do you already know that you will be a more eminent professor than the people on your admissions committee? You’re aiming to be their student, not the next Wittgenstein – or at least that’s how you want to come across. You want to seem modest, humble, straightforward. If necessary, consult David Hume or Benjamin Franklin for inspiration on the advantages of false humility.
* If you are applying to a program in which you are expected to do coursework for a couple years before starting on a dissertation – that is, U.S.-style programs as opposed to British-style programs – then I recommend not taking stands on particular substantive philosophical issues. In the eyes of the admissions committee, you probably aren’t far enough in your philosophical education to be adopting hard philosophical commitments. They want you to come to their program with an open mind. Saying "I would like to defend Davidson's view that genuine belief is limited to language-speaking creatures" comes across a bit too strong. Similarly, "I showed in my honors thesis that Davidson's view...". If only, in philosophy, honors theses ever really showed anything! (“Argued” would be okay.) Better: "My central interests are philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. I am particularly interested in the intersection of the two, for example in Davidson's argument that only language-speaking creatures can have beliefs in the full and proper sense of 'belief'."
* Don’t tell the story of how you came to be interested in philosophy. It’s not really relevant.
What to Write
So how do you fill up that awful, blank-looking page? In April, I solicited sample statements of purpose from successful recent PhD applicants. About a dozen readers kindly sent in their statements and from among these I chose three that I thought were good and also diverse enough to illustrate the range of possibilities. Follow the links below to view the statements.
- Statement A was written by Allison Glasscock, who was admitted to Chicago, Cornell, Penn, Stanford, Toronto, and Yale.
- Statement B was written by a student who prefers to remain anonymous, who was admitted to Berkeley, Missouri, UMass Amherst, Virginia, Wash U. in St. Louis, and Wisconsin.
- Statement C was written by another student who prefers to remain anonymous, who was admitted to Connecticut and Indiana.
Each of the statements also adds something else, in addition to a description of areas of interest, but it is not really necessary to add anything else. Statement B starts with pretty much the perfect philosophy application joke. (Sorry, now it’s taken!) Statement C concludes with a paragraph describing the applicant’s involvement with his school’s philosophy club. Statement C is topically structured but salted with information about coursework relevant to the applicant’s interests, while Statement B is topically structured and minimalist, and Statement A is autobiographically structured with considerable detail. Any of these approaches is fine, though the topical structure is more common and raises fewer challenges about finding the right tone.
Statement A concludes with a paragraph specifically tailored for Yale. Thus we come to the question of...
Tailoring Statements to Particular Programs
It's not necessary, but you can adjust your statement for individual schools. If there is some particular reason you find a school attractive, there's no harm in mentioning that. Committees think about fit between a student’s interests and the strengths of the department and about what faculty could potentially be advisors. You can help the committee on this issue if you like, though normally it will be obvious from your description of your areas of interest.
For example, if you wish, you can mention 2-3 professors whose work especially interests you. But there are risks here, so be careful. Mentioning particular professors can backfire if you mischaracterize the professors, or if they don't match your areas of stated interest, or if you omit the professor in the department whose interests seem to the committee to be the closest match to your own.
Similarly, you can mention general strengths of the school. But, again, if you do this, be sure to get it right! If someone applies to UCR citing our strength in artificial intelligence, we know the person hasn’t paid attention to what our department is good at. No one here works on AI. But if you want to go to a school that has strengths in both mainstream “analytic” philosophy and 19th-20th century “Continental” philosophy, that’s something we at UCR do think of as a strong point of our program.
I'm not sure I'd recommend changing your stated areas of interest to suit the schools, though I see how that might be strategic. There are two risks in changing your stated areas of interest: One is that if you change them too much, there might be some discord between your statement of purpose and what your letter writers say about you. Another is that large changes might raise questions about your choice of letter writers. If you say your central passion is ancient philosophy, and your only ancient philosophy class was with Prof. Platophile, why hasn’t Prof. Platophile written one of your letters? That’s the type of oddness that might make a committee hesitate about an otherwise strong file.
Some people mention personal reasons for wanting to be in a particular geographical area (near family, etc.). Although this can be good because it can make it seem more likely that you would accept an offer of admission, I'd avoid it since graduating Ph.D.'s generally need to be flexible about location and it might be perceived as indicating that a career in philosophy is not your first priority.
Explaining Weaknesses in Your File
Although hopefully this won't be necessary, a statement of purpose can also be an opportunity to explain weaknesses or oddities in your file -- though letter writers can also do this, often more credibly. For example, if one quarter you did badly because your health was poor, you can mention that fact. If you changed undergraduate institutions (not necessarily a weakness if the second school is the more prestigious), you can briefly explain why. If you don't have a letter from your thesis advisor because he died, you can point that out.
Statements of Personal History
Some schools, like UCR, also allow applicants to submit “statements of personal history”, in which applicants can indicate disadvantages or obstacles they have overcome or otherwise attempt to paint an appealing picture of themselves. The higher-level U.C. system administration encourages such statements, I believe, because although state law prohibits the University of California from favoring applicants on the basis of ethnicity or gender, state law does allow admissions committees to take into account any hardships that applicants have overcome – which can include hardships due to poverty, disability, or other obstacles, including hardships deriving from ethnicity or gender.
Different committee members react rather differently to such statements, I suspect. I find them unhelpful for the most part. And yet I also think that some people do, because of their backgrounds, deserve special consideration. Unless you have a sure hand with tone, though, I would encourage a dry, minimal approach to this part of the application. It’s better to skip it entirely than to concoct a story that looks like special pleading from a rather ordinary complement of hardships. This part of the application also seems to beg for the corniness I warned against above: “Ever since I was eight, I’ve pondered the deep questions of life...”. I see how such corniness is tempting if the only alternative seems to be to leave an important part of the application blank. As a committee member, I usually just skim and forget the statements of personal history, unless something was particularly striking.
For more general thoughts on the influence of ethnicity and gender on committee decisions, see Part VI of this series.
***
For further advice on statements of purpose, see this discussion on Leiter Reports – particularly the discussion between the difference between U.S. and U.K. statements of purpose.
See here for comments on the 2007 version of this post. You might want to skim through those comments before posting a comment below.
50 comments:
Eric, you recommend against taking a strong philosophical stance when applying to programs involving coursework. That certainly makes sense if applying from straight out of undergraduate studies, but surely if someone (like me and many other non-US students) has attained a research masters degree then the opposite should be true, should it not? If an applicant shows off some details of what he or she has been intensely studying for the past few years, that'll make it easier for the application reviewers to see why this student has picked this particular institution - what makes the applicant a good fit. It would, I assume, also show that the student has learnt something significant during his/her graduate research.
Jordan, this issue doesn't arise as strongly in that case, but I still think it's best not to take a firm stand. To display one's knowledge of your MA material, you can talk about what you "have argued".
Dear Professor Schwitzgebel,
Two questions:
(1) Is it *ever* relevant to tell how you came to be interested in a specific area of philosophy? I'm debating whether an initial interest in Heidegger should be left unmentioned as irrelevant to my current focus on contemporary Phil. of Language, or whether discussing how exposure to Continental philosophy informed/led to my interest in Phil. of Language might render the latter interest more distinctive.
(2) As far as providing specific info about one's philosophical activities as an undergrad, does listening to podcast lecture series from Berkeley and College de France deserve mention? (These were in fact the source of both the Heidegger and the Phil. of Language interest)
Thanks for your really useful blog posts!
Anon May 29: Yes, I could see (1) and (2) working in an autobiographically structured statement, with a light touch.
Dr. Switzgebel,
Do you think it would be better to mention in your statement you're interested in fields you have extensive work within, or would it be fine to say you're interested in a field that you have little formal training with? How would that be viewed if you cannot say you attended X, took courses, W,Y and Z, etc.but still are very interested in a field?
You can toss it in, but I wouldn't make it the point of emphasis.
Hello Professor,
What do you recommend a student do if their area of interest that they want known in their personal statement is a field they have no formal experience in? For example, I'd love to be able to say I took seminar W, classes X, Y & Z in philosophy of religion but I haven't yet philosophy of religion is a huge interest of mine.
Is it worth conceding you're (perhaps) lacking truly in-depth knowledge of a field in the interest of full disclosure, or should a student pick a tertiary interest they have more familiarity with to put in the statement (I love philosophy of science and am familiar with the field, but if I had to pick I'd put priority on philosophy of religion)?
First, thanks for your series of posts on applying to grad school. They are super helpful.
Now, you suggest that a statement of purpose isn't supposed to include things like "my purpose is to become a philosophy professor," and I would have thought that was obviously correct. But then some programs say things like this:
"Please upload a one page Statement of Purpose. What are your goals and objectives for pursuing this graduate degree? What are your qualifications and indicators of success in this endeavor? Please include career objectives that obtaining this degree will provide."
Should I actually try to answer those questions? Or do you think the paragraph I quote is included in the application for every department at the school in question rather than something the philosophy department in particular cares about?
I've encountered similar prompts at a few schools, and I'd very much appreciate hearing your thoughts about them. Many thanks in advance!
Ben, sorry for the slow reply! I fell behind on approving comments when I was out of town.
It's administrative boilerplate. My advice is to ignore it and write a statement of purpose of the sort I describe.
Ok, that's a relief. I thought the prompt being administrative boilerplate was a real possibility, but I didn't want to ignore the questions without being sure.
Thanks so much!
Dear Professor Schwitzgebel,
thank you for all this helpful advice!
My own question/s is/are: Since philosophy was only my minor in college, I feel like I should explain why I "changed my mind" and now want to pursue graduate studies in philosophy (I'm actually currently enrolled in a philosophy M.A. program in Europe). You recommend, however, not to be too biographical and not to tell the committee how I became interested in philosophy in my SOP. Does that still hold in my case or do you think it might be useful to say something about why I changed my course of studies?
Also, I feel like I should give some reasons in my SOP why I still believe to be well-prepared for graduate school, even though I might lack some of the experience other applicants have. But maybe I should suppress this urge to justify myself and rather let my recommendation letters, writing sample, and co. make this argument for me?
Hope you can give me some advice on this issue!
You could go either way on explaining why you "changed your mind", but if so I'd do it with a light touch. I'd avoid explaining why you are well prepared for graduate school. That will reveal itself, or not, in your writing sample and your letters.
I have a masters in neuroscience. I however prefer analysis/writing side of neuroscience rather than the quantitative/carrying out side of things. Although I do not have any formal training in philosophy I have completed an introductory course and have read widely in philosophy. Is there any chance that someone would accept me for a PhD in philosophy without me undertaking another masters (something I cannot afford to do).
Anon May 13: A full master's would be necessary, but you will probably need to show more than informal reading. One path is to take a few graduate level courses in philosophy, if you can get into them; and if you do excellently, that can be a source of letters and writing sample as well as proof that you can perform at the highest level. It is best if you can do this at a place with a good PhD program in philosophy; but it might take some angling to get your foot in the door.
Dear Professor Schwitzgebel,
First off, love the blog. In particular, the information and advice about applying to grad school is extremely useful. Thanks!
I'm wondering whether and how I ought to mention in my SOP that I might qualify as part of an underrepresented group in philosophy. (I'm mixed-race.) I don't want it to come off as petitioning or as asking for special treatment in some way. Do you think I should include the info in my SOP, and if so, how do you think I should go about doing it?
By the way, I applied this year, and I'm currently short listed at a Top-15 PGR-ranked department. From what the DGS has told me, things may very well come down to the wire on April 15; sounds like my chances of getting an offer are 50/50-ish. I'm preparing for re-applying in the Fall, tho'.
Thanks again.
Anon: I probably wouldn't put it in the SOP, for the reasons you suggest. If the application has a "statement of personal history" like UCR does, then that would be a good place for it. Otherwise, I would recommend that you suggest to your letter writers that they mention it. They might or might not, but if you express a preference for them to mention it then probably at least one of them will.
I think it's unclear whether committees' explicit interest in increasing diversity outweighs their implicit bias (see Haslanger and Saul on the latter).
Good luck with admission this year -- hopefully my advice won't be relevant!
Do you know of any undergrad journals which accept papers beyond the beginning of each year? I haven't found one with a deadline past the beginning of March, with most being in January and February. I would like to try and publish beyond those dates at the end of my junior year closer to May and/or the summer going into my senior year.
Thank you!
Do you know of any undergrad journals which accept papers beyond the beginning of each year? I haven't found one with a deadline past the beginning of March, with most being in January and February. I would like to try and publish beyond those dates at the end of my junior year closer to May and/or the summer going into my senior year.
Thank you!
Sorry, I don't know anything about that!
Thanks for the advice! It's very helpful.
My question is about how to properly address rough spots in your application. I went to a top 15 phil program for undergrad but I was a full-time, Olympic-level athlete that barely squeezed a 3.0 GPA. That was ten years ago and I've since redeemed myself at a strong MA program. But how do I emphasize that my old GPA is highly contextual without looking like I'm making excuses? Moreover, I'm worried about such a short essay being dominated by a tone of apology.
It might help to know if committees are used to taking such things with a grain of salt, or do I really need to convince them of how unrepresentative that part of my application is.
The best approach is to be sure that at least one letter-writer makes your excuses for you. Soft-pedal the excuses in your personal statement, if you can trust a letter writer to cover them adequately.
With regard to personal history statements, you suggested it might be "best to skip it entirely." But some schools in the UC system, including UCR, state in the online application that it is "mandatory." In this case, is it OK to play up your "underrepresented" status, or how you have worked with "disadvantaged" populations? In brief, is some corniness OK?
Yeah, a bit of corniness is okay, as long as you don't overdo it. I'd say err on the side of cool and factual.
Do you think that teaching experience, such as high school teaching or better yet community college teaching experience, is an asset or a hindrance? Would most schools look positively on an applicant who has spent a fair amount of time teaching or would they regard this as unimportant and only care about research (publications, paper presentations, etc.)? What would be the best way to word your personal statement to accomodate this background?
I'd say an asset, but with one large qualification. The qualification is that the usual qualms about people who have spent time away from philosophy apply. I'm inclined to think those qualms don't deserve much weight, but in practice, I do think there are concerns. In your personal statement, a narrative about how teaching rekindled your interest in philosophical research might be a good idea -- as long as it's not too corny!
Eric,
Do you have anything you can say about reapplying to programs that you have already been accepted into before? In my own case, I applied previously and was accepted into several PhD programs but decided to postpone grad school and take some time off. I'm now reapplying to some of the same schools. How would you word your personal statement to accomodate this fact? Would you make no mention whatsoever that you had applied and was admitted, or would you mention it as a matter of fact, to let the admissions committee know (or remind them) that I was already admitted? In my own case, I think they will certainly remember my having been admitted, and I thought it might sound awkward if I said nothing about it.
Anon Sat Jan 10: Interesting question! First issue: Admissions committees are normally 3-5 members of the department, and their composition changes over the years, so it might be the case that no one will remember your application.
I think you will want two different statements of purpose. For the departments who admitted you in the past, you probably do want to acknowledge that they admitted you and do your best to explain why you did not enter any program in that year. This is going to be difficult to do right, since tone will be very important. So have at least two of your letter writers give you detailed input on how to do this. You want the reaction NOT to be feeling that they were snubbed, or that you're not really committed to philosophy, or that you're a flaky excuse-maker. You want to reaction to be: This is a strong candidate we admitted before, and she had understandable reasons for not accepting our previous offer, so probably she is worth admitting again.
Hi Professor,
Thanks for all the info on your blog!
I am wondering how to touch on the subject of delaying PhD programs after the masters. If finishing my masters in 2015, and applying for the 2016 or 2017 year, is it best to explain why I took one/two years off? One reason is I wanted to devote as much time as possible to finishing my comprehensive and classes by 2015, and I didn't have time to give my applications the attention they deserved. The other reason is I wanted to get married before I applied to any programs overseas, in case of visa issues. Do I need to include that? I plan on taking latin and greek classes online during the time away, as well as doing some reading on the professors I may study under. I am not near anywhere that I can teach philosophy unfortunately, as I have to spend the time in the place where my fiancee's job is (the middle of nowhere alaska). I will be working on a fishing boat (like i have the past 4 summers). Should I say that? I have such an odd situation. Thanks for the guidance
Not sure if anyone still checks comments on this thread, but I'm curious how a PhD ad comm sees any mention of teaching in an SOP. I'm at a terminal MA where I get to teach, and it seems like this is obviously relevant evidence of my ambition to be a professor, commitment to the discipline, likelihood to complete a PhD if I get in, etc. But, I don't wanna sound like one of "those" that is more interested in teaching than in research. Cuz obviously that would be crazy (sarcasm). But anyway, is there a smart way to bring up teaching in an SOP without turning the committee off?
I think a paragraph at the end would be fine. Centering your SOP around it, sadly, might make you look too much like one of "those"!
I'd be interested in your take on "telling a story" in the SOP. Obviously, the best statements will have a crisp statement of the research interests of the applicants that suggest the student will be a good fit with the program. But I've had advisors suggest that such a statement, while helpful, won't stand out from among the 250+ apps, whereas a unique story (in addition to the aforementioned statement of research interests) might help in that regard. Thoughts?
Telling a story is a risk. You don't want it to come across as special pleading or as self-pitying or as corny, purple, unprofessional, silly -- so many ways to go wrong! You want your letters and sample, not usually your statement, to be the parts that jump out. I could imagine just the right story helping an application, so if you're confident you can do it well and get *frank* feedback from at least two philosophy professors, then maybe it makes sense.
But the better solution is almost always to tell the story to your professors and then hope that *they* tell the story in their letters. You could encourage this by including it in your "brag sheet". Depending on how comfortable you are with your professors, you could ask them explicitly if they can talk about those issues in their letters, but if the relationship is formal you might not want to be so forward.
Super helpful. Thank you.
Thanks so much for this thread.
Just wondering what you think about mentioning that I am a first generation college student. Honestly not sure what the virtue would be but a number of people have suggested that I play that up. Since I don't really buy it I thought I'd post here and see what you have to say.
Thanks,
C
I don't think you need to play it up. My guess is that some people will like that, while others might find their prejudices unconsciously triggered, and also there's the risk of being seen as doing too much special pleading if the tone is off in some way. If it seems forced to you, I think you're fine leaving it off. But also I wouldn't dissuade you if you *want* to do it, and you run it by your letter writers to check for possible tone issues. I don't think anyone really has any good, empirically justified idea about what the effects of such statements are on the likelihood of acceptance to philosophy graduate school.
How should you open and close your letter? Something like "To The [University Name] Philosophy Department Admissions Committee: ... Sincerely, [Your Name]"?
Eric,
I definitely agree with you encouragement about a dry, minimal approach to this part of the application. Simplicity and minimalism are very effective in cases like this one. Thanks for an inspiring and informative post!
I am pursuing my undergrad in Electronics and Communication and wish to pursue my masters in Philosophy. I have no transcripts that have any courses that relate to philosophy as my country's education system doesn't allow to take subjects in different fields.To cover this I have been taking certificate courses from Coursera in subjects relating to Philosophy. I am also working on a website that will can one point place to learn all basics of Philosophy and Philosopher. Apart from this, I have been working as a Freelance Content Writer for over a year and have good writing skills.
Do I stand a chance in any university for a Post Graduate in Philosophy?
Hi Eric, thank you for this helpful series of posts.
Suppose I've researched a department well enough to have a decent sense of who works on what but without having studied their papers in depth. Is it worth mentioning in the SOP that I'd be interested in working on problem X with professors X1, X2, and X2, and on problem Y with professors Y1, Y2, and Y3? On the one hand, it seems like it could be helpful to tailor the SOP to the school to *some* extent. On the other hand, perhaps merely dropping names is not helpful. (Of course, when I am more familiar with the faculty's work, then I can reference such work specifically; but I'm worried about the case where a department looks promising but I happen not to be all that familiar with the faculty's work.)
Anon Sep 25: I do think it can be (a little bit) helpful to say those things. It shows knowledge of the department and fit with the department. There is a risk that it will backfire, though, if you list the wrong names, so be careful with it!
Dear Eric,
It appears that the University of Berkeley *requires* a Personal History Statement. Any words of wisdom about how to navigate this requirement, if one was planning NOT to write such a statement (which sounds like the best course of action for most people) for other schools where it is optional?
Berkeley's text describing the Statement of Purpose and the Personal History Statement are as follows:
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Please describe your aptitude and motivation for graduate study in your area of specialization, including your preparation for this field of study, your academic plans or research interests, and your future career goals. Please be specific about why UC Berkeley would be a good intellectual fit for you.
PERSONAL HISTORY STATEMENT
The Personal History Statement is required from all applicants. Please note that the Personal History Statement should not duplicate the Statement of Purpose.
Please describe how your personal background and experiences influenced your decision to pursue a graduate degree. In this section, you may also include any relevant information on the following:
--How you have overcome barriers to access higher education
--How you have come to understand the barriers faced by others
--Your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education
--Your research focusing on under served populations or related issues of inequality
--Your leadership among such groups
Anon Nov 26: I recommend keeping it brief and factual, without seeming dismissive. Don't inflate ordinary difficulties into anything that looks like special pleading.
You can probably find a couple of things in your history to briefly mention, e.g., your experience as an RA in a dorm with a diverse group of students, your experience with extended family members with diverse background, courses you took that helped you better understand these issues. You can mention these experiences without presenting them as more than the limited experiences they are.
If you don't think that you have overcome unusually many obstacles or that you belong to an underrepresented group, the trickiest thing is tone. I recommend showing your draft to at least one of your letter writers.
Dear Eric,
Thank you for all the helpful advice here. I had a question that pertains to my specific situation. I am currently a PHd student and graduate teaching assistant. I started with my MA at the institution where I am now currently doing my PHd. I am looking to apply to other PHd programs now. Should I include this information on the personal statement? Should I try to explain why I want to leave one program for another?
Thank you.
Unknown Dec 24: Yes, admissions committees will want to hear a little bit about why you are looking to move.
Hi Eric,
I am in the process of finishing up my PHd applications in the next week or so. I believe that my writing sample, letters of recommendations, and statement of purpose is strong. However, my GRE scores are atrocious.
I mentioned in my last comment that I am currently a PHd student in philosophy. I did extremely well in both my graduate logic requirement, and my metalogic course. I also currently have a 3.9 GPA in my graduate program. So, I do not feel my GRE scores reflect my abilities ( I suppose everyone who does poorly on the GRE feels this way too).
Should I try to address my GRE scores in some way, or just let the rest of my application speak for itself? I have read that you can try to address in your statement of purpose, but it feels out of place there. I have also read that you could ask a professor to address it in their letter of recommendation.
Could you offer some advice on this issue please?
Thank you very much.
I’d just let the rest of the app speak for itself. Some schools no longer even require the GRE, and opinions about its value remain mixed.
Hi Eric (if you still check this),
I'm not sure how to put my question any way other than bluntly: I'm a cancer survivor with a disability (resulting from the cancer surgery). Is it worth putting this information anywhere in my application?
I feel somewhat mercenary asking this, particularly as I truly believe that merit should always prevail. But that would be in an ideal world, wouldn't it...
Thanks.
Yes, still here! I could see the cancer issue cutting both ways. Diversity statements or personal statements sometimes ask you to relate obstacles you've overcome, and that would certainly be one. Also, some people see disability as a important target for affirmative action. On the other hand, there's all the familiar prejudice and some people might even wonder whether there's a risk in admitting you that you will not be able to have as full a career as someone without that sort of disability. (It's not clear that committees and ethically or legally take that into consideration, but that doesn't mean that they won't.) I recommend consulting with a senior philosopher whose judgment you trust and who knows you personally about whether it makes sense for you to mention this or not and if so, how.
Hi Eric, I am so appreciating this blog. It is very helpful. I am focusing on my SoP now. It seems that in these applications it it implied that the natural trajectory for a graduated PhD student is to go into academia (become a professor). For me, I am not entirely sure that is what I would want to do. I would love to share my experience and knowledge and continue to learn, though I am not sure it would be in a higher education institute. I feel higher education can be quite alienating and elitist and I would rather share my skillset outside of that area (like in community colleges or other more practical ways). Should I withhold this information? I am worried it is a liability if universities want students to get jobs at "impressive" universities. Do you have any advice? If anything, this frees up some of the intense competition for those who want to become tenured professors. And for me, to learn for learning's sake and share it with those who may not have access to higher education seems like a strength of a candidate. Thank you for your help.
Anon Nov 12: Interesting question. My guess is that, unfortunately, it's bad strategy to mention this. While some admissions committees might be very open to this and even celebrate it, my guess is that most committees will have some members who see "success" in terms of placement in professorial jobs and would have a slightly negative reaction to this -- a reaction which they might or might not try to suppress.
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