help us w college list for a philosophy major?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:full pay boy, 1500 SAT as a junior is taking it again. 3.75 GPA for known private.

Philosophy is intended major, but would like a school that isn't so competitive that he'll be boxed out of internships by the Econ people - or that allows kids with good not great math skills to add some Econ or data science or something to philosophy so he can leave with a job.

Good school based ECs and paid summer jobs, but no competitive summer programs (yet, he applied to some for this year)

location - not west coast, but otherwise open. size - open.

Do you think a declared philosophy major will be a hook at top schools? I would seriously investigate that. Few high schools teach philosophy and to claim to want to major in a subject you've barely explored will be hard to make sound authentic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Philosophy major + hate math = law school in his future. May as well get him used to it now.

OP would like to say good not great math means GOOD not great. 750 on math SAT before junior year started. Probable NMSF based on PSAT. Just acknowledging he knows Phil has a lot of math and he's not out there winning olympiads or doing math on his own for fun. I probably downplayed it. He's good at math. Not a super star quant kid though

[Anonymous]

So by this definition it means if you are the #25 ranked school under USNWR ranking you are elite but if you are #26 you are not elite from a defunct magazine with some subjective rankings. Good grief. Eg. UVA is #25 so elite and #26 whoever they are are not?

No bias here. UVA and W&M graduate

[Anonymous]

Pitt has very strong philosophy program. Look at their honors B Phil degree.

[Anonymous]

If OP doesn't want her kid to be boxed out of internships by econ majors, he's not thinking about about a Philosphy PhD.

I do think I'd look for a school with good-sized full time faculty so kid will have a choice of electives . . .

If grad school in Philosophy is not the plan, you should target elite schools that value teaching -- i.e., SLACs. Most should have a strong history with Philosophy, so start with the top SLACs and cut down based on geography, campus feel, greek/non-greek etc.

Seems like 1500 early SAT and a 3.7 at a top private could be a good ED candidate for a top SLAC, so you might want to encourage your son to start thinking about ED if he's at all SLAC-curious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:full pay boy, 1500 SAT as a junior is taking it again. 3.75 GPA for known private.

Philosophy is intended major, but would like a school that isn't so competitive that he'll be boxed out of internships by the Econ people - or that allows kids with good not great math skills to add some Econ or data science or something to philosophy so he can leave with a job.

Good school based ECs and paid summer jobs, but no competitive summer programs (yet, he applied to some for this year)

location - not west coast, but otherwise open. size - open.

Do you think a declared philosophy major will be a hook at top schools? I would seriously investigate that. Few high schools teach philosophy and to claim to want to major in a subject you've barely explored will be hard to make sound authentic.

Some do though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Philosophical Gourmet Report has some useful data.

https://philosophicalgourmet.com/report-2022/undergraduate-study-2/

Also, when I was looking at this a year or so ago, I found a source that discussed undergrad options, but I can't find the link. It analyzed admissions to the elite U.S. phD programs and came up with a list of colleges that are successful in getting the students into them. "Elite" was defined by the author as top 25 “national research universities” or the top 15 “national liberal arts colleges,” plus NYU, Rutgers, Michigan, Pitt, and Reed due to the the top-five PGR ranking of their philosophy PhD programs.

All I have are my notes on it (apologies to source):

"Of the 183 students with listed U.S. undergraduate degrees, 106 (60%) hailed from the elite schools defined above.

Five universities contributed at least eight students to the list, that is, at least one student per examined PhD program: Berkeley (10), Chicago (10), NYU (10), Harvard (8), and Stanford (8). These five schools alone are responsible for 25% of listed students.

Several other elite schools contributed at least four students each: Rutgers (6), Princeton (5), Yale (5), Dartmouth (4), Reed (4), and Williams (4).

Each of the top ten ranked national universities contributed at least one student.

The full list of elite programs is: Amherst College (2), Berkeley (10) Brown (3), Carleton College (3), Chicago (10), Claremont McKenna, Columbia (3), Cornell, Dartmouth (4), Emory, Grinnell (2), Harvard (8), Haverford (2), Johns Hopkins (2), MIT, Northwestern (2), NYU (10), Penn (3), Pitt, Pomona, Princeton (5), Reed (4), Rutgers (6), Stanford (8), USC, Virginia, Washington U. St Louis, Wellesley, Williams (4), and Yale (5).

The full list of nationally ranked but nonelite schools is: Alabama, Arizona State (2), Auburn, Biola (2), Boston College, Brandeis (2), Cinncinnati, Franklin & Marshall, Furman, Houston, Illinois College, Indiana (2), Kenyon, Lafayette, Lewis & Clark, Marquette, Maryland-Baltimore County, Minnesota (2), Missouri-Columbia, North Carolina State, Northeastern (2), Oberlin (2), Pepperdine, Purdue, Sewanee, St Johns, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Stony Brook (2), UC Davis, UC San Diego (2), University of Missouri-St Louis, UNC Chapel Hill (5), UNC-Asheville, Union College, University at Buffalo-SUNY, Vermont, Wake Forest, Washington-Seattle, West Point, West Virginia, Westmont, Wheaton, Whitman, and William & Mary.

The top ten most awarded undergrad degrees in philosophy are Penn, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara (693), Boston College (654), UC Berkeley (644), Washington-Seattle (485), Wisconsin-Madison (478), UC Santa Cruz (468), Colorado-Boulder (428), and University of Arizona (426).

If OP doesn't want her kid to be boxed out of internships by econ majors, he's not thinking about about a Philosphy PhD.

I do think I'd look for a school with good-sized full time faculty so kid will have a choice of electives . . .

The point is that these are all strong philosophy programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:full pay boy, 1500 SAT as a junior is taking it again. 3.75 GPA for known private.

Philosophy is intended major, but would like a school that isn't so competitive that he'll be boxed out of internships by the Econ people - or that allows kids with good not great math skills to add some Econ or data science or something to philosophy so he can leave with a job.

Good school based ECs and paid summer jobs, but no competitive summer programs (yet, he applied to some for this year)

location - not west coast, but otherwise open. size - open.

Do you think a declared philosophy major will be a hook at top schools? I would seriously investigate that. Few high schools teach philosophy and to claim to want to major in a subject you've barely explored will be hard to make sound authentic.

Some do though.

like a lot of things, you have to show interest in activities done out of school. very few high schools have deep programming in bio medical engineering or AI or agricultural research or sustainable architecture. This is all done outside school. But agree, if kid hasn't done research or summer programming and just jots Philosophy in major box, it's not helpful. The opposite probably.

[Anonymous]

I don't feel like reading this entire thread so this may have already been mentioned but Pitt. They have a top ranked Philosophy department (or at least used to. Not sure what it is now)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amherst

At that point, just go to Williams

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pitt has very strong philosophy program. Look at their honors B Phil degree.

I'm a Pitt grad. Pitt Honors would be an excellent safety for this kid. More strongly recommended if the kid has very specific and individual research interests. And in study abroad (Oxford/Cambridge/ Marshall's Scholar competition).

My hesitation relates to internships. The prestige white collar job market is bad right now. Liberal arts majors have to find their own internships at most universities. At lower-ranked schools, the high-paying prestige corporate internships are more for business students than econ/liberal arts.

I think OP is hoping for a Top 10 university acceptance based on internships. So will have to decide what to prioritize in safety schools. Not likely to get all desired features.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Philosophy major + hate math = law school in his future. May as well get him used to it now.

OP would like to say good not great math means GOOD not great. 750 on math SAT before junior year started. Probable NMSF based on PSAT. Just acknowledging he knows Phil has a lot of math and he's not out there winning olympiads or doing math on his own for fun. I probably downplayed it. He's good at math. Not a super star quant kid though

Philosophy has almost no math at all, it has the basics of logic, but proof based math is much more difficult.

[Anonymous]

Boston College and Fordham have large and excellent phil departments.

U of Toronto is superb in philosophy. Huge, diverse faculty covering just about any type of philosophy.

Indiana U. doesn't have engineering, so you can actually major in something like philosophy without being laughed at. Excellent faculty, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Philosophical Gourmet Report has some useful data.

https://philosophicalgourmet.com/report-2022/undergraduate-study-2/

I've been disappointed with this site. It seems rather haphazard and makes a few shaky suggestions. For example, it comments favorably on Illinois Wesleyan, which reports just two full-time philosophy professors (along with two adjuncts), and Lawrence University, which reports just four faculty in philosophy.

Can you be more specific about what they say about those two schools that you disagree with?

The report states that "some strong regional liberal arts colleges have much stronger faculties (Illinois Wesleyan and Lawrence University are examples)." However, with just two full-time professors in its department (plus two adjuncts), Illinois Wesleyan appears to have too few faculty to teach a reasonable range of sub-areas of philosophy; Lawrence, at four full-time faculty, does somewhat better, but still appears lacking. As a suggestion, for a good range of coverage of sub-areas of philosophy, seven or eight faculty would seem to be sufficient and desirable, while substantially fewer than this figure may be problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Philosophical Gourmet Report has some useful data.

https://philosophicalgourmet.com/report-2022/undergraduate-study-2/

I've been disappointed with this site. It seems rather haphazard and makes a few shaky suggestions. For example, it comments favorably on Illinois Wesleyan, which reports just two full-time philosophy professors (along with two adjuncts), and Lawrence University, which reports just four faculty in philosophy.

Can you be more specific about what they say about those two schools that you disagree with?

The report states that "some strong regional liberal arts colleges have much stronger faculties (Illinois Wesleyan and Lawrence University are examples)." However, with just two full-time professors in its department (plus two adjuncts), Illinois Wesleyan appears to have too few faculty to teach a reasonable range of sub-areas of philosophy; Lawrence, at four full-time faculty, does somewhat better, but still appears lacking. As a suggestion, for a good range of coverage of sub-areas of philosophy, seven or eight faculty would seem to be sufficient and desirable, while substantially fewer than this figure may be problematic.

Illinois Wesleyan had some retirements or departures (I can think of one very good philosopher who retired or left) around the time that passage first appeared in the PGR. So I think it's just an innocent mistake. (No department with only two t-track faculty should be in that parenthesis.)