Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 12:49     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?




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
Post 02/09/2025 12:46     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
Pitt has very strong philosophy program. Look at their honors B Phil degree.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 12:44     Subject: Re:help us w college list for a philosophy major?
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
Post 02/09/2025 12:33     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
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
Post 02/09/2025 12:22     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
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
Post 02/09/2025 12:20     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
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 . . .
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 12:17     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
Philosophy major + hate math = law school in his future. May as well get him used to it now.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 12:12     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
Deep Springs
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 12:07     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
Anonymous wrote:Any Jesuit college will have a compelling and strong Philosophy dept and they run the gamut of competitiveness for admission. Boatload of options and geographical locs. Plus those nearby larger metro areas will have a strong network of alumni for jobs in business ex post facto. I’d investigate those kinds of school. Fordham, Loyola (Baltimore), St. Joe’s, Dayton, Marquette… the list goes on and on.


Jesuit colleges are amazing, but a kid with a 1500 from a known private is not going to St. Joe's or Dayton.

Georgetown/ BC/ Notre Dame (not Jesuit) will have good philosophy departments. I'd advise a SLAC (WASP, if you ED, might be a possibility, depending on the school).

FYI, philosophy, and esp. logic, is not as math-free as you may think.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 11:53     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
Anonymous wrote:Ivies/T15/T3 Lacs. For philosphy (or art history or english) majors to have the most success in the job market they need the name brand.


not with that GPA
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 11:50     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
Anonymous wrote:Consider St. John's College for a strong foundation in philosophy.


Don't. You may read the greatest hits at St John's, but philosophy as taught at mainstream universities is a highly technical field and a St John's kid would be sorely behind.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 11:45     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
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?
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 11:30     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
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.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 11:12     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
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).




Thanks so much for all this. So interesting.

And also for the Hamilton rec. We’re going there in April.
Anonymous
Post 02/09/2025 11:07     Subject: help us w college list for a philosophy major?
Amherst