<p>I've been obssessed with philosophy since I started high school and now I'm a senior applying for colleges and I'm looking for the best school to major in it. I'm deadset on getting into a field relating to continental philosophy (I've read a bunch of the stepping stone books like The Republic, Candide, Brothers Karamazov, etc. outside of my high school curriculum)
However, does anyone have any idea where I should be looking into? My stats so far for college apps are</p>
<p>3.65 uw gpa
10 AP classes taken with a mix of gifted classes
ACT: 28
SAT: 1790 cr+m=1210 (I retook my SAT last weekend so it could be higher)
Service Chairman of NHS
Service Chairman of Beta Club
Blood Drive Manager
Informal Summer Internship at Emory's Carlos Museum
Tutored high schoolers in social studies subjects once a month and elementary schoolers every other weekend
URM (Nigerian-American)
Georgia</p>
<p>I'd love to hear some feedback please? Maybe I should see if I can retake the ACT in like December and do better? I'm really scared.</p>
<p>Most Jesuit schools are going to have decent philosophy programs. You stats are a little low for BC but since you’re a URN it might be worth a shot. Same is probably true for Fordham. St Joes in Philly might be a good match. </p>
<p>I think you have the right idea to just go for a small LAC with a good reputation for strong writing programs, and the liberal arts. You don’t need specifically some place known for a good grad program to get a strong undergraduate education. Then you can consider grad school.</p>
<p>However if you want to try to take more classes and electives in a specific area, you might look at universities that have a broader range of offerings and the ability to take grad level courses in your upper div. Then you could look at uni’s that have good grad programs as you will get to interact or be taught by grad students who are in strong programs and you will have a strong dept.</p>
<p>The deep springs school looks really, really cool but the application deadline already passed.
I like the whole uniqueness and prestige as it seems like many of the alumni go on into ivies. Are there any other schools like this though? I love the idea of small classes and a unique curriculum.</p>
<p>One of the great things about philosophy is that you can do a lot of the reading, maybe even some of your best readings, outside of your coursework. So even if a department isn’t “strong” in Continental philosophy, there’s nothing to stop you from reading it on your own or in an independent study course. All philosophy departments will have faculty strong enough to help you to decide which works to read and in which order. You could start now, in fact. The Republic is a good start. Read the Socratic dialogues, take a look at some of the pre-Socratics, read around in Aristotle and in his Ethics, and get a Hellenistic anthology and read around in it. For now, put aside the literature and read the words of the ancient philosophers (in translation, of course). </p>
<p>One other thing I’m saying by this is to suggest that you not get caught up in the name of the school or even its environs. The study of philosophy is going to go on inside your head; what you learn and how well you learn it and whether or not you go on to grad school is largely dependent upon the reading and writing that YOU do, not where you do it. </p>
<p>I always thought everything around the ancient trio (Pluto, Socrates, and Artistotle) to be so boring. I was way more interested in absurdist literature and stuff like Hume or Kant. </p>
<p>Are they too modern to be considered continental philosophy? </p>
<p>At most schools a philosophy major will require you to be thoroughly grounded in the major statements of all eras. But if you are comfortable reading Kant, that shouldn’t be a problem.</p>
<p>Partly I was suggesting that you dissociate the literature from the philosophy. It might be that you’re more interested in literature, and if that’s the case it can be studied from a philosophical point of view. </p>
<p>If you study philosophy, you will ground yourself in ancient philosophy whether or not you like it. Just so a literature major will ground him- or herself in “ancient” literature whether or not s/he likes it. In both majors you will find yourself reading (and maybe even liking) writers whom you previously didn’t like. You will have changed by the time you read them again; your teacher might get you to engage them in ways you hadn’t before. </p>
<p>Whatever you major in, there will be material you prefer to other material. College isn’t entirely a candy store where you get to pick and choose. There will be required courses even within your major. In fact, your major might have very few electives! </p>
<p>You don’t have to decide what to major in for a few more years. Most colleges will have good English departments. Some will have better philosophy departments. It doesn’t really matter where you go for these majors but what you do.</p>
<p>St. Johns is renowned for its Great Books approach to education. Take a look at their curriculum. There will be many gen. ed. requirements. It’s not for everyone. It might do you a lot of good, but you seem to be someone who wants to set his or her own reading agenda (which I don’t discourage you from doing but there will be required courses everywhere).</p>
<p>Tufts is a small (5,000 undergrad) university that feels like a Liberal Arts College. It is located in the cities of Medford & Somerville, next to Cambridge, and a few miles from Boston (which is easily accessible via the subway).</p>
<p>Tufts has one of the top Philosophy departments in the country, but it is not well known because it grants masters degrees, but no Phd degrees (so it does not show up in either the undergrad rankings or the grad rankings). </p>
<p>This type of department offers undergrads the benefits of graduate-level coursework while offering the “feel” of a Liberal Arts College (because there are no Phd students competing for the professor’s time).</p>
<p>Tufts is probably a reach, but essays are weighted more heavily than test scores and someone interested in philosophy has the potential to write the kind of essay that Tufts likes.</p>
<p>Georgia State is located in Atlanta and appears to be strong in your particular area of interest, but it is large (24,000 undergrads).</p>
<p>From another section of the philosophical gourmet webpage provided by @brownparent:</p>
<p>Daniel Dennett from Tufts is considered one of the world’s most influential thought leaders right now. I regret that I did not take one of his courses when I was there…</p>
<p>If you want a bridge between literature and philosophy, check out Pascal’s <em>Thoughts</em>. It’s accessible if you’re used to reading classical literature :).
Another reading that bridges literature and philosophy well is <em>The conquest of America, or, the question of the Other</em> by Todorov. I would also recommend Todorov’s <em>Facing the Extreme</em> but that’s more ethics than literature.
I would encourage you to take up foreign languages now - I’d suggest French and German if you haven’t studied one or the other.
St John’s may be too constraining for you since everything is required and you seem to want some leeway in what you’ll study. You may enjoy a little bit more flexibility in choosing your classes - in a more typical college, you’d have 1/3 classes in a variety of classes, 1/3 classes in your major, and 1/3 entirely up to you. Some colleges even have zero distribution or core requirements (Brown, Amherst, URochester, for instance).
Colleges that emphasize thinking and are accessible would be Wooster or Earlham. Also matches or safeties for you: Loyola Maryland, LMU-LA, Loyola Chicago, LeMoyne, St Louis University, UScranton… all are Jesuit universities and as such all have pretty good philosophy departments.</p>