Want to get a PhD in Philosophy? Prestige matters!

Transfer Students UC Transfers
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I transferred from a CCC to UC Berkeley as a Philosophy major in 2016, and I’m now gearing up to apply to PhD programs in Philosophy. I’m not sure whether this advice applies to PhD programs across the board, but if you want to be a Philosophy professor, the prestige of your undergraduate institution is extremely important (at least for analytic philosophy, and probably for continental philosophy as well).

If you plan to transfer to a school that is not ranked on the Philosophical Gourmet Report (http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/overall.asp), which is the authoritative rankings of Philosophy departments, you should reconsider. (There are some exceptions - it’s well-known that Reed has an excellent Philosophy department, but they don’t have a graduate program, I think, so they aren’t included in the PGR rankings.)

This is because professional philosophy is extremely elitist. Famous professors at top schools all know each other, and trust their opinion - so an applicant whose letter of recommendation writers are well-known professors is likely to be accepted over an applicant whose letter writers are not well-known. Moreover, suppose you do go to a PGR-ranked school, and you apply to school X. If someone on the admissions committee at school X knows one of your letter writers, they might give your professor a call to ask about you. I’ve been told by my professors that this happens pretty often - and here, too, going to a top institution and getting close with top professors proves to be very useful in your application. Letters of recommendation are a huge part of the PhD application, so all of this is really important to keep in mind.

A philosophy professor at UCR said, “To my knowledge no UCR undergraduate has ever been admitted to a top-15 philosophy Ph.D. program (certainly not in the 10 years I’ve been here), though we’ve had some students with straight A’s, very strong letters, and excellent writing samples” (http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2007/09/applying-to-philosophy-phd-programs.html). This is not to say that, if you go to a non-PGR ranked school, you won’t get into a top school; one of my CC professors went to UC Davis, and then got his PhD at MIT. But it is much more difficult to get into a top school if you’re not already coming from a top school.

Also, when you apply to PhD programs, you want to have the best writing sample you can. It is extremely helpful to be close enough with well-regarded professors that they will help you with your writing sample. Generally speaking, these professors are well-regarded because they’re good at philosophy, so working with well-regarded professors will help improve the quality of your writing sample. (It is fine to work with professors who are not as well-known, of course, if you are comfortable with them, and their writing is good. But it is seriously advantageous to work with people who are leaders in their field.)

I wish I knew how political and elitist academic philosophy was before I even applied to transfer from CC (not that I regret it, I love it of course!) Bottom line, if you want to get a PhD in Philosophy, it would seriously improve your chances to transfer to a top 10-20 PGR-ranked school (ideally UC Berkeley and UCLA, but UCSD, UCI, and UCR have strong analytic philosophy programs as well.)

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  1. NYU
  2. The rest
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Thanks for posting. This article also reinforces that:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/angst/201111/realities-studying-philosophy-non-elite-school%3Famp

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Another way to look at it: If you want a PhD in philosophy, attend an undergrad school with a high rate of matriculations into philosophy PhD programs. Data like https://www.pomona.edu/sites/default/files/bacorigins_2003-2012.pdf
might be helpful, though it’s for all of Humanities (I don’t know if WebCASPAR/HEDS breaks it down further).

Doesn’t the prestige of the graduate institution outweigh that of the undergrad?

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The same is true of English PhD programs. Many people on this forum like to espouse that “where you go to school doesn’t matter,” but in my professional experience, that’s not true. I wish it were true, but it’s not, and I feel that many students act on wishes rather than realities. Of course, I’m not typically recommending many people pursue English PhDs anymore, unless they have a hook or wish to do it for personal but not professional reasons.

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@vonlost Once somebody is in a good PhD program, it’s true that it doesn’t really matter where she completed undergrad. But getting into a top PhD program without a prestigious undergrad degree is much more difficult than if one does have a prestigious undergrad degree.

So, if one really wants to be a philosophy professor, she should go to the best PGR-ranked school that she can, for undergrad. That will help increase her chances of getting into a good PhD program, which will in turn increase her chances of getting a desirable job. (Even the very top graduate programs don’t have great job placement rates, and there are different types of teaching jobs in academic philosophy, but roughly speaking, this is true.)

You’re absolutely right that one should look at which undergrad programs have high matriculation rates into good PhD programs. One good way of doing that is looking at the websites of top 10 PGR programs in order to see which schools the graduate students attend. For the most part, grad students at top schools come from the top undergrad institutions, with some exceptions (i.e. liberal arts colleges, such as Reed and Pomona).

But I want to urge against attending a private school that places students into top PhD programs, if doing so will put a student into a lot of debt. UC Berkeley and UCLA are excellent schools, and they cost much less to attend than schools like NYU or Reed, typically - so if you’re in the CCC system and want to get a PhD in philosophy, it makes sense to choose Berkeley or UCLA over an expensive LAC/private school. Unless you don’t have to worry about the cost, of course.

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Will note this quote from their website:

"Many schools that do not offer a PhD or MA in philosophy, have strong, research-active philosophy faculties, for example, Amherst College, California Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College, Reed College, University of Vermont, Wellesley College, and Western Washington University, among many others. The colleges in the Claremont system (Claremont-McKenna, Pomona, Pitzer etc.) have, collectively, excellent faculty resources for philosophy students as well. Needless to say, many other good liberal arts colleges and universities that only offer a B.A. have strong philosophy faculties (i.e., faculties doing philosophical work at the research university level) and offer good undergraduate programs. In general, when looking at the philosophy department of a liberal arts college or university without a graduate program, you should look at two things. (1) Does the department provide regular offerings in the history of philosophy (ancient, modern, Continental), formal logic, value theory (moral and political philosophy), and some combination of metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. You will need courses in most of these areas to be adequately prepared for graduate study, not to mention to get a serious education in philosophy. (2) Where did the faculty earn their PhD? The majority of the faculty at any good department should have earned PhDs from well-ranked programs (as a rule of thumb, those in the top 50). "

These schools wouldn’t show up on the rankings of graduate programs, but they still prepare students well.

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@nostalgicwisdom Absolutely! Institutions that don’t have graduate programs will not show up on the PGR’s rankings, but many of them are known to have strong philosophy departments. Frankly, if one can afford it, I think it’d make much more sense to go to Reed than UC Davis, even though Reed isn’t on the PGR and Davis is.

I think it’s correct to say that Reed, Wellesley, the Claremont colleges, etc. count as prestigious institutions to PhD admissions committees. I’ll edit my original post to make that qualification.

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Ah, but there’s a huge difference between the latter two, since NYU does not meet full need like Reed and some others do. With low to moderate family income, meet-full-need schools can cost less than UC, even for in-state students.

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Many of those schools give meet full financial need for transfers, and some are no-loans for all students on aid or those with a particular income, so the cost difference might not be as stark as the sticker costs may imply. I think transfer students interested in graduate schools should certainly look into the top LACs.

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That’s good to know! I didn’t know that so many LACs met full financial need. Since top LACs tend to have strong philosophy departments, attending one makes a lot of sense if one wants to get a PhD.

I should add that going to a strong MA program can boost one’s chances of getting into a top PhD program. So if you study philosophy at UCD, for example, but you don’t get into a strong PhD program off the bat, you can go to a good MA program and try again. That’s a huge time investment, but plenty of people do it, and consequently end up at a top PhD program.

(Edit: it turns out I can’t edit my original post - oh well!)

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Since all the UC’s have now released transfer decisions: bump.