Graduate Philosophy
Information
General Information
The JMU Career and Academic Planning center (CAP) has lots of helpful general information about graduate and professional schools. You can either stop by (they're located on the 3rd floor of Wilson Hall), or you can take a look at their nice website (replete with links):
http://www.jmu.edu/cap/graduate_school/index.htm
Timeline
Freshman year
(1) Work on your Gen Ed courses to leave
space for exploration/specialization as you
progress through your degree
requirements
(2) Learn how to balance classwork and
your preferred extracurricular activities
(3) Keep your grades up
Sophomore and Junior years
(1) Keep your grades up
(2) Take courses that grad/professional
schools like to see
(3) Cultivate relationships with
potential faculty recommenders
(4) Talk to
professors/students/family/friends about their grad/professional
school
experiences
(5) Consider internships/employment in
fields related to the studies you want to pursue
Senior year and beyond
(1) Study for and take admissions tests
early (GRE, LSAT, etc.)
(2) Keep your grades up
(3) Contact potential faculty
recommenders early about writing letters, and make
sure
to give them information and time to do
so
(4) Decide upon a writing sample:
revise, get comments, and revise again
(5) Research the grad/professional
schools you'll apply to, and make sure to meet all
deadlines
Philosophy information
The best starting point for looking at
philosophy graduate schools is the Philosophical Gourmet Report,
which attempts to do a U.S. News and World Report-style ranking of
major schools that grant graduate degrees in philosophy.
Though there is considerable disagreement about relative rankings
of departments, this will still give you a general sense of the
sorts of places to which you'll want to apply. The web
address is:
http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com
A much more basic, much more idiosyncratic
site that focuses on programs with strong programs in
continental philosophy is Ferit Guven's
Continental Philosophy page. Since I don't know this area
very well, make sure that you find other sources of information to
double-check this. The web address is:
http://www.earlham.edu/~phil/gradsch.htm
One other such site is the Hartmann Report,
which also should be double-checked. Its web address is:
http://www.geocities.com/athens/1575/report.html
Finally, don't forget to spend some time
familiarizing yourself with the GRE (that is, the SAT-equivalent
standardized test for admission to grad school). For
philosophy graduate school, you'll need to take the general
GRE. There are some other disciplines (such as biology,
mathematics, English, etc.) that require you to take a GRE subject
test in the appropriate area; for philosophy, there is no subject
test. Information about this exam can be found by clicking on
"GRE" on the following page:
http://www.ets.org
Law School
information
The single best place to look is the website of the Law School
Admissions Council (LSAC), which administers the LSAT. It has
information about law schools in general, the LSAT, and lots of
links to further information. The web address is:
http://www.lsac.org
The JMU pre-law website is also a good
information source. Its web address is:
http://caal.jmu.edu/PreLaw/links.htm
