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Part VI - Feedback
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Selected Feedback 2000/2001 |
"I just wanted to commend you on the additions (and subtractions) you made to the 2000-2001 report....I used your report in 1998 to navigate my way through the arduous and frustrating grad school selection process and it was an enormous help. This fall I am going through this process again to apply to Ph.D. programs. I am interested in social and political philosophy and the rankings by philosophical focus were quite helpful, as were your distinctions between Philosophical Problem-Solving and Philosophically Informed History of Ideas. I want to stress that it is your descriptions and helpful hints (as well as the rankings) that make this site so beneficial. Thank you for putting this site together!!!"
--an MA student at a ranked PhD program, September 23, 2000.
"Every year it gets better. The section on 'Problem Solving' and 'Philosophically Informed History of Ideas' is great."
--a PhD student at an unranked program, September 25, 2000.
"I have looked intermittently at your report for a few years and though I agree with many critics about the ambiguity of rating in general, it seems to me the young philosophical world is far better off with your report than without it. Especially with your removal of the analytic/continental distinction, I think you have [succeeded] tremendously with creating a report which gives people who may be unfamiliar, a broad overview of how programs are perceived within academia, and specifically, and perhaps most importantly, which programs have which strengths and weaknesses. It is also the most comprehensive site for linking to individual programs as I have found, and aims distinctly at helping the student rather than presenting a subjective critique of the schools out there."
--an MA student, October 13, 2000.
"[P]robably like most philosophy graduate students [I] have had something of a love-hate relation to your report. After looking at the 2000-2001 report, however, I wanted to drop a note applauding your division of the rankings into the problem-solving and philosophical history categories. This seems very sensible, and it makes the rankings by division much more illuminating than I think the combined rankings are."
--a graduate student at a top-ranked department, October 17, 2000.
"Thank you so much for continuing the philosophical gourmet report. It's an invaluable resource for those hoping to pursue graduate studies in philosophy, providing the kind of up-to-date and pertinent information needed to make informed choices that will have very real effects on their futures. The hard-nosed look at the realities of going through 5 maybe 6 years of graduate studies and the prospects thereafer is especially useful--passion should always be tempered with a fair sense of realism. You probably have no idea (or maybe you do) the number of people who have benefitted from your report all around the world. I do hope you will find the time to keep the report going for years to come."
--via hotmail, November 2, 2000.
"You cannot imagine how helpful this page is for us, students interested in philosophy programs....I hope you continue with this amazing job you have been doing. I am really glad I have the opportunity of checking this page for advice."
--a student in Brazil, January 11, 2001.
"I write merely to thank you and to congratulate you on the speed and accuracy of your updates [to the Report]....Our graduate students here have learned of [various offers and hires] from the Gourmet Report [update service] and not from faculty. The hiring process hasn't been cloaked in secrecy and our student representatives sit in on some meetings. Nevertheless, we are often either not informed or informed last about important developments. As we get news from the Report, we post it onto our grad student e-mail list and sit around making bets about when the people in the offices down the corridor will tell us."
--a PhD students at a ranked department, February 8, 2001.
"I am so excited when finding this web site. I am a senior undergraduate majoring philosophy at Peking Univ, China. Here it is very difficult to get some information about admissions of philosophy department in USA. You give me so much good advice that it is not enough just to say thank you very much."
--February 17, 2001.
"Thanks very much for your report; it's very helpful (and has a lot of wisdom in the spaces between the statistics and so forth)."
--an undergraduate at Cambridge University, March 7, 2001.
"[M]y deepest thanks for your website. It...is an excellent resource. Choosing a graduate program while trying to survive the undergraduate one you are already in can be quite hectic, as I'm sure you know. When my Professor recommended your site I was very grateful."
--a student in the United Kingdom, March 21, 2001.
"[Y]our site has made an amazing difference in recruitment this year. We received about the same number of applications as last year, though the quality was up. But I had not expected to do so well as I never had time to revise our brochure, update our www site, or to do mailings. That made no difference. All of our good applicants knew a lot about our program and had a good sense of its strengths and weaknesses, and most cited your site."
--a professor at a top 50 PhD program, April 9, 2001.
"I hate to sound like one of the gushing letters on the page, but [the Report] really did help in my application process, though probably more by letting me know where faculty had moved to and by putting lots of information together than the rankings themselves. I've been doing philosophy long enough that I can figure out who's good and where I want to work without the rankings, but I do see how they could be a help to others."
--an MA student, April 12, 2001.
"Your report is such a fantastic way to look at the strengths and weaknesses of schools and was invaluable to me in my Ph.D. application process."
--an MA student, May 2, 2001.
"This is really a well-thought service to the field. I'm impressed. The report has really matured, and you've dealt with the flak you've received in incredibly constructive ways."
--a professor at a highly ranked PhD program, May 8, 2001.
"For years I have used The Philosophical Gourmet Report as prepatory reading for any major I am advising about graduate school. I find the judgments in it measured, and its standard of full disclosure of descriptive data one that no professional can reasonably oppose. It represents a real service to the profession."
--a professor at an unranked PhD program, June 8, 2001.
"Your Gourmet Report is immensely informative and great fun to read. You are to be congratulated on it."
--a professor at a ranked department in the United Kingdom, June 28, 2001.
"I'm sure you hear it often, but thank you very much for writing [the Report] every year. I'm a Berkeley grad who's applying this year, and I'd be drowning in a sea of misinformation without it."
--August 3, 2001.
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About the Author |
Brian Leiter is the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Law & Philosophy Program at The University of Texas at Austin and a regular visiting professor in the Department of Philosophy and at the Institute for Global Law at University College London. He teaches legal philosophy, ethics, evidence, and post-Kantian German thought, especially Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. He is the author of Nietzsche on Morality, forthcoming in the Routledge Philosophy Guidebook series, editor of Objectivity in Law and Morals (Cambridge University Press, 2001); and co-editor of the volume on Nietzsche in the Oxford Readings in Philosophy series (2001). He is also co-editor (with Larry Alexander and Jules Coleman) of the journal Legal Theory and editor of the new Routledge Philosophers book series, a successor to the Arguments of the Philosophers series. Among his recent articles are "Legal Realism and Legal Positivism Reconsidered" (Ethics, 2001), "Moral Facts and Best Explanations" (Social Philosophy & Policy, 2001), "Prospects and Problems for the Social Epistemology of Evidence Law" (Philosophical Topics, 2001), "Classical Realism" (Philosophical Issues, 2001), and "Nietzsche's Metaethics: Against the Privilege Readings" (European Journal of Philosophy, 2000).
He can be reached at:
University of Texas
727 East Dean Keeton Street
Austin, TX 78705
bleiter@mail.law.utexas.edu
"The Philosophical Gourmet Report," Copyright © 2001 by Brian Leiter. The Report may be downloaded off the Web, copied and distributed without written permission only if distribution is free of charge and the content of this Report, including its name and authorship, is in no way altered, omitted, or deleted.
The Report is available exclusively at the Blackwell Philosophical Resources Homepage; there is also a link from Brian Leiter's Homepage.
Acknowledgements
In addition to the more than 100 philosophers who took the time to fill out the reputational surveys (listed earlier), I am also grateful to hundreds of professional philosophers and students throughout the English-speaking world for guidance, advice, and information. Their help makes this Report possible, and I extend my sincere thanks to all.
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