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Some familiar laments here, but what can actually be done? I assume fees and policies are set at the university, not departmental, level. Thoughts? (Thanks to Andrew Vierra for the pointer.)
The application fees at my institution (Princeton) are set at the university level, but there is also a generous policy on fee waivers for those in need. We would also accept informal reporting of test scores, with an offer of admission conditional on the official scores arriving and matching the self-report (though that does complicate the record-keeping a bit). I wouldn't be surprised if other schools are similar, though such policies might be only informal and not particularly transparent.
I'm curious about the advice to apply to 10-15 programs, however. That is certainly an expensive proposition, and I see plenty of applicants (in political science) who apply to similarly large numbers of programs. But I tend to think that most should apply to about half that number. Too many students don't seem to have a realistic sense of where they ought to be applying or what tier of program is appropriate. Better advising, better self-evaluation and better research would probably help target applications a bit more and cut the costs dramatically.
Brian is right that these policies are typically set at the University level, not the Departmental level. The linked post and comments suggest two things that can be done, and I'd be in favor of both:
(1) Allow for self-reporting of GRE scores, and require official GRE scores to be sent only by applicants who are accepted and say they wish to enroll. (Actually, if it were entirely up to me, I'd not require GRE scores at all…)
(2) Similarly, allow applicants to upload photocopies of college transcripts, and require official transcripts to be sent only by applicants who are accepted and say they wish to enroll.
In both cases, offers of admission will be rescinded if the official documents don't line up with the self-provided information.
But we need to sell these changes to administrators who may view them as flaky/dicey. ("Rely on unofficial self-reported scores when deciding who to admit? Srsly?") One way is to push them as benefitting the university, by helping to increase programs' applicants pools. (Believe it or not, there are many graduate programs that wish to increase their applicant pools, and often their enrollment too.)
Another is to point to examples of other reputable institutions that have these policies, so that they seem more OK. Whether or not it's a good form of argumentation, saying that others do X is often an effective way of normalizing doing X. ("Look, I know it may seem odd. But Yale, Michigan, and the University of California – Riverside are all doing it, and their graduate programs are just fine. So why can't Georgia State do it too?" [NB: I just made up the places that 'do it.'])
So if other people can point to examples of programs that do these things, or have other reasonable cost-saving measures–best with URLs where the policies are announced–it would help those of us who work in graduate admissions make the case to our administrators to enact those policies.
I think most people probably agree applying to such a large number of schools is not the way things *ought* to be. But it won't take you much casting around on the internet to discover that the 10-15 range is basically the norm, and that *many* students actually apply to 20 schools or more. The reasoning is basically that admissions is a crapshoot, given the number of applicants, and as long as you're applying to decent programs with a decent file, you've got a decent chance of lucking out *somewhere* and you can sort of adjust your interests if you have to. The goal is graduate school ASAP, and this is a relatively effective way of meeting it. It's actually not all that dissimilar from the way philosophers approach the job market…
I don't think that's how it *should* be at all, but it's how it *is*.
Applying to 5-8 programs is not a very good idea. With the number of qualified applicants, getting into a well-regarded department is as much a matter of chance as it is of one's philosophical ability. Every year there are some students who luck into a spot at a top-10 program when they are either rejected at most other places or only admitted at programs with a much worse ranking. (Likewise, every year there are good students who do not get admitted anywhere, or who only get into lower-ranked programs.) Even though it's like playing a slot machine, the upside of a fortuitous landing at a top place is more than enough to make the gamble an advisable one.
The best advice for applications remains what I was told when I applied out of my MA a couple of years ago: if you can afford it, apply to all the top 50 programs. More generally, apply to as many as you can afford, because the admissions process is so full of randomness that it's very hard to predict what your results will be.
I realize that the admissions process APPEARS random to the applicants, but most often this is because applicants lack crucial information, such as what their letters of reference say, what the rest of the applicant pool looks like in a given year, and the idiosyncrasies of who is on the admissions committee and what his/her priorities are. Faculty recommenders can help with this problem by being very candid about a student's prospects, so that resources can be focused realistically on select programs.
Yes, this is right–getting honest and forthcoming recommenders is one of the best things an applicants can do, since it will help them develop a good strategy.
Even still, apparent randomness ends up being about the same as actual randomness, at least from the applicant's perspective. Based on feedback from faculty and recommenders at my MA, I figured I had a decent chance of getting admitted into one or two top-10 programs when I applied. But I got into none, and in fact didn't get into any top-20 programs either, even though every program outside the top-20 admitted me with extra funding. Maybe I was getting bad advice, or maybe it was just an extra competitive year and I had bad luck. Whatever the explanation, I was glad I applied to 18 total places–the more programs you can apply to, the better.
I agree with "A former MA student" about how much randomness there is in the process and, therefore, that applying to a ton of programs–or as many as one can afford–is a good idea. I'm always blown away by the results of our students' applications; e.g., they get into highly-ranked programs, not lowly-ranked programs, or, even in some tier, the results are varied. Of course there could be reasons for this, like that lowly-ranked programs might focus more on teaching than research, or that someone applying with an interest in philosophy of biology might not fit with the majority of faculties or whatever. But even with all that, I just think there are sufficient epistemic limitations that it's a hard nut to crack and that applying to some small number of programs is hugely risky. I had a student one time apply to 25 programs and only get into one (a top 20). Who knows why that happened, but it didn't make any sense. Applying to a small number just increases the chances of getting shut out.
Also, let me emphasize what some others have said, namely that fee waivers are widely available for qualifying candidates. I had a student one time apply to a lot of programs, all for free. It takes some work, but it can be worth the time. (I don't think the GRE or undergraduate transcript expenses are waivable, but the application waivers would at least cut things in half. I think any sane person would support the unofficial transcript/GRE thing until an offer of admission is proffered, but, as others have said, it's not departments that are making those decisions–and, of course, the administrators who do might not meet the sanity threshold.)
I'd like to echo the thoughts expressed by Fritz and MA Student. The rational thing to do, from an individual's perspective, seems to me to be to play it like it's a lottery. This is because there's just too much uncertainty about some incredibly important factors (as Brian emphasized) and, as the tide of applications rises, it is best to float rather than sink.
With all due respect to Mr. Whittington: it is easy enough to say that "better advising, better self-evaluation and better research" will cut the costs of applications. Two points: firstly, this isn't actually a simple cutting of costs–it is a substitution of costs (substituting one's time for one's money). Secondly, *whether* such a substitution is feasible for an undergraduate is heavily influenced by privilege.
Let me explain: if you were working a significant number of hours every week to pay your rent while going to school and accumulating debt for every semester you spend in school, chances are you have very few opportunities to take extra semesters devoted to doing academic research (outside of term papers, I mean) or extra time out of your day (away from work and school) to research the grad-school landscape (over and above the already incredible time demands of just applying to programs at all).
The end-result of this is that working-class students have few opportunities to develop the kind of competence necessary for accurate self-evaluation (and, honestly, have you *ever* met an undergrad who knew what she was talking about vis-a-vis her philosophical competency? the very notion is absurd) and knowledge about graduate programs that you recommend. And, finally, they will have spent much less face-time with their advisers (since, you know, they were busy working at the tutoring center or starbucks), who will in general be much busier and hence unable to give the kind of intense mentoring their students really need anyway. By contrast, for a full-time student at Yale (for example), the advantages abound. And maybe for him 5-6 programs is enough.
Two things that can reduce the cost of applying:
On the applicant's part: The advice seems to be trending, from both faculty and grad students, to apply to 15-20 programs on the grounds that this represents an ideal optimization of the odds of acceptance. Without commenting on the merits of this number, I would like to point out that 15-20 schools, in the abstract, will eventually turn out to be, in actuality, 15-20 schools with real names and real faculty members. It would be advisable, then, taking into account information such as the desirability of the city, feasibility of one's partner being gainfully employed, placement record of the school, etc., that one seriously ask the question, "Would I be willing and would it be prudent for me to accept an offer from School X [which as it turns out, is the 18th preferable 'choice' for the student]?" This may be a good reason to narrow down the number from 15-20 programs, because, although it is understandable that a student might, in the current climate, wish to get into ANY program, this will not necessarily be in the student's best self-interest.
On the philosophy department's part: Since it is accepted that departments do not have the power to change the price of applications, perhaps they can make the means to reducing this cost more explicit on their web page. Often graduate divisions will have waivers for recipients of financial aid, but this information is often hard to find and even more Byzantine to follow. That is, often to be eligible, there must be a letter sent (or scanned) from the student's current financial aid department stating that the student has received continuous financial aid since initial enrollment and that the cost of application would present an undue hardship. Sometimes very specific wording must be followed, and there are deadlines weeks before the application deadline, and then of course, the waiver has to be approved; it doesn't just "happen." If departments posted this information on their "Phd program" or "Prospective Students" page, it would save a lot of time, as I can say from personal experience, research on all the relevant aspects of 15-20 schools and their faculties is very time consuming. Lastly, to stave off any "students are lazy, they need to research their own waivers" objection, in my conversations with other applicants the majority are unaware of the existence of application waivers. So this would obviously serve as an informational token of good will as well.
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