MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY–MORE DISCUSSION WOULD BE WELCOME
The personal statement for a PhD program typically describes the student's interests and prior work, and makes clear how these make the student a good fit for a particular program.
A young philosopher at a school with a PhD program wrote wondering whether the Supreme Court's decision striking down affirmative action in admissions might (or should) change this. As the Chief Justice wrote in the majority opinion:
Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise…A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination. Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university.In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.
Here is how the philosopher who wrote to me put it:
I was just talking to some people recently who were of the view that [PhD application personal statements] should now be more like undergraduate admissions essays, insofar as they should also discuss personal hardship, etc. It struck me that some applicants may be advised to do this, and some not; so I thought it might help for there to be a general discussion of the issue on the most prominent blog in the field.
The background assumption, of course, is that some kind of affirmative action for applicants from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds should still be practiced. But to do so lawfully at this stage, it will not suffice to note that a candidate is of a particular racial background: it would require that somewhere in the application that the applicant be able to discuss the factors which the Supreme Court has said are still permissible considerations.
I would like to avoid a discussion of whether affirmative action in PhD admissions is desirable or defensible. Instead, I would like to hear (and I think my correspondent hoped to hear) what approach should be taken and what advise should be given to undergraduate students.
My own suggestion is that schools that want to be able to factor in permissible considerations (along the lines sketched by the Chief Justice) should ask for a separate statement "addressing obstacles or life experiences important for the committee to understand in evaluating your educational record" or something like that. I don't think trying to mix this in with the traditional and core purpose of the statement–namely, describing the applicant's philosophical interests and background, and how they fit with the program being applied to–is a good idea, and will just make the statements harder to write and more confusing to evaluate. So I would suggest: create a separate statement that is optional for applicants, but that might supply legally permissible information about an applicant.
Please include a valid email. Please also identify yourself, if not by name, then by current position (e.g., faculty member, applicant, current graduate student etc.).
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