Philosophy

Applications are accepted only for admission in the fall semester; there are no admissions for spring or summer semesters.

Applications should be received by JANUARY 15th to be given priority consideration for admission for the next fall semester. Applications received after January 15th will also be considered, but initial decisions on admissions and funding offers will be based on the pool of applications received by January 15th.

The University of Florida is a signatory to the April 15th Resolution of the Council of Graduate Schools. The Department of Philosophy will not require acceptance of a funding offer before April 15th.

We generally aim to have initial admissions and funding offers out by late February. Students who are placed near the top of a waitlist will be notified of their being on such a waitlist, but even if you are not notified of being near the top of a waitlist, you  may still be under consideration. The situation can change rapidly as we near the April 15th deadline, and you are always welcome ot ask about your status.

All applications are made online. You should first look at the university’s graduate admissions page, which includes official information on the general requirements for applying to any of the graduate programs at the University of Florida. Note that you can find additional information about the graduate school at UF on their general welcome page.

The general graduate admissions page includes a link to the online application menu., which is where you can actually start the application process. Note that the application form is designed to be used by all graduate programs at UF and does not include information on what specifically is required for applying to graduate study in philosophy. Those requirements are given below.

When you complete the online application form, you will need to pay an application fee and upload college transcripts. Those transcripts can be unofficial transcripts for the purpose of the initial application, though official transcripts will be required before entry to the program(s).

When completing an application, you must specify whether you are applying for the MA or for the PhD program; you cannot (unfortunately) apply to both in the same application. However, if you are applying for the PhD and wish also to be considered for the MA, you may indicate as much in your statement of purpose and, as appropriate, we may ask you to make an official application to the MA as well.

For application to either the MA or PhD, the department requires the following three things:

• At least three letters of recommendation
• A statement of purpose
• A writing sample

For letters of recommendation you will be asked to provide names and contact information for your letter writers, who are then contacted by UF to send their letters directly to the graduate school here. (If they fail to be contacted, they can be asked to send their letters directly to the Graduate Coordinator.) The statement of purpose and writing sample are things you will need to upload as part of the online application. Note that the application form online will not ask specifically for a writing sample, but it should have the option of uploading miscellaneous documents, and you should make use of that to ensure all needed materials are included.

You are not required to have a curriculum vitae as part of your application, but if you have one it should also be uploaded as part of the online application.

Note that the department does not require GRE scores; nor does it take them into consideration when deciding on admissions.

For more information on what is expected by way of the writing sample, statement of purpose, and letter writers, see the Frequently Asked Questions below.

The University of Florida serves a large number of students from outside of the United States, and the Philosophy Department is no exception. We very much welcome applications from international students. Potential international students are encouraged to look at both the  general international admissions page for the graduate school and the UF International Center for more information.

Applicants from countries in which the official language is not English are required to provide evidence of English proficiency. Accepted tests and the minimum acceptable scores are described in the international admissions page. The English proficiency requirements spelled out on that page are requirements on admission to the graduate school. But there are distinct requirements on being eligible for employment as a Teaching Assistant. Since nearly everyone planning graduate studies in philosophy will want such funding, you will need to keep these in mind as well.

For more details see the question about English proficiency tests in the Frequently Asked Questions below.

Funding is available in the form of Teaching Assistantships. You do not need to fill out any separate application form to be considered for a TAship. Every applicant is automatically considered for funding as a TA. Both MA and PhD students are eligible for, and routinely funded by, Teaching Assistantships. Note that the generic application form may ask you for documentation supporting an application for an assistantship, but that is not something you need to do; it is there for other programs.

We presume that students applying for these programs will only attend if provide funding and aim to admit only those students we can provide funding for or which have an independent source of funding. If you have independent funding of some sort that you plan to use, please note as much in the statement of purpose.

A Teaching Assistantship comes with an annual stipend, a tuition waiver for full-time status (3 courses per term) during fall and spring semesters, and eligibility for inexpensive  health insurance.

Graduate students who have completed the coursework required for the MA are also eligible to serve as the primary instructor for a course. More advanced students are given the chance to apply for teaching as the primary instructor over one of the summer semesters, which provides additional funding and opportunities for developing as a teacher.

Applicants need not have a previous degree in philosophy to apply, though having such a degree is obviously an advantage. At a minimum, an applicant needs to have some significant coursework in philosophy to be given serious consideration.

Applicants with a more modest background in philosophy might be well advised to pursue an MA before applying to PhD programs. In fact, it has become increasingly common for philosophy students (even those with a BA in the field) — to complete an MA degree first, before applying to PhD programs, hoping thereby to be more competitive as a result.

Students with a degree in some area outside of philosophy are certainly welcome to apply, supposing they have some significant philosophy coursework as well. It is not uncommon to see students with previous degrees in physics, computer engineering, political science, history, and so on, do quite well in pursuing advanced degrees in philosophy. This is no surprise, given that philosophical issues arise in such a wide variety of areas in the first place.

A statement of purpose should provide background on your experience with and interest in philosophical work, information on any academic work outside of philosophy in  your past that you believe may be relevant, and an account of your longer term goals and how the degree program fits into those.

It may also include an indication of what areas of philosophy you are especially interested in and expect to specialize in, though you should not feel committed to sticking to that area, as your interests may evolve while here.

There is no requirement that prospective PhD students communicate with potential dissertation directors ahead of time or even that they specify faculty with whom they’d like to work at that early stage. Of course, you may already have certain faculty in mind, and if you do so, you are welcome to specify them in your personal statement to indicate your interests.

There is no particular expectation regarding the length of a statement of purpose. Apparently the generic application used by the graduate school indicates a specific word count for this, but you should disregard that and upload a statement of whatever length best does the job described above.

Your writing sample should demonstrate your philosophical skills in arguing cogently, anticipating and responding to objections, writing clearly, and seeing what issues are important for addressing the topic at hand.

There is no requirement on the length of a writing sample, but very long papers are not recommended. As a rough recommendation, something the size of a conference paper (typically 3000 – 4000 words) is a reasonable target to aim for. But this is just a rough target, and if you have something very good that is not within that range, that is not in itself a problem. We certainly won’t be checking word counts on writing samples!

If you have a large thesis done as an undergraduate or as an MA student elsewhere, it is not expected or recommended that you send the complete thesis as a writing sample. You can of course submit something drawn from some part of such a larger work, though the sample you send should be self-contained.

There is no general expectation that your writing sample must be in the area of philosophy in which you hope to specialize. What is most important is that it be a clear paper that shows both argumentative skill and a good comprehension of the philosophical issues.

Ideally, you should have three letters from philosophy professors who can speak to their assessment of you as a philosophy student — your written work, verbal skills in discussing philosophical questions, ability to learn from criticism, and so on. Letters from professors who are not themselves in philosophy but in other academic areas can be useful, but it is critically important that most of your letters (so, at least two) be from people who are already recognized as professional philosophers.

It is recommended that you speak to your letter writers about providing a letter far in advance of application deadlines so as to give them adequate time to review your work and their experience with you and be able to write a genuinely helpful letter.

The minimum requirement is three letters of reference, but you are able to have additional letters sent. Up to five in total would be welcome; more than five would be excessive.

As described above, there are English proficiency requirements for admission to the graduate school, but these are distinct from the requirements for eligibility to work as a Teaching Assistant. The admissions requirements are given on the international admissions page. As you can see there, for admission the required score on the most commonly used test (TOEFL-iBT) is 80. The requirements for being eligible to work as a TA are somewhat more complicated.

For TAships, there are three tests, any one of which can be used to establish eligibility: the TOEFL-iBT (the speaking portion), the IELTS Academic speaking section,  and the SPEAK test. For each test there are two thresholds: the higher threshold that allows one to work as a Teaching Assistant without any conditions and a lower threshold that allows one to work as a Teaching Assistant only on the condition that one enroll, during one’s first term working as a Teaching Assistant, in a special class (EAP 5836) designed to improve English speaking in an academic context. Failure to earn a score that reaches that lower threshold leaves one ineligible to work as a (standard) Teaching Assistant for the Philosophy Department.

• For the TOEFL speaking section, the higher threshold is 28 and the lower threshold is 23.
• For the IELTS Speaking Band, the higher threshold is 8.5 and the lower threshold is 7.
• For the SPEAK test, the higher threshold is 55 and the lower threshold is 45

The SPEAK test and the EAP 5836 course are administered by the UF English Language Institute. You can find more information on the test requirements and the EAP 5836 course on their International Teaching Assistant Support page.

If your native language is not English, we strongly recommend that you take either the TOEFL or the IELTS prior to applying and have the scores sent to UF so that we have those in making admission and funding offers. Any offer of funding through a TAship is conditional on the student’s meeting the English proficiency requirements.

The standard Teaching Assistant position is one in which the TA is supervised by a faculty member teaching a larger class (that is, 60 or more students) that meets as a large group for two hours a week and is broken up into smaller groups for discussion once a week. The TA is responsible for meeting with the students in those smaller groups as well as grading student work and holding office hours. The faculty member supervising the TA will work with him or her to plan out the activities during the once-weekly discussion meetings, to establish appropriate standards for grading student work, and so on.

All incoming graduate students with a Teaching Assistantship are required to attend both a university-wide orientation for TAs and the Department of Philosophy’s own in-house workshop for new TAs prior to the start of the semester. The workshop includes a review of expectations, practice exercises, and interaction with experienced TAs to gain advice and strategies for working as a TA. If you have never taught before, the prospect of working as a TA may be nerve-wracking, but the graduate community is very supportive in helping new students become acclimated, and the workshop should make the new experience go more smoothly.

Graduate Teaching Assistants are represented by GAU (Graduate Assistants United) who collectively bargain on behalf of TAs here at UF,

There are several opportunities for participating in such activities at UF’s Department of Philosophy.:

• The department enjoys a number of “working groups” in various areas that involve both faculty and graduate students; these involve regular meetings at which members present work in progress to get feedback.
• The department regularly hosts philosophers as visiting speakers for its colloquia series, as well as in-house talks by faculty, all of which graduate students are encouraged to attend.
• Graduate students organize a conference each year (the Southeast Graduate Philosophy Conference, or SEGPC).
• Graduate students are able to apply for funding for travel to academic conferences, where both the university in general and the department in particular are able to kick in money for this.
• The Florida Philosophical Association is the state’s professional organization for philosophy and holds a lively conference each year; UF graduate students frequently participate, often as speakers selected in a blind referee process.

For more information on activities and other resources see the Department Activities page under the general “Resources” tab on the main department page.

Yes. Taking such courses requires permission of the Graduate Studies Committee, but so long as the course can be taken consistently with meeting the requirements for philosophy courses and serves the student’s educational purposes, it is likely to be approved.

The department encourages graduate students to develop interdisciplinary strength in this way. One aspect of this is found in the Ethics of Technology Graduate Concentration that is an option for PhD students, as satisfaction of the requirements for that concentration can be done in part by taking outside courses in the relevant areas.

No. The application system does not provide us with any means to do fee waivers. The fee is, however, relatively low compared to many other programs; as of the 2023 admission cycle the fee was just $30.