<p>I’m looking to transfer to a top tier school to be more competitive for Philosophy grad school. </p>
<p>The top tier schools that are easiest to transfer to are Vanderbilt, Emory, and Georgetown. According to philosophicalgourment.com (the go to for Philosophy grad school rankings), none of these Philosophy Phd programs are rank worthy. </p>
<p>My current school, Florida State University, is rank worthy but not a top tier school.</p>
<p>I don’t really know what to make of this all. On one hand I hear/read that it’s important to go to a top tier school, and on the other hand I know that a higher ranked philosophy program = more eminent professors who have more weight in college recommendation letters. </p>
<p>I’m just looking for advice/perspective. Thank you so much!</p>
<p>I found myself in an almost identical situation and transferred from a public state school to an Ivy League school. </p>
<p>My advice: Don’t do it!</p>
<p>This is basically for two reasons. First, I easily got a 4.0 in the state school. If you are doing the same, I suspect you imagine you can translate your success at a typical school to an elite schools. You cannot (sorta). You will invariably - if you work very hard - wind up with a 3.8-something, and then you will look like every other 3.8-something person going to a top school. It will also, frankly, take much more work and time and effort, be less fun, and not provide much more intellectual stimulation (what I found: the classes themselves do seem more intellectually stimulating, but you don’t have the ability, like you do at your typical state school (assuming you are a good student) to explore and take classes as you want without getting an academic drubbing. You have to be more precise, which is less conducive to learning.) Second, as I said, why spend the time and money and effort going to a new school when you can sort of easily get good grades at Florida State and just finish your degree in, say, 3 years with a much higher GPA? I do not think having half a transcript from the schools you have mentioned will really do you much better. If you are intent on transferring solely for the purposes of preparing for a PhD in Philosophy, you would be better served going either to Rutgers, Pitt, or NYU. They have literally the top 3 departments in the English speaking world, and all are easier to get accepted into.</p>
<p>Of course, if someone had told me all this when I was in your position I would not have heeded the advice, so I feel a little badly not being supportive. But I might seriously suggest that you consider enjoying what you have now: A much cheaper, more care free university, where if you work hard you will get much better grades and be able to graduate earlier (and then move on to whatever top school for Grad school). </p>
<p>I should also mention that if you are considering law school as an alternative, good grades and a quick graduation from FSU will once again also be much more valuable than getting bogged down in the time, money, & effort of the schools you have mentioned.</p>
<p>In any case, how many times are you willing to apply to Philosophy PhD programs? There’s a good backlog of applicants now who would’ve been able to get in in the last few years had it not been the budget cuts, forcing departments to cut slots.</p>