MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 2--WITH UPDATES
A philosopher in Canada writes:
Graduate students applying to US institutions, or non-Canadians applying to some Canadian schools, don't have the same chance for consideration due to budgetary constraints such as lack of tuition waivers for foreign students, etc. This is, in the cases I've heard about, a University-wide issue and not something a department can control. But if this is the case, this information needs to be made clearly available to potential applicants. Many grad school applicants have a very limited budget and application fees are increasing at a staggering rate; to not let a student know they have a diminished chance of acceptance because of their nationality amounts to theft of their application funds by withholding germane information. Some departments may not want this widely known because it will, inevitably, diminish the overall quality of their applicant pool. But this is not a burden that grad applicants should bear - it is a problem the University (in these cases) is imposing on the department. If a school cannot make an equivalent offer to a Canadian versus US student, this fact needs to be clearly advertised on their webpage for grad applicants so that grad applicants with limited funding can make decisions about where to apply in the way they deem best for themselves.
I have to agree with that--it's a waste of everyone's time, and the applicant's money. I hope departments will make an effort to make this information as transparent as possible.
UPDATE: One foreign student writes:
As an international applicant to PhD programs this year, knowing which schools had limited aid for foreigners was a very relevant issue for me. I thought I would bring to your attention some programs that do make this information clear, which I certainly appreciated as I was deciding where to apply.
One of the clearest on this matter is UC-Riverside, with a separate section titled 'Warning for Foreign Applicants' on their main program information page. UC-San Diego also has a separate, detailed section, but it is not as clearly marked (it is in small, gray font rather than in the large blue one used for all other section headings.) UC-Irvine also addresses the issue, but it is much quicker and, therefore, easier to miss.
ANOTHER: Lucas Thorpe, a philosopher at Bogazici University in Turkey, writes:
I know that [the original] post is liable to cause mild panic amongst some of our students. I think it is worth mentioning that some programs are willing to waive their application fees for students from poorer countries.
And I think that the philosophical community should push departments at universities where foreign applicants are at a serious disadvantage to be more willing to offer foreign students from poorer countries an application fee waiver. In fact I think that philosophers at departments where foreign students are at a serious disadvantage have a duty to either make this clear on their webpage [which means that many top students will not apply] or to persuade their administrations to allow fee waivers for students from such disadvantaged groups. We learn about which departments find it hard to fund foreign students and if our students have to pay a hefty fee to apply to such departments we advise them not to apply. I'm sure that many people give the same advice to students. Good departments can lose many very good applicants this way. Most of our students can only afford to apply to a few departments - but they are good. We have former students at many to 20 departments.
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