2009 is the year, that I set in stone years ago, that I would make a thoroughly serious and dedicated effort to apply to a PhD program in philosophy. That means that my applications will be due in roughly 11 to 12 months. I do not know if anyone will accept me, but everything about my application has changed. I’ve become very familiar with a narrow subject that I want to pursue (17th century philosophy,esp. Spinoza), I’ve got years of college philosophy teaching under my belt, I’ve got a much stronger general knowledge of the history of philosophy, I understand upper tier graduate level work, and I will soon be a published author (although not directly tied to my field). If I do not make it, then roughly 15 months from now, I will need to do some serious soul searching. But if I do, it will be the fruition of many, many years worth of work and dreaming.
I’ve just started to research the schools that I would wish to attend. It looks like these are my dream choices, given particular professors, funding, and areas of specialization.
1.Princeton
2. New York University
3. University of Wisconsin, Madison
4. University of California, Los Angelas
5. Yale
This is rough; certainly, I need some safety schools (UW-Mad is not,by any means, a safety school for this subject, I believe), and I need to make sure that the profs teaching at these schools are truly people that I would enjoy having as a mentor. There is so much work to be done, but I am looking forward to it!
Natural Causes 
UW-Mad is ranked high up there in Engineering as well. I didn’t know it was a good Philosophy school. Best of luck. I figure that for your major the admission process must be very hard.
Kamran, you will want to look at those schools thoroughly in terms of faculty mentorship. I am honestly skeptical of all of them except for UW-Madison. Given the 17th Century thing, you might want to look at U. of Michigan, Duke, Ohio State, UC San Diego, U. of Pittsburgh, and University of Virginia.
Yeah, that’s excellent advice. I think that second to an excellent graduate student body is an excellent mentor. I hope I can find one that is also an excellent scholar. I’ll look into these schools you mentioned. Pitt is the high citadel of mainstream philosophy, though. That is the most wet of dreams.
Another bit of advice is to apply to many many places and do not apply to places not on Brian Leiter’s list. Purdue, for instance, is unranked. Only apply to the top forty or so, unless you don’t care about getting a philosophy job after grad school!
I’m a little surprised to hear an endorsement of Leiter’s list, although your reasoning is heavy on my mind. If I don’t get into an excellent program that gives me funding off the bat, I won’t go.
Also, despite how good a school is in 17th century philosophy in general, if they don’t have specific Spinoza scholars, they will be low on my list.
I don’t endorse Leiter’s list. Brian Leiter is a disease. The problem is that most people actually do appeal to the list, especially those philosophers in suits on hiring search committees.
Okay. That is sad.