91´«Ã½

Graduate/Professional School

• Philosophy majors outperform all business and accounting majors on the GMAT.
• Philosophy majors outperform all other majors on the GRE Verbal and Analytic (and graph) and all other humanities majors on the Quantitative.
• Prospective philosophy grad 91´«Ã½ earn the highest mean score of 91´«Ã½ heading into any arts or humanities in all three areas of the GRE.
• Philosophy majors have the third highest acceptance rate to medical school.

Science

• See in Nature, April 23, 2021: the author, pursuing a PhD in genomic data science, explains how her philosophy major helped her think more deeply about ethics, logic and other big question.

The Business World

• See in Rolling Stone, January 31, 2024: “A philosophy graduate can help you unleash your true potential as a business leader – and help you take your business to new heights."
• See in BBC News, April 1, 2019: LinkedIn’s research on the most sought-after job skills by employers for 2019 found that the three most-wanted “soft skills” were creativity, persuasion and collaboration, while one of the five top “hard skills” was people management.
• See in Forbes, July 31, 2015: The Logic of Aristotle, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems, Wittgenstein On Communication, Rawls’ Veil Of Ignorance, all of these can make you a better manager.
• See in Forbes, July 29, 2015: ‘"Studying philosophy taught me two things,” says Butterfield, sitting in his office in San Francisco’s South of Market district, a neighborhood almost entirely dedicated to the cult of coding. “I learned how to write really clearly. I learned how to follow an argument all the way down, which is invaluable in running meetings."’
• See in The Huffington Post, March 2014: “In fact, many leaders of the tech world... say that studying philosophy was the secret to their success as digital entrepreneurs."
• See in Salon, July 2013: “Because it delivers real skills, philosophy doesn’t go out of fashion the way the vague, trendy subjects do."
• See in Bloomberg Businessweek, January 2010: “Forget economics. Philosophy offers a deeper, broader way of thinking to help guide companies through times made tougher by overspecialized experts.”
• See in The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 15, 2011: “some 91´«Ã½ are turning to an ancient study that they say prepares them not for a job, but for the multiple jobs they expect to hold during their lifetimes."
• See in The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 21, 2011: “On average nationally, business 91´«Ã½ enter the work force with higher starting salaries than those of humanities and social-science majors. By midcareer, however, some of those liberal-arts majors, including in political science and philosophy, have closed the gap."
• See in The Atlantic Monthly, June 2006. A founder of a consulting firm writes: “If you want to succeed in business, don’t get an M.B.A. Study philosophy instead.”
• See in The Guardian, Nov 20, 2007, on why philosophy graduates are all the rage with employers.

In General

• See in The New York Times, April 6, 2008, discussing the increasing interest in majoring in philosophy.

The Most Important Reason

Philosophy is FUN. The entire discipline is devoted to exploring answers to some of life’s biggest questions. Is there a God? What is a person? What is acting justly? Of what can we be certain?