New York Times Career Planner, 1990  

‘Specific technical skills can quickly become obsolete, but philosophy emphasizes a skill that is needed in every technical area, which is the ability to take a vaguely formed problem and find precise ways to deal with it. Philosophers are playing a major role in artificial intelligence, computer program development and industrial applications of computational linguistics and teaching.’ 

Guide to the Graduate Record Examination Program 1996-1997, ETS

  • Students declaring an intention to go to graduate school in Philosophy:
    • score higher on the GRE than all but four other major fields (out of fifty recorded by ETS)
    • have the highest mean scores on the Verbal section of the GRE than any other major in any of the fields listed (mean score: 589)
    • get the third highest mean scores of any major on the Analytical section of the GRE (mean: 625)
    • score much higher in the Quantitative section of the GRE than any of the other Humanities
  • GRE scores for popular pre-Law majors:
    • Philosophy: mean 1807
    • Political Science: mean 1641
    • Communications: mean 1505
    • Public Administration: mean 1450
    • None of these majors did better than Philosophy students on any section of the GRE.
  • Philosophy students score higher than:
    • every other major in the Humanities and Arts
    • every major in the Social Science
    • every major in the Life Sciences
    • every major in Education
    • every major in Business
    • every major listed under "Other Fields."
  • Philosophy students score higher than four out of the six majors listed in Physical Sciences, and five out of the seven listed in Engineering.

 Philosophy and other standardized exams

  • LSAT (Law)
    • Mean Score for Philosophy majors is third to Mathematics and Economics (note higher than Pre-law majors)
  • GMAT (Business)
    • Excluding hard sciences, the mean score for Philosophy majors is either first or second
    • Including hard sciences, the mean score for Philosophy majors is tied for fourth
    • The mean score for Philosophy majors is better than any of the various Business majors (Accounting, Economics, etc.)
  • MCAT (Medicine)
    • Philosophy majors score higher on the MCAT than any other Humanities major
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