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Bryterlayter

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    2017 Fall

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  1. Totally feel the same way. My first predicted is February 3rd but the majority are February 10-March 1, and I'll be out of town when I should be receiving 4-6 answers :/ Trying to stay calm and collected about all of this but most people are sick of me complaining and freaking out about all of this. I just want to be done with it already.
  2. It's been mentioned in the forum a few times, it's a group called "Philosophy Graduate Applicants 2017".
  3. They said Michigan State, isn't that different?
  4. I didn't apply to these schools but thought I'd mention that some people are reporting that Ohio State and Michigan State have sent out decisions today.
  5. Sorry your job sucks. I know the feeling, I'm half employed but looking for a second job. If there are enough people interested, we should totally do a KAL. What would we do? Probably something relatively easy so more people could participate and something gender neutral, so maybe a scarf? Or we could do it for the entire TGC to attract more people.
  6. I'm spending way too much time on TGC but when I'm not here, I'm knitting, playing with my dogs, or running. Or having a caffeine overload. Maybe we should start a philosophy knitting group, or a philosophy themed KAL haha. Also, anyone else having anxiety issues with all of this? I constantly feel sick to my stomach now just thinking of the applications.
  7. I posted about this in another thread but I went to UNM for my undergrad and took courses with the grad students. They used to send out their results pretty late, a few years back it was nearly April 1 and AFAIK it's always past March 1. So I wouldn't worry about getting your results for awhile. If you have any questions about UNM I'd be happy to help.
  8. I've just got to say something about the GRE scores because this has been driving me crazy. A 165 is "acceptable"?? We already know that schools only use the GRE scores as a guideline, so how is that only being in the top 5% is "acceptable"!? The people who take the GRE are smart and trying to get into grad school also, if you were taking the test with your average Joe-Schmoe then sure, top 15% makes sense. But people keep saying that you need to have these ridiculous high scores and let's face it: Having perfect GRE scores doesn't guarantee any acceptance. As long as you get above 150 on everything (above 50th percentile), and probably 4.0+ on the writing (since writing is important for philosophy), I think it's perfectly fine. All of my professors have agreed with me and said to not stress about it and just get above 150. Other people have said that you'll only be admitted with scores above 160 and I think that's ridiculous too. Just pass and focus on what matters (good writing sample, good grades, etc)
  9. Unfortunately I don't have the time to help with this but it's a great idea. The only other information I wish you included was statistics on acceptance rates. Sometimes they are published on the universities' websites but sometimes they are in the rejection letters, e.g. "We were unfortunately only able to admit 3 of the 200 applicants". Otherwise, the website is very comprehensive. I hope you're able to find a new editor.
  10. I should clarify and make sure it is understood: I'm not saying they are good reasons to reject someone, xypathos just asked for a few reasons and I listed some that I thought of or had heard of in the past. There are plenty of reasons that go against them (like avflinsch mentioned), though I would argue that the chance of an older student being accepted into a graduate program for Data Science or something in the professional world (ie not teaching in a university) is much, much higher than in philosophy or programs where the goal is usually teaching at a university.
  11. When I hear about conferences not being a good thing, it's mostly when students are embarrassed of their work later or they didn't think it through far enough and can be embarrassed by the questions and comments at a conference. But I'm mostly talking about graduate student conferences, because I've never heard of graduate students being accepted to full, professional conferences (unless they specifically said they would be looking for a few graduate students to give presentations). Nearly everyone I know didn't give any presentations or papers and I was told I shouldn't worry about it until I'm 2+ years into my Phd or later.
  12. Interesting. You specifically mentioned Canada, did you come to these views because you went to school there? I'm in the US and most of my professors have disagreed with this. Not strongly, though.
  13. I agree with Glasperlenspieler, don't have much else to say on the topic, though I'm not sure if publishing in a subpar journal when you're young would affect you too much. I see it more as working up the ladder, but if you were midway into your career and still only getting published there, I could see it working against you. I didn't have any conference work or publications in my undergrad and was told it wouldn't matter too much and I shouldn't stress it. It probably helps if you do, sure, but it isn't as big of a deal as it is in other fields eg sciences. I was told that getting experience in classes and being prepared for what you want to study is the important thing. For example, if I want to study ethics, it would be a good idea to show that I've already taken multiple classes in the subject and maybe even begun to learn the appropriate languages for whoever I'm interested in studying in the field. For some reason though, I've noticed that philosophy doesn't tend to push language work early on that much unless you study ancient or eastern, so if you haven't learned the language of the original texts at all and you aren't in either of those fields, I wouldn't worry about learning them until grad school.
  14. Some of the reasons that could be considered for rejecting older students from graduate school: 1. Why is the student trying to change fields? (Eg the concerns of what happened in their previous field that made them leave) 2. Older students might have a hard time finding a job later. Universities may be reluctant to hire someone who is 55 when they will want to retire at 75 when they can hire someone who is in their 30's or 40's. This goes back to deciding to allow those students into their graduate programs: If they take on a lot of older graduate students and they can't find jobs in academia, this affects the university's placement record. One related concern I've heard is that some universities don't want to hire older candidates because they are starting in the field late and have less time to contribute. 3. Like xypathos mentioned, life tends to get in the way for older students more than it does for younger students. Of course, anyone can have health problems but the chance that someone older will have them and miss classes/drop out is greater, or that they'll drop out of the program to start a family (which a 22 year old likely wouldn't do). Most of the young grad students don't have established families, whereas many of the older students already do. 4. For people who took big breaks between their undergrad and grad school, they might be rusty and not remember as much as someone who is fresh out of their undergrad, or maybe they don't understand the academic culture anymore. 5. For smaller universities, an older graduate student might find it hard to relate to the younger graduate students, leaving them excluded. 6. What I've seen a few times: The older students think that their experience of just being older makes up for a lack of actual experience in the field. So a 23 year old could have studied philosophy for 4 years and published a paper, whereas a student in their late 30s took fewer classes in philosophy and didn't publish, but thinks that their maturity makes up the difference. Others might be able to suggest other reasons, those were just the ones I thought of off the top of my head. (Also just missed the typo in my original post! Whoops, I edited it a few times and missed it)
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