Tecumseh Valley

Declined a funded offer from Oregon (PhD).

A hidden rejection list is far, far more likely.

I'll take your word for it that people do this.

FWIW, after an informal email and phone conversation with the DGS at my first choice, I am just waiting on the official offer to arrive before turning down other schools' offers. Others are probably in a similar situation, which is what delays things. We're not Bogarting spots as much as covering our bases.

I'd think so. Anything to give more feedback on the selectivity of the school's would be helpful for future applicants.

Good question. From Oregon - "we received 177 applicants for 7 PhD positions this year" It's unclear from this whether they admitted only 7 or admitted more than 7, hoping that 7 will accept their offer. We're not always in a position to know which the department means, so our estimate of the admissions rate will be just that, an estimate. Still, might be useful for future applicants.

In the interest of crowd-sourcing information, I wonder if we could pool together what we have learned from this year's admissions cycle about acceptance rates. Many times, our acceptance letters, rejection letters, or conversations with DGSs will disclose how many people applied for how many funded spots. So, it might be interesting to pool this information together. I started a spreadsheet here, and included samples with two schools that have been mentioned in our forums recently - Oregon and New Mexico. It's an openly editable document, meaning anyone with the link can edit.

First thought is that, if you want to apply to PhD programs in Phil again, and if you go to Duke, then take graduate classes in their excellent Phil department. That way, when you apply again, you'll have graduate courses on your transcript, showing that you can handle graduate level work in Phil. This will help overcome any questions that PhD programs have about your undergrad transcript. If you hit it off with any philosophy professors there, you also gain another recommender. David Wong and Owen Flanagan both work on East/West philosophy, mostly Buddhism.

Just to add to the chorus of voices saying that safe schools don't exist in PhD admissions, I would say not to infer anything about the admissions process from a school's place in rankings. Oregon received 177 applications this year for 7 funded spots.

What does the Notifications tab on the Wordpress site indicate? Do the colored blocks indicate the type of responses that have gone out? If so, that seems really useful, so would it also be updated for this year? https://philosophyadmissions.wordpress.com/notifications/ Thanks.

I've never checked my email's spam folder so regularly in all my life.

OK, you can't upload mp3s. How about linking to them - Acceptance reaction

When someone posts an acceptance, this is what I hear (clipped from Radiohead's "15 Steps"). cheering.mp3

crickets

Notice it's the other USC - South Carolina, not Southern California.