Billy Goehring

I think they're still going out. Historically, it's taken a while for the waitlist to be notified. Many of us were originally on the waitlist (myself included!), so don't interpret a waitlist offer as bad news should you end up on it.

Congratulation to all those who have already received offers and put on waitlists! I'm a current PhD student at the University of Oregon; I stop by every once out of curiosity (now that I'm not madly refreshing the results page, preserving a thick cloud of anxiety and stress out of what must have been deep-seated masochistic tendencies). Anyway, I wanted to highhhhly recommend reaching out and contacting current students at your prospective schools, even if you aren't slated for a campus visit. It's been said (but bears repeating) that you're not only deciding the next several years of your professional and intellectual life, but your social and personal life as well. Getting a sense for how graduate students get along, whether or not there's a sense of community of camaraderie among them, whether they're generally enjoying their lives [at that school, in that city, in that part of the world, in that climate, in that dating pool, etc]. Of course, if you've been accepted to Oregon, are on the waitlist, or are just interested in our program, I'd be happy to chat! I'm a little biased (obviously), but I can promise to be as honest and informative as possible. Consider me a very, very early welcome wagon (as I have been for a few years now).

That was my best guess. I'm just surprised that they took it as grounds for declining an offer ("Would have declined anyway").

Interesting! They told us grad students that there were 190 or so this year; someone should have been more careful. But yeah, because our program is unique with regard to our feminism requirements, because we have several people who do American philosophy (i.e. Pragmatism, Native American Philosophy), and because we're a SPEP school with several continentalists, we tend to draw applicants from wide and far. I think that's what accounts for how competitive admissions are here.

No, not at all! It's only alarming because it means someone's talking trash. Btw looks like you're having a good season! Excited to see where you go.

As a current student at Oregon, this really surprises me. For what it's worth!

My only concern is that placement doesn't appear to be enough of a factor in determining the list. I don't have a dog in the race, since I'm Continentalist through and through, but it seems to me that this is meant to be a ranking for professional philosophers (or those aspiring) by professional philosophers. The "quality" of a department's faculty is certainly pertinent information for aspiring students, but that quality won't mean much if it can't get you a job. While most of the time a high ranking corresponds to a high placement rate, this isn't always the case. An applicant might shy away from a T50 school simply because of its ranking, even though it may have a stellar placement rate. It's not restricted to philosophy--one of my exes was in the English department at Brandeis. While nowhere near its neighbor, Harvard, in terms of ranking or pedigree, Brandeis PhDs routinely found employment in TT or Tenure-related positions. Brandeis has a better placement rate than Harvard, in fact. I wish this was more explicit in the PGR and other department rankings.

In a lot of philosophy departments, alas, this is the rule rather than the exception. I've been to quite a few departments that I would describe as "viper nests." Everyone is out for blood, and the most aggressive are usually also the least insightful/nuanced/attentive to the text itself. In my experience, it usually comes from deep-seated anxiety and insecurity. Many philosophy students (and many graduate students, generally speaking, I'd wager) have a gnawing fear of being perceived as inadequate. I've taken many, many cross-listed courses and courses outside the philosophy department--if I were you, I'd just stay the course. If you're worried about asking an elementary question, just be above-board about it. Besides, the fundamentals can never get too much attention--I find this particularly true about Marx and Marxism. The entire class will be too proud to admit that they don't "really" understand the relationship between use-value and exchange-value (etc), and these basic concepts get passed over (and then ugly misunderstandings and miscommunication in class follows as a result). Or take them at their word. If they ask "You said x; do you mean y?" questions, push them on it. "What is at stake between x and y? Why is y more accurate than x? Perhaps I'm wrong, maybe you can direct me to the text where y is the case rather than x?" On the one hand, this meets (this type of) philosophers where they live; on the other, it brings things back to the text (which is your place to shine, as an English student!). Long and rambling way for me to say that I know the feeling! Hang in there.

I've always thought that people on TGC were a little paranoid. "What if I put X on Y part of the application, and this or that professor reads it and tells the adcom at another university? What if someone on the adcom finds my instagram and sees that I'm not *really* a vegetarian?" As someone who clearly isn't worried about anonymity, I think it should be said that no one gives a shit about grad cafe. Professors are busy people, and the grad students lurking around don't give enough of a shit to go around making trouble for you. Unless your posts contain explicit threats to the adcom, or some really scandalous, compromising information, I can't imagine anyone caring. I wouldn't be worried about "complaining about the system"; what could possibly come of it? You gripe about the cost of GRE scores, and then the DGS at Rutgers finds out and strikes your name from the list?

Have you checked out SPEP's list? I can't confirm/deny that it's comprehensive, but here is a list of continental-friendly graduate departments--both US and Canada. http://www.spep.org/resources/graduate-programs/ FWIW, I've heard good things about Guelph, Western, and Trent.

That depends. (I think I was a part of your anecdotal evidence). It's certainly hard to find summer work for us graduate students (and this might have been what I conveyed), but I suspect things are very different for people looking for "real" jobs. The downtown area has practically sprung up ex nihilo over the last two years, so things might very well be better for your wife (depending, of course, on what she does). But of course, since I'm not in that situation, this is only conjecture piled atop more conjecture. And leviathaaaaan---do I spy a quote from Hegel's Naturphilosophie? Beautiful! Anyway, just my two cents, as always. All I have to offer are my own UO anecdotes and Duquesne and hearsay vis à vis other departments. So take with a grain of salt, obviously.

It's not my field! But I was pretty impressed by Bruno Latour's Science in Action. Everything I've read about Catherine Malabou has been pretty stellar. Jean Cavaillès's On the Logic and Theory of Science, as well. Lastly, I've heard good things about Georges Canguilhem--I haven't read him myself, but some people I trust recommend him. Sorry if this list is too French--I have a pretty strong stomach for French philosophy (since it's my AOS), but I realize that a lot of people have no patience for it. For what it's worth, I think these books are worth putting up with the dense (so-called "obscurantist") language. And while we're at it, do you have any good recommendations for more mainstream philosophy of science? I've read many of the classics (Popper, Feyerabend, Hacking, Kuhn, Lakatos) and a bit of the history of science (viz the history of biology and geology), but I'm pretty much in the dark as to what analytic philosophers are talking about right now vis à vis science.

I don't think we run the risk of making philosophy "prefer good test takers"--there are so many other factors involved, and GRE scores are by no means the most important component. No adcom would say, "Well, she turned in a terrible writing sample and her statement indicates that she has absolutely no overlap with the research interests of our faculty, but look at these test scores! Maybe we ought to give her a shot." I'm also not sure what you're talking about vis-à-vis Asia. Speculative is an understatement. I presume you mean northeastAsia (typically considered to consist of China, Japan, and Korea). I think it's problematic to treat these different countries as if they all utilized the same educational system and shared the same values. I also don't know about referring to nations of people as "hardworking populations" who, for all that, are not as inventive or dynamic as their counterparts in the US. And per capita, scandinavian countries, Germany, and the UK produce far more nobel laureates than the United States--and for much of the Nobel prize's history, it should be noted, the United States was the only real scientific and academic arena, since much of Europe and East Asia were recuperating from decades of war. It should come as no surprise that China has not produced as many Nobel laureates as the US--but I don't see any reason to suggest that the Chinese aren't as innovative as anyone else.

Just be thankful you're doing your homework! A lot of applicants never both to get the "real scoop."

Just a quick note--community colleges can actually be pretty good gigs. It's not the institution that's shitty, it's the kind of position available--I know several people with reasonable workloads, decent pay, and job security at community colleges. As for working part-time and making Walmart wages--I'd hate to break it to you, but there's no guarantee that it won't happen to you. Working as an adjunct is not something that only happens to lowly MA graduates or people from low-ranked programs; it's become a reality. Up to 75% of all college professors are not tenure-track. Going to a better-ranked (notice, I didn't say "better") program can certainly help your chances of avoiding adjunct work, but you should go into this thing with the understanding that it's a very, very possible future--maybe not forever! People do eventually land good jobs. But don't trick yourself into thinking that a good school will guarantee you a good job right out of the gate.