LeftInLimbo

Perhaps if folks want to add further details via comments, it would be helpful. Including the rank (or reputation outside of rank, esp. for Continental programs) of BA, MA, and PhD. I can say that my BA and my MA were from unranked / unknown programs, and I am entering into a t40 PhD program. The other folks entering my t40 PhD all have MAs, and from what I could gather via Facebook stalking, they too came from unranked / relatively unknown programs.

Yeah, a useful extension of the poll would be to ask, of those BAs, if they came from a T20.

I've read rumors that there is a trend towards PhD programs offering admittance to those who have MAs over those students who have BAs only. I was also made to be curious when I learned that out of all 5 of the students entering into the PhD program I'll be attending this fall, all 5 of us possessed our Masters. Not one BA in the bunch! Does this mean that an MA is becoming a PhD prerequisite? Let us poll the fine folks here and see what the numbers show. Was the prestige of your undergrad institution enough to get you into a PhD? Or was the selection committee so awestruck by your stellar writing sample that they rolled out the red carpet leading directly from your BA to their PhD? Or did you have to prove your mettle with a couple years of graduate drudgery before the gates of opportunity were opened for you? Certainly a more nuanced poll could provide further insight, but I think a very basic one should do for now.

No, I think that in some cases (like Vanderbilt) it is as simple as departments just dragging their feet because they can / because it is in their interests to do so. As I understand it, Vanderbilt did not send out ANY rejections until April 13th. And for those who solicited a response prior to that date, those people were informed that they were not accepted, not on an official waitlist, but also not rejected. In essence, the department sent out a round of acceptances, then perhaps informed some folks that were on their official waitlist, and then they sort of "unofficially waitlisted" the remainder of the applicants. Let's say a typical school gets 100 applicants, chooses 10 to offer admittance, and then waitlists 20 more students whom they might also contact. They then notify the 70 other folks that they are rejected (ie. that there is no chance the department will get desperate enough to accept them). In the case of Vanderbilt, they chose not to notify the remaining 70 that they were rejected, either due to dragging their feet or because they felt it was in their best interests to keep their entire pool of applicants hanging on in case they ended up exhausting their official waitlist. I think Vanderbilt is a great program and has great faculty (that is why I applied there), and I don't want to single out Vanderbilt as the only school handling their admissions in this way (I'm sure there are others, but this is the only school that I applied to who seemed to do so). But I think departments should have the courtesy to make the same effort as many other departments who notify those who have no chance of admittance, and to do so a reasonable amount of time before the national deadline (weeks, not days, prior).

Ah, you're right. Vanderbilt is a free app, isn't it? I suppose I will end my shame campaign.

You can still revamp your writing sample and statement of interest. You can re-apply the next round to schools that you have chosen more strategically for how they fit your interests and less for their prestige. These 3 factors should inter-influence each other: sample, interests, and fit. Write a sample that reflects your interests, and apply to a program where your interests and sample would be well received. Of course you can also retake the GREs for a higher score and try to publish or present. Naturally this is only good advice provided that you excelled in your MA work, otherwise it might be time to try another path.

"Mere hours before the deadline" was a bit of an exaggeration, but still, 2 days before the deadline? C'mon. It seems very rude to me. When each applicant is paying ca. $100 per application, I think a timely response would be not only courteous but deserved.

Finally received a rejection e-mail from Vanderbilt this afternoon. Mere hours before the deadline and they finally get around to sending these out! Alongside their refusal to give solicited responses a straight answer, I think Vanderbilt's handling of the admissions process is shameful. Please join me in publicly shaming this institution and any others who choose to wait until just before the deadline to deliver admissions results!

You'll have a few problems if you go into debt while also working while trying to complete your PhD. At this time, I don't see any problem.

When did you receive the e-mail, just now? Are these still going out tonight? Gah!

On the topic of visits.... Are others visiting the schools they have been accepted to? On one hand, the common advice seems to be that visiting departments is the best thing to do. On the other hand, I really don't care about the location of my school or what the campus is like or anything. I just want to know that my POI's are not fleeing for another department in the next few years, and that they don't have extremely difficult temperments--the sort of info that I think I could gather through telephone conversations. Do I really need to spend a week flying across the country to make my final decision?

Boston U is the last school I have to hear from. Nothing in my inbox yet. I guess that means an implied rejection unless Hopp's fingers were just feeling tired for the night! Grats to the others. (I still have other acceptances so this is ok. Now time to e-mail the 500 people at every accepted department that I want to talk to, while trying to plan visits between universities. Blargh!)

I'm one of the Rices. Very pleased to have an acceptance with funding! The e-mail went out to the top 5 applicants out of 80+. I'm leaning towards acceptance but still have more schools to hear back from.

Does anyone have a sense of what the chances of wait-listers actually is? I understand that there must be some differences in the length of wait lists by department, and of course there are the human variables of who actually decines offers or not. But, in general, what is a typical wait-list size, and how many of those folks can expect to win an acceptance? Any information that can shed light on the secret workings of wait-lists would be helpful. So far I haven't been particularly excited about learning I'm on a waitlist. I mean, before they told me anything I thought I might get into the program or I might not, and after they told me I was on the wait list, I am still in the position of "maybe getting in or maybe not getting in." In fact, I find the additional tease-factor to be even more anxiety provoking.

Considering an application fee is somewhere between 50 and 100 dollars, which is a lot of money for some people (don't worry Mom, I'll pay you back once I publish that best-seller), I don't think it is out of line for an applicant to expect an e-mail response or two. (Although I imagine the people tasked with responding to these e-mail requests aren't the ones responsible for the discrepancy between application fee cost and the staff made available to process them, so I guess we can spread the sympathy around.)

Hey, cool. I just remembered that there are only 28 days in February. So that means tomorrow is March. That is totally like 2 less days we will spend waiting, compared to if this had been another month. I mean, imagine if it was a leap year. Erm...something to be thankful for, right folks?

Hiding the fact that your degree was in philosophy...I hadn't thought of that one. I think when applying for certain jobs (business related / not involving a strong writing skills component) that it might be best to leave this detail off the resume. If pressed in an interview perhaps say that your degree was "liberal arts"...which I believe might seem less head-in-the-clouds to some (by suggesting a broad range of classwork) and isn't entirely lying?.. I've already taken to leaving my M.A. off certain job applications. I have a few years experience waiting tables (a job which can be fairly lucrative depending on the restaurant) but found I wasn't getting responses to resume submissions to waitstaff jobs after finishing my M.A. I imagine having an MA for this sort of job suggests you are probably seeking work elsewhere and likely to leave at any time (which was true!).

I do really think that employers will need more convincing to want to hire a philosophy major and that the value of our skills are less obvious. That said, I am confident that the average philosophy major really does have an advantage (critical thinking skills) that will allow themselves to prove themselves in the workplace--that is, if they can get hired in the first place. So I would say we have very valuable skills but ones which are difficult to market. But if you can get your foot in the door you should have an easy time of using it to stomp all over the competition. In any case, it is true that employers are generally looking for people with experience. Regardless of what someone is actually studying in school, the advantage that, for example, business majors have is that they are given internship opportunities during their undergrad. These are the sorts of people that are actually finding jobs straight after graduation. I'm not saying that philosophy majors couldn't find internship opportunities through their schools, but that (to my knowledge) they are not encouraged to do so (and I'm not sure if they are able to, but I suspect they could if they tried). I think that responsible philosophy departments might want to encourage their students to find internships and/or that responsible philosophy undergrads should probably try to acquire internships for themselves.

A recent Results post for Missouri-Columbia reports that the admittee received funding. Could this person elaborate? Does this mean the funding decisions for those nominated in January have been finalized? (I was nominated but have not yet received an update)

In my experience, those who don't have much familiarity with or appreciation of philosophy assume that "Philosophy Major" is codeword for "spent my college years smoking pot and reading New Age books."

Considering that a philosophy B.A, or M.A. for that matter, provides zero marketable skills or experience outside of academia, I can't imagine these surveys are very accurate. A philosophy major has the qualifications to land an entry level job which will pay a bit more than minimum wage, if they get lucky.

Rent is probably the biggest financial obligation, outside of school related fees, that you'll be faced with. Rather than rely on cost of living estimates based on who-knows-what on some random website, I suggest you take a peek at the City Guide forum on gradcafe, and also to simply use padmapper.com to look at the available apartments currently for rent in the areas you might want to live.

Accepted to Missouri. Waiting on funding decision. Accepted to Memphis. Waitlisted for funding. I am less excited and more annoyed. My anxiety level would have been lower had I not heard anything from them until a final decision was made. What kind of sick joke is "accepted" but "waitlisted for funding" anyway? What a tease. Another month and a half refreshing my e-mail every half hour if not every 5 minutes. Better than nothing I guess. 3.7 ug, 3.9 g, 168/155/5.5, no-rep BA and MA.