bar_scene_gambler

Do I count? I can't afford either of my acceptances and my waitlist is super uncertain.

Fantastic! We'll just swap Husserl with Wittgenstein and everyone is happy.

No problem. I have a new theory. I think we're being rejected because these god damn analytics with their hygiene and conservative haircuts are taking all the spots. There's just no love for the finer things in life these days. EDIT: Except for Dylanhelloglue (or however it's spelled). He's a nice analytic because he declined GSU's offer. I like him.

My thoughts as I was going through the preview: "And I tell you the greatest thing this country could ever do is go into the Middle East and wipe out their ignorance with an iron fist." - Okay...what the fuck is going on here? Is he quoting himself? This is some borderline racist shit. "Blah blah blah a bunch of Pre-Socratics...representative of the initial boom of the human mind." - Alright...let's just ignore the other half of the world and their philosophical traditions which began either prior to or concurrent with the Pre-Socratics. So much for being sensitive to Eastern thought. - What the hell is going on with the capitalization in this book? "Neither Man nor his culture may be reasonably considered exclusive from his Nature." - Wat? Also, what is this, the 17th century? Pretty sure we don't refer to the entirety of humanity as "Man" and "his nature" anymore. - And who the hell rates their own book? Even more confusing is the fact that he gave it three stars. Why would you publish it if it was only worth three stars? This guy, I swear.

Hey hey hey, I never said I'd judge you. In all seriousness though, it sounds interesting.

Coming from the guy who is specializing in Nietzsche and who wrote on Kant and Chinese Philosophy, I'm right there with you. What do you mean by pluralistic and monistic force?

My distaste for subheadings is a little less thought out than yours. I think it just ruins my writing style. I've developed a more narrative writing style over the last two years, and needless to say, it doesn't mesh well. That, and it violates my aesthetic sensibilities.

I hope you're being sarcastic. At any rate, I don't really like the convention of using subheadings. Anyway, here's what not to do if you want to get accepted: http://www.scribd.com/doc/210749665/WS

Wow. All of these writing samples are very organized. I just write and don't bother with the subheadings.

Oh alright. I'll do it first thing tomorrow morning. Fair warning, it's going to be fairly unorthodox, and after this application season, I'm fairly ashamed of it.

If we're all in the sharing mood, I suppose I could share my writing sample which is apparently pretty awful.

How could you lie to me MattDest? I don't know what to believe anymore.

I'm so disappointed that his page isn't public.

Oh, I know I've been rejected. But the others might give it a go.

You might be right. At any rate, it's probably best to assume a rejection at this point, unless there's some reason for believing that they haven't sent out all their acceptances yet.

No, there's no waitlist. If you look at the dept.'s webpage, they explicitly say that they're philosophically opposed to waitlists. If you're offered admission and turn it down, they don't offer that spot to anyone else. So if you haven't been accepted, then you're rejected. It sucks, but I doubt very much that they have an informal waitlist.

Yes, they sent out rejections a little while ago. Check your spam. You were probably referred to and accepted into the MAPH program.

Yay! Another Sinophile! You haven't posted much the last few months. What are your interests?

Thank you. I really appreciate it. We're looking for two bedroom places because my fiancee's sister may or may not be moving in with us (it's still a bit up in the air). But if she does, we can't all be living in the same bedroom, so, for the moment, we're looking for two bedroom places.

Ran out of upvotes, but thank you. Really weird translation.

Table posted this: http://www.philosophynews.com/post/2013/11/29/Graduate-School-Placements-in-Philosophy-Continental-Programs-Job-Type-Placements.aspx In the other thread. I think it's pretty useful as well, though again, not ranked.

I take your point. All things being equal, I don't think he'd be good to work with given the nature of his Nietzsche scholarship itself, but it doesn't help alleviate one's worries to read his blog or to hear others talk negatively about the man. It wasn't what I said originally, but that's really how I feel. It's good to know that you aren't upset though.

Oh man. Those were the good days sheds tear

I have to admit, it's been a mixed bag on my end. A few of the grad students at Chicago spoke well of him, but a large portion of the faculty at my uni and scholars I've met elsewhere say the opposite. It could be that (shockingly) the man is human and people will tell you different things about him.

In an effort to be more constructive, I'll just copy over what I said in the other thread TLDR; I think it's mostly the philosophical climate that's the problem, not the ranking system: To be fair, I don't think it's a coincidence that the placement rate at the schools you're talking about is less impressive than Leiter ranked programs. We all know that the US philosophical climate is notoriously analytic, and we know that there's some controversy over the PGR ignoring good, but more continental programs. Personally, I think it boils down to philosophical climate more than the programs themselves not being quality programs. Take Emory for example. It's a pluralistic school, with heavy continental leaning, which has a pretty good placement record and the resources available to give graduate students a solid education in philosophy, and yet it is completely unranked. The problem is the climate, not the PGR itself. The PGR is going to rank schools based upon the philosophical climate in the US, and if more people are being placed out of analytic departments, it's more than likely because more departments are looking for, say, logicians and philosophers of science than aestheticians or people who work in Phenomenology. It isn't because the continental schools don't provide a good education, it's that those things which we're studying don't mesh well with the way philosophy is done in the US. That isn't to say that the PGR is totally blameless. After all, it's not like there aren't fantastic continental schools. The "What the Rankings Mean" section may be chock full of utter bullshit, and the rankings may be biased, but that doesn't make the PGR useless, and it certainly isn't an unjustified bias. That's just my two-cents.