PHILSTUDENT22

accepted an offer at USC!

Accepted off the waitlist at USC!!!! So happy I could die.

Off the wait-list at USC. 30k/year for 5 years. Sometimes dreams come true. I guess I made a good impression at the Open House.

yup

The application process sure is cooky, that's for sure! I know I did well - but I also know my GRE hurt me, at least at one school (and so I naturally think it hurt me other places, but of course I can't be certain). My professors were shocked that I didn't get into school X (a top 10) because all of them have very strong connections there, and my letters compared me favorably to a very successful student that came from our department and now teach at school X. In light of being rejected from school X, one of my professors sent an email to several committee members that he/she knew to figure out what happened....only to find out that "[student Y] was in our first group of rejections, which means that [student Y] did not meet the admission committee's minimum expectations with respect to GPA or GRE this year." And my I have a perfect GPA. Maybe School X put their informal cap at (say) 90% verbal or something, who knows. Would I have gotten in otherwise? Hard to know, but at least the rest of my app would have gotten a serious look. Nevertheless, everyone that has posted here and was successful with sub-par scores seems to have otherwise extremely stellar qualifications. I had three top people in their field write me awesome letters, for instance, and took 8 graduate courses as an undergrad. I of course worked really hard to impress my writers for many years, but it ultimately comes down to sheer luck that I went to a college with such a good faculty. Mavngoose1 (who also did well with a 160 verbal) wishes to keep his/her information private, but let me just say that he/she was even more circumstantially lucky than I with respect to undergrad institution (especially) and quality of letter writers. So I don't think we should go around saying a 160 verbal is good enough for it not to hurt you - it would probably be safer to say something like 160 verbal is perhaps good enough not to hurt you if the rest of your app is really really really stellar. This is what we should expect of outliers anyway - they have special compensatory qualifications. If you aren't lucky enough to come from a top department with the ability to obtain letters from awesome people, you may not be able to compensate for sub-par scores in the committee's eyes and get cut early.

Did you flag your quant score in your letter of purpose by chance?

I almost don't believe it! Can you tell us a bit more about the rest of your app?

I suppose that's somewhat low..(still above 90% in verbal)...but that's was one person from last year nonetheless. All the posts from this year for Harvard (even the wait-list) were perfect 170 in verbal.

No, if you have just a low quant, I think that's worth knowing too.

I'm interested in finding out what the lowest successful GRE scores have been this year. This will help future applicants figure out the answer to the inevitable "how important are GRE scores?". It might also give us an idea as to where different departments are making their cutoffs. Only post if your score is actually low (below 90% verbal, below 75% quant) - nobody cares about your writing score, and only if you got accepted or wait-listed at a PGR top 50. Please give you raw and percentile score, along with the PGR ranking of the relevant school. I'll start! I was accepted to Indiana (25 PGR) and Syracuse (38 PGR), and wait listed at USC (13 PGR). My GRE was 160V (84%), 159Q (75%). The rest of my app was stellar.

I think I agree with most of this. "Good GREs certainly won't get you in, but they keep you from getting cut." is the slogan to take home. Getting into the mid-high 160 range for verbal is really a must I think (and this corresponds nicely to 90+ percentile). You simply won't have knowledge of how much the particular committee values GRE scores, and so it's in your best interest to take them seriously. Don't give a lazy committee member a reason to throw out your app prematurely. The importance of GRE scores is hotly debated. Everyone has different evidence that they rely on, and often (or so I think) people reach claims that their evidence doesn't really support. So for transparency, here my evidence: 1) First-person testimony from a committee member at Notre Dame claiming that several of his/her fellow committee members valued the GRE very highly as the "only objective piece of information about a student that couldn't be fudged" - and moreover, they thought low GREs discredited (i) GPA (likely due to grade inflation), and (ii) writing sample (likely due to level of faculty help). So, depending on the committee, a low GRE score may infect the rest of your application. 2) Acceptance results posted on grad cafe. It's truly disgusting how many perfect 170s and 169s get offers from the top 15 PGR schools. One possible explanation is that the best students happen to have the best GRE scores. (Ask yourself if you truly believe that!) Even if this were true, however, you would still see at least a couple outliers - but there are none to be found. Of course, its certainly true that some rejects have higher scores than the original acceptances - and this shows that the GRE isn't weighed as heavily as other factors...but we all know that. The point is simply that it's important, even if less so than other parts of your app. 3) Many committees have openly admitted that perfect or near-perfect GRE scores (and GPA) make you a good university fellowship candidate (usually comes with more money and less TA responsibilities for a few years). And given that committees know full well that many of their first offers will be rejected, this lends incentive to give several first offers to people with such GRE scores. Those are the main points that support my belief - there are others, but less significant. It would be interesting to start a new thread titled something like "lowest successful GRE scores" - maybe there are some outliers that are just being shy. This would be good for future applicants to see.

Take the GRE very seriously. Make sure to at least score somewhere in the 90th+ percentile in verbal, and aim for at least 75th+ percentile in math. writing doesn't matter at all (within reason). Take a look at the scores posted from accepted students on grad cafe (it's disgusting how many of them are perfect or near-perfect). Don't bitch about how the GRE is irrelevant to philosophical promise - everyone knows that. But the fact of the matter is, sub-par scores can and will likely get you shut out. That's just how the system works. I managed to get accepted in the 20-40 range and wait-listed in the top 15 with a GRE verbal of 160 (84%). But this is the lowest successful score I've seen, and I know it hurt me at other places.The rest of my stats are perfect (4.0 GPA from a well-ranked school, excellent letters from top people in their field, lots of graduate classes and conferences, publishable writing sample, etc.). In retrospect, I wish I took the time to study thousands of arcane vocab words. If you are well-read, you may already have a high vocabulary and get in the 90s without studying. Take a practice exam or two to find out. If not, study for several months. Flash cards all day every day is the only way.

Nah, it hasn't shown up

Cool I'll see ya there! Are you not leaning towards Notre Dame? Whats your AOI?

Just looking to see if anyone on here is going to the USC Open House - looking forward to meeting other potential graduate peers.

I'm going to the Open House at USC April 7-9, and maybe to Syracuse at the end of the month. Anyone else planning on going to USC?

fundamental metaphysics. In addition to having Heller, McDaniel, and Gallois, Syracuse has a grant program at Cornell that allows students to take one class per semester (opens the door to ted sider, karen bennett, derk pereboom) and SLU is getting Jason Turner from Leeds. O'Connor is really the only person I'd want to work with at Indiana.

Just turned down an offer from Indiana Bloomington - hope that helps someone. I've been waitlisted at USC. Anyone thinking about declining an offer?

Hi Everyone, just thought I'd share my stats. GPA: 4.0 major, 3.98 cum, from well-known philosophy department GRE: 319 32 Philosophy courses, including over 10 seminars T.A for 2 years for Logic courses Several awards (4 philosophy scholarships, phi kappa phi, cash-prize award from undergrad journal) 3 conference presentations. 2 comments. Editorial Assistant on two books Organizer of student conferences and assistant organizer of professional conferences. Letters will be great, from 3 well-known people in their field. Writing sample is polished and publishable. I'm applying to about 10 schools, all top 25 and above. Here's to 4 months of brutal thumb-twiddling to come!

My original list included some lower ranked schools, but my professors advised that I not bother, for (i) they were extremely confident I'll get into at least one of my three lower ranked choices (for various reasons), and (ii) it wouldn't be worth going to a school that wasn't a good fit for my interests (and very few schools below the 25 mark had the desired faculty). For each school on my list I asked myself "would i really want to go here if this is the only place I got accepted" and if the answer was "no" I decided to cross it off. So I guess I'll be taking a bit of a risk, but so be it! I was also advised not to apply to any (terminal) MA programs, for the amount of advanced courses I've taken is on a par with that of most MA applicants already.

Hi Everyone, just thought I'd share my stats. GPA: 4.0 major, 3.98 cum, from well-known philosophy department GRE: 319 32 Philosophy courses, including over 10 seminars T.A for 2 years for Logic courses Several awards (4 philosophy scholarships, phi kappa phi, cash-prize award from undergrad journal) 3 conference presentations. 2 comments. Editorial Assistant on two books Organizer of student conferences and assistant organizer of professional conferences. Letters will be great, from 3 well-known people in their field. Writing sample is polished and publishable. I'm applying to about 10 schools, all top 25 and above. Here's to 4 months of brutal thumb-twiddling to come!