Table

Is the "rejected" option for people that have been rejected everywhere so far, or people that have just been rejected somewhere? Say I was accepted to 2 programs, wait listed at 1, and rejected at 1. Would I select admitted, wait listed, and rejected?

This is good advice. When I'm stressed, I usually get excessively focused on the future. The most effective way for me to manage stress is to get centered and focused on my everyday life. Things that help with that: meditating (5 minute chunks). Waking up early enough so I can start my day in a non-rushed way. Paying attention to how I spend my time. Hiking and walking. When I'm walking somewhere and it's not freezing, taking the time to pay attention to my surroundings—asking myself what I can hear, smell, etc. Keeping a "journal," where I just write down 3 favorite moments at the end of every day. Avoiding my computer for the 2 hours before bed. I don't do all of these things regularly, but I should. There's a lot of evidence that exercise can be really helpful in managing stress. It's something I would like to do more.

If you spend a large portion of your writing sample discussing empirical results, I think there's some risk that an admissions committee would feel that they hadn't seen enough of you "doing philosophy." Both departments have faculty members who work on Kant... I would be pretty surprised if there are any departments that only accept students whose writing samples include some kind of empirical investigation.

Many admissions committees may think that GRE scores become a non-factor after initial cuts, but I doubt that's actually the case. All the research on racial and gender bias in hiring and admissions seems to show that expectations based on initial impressions of a candidate seriously color the way their file is interpreted. Anything that makes someone opening your file think of you as a "smart person" is going to help, because that's just the way human brains work. It seems likely that very high (as opposed to "passing") GRE scores will often do this. I also have heard that one person who is often on the adcom at my school does take GRE scores very seriously. It seems plausible that some schools do give them significant weight. Where did you hear that some schools use cut offs? If I remember correctly, everyone in the Leiter thread denied it.

There are plenty of people who still think he was on to something, though. I also like Moore's proof of an external world. doodedoo

Congrats! Did you make the turtle face?

opening your email to find good news:

Thanks for explaining your intent, Ian. I think it's really impossible to predict how an overstressed stranger will respond to being told they're out of options and should give up, and trying to get them to reflect does not seem worth the risk of seriously upsetting them. I don't really see how parem/logos's offensive comment is relevant here. I agree that this forum should be a place for support, which is why I and others wanted to comment on a pretty unsupportive post. Will move it to another thread next time.

I also looked at their author guide, and it looked like only one of their imprints requires authors to pay…?

Sorry to backtrack a bit, guys, but I agree with this and I think it's important. I don't know how telling someone they have run out of options and that "it's clear that you should give up" on the basis of a few forum posts could ever be warranted. Especially in response to someone, clearly distressed, saying that they feel like they have run out of options and don't know what else to do—a sentiment I'm sure many here can relate to. It may not have been intended to be mean, but it was. You may not have meant to kick someone while they're down, but you did. You're right, Ian, that lamparem needs to hear from someone who will speak honestly about his situation. That person is not you, because there's no possible way that you understand his situation. Like philophilosopher said, his forum posts don't tell us anything about his ability to succeed in philosophy. They just (if real) show a person under a great deal of stress that seems to really lack support in the discipline. My initial response to to many of his posts was frustration, but I don't think that's actually appropriate. I think dfindley is really coloring people's interpretations here. I don't see the arrogance with lamparem. He's snapped a few times about his book, but I imagine I'd be a little snappy too if people responded like we have to something I considered one of my most significant achievements. lamparem… It's too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you don't need to rely on people, especially if you're shy, depressed, anxious, etc. It's too easy to make excuses and tell yourself little stories: You don't need to talk to professors about the application process, there's plenty of information available online. You don't need to talk to anyone about a book you're working on, you'll just wow them when it's done. They're busy. It would be rude. You're good enough to do it on your own. I think most of us have done something like this at some point in our lives, and we've all come to regret it. We can all benefit from feedback, and you really seem to be at a point where you need to talk to someone about your worries and how to move forward if you don't get in this year. If you're not comfortable talking to your professors at this point in the admissions process, what about another MA student? You said that there are some people at CUNY who were accepted from the MA program… what about one of them? I said this earlier, but I also think it would be really worthwhile to talk to a therapist about your stress. There's likely low-cost mental health services available through your school.

Statement from CU women faculty. An excerpt:

I really really recommend meeting with a therapist to talk about this stuff. It's something that has been very helpful for me, and it seems like you're under an enormous amount of stress.

What do you think the academic consequences are for writing a letter that the applicant does not consider sufficiently stellar?

For some reason I'm feeling so impatient to receive a rejection letter from Arizona. I have no idea why.

I just sent everyone a singing card. Forgot about it until the 13th and had to fedex express them, so that's $220 down the drain. Ugh.

Hey, maybe we're all getting into NYU.

I think the situation is basically identical to submitting 2 writing samples, which some people do. (ex. if one is very technical) I'm not sure why it would be unfair for people to be able to get an advantage by submitting materials beyond what is required. You can submit extra letters, which I'm sure has the potential to sway a decision. Many applications have a specific spot to upload any extra materials you think are relevant or a place to put a link to something. These things might not get a lot of attention, but they don't seem unfair.

but how has it never come up with a professor in your department? like when you asked people to write letters for you?

It's not nitpicking to look at the publisher before being impressed that an applicant wrote a book good enough for publication… it completely determines what "good enough for publication" means. It looks like Wipf and Stock does some vanity publishing. If that's the case, it won't help. I don't think you should worry over this. If you're worried, though, it might be helpful to talk to someone in your department about it. On that note… how have you never spoken to an admissions committee member about the admissions process when you're a student at a department with a PhD program?

I would guess that it's just a targeted ad that's the result of viewing the item before on Amazon and not purchasing it. (killjoy, sorry.)

I think it's incredibly unlikely that a committee immediately discarded a piece of an application. Of course no one would have read the book in its entirety, but I would expect a committee to at least glance at it, especially if the applicant survived initial cuts.

Huh, that's an interesting epistemic principle: assume that when people say something knowing they will likely need to verify it in court, what they say is probably true. So then, surely, we should think the student's claim that a Northwestern investigation found Ludlow had acted inappropriately—the basis of the student's lawsuit against Northwestern—is probably true. From the other thread, where this was unfortunately cross posted: Awkward. If there is anyone that actually thinks Vineyard is a fair-minded skeptic suspending judgment, that should be enough to convince you otherwise. (The fact that he considers a statement from Ludlow's lawyer denying the allegations to be "new information on the Ludlow case suggest[ing] the whole thing might be made up" should also be enough to convince you otherwise.) Vineyard, for the exact same reasons you think Ludlow actually has the texts in question, you should think the student really was in the hospital. As others have said, the existence of "friendly" texts from the student does not suggest there was no sexual assault. You don't seem to know a great deal about sexual assault. You also seem to think the existence of these texts would mean she was not actually in the hospital when the lawsuit she said she was. This may shock you, but you can actually send texts from a hospital. ETA: I just read that the student's attorney has released a copy the email the student received from NU's director of the Sexual Harassment Prevention Office telling her the results of the investigation.

I wasn't one of the posters, but I'd feel weird being like "I'M SO HAPPY" when I know so many people are having a tough time not hearing things. (I don't really have any info beyond what deverettf said.) Is this the ApplyWeb page? Huh. I'd been assuming that those wouldn't be updated with results, I don't know why. Congrats to the Brown acceptances!

She was using write pad, which converts your writing straight to text. She used it for class notes for a bit, but I think stopped. It did a fine job recognizing my handwriting, but was just much slower than typing. (It looks like some people might have problems with getting it to recognize their handwriting) There are other apps that keep your handwriting as handwriting but have some text recognition to make it searchable, etc. I've never used one. If your primary concern is being able to draw things but would be fine typing the text, I think an iPad + stylus would work for you (assuming these aren't really fine grained drawings). There are apps that let you switch between typing and drawing in a single document. If being able to handwrite the actual text is important to you, though, I think you'd need an actual note taking tablet that comes with a stylus. Some people have mentioned that you can buy styluses for the iPad and kindle, which is true, but it's not the same. The capacitive styluses that work with iPads (and all tablets) can feel more natural to write with than a finger, but they're just never going to be significantly more precise. You won't be able to get the kind of detail that you'd need for college (or probably even wide) ruled normal writing. The tablets that come with styluses like the sPen work differently. They have hardware that does electromagnetic pen magic stuff (i don't know)… the pen is smart, and is telling the tablet where it is relative to the screen, how hard you're pressing, etc., it's not just the screen detecting the presence of a finger (or whatever). I've never used one, but the technology is very different from an iPad stylus (and supposed to be significantly more precise). I think you probably need to go try one out in-store to compare.

I use an iPad and a kindle paperwhite, and I'm really happy with them. I use the iPad for reading and annotating pdfs, and the kindle for books. (I really prefer looking at the eink screen, but the eink kindles are a disaster at pdfs) The pdf app I used is synced via dropbox, which works really well for me. As for how much memory is recommended for academic use, I would say not very much. For some reason I have a 64 GB iPad... I'm using about 10. Of that, my pdf app is taking up about 1 GB, and ebook apps about 300 MB. (i have most of my kindle books synced with the iPad, and 2 textbook apps for publishers that insist on using their own) I could easily cut down on the space the pdfs are taking up; I store most of them locally because I have plenty of extra space, but I could be keeping at least 80% of them just in my dropbox without much extra hassle. The rest of that 10 GB is basically random apps… Again, I could easily be using less if I was thinking about it. I have almost no music, videos, photos, etc. on it. For me, the 14 GB iPad would definitely have been more than enough. Like Petros points out, though, if you need to use scanned books that will suck up some memory. I also don't use it for note taking. I have no idea how much memory regular doodle-style notes would require. I sometimes use doodle apps, and I handwrite on my pdfs, but I can't imagine taking class notes via handwriting. Unless I'm zoomed in, my handwriting on the iPad is pretty large. I tried a friend's handwriting-recognition app, but typing is much faster for me. I always type faster than I can handwrite, but handwriting on the iPad is especially slow for me.