DHumeDominates

Do people know if likely all the Michigan acceptances and wait lists have been released? ... this is depressing

Q: 156 Admitted to 1 Leiter top-5, wait listed at 1 Leiter top-10

Huh. That's odd. But you're right that weekends, mainly Saturdays, have been quite active this year. And congrats on the Penn acceptance! I know a couple people in the department.

I'd like to know, three! (I promise I'm not in third grade. ) Also, the Michigan philosophy department's website says that those admitted and wait listed will be notified by March 15th. However, I assume this is false. The date is probably either March 14th (this Friday) or March 17th or 18th. I include the 18th because I think admissions committees often like to give themselves one last Monday to review things.

Exactly. There's no facet of the philosophy PhD admissions process about which I could imagine myself thinking "Oh yeah, that could be a tad more competitive than it already is."

Yes, that would be immensely fun.

Congrats to all the Rutgers and Princeton admits! Looks like I won't be going to Princeton. No matter. Let's go, Michigan! Hope to find an email from you tomorrow or early next week!

I bet if you contacted those schools, they'd tell you what's up. But I could be wrong.

It kind of reads like Parfit's writing: simple, elegant, confident prose. I enjoyed it.

You know, zblaesi, you can submit more than one writing sample. For every application that provided space to upload multiple samples (the majority of the 16 applications I completed), I submitted two. I'm not saying that I'd recommend writing multiple samples, but perhaps it's something to think about.

We both wrote on Hume? Didn't know that.

Congrats!!!

Right. As I said, other things being equal, the published applicant looks better than the unpublished one. But admissions committees know that applicants want to publish once (if) they become professors. Perhaps what I should have said is that, for the purposes of graduate admissions, it's better to spend as much time as possible perfecting one's writing sample than to devote some of that precious time to preparing a paper for submission to a journal, to making any revisions recommended by a journal's editors, and the like.

This is true. But shouldn't the focus be on creating an excellent WS, irrespective of the publication question?

This is a good question. I've been much more successful this application season than I thought I'd be, so perhaps I should chime in here. I didn't have any publications, nothing in an undergraduate journal and nothing in a scholarly, professional journal. That said, other things being equal, an applicant with publications is probably in a better position than one without. But what's much more important than where a paper of yours appears (in a reputable journal vs. sitting on your computer at home) is how good your writing sample is. An excellent writing sample is more important than a mediocre writing sample with one or two publications to pad the ol' CV. But perhaps others disagree!

Congrats! Congrats! Congrats! I'm so happy for you!

Also wait listed at Penn.

Thx! Congrats on your acceptances as well!

Oh, Ian.

Well, those are you words. I wouldn't have put it that way. But yeah, that's basically right.

Rejected from UCSD. Don't care. lol

Dude, chill.

Thanks, Ian! I may just take you up on that. I live in New England (out of state, but the drive isn't too bad). We'll see. Is the "should" a normative "should"? Or are you telling me that I'm likely to live in walking distance to the philosophy department (perhaps because that's where many other Harvard grad students live)? Of course, I haven't said that I'll accept the offer. I may; I may not.

Thanks!

lol. Thanks! I'm overjoyed!