mrs_doubtfire

is this addressed to me? edit: never mind. i now see that this wasn't addressed to me.

I can think of two reasons. The first reason is practical. When graduate students are taking courses, they don't have time to earn a living through another job. So a lot of departments offer fellowships during the graduate student's coursework years to relieve them of financial burdens. This way, they can, in principle, devote all of their waking hours to their courses. The second reason, which has already been pointed out, is that graduate students are cheap labor. TAs do most of the grading and they are cheaper to hire than a professor or lecturer.

If you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. It's about the history of scientology and is a well-written, informative, and extremely interesting book on so many different levels. Given your interests (I noticed that you're interested in epistemology and philosophy of action), I think the book will give you a lot of things to think about.

good to know!

I agree with what's been already said. I'll just add that there's an interesting link between Spinoza and continental philosophy. I confess to not knowing my continental too well, but a reliable source told me that Spinoza was an influence on Hegel, who might have influenced other continental thinkers? (this is where I'd defer to the wisdom of wikipedia or students of continental philosophy). If this is right, then the discontinuity between what your interest is and the topic of your writing sample isn't that grave.

I reached my quota for up-voting, but this was my thought exactly.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think it's just false that we can't offer any advice to parem given what he or she has said. If that were true, then what's the point of this forum? Parem gave us a few data points to work and so I don't see the problem with drawing a line of best fit through those data points and giving advice with the qualification that the advice was grounded only on those data points. The advice isn't going to have the shape of a valid inference, but it's far from being ungrounded. So I guess I also deny that such advice is ungrounded. I'd be happy to follow your suggestion and suspend judgment on parem's situation. But I think that'd be unhelpful to parem and I'd like to be helpful if I can. This sounds a lot like an invitation to ignore the offensive nature of parem's comments. Plus, do you really think that parem's implication that people with autism are unfit to be professors is inoffensive? I'm not advocating that people respond with equally nasty comments for parem. And if memory serves, the only person who has thrown invectives around is parem. I'm just pointing out that it's more than okay to tell parem that his or her comments are offensive and unproductive. I think this'll be my last post regarding parem. Time to return this thread to its original topic. But I do appreciate the civil response you gave me.

I'll defend Ian. First, with respect to iamparem's prospects in philosophy, I think Ian's comment was warranted. When you're asking and giving advice on this kind of medium, it's a given that you don't have all of the relevant information. So you give your advice based on what you are given, which is the poster's own assessment of his or her situation. And judging by iamparem's own assessment of his or her situation (e.g. the fact that parem wrote a book, is currently attending an unfunded master's program, and is in her second or third round of applications), I think it's fair to conclude that he or she needs to sit down and really think about whether philosophy is a viable career. Now if you think the answer to this is yes, what would you recommend parem to do before he or she re-applies? Go for another unfunded master's? Get a master's in a field other than philosophy? Try to write another book? Take a year off and master philosophy's greatest hits? Each of these options costs significant time and money and none of them alone guarantees better admission results and so I hesitate to offer any of them as "advice" to someone who is desperate need of it. And because I don't consider empty bromides like "You'll get there eventually!" or "Just hang in there!" as advice, I'm disposed to say that parem should put philosophy on hold until he or she figures out how to seriously improve his or her application. I've met a few people who had to apply three or four times before they went on to gain admission to top-20 and top-10 programs. If you were to talk to these people, you'd notice how mature and honest they are about their applications. Most of them readily admit that their first and second rounds of applications were weak--that they had no idea what they were doing. But they didn't give up and eventually, were able to put together a strong application. So there's some precedent for killing the admissions process after a few shut-outs. But the applicants here usually go through some sort of change in perspective. Now to the tone of Parem's comments. I strongly agree with Ian that parem's comments are offensive and hateful. I understand that Parem is frustrated and anxious, but I don't see how these facts excuse the hostile tone of his comments. It's okay to vent your frustrations; it's not okay to leave inflammatory comments for people who disagree with what you say. So I think it's asking a lot of the community to (1) tolerate parem's comments by ignoring their offensive tone AND (2) to ask us to give parem helpful AND courteous advice in response to these kinds of comments. As a side note, I personally think parem's sour attitude makes him a less than ideal academic. I mean he's threatened to take action against letter writers who gave him anything less than stellar reviews. I don't know about you, but I think this kind of attitude shouldn't have a home in academia.

you and dfindley should definitely grab coffee sometime. maybe give each other feedback on one another's books. no point talking to the non-authors and non-winners on here. plus, the application process can weigh you down, so it'll be nice to talk to a kindred spirit.

totally agree. definitely worth repeating.

I agree. And if the answer is no, the generality of the question provides an easy way to dodge it (e.g. "What does happiness really mean?" or "It depends on you"). I found that I got more useful information when I asked more focused questions like "Has the program met your all of your expectations or do you feel that are there ways the program could better serve you?"

I totally agree. Once your stuff is out there, you have no control over who uses it and for what purpose they may use it for. Platonist, I think it's a bad idea to be soliciting people's writing samples. An uncharitable reader might interpret such a request as an attempt to borrow and profit from someone's else's ideas.

I stopped reading when I saw that point B was a smiley.

Here's one data point to support the idea that a decision from one program is poor indicator of how other programs might act on your application. I was rejected from a few places that were lower ranked on the PGR. Like you, I headed towards the mountain of despair thinking that my chances at top 10 departments were probably non-existent if I couldn't manage to be accepted to lower ranked places. This turned out to be false. I ended up being admitted to a few top 20 places. My guess is that fit plays a big role in your admission. I also wanted to offer you a piece of advice, Platonist. This whole process has really stressed you out, more so than any other applicant on this forum. The thing is that graduate school is more stressful than the application process. If you do graduate school right, it's bound to be hard. Your professors and peers will be critical of your ideas and papers. If they're good colleagues, they'll challenge you to think in ways that you probably never could have on your own. They'll expose gaps in your reasoning or raise objections to your view. When you submit papers to journals or conferences, you're likely to receive very critical and often harsh feedback from referees and conference organizers. And this is the way things should be, because after all, you're trying to become a better philosopher. But without the right attitude, it's easy to take these criticisms personally and suffer from a lowered sense of self-esteem throughout graduate school. So I would heed the advice of different posters on this forum and try to find a way to reduce your anxiety about graduate school. It'll serve you well once you're in.

I usually resist the urge of feeding a troll/engaging with someone whose ignorance and naivety is so impressive, but I couldn't help myself. I take it that Loric's advice to philosophy applicants is something like: contact every department to which you're applying. Ask them who will be on the admissions committee. Contact the people who will be on the admissions committee. Ask them highly detailed and specific questions about what they think a "good" philosophy student looks like. Do this for every person who will be on the committee. Then, cater your application to each person's wishes. Shame on you dummies and lazy folk for not figuring this simple plan out on your own! The reason why this advice is terrible should be self-evident to every student of philosophy. But in case it's not...no philosopher in a reputable program is going to volunteer any of this information to you. And I would even guess that the mere request for this kind of information (i.e., what do I need to put into my application so that you'll accept me?) will reflect poorly on you as an applicant. Loric, I don't know what world you live in, but I would sure love to vacation in it once in a while. Things in your world seem so simple and to unfold in accordance with all of your desires and wishes. in particular, I admire the feature of your world that makes the path to success as simple and effortless as "being the best." If only that feature could be found in the actual world that I live in!

Another reason acceptances may be slow in appearing on the results list is that admits don't always immediately think of posting it on grad cafe...sometimes they have access to email but not a browser and other times they might be off celebrating somewhere.

Book title: How to lose friends and win enemies.

Oh, okay. I stand corrected then.

Well put, Matt. Platonist, I take it from your various posts that you are stressed out about the process of admissions. But I can assure you that getting yourself worked up over things like the date you submit your application, the salutation you use in addressing staff/faculty in email, whether you contact faculty before submitting your application and so on is a fool's errand. Why? Because the degree to which these things are relevant to your prospects of admission is about the same as the degree to which your preferred method of cutting a sandwich is relevant to your admission prospects. Which is my colorful way of saying that those things don't matter at all. (I'm also not sure where you're getting your information from. For example, I've never encountered the worry that not contacting faculty to introduce yourself/ask questions is a problem. Also, from what I can tell, no one here has expressed regret over submitting their applications on the due date. In fact, I saw some posts that expressed regret over submitting applications too early because this has led to a longer waiting period.) Your thoughts, in my humble opinion, would be better spent elsewhere, like reading some novels or keeping up with world affairs. I also recommend checking out blogs relating to the admissions process--these sites can answer many questions that arise in connection to applying to graduate school for philosophy. And I think they are more reliable sources of information than whatever source you're consulting.

Hi Platonist, I noticed that you have lots of questions about the admissions process. When I was applying, I found Eric Schwitzgebel's blog very helpful in answering some of the basic and more subtle questions about the process. Here's the link to his guide: http://schwitzsplintersunderblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/applying-to-phd-programs-in-philosophy.html It covers everything you can think of relating to the admissions process: whether you should apply, how you can go about applying, how to craft a personal statement/choose a writing sample, and what to expect after you've been accepted.

I do think ad coms visit sites like these. They probably aren't perusing these sites right now because they're busy reading all of your applications. But once acceptances have been offered, ad comes are curious to know who is likely to attend so that they can make some decisions about waitlists and so forth. Even if ad coms aren't looking through these sites themselves, grad students from the same program could be looking on their behalf. I don't think being "discovered" by an ad com is bad for the reason that Matt pointed out--learning that you really like cats or dislike coffee isn't going to move any one on the committee.

I definitely sympathize with your point about phone calls; I was also quite stressed and awkward when I received them. But in retrospect, I think the phone call is a very low-pressure environment and all the anxiety I had was a product of my own mind. The callers I heard from sounded genuinely excited to share the good news with me. It's difficult to convey enthusiasm to a stranger through email and so that's why I think some places opt for a phone call instead of an email. (In my head, I imagine the caller fighting for my admission with the committee and having won a long, hard battle, they're just as thrilled with the results as I am). The calls also tended to be short and had a predictable structure: we ad coms just finished admissions, congrats, more information to come in email or we hope you'll visit us, congrats again. To be honest, the caller did most of the talking and though I felt pressured to give an acceptance/thank you speech of sorts at the time, I really think it's perfectly appropriate for you to simply say thank you. There is neither a need nor an expectation for you to give a grand speech or to go into detail about whether you'll attend the program, visit it, or why you applied there in the first place. And for the places that notified me through email, my responses to their acceptance emails were just as awkward. And I struggled to come up with something meaningful to say aside from thank you. So there's plenty of opportunity for emails to go awry too :-)

Based on the WGI thread from last year (and the year before that), Berkeley had two rounds of acceptances, one early and one late. So if you don't hear from them when the first round of acceptances occurs, don't give up yet.

This thread is a really good idea. I wish I had seen the advice on how to make documents smaller when I was applying. I spent hours scanning my transcripts, saving them as JPEGs (cause I thought this would reduce the size), only to find that School X will only let you upload PDFs. Uploading documents was my least favorite part of the application process. I also wish I had a spreadsheet; it would have made life much easier. I would have realized that some of the programs I was applying to require official transcripts and would have saved $15 on rush delivery. Based on the threads I've seen here, I get the impression that you 2014 applicants are much more organized than the 2013 applicants. Keep it up. It's too early to start a thread about visits, but when the time comes, I'll drop in to share some things I wish I had known or did during my visits to programs.

Don't worry about it, OP. I was in the same situation last year with two different programs. Neither program minded the fact that my official transcripts were missing; in fact, I ended up getting accepted to one of them and the other place couldn't have been kinder in their response to my worried emails. I had uploaded my transcripts in my online application so both places had my transcript in hand, just not the official one sent from my university. And the place that accepted me asked for yet another official transcript after I accepted their offer, so there's probably a lot of time for you to get the official document in.