Rollontheground

It wasn't out of fear. It was more about timing. Though I stand by my question, it was insensitive to ask right now. I am a little shocked by the response though. The second I attempt to critique anything, I'm accused of oppression. How that's philosophical, I'm not sure.

I don't know why this has to be so shocking. Several people made a claim, I challenged that claim; I was challenged back. However, if I were to be lambasted for thinking … that would be unacceptable. I deleted it, originally, because I realized that this might not be the best time (I know I'm an insecure wreck right now). But the cat's out of the bag …

Personally, I trust that this guy knew what he was talking about. Professor of Psych who has dedicated his whole career to intelligence better be able to remember a simple statistic like that. — Unless he's just making it up; but I don't wish to a accuse him of that. And your claim is valid; I didn't realize he didn't cite anything. I just remembered reading it a while ago.

Deleted.

I should qualify what I said earlier. I don't think anyone is necessarily screwed at a small school. It's the writing sample that matters. The letters usually rank people against other philosophy students the recommender has had. Thus, different caliber schools would seem to require different percentages to be deemed "excellent." I gave those hypothetical percentages with the assumption that all other application components are equal. So, let's assume that two applicants have the same GRE scores, an equally awesome writing sample, and same GPA. Let's also disregarding the notoriety of the letter-writer. If all this were so, I would expect a letter from an Ivy League Professor that says "this applicant is in top 10% of philosophy students" to hold equal weight to a letter from a professor at an unranked, unheard of school that said "this applicant is in the top 1 or 2% of philosophy students." And again, I have no way of confirming this. It's just my opinion; I don't want to scare anyone!

^ 170/170

Right, I'd call those schools top 5%ish schools. This is all hypothetical of course; I don't really have any idea what I'm talking about. Hume, absolutely on the sample. I don't know if unheard-of colleges are screwed; like I said, i just suspect that they're expected to be in the top two percent.

I think it's a form of advertising. Schools allocate rewards in accordance with the applicants' merit in the hope that he or she will one day become an awesome philosophy professor with his or her own google page, which will include graduate education. Then you're supposed to think, "Wow, this dude went to Harvard; I want to go to Harvard!" That, and perhaps it's presumed that all of your students will love you and want to go to the same grad school you did. The other answer could be the Good Will Hunting situation. Every department would love to have a Will in it, but Will doesn't have any money. The department is willing to pay for Will, but doing this and not paying for others might be seen as inegalitarian. So, to get out around this, they offer all accepted applicants packages, regardless of their financial background.

This is what happens when House fans go to grad school ...

I did not read this whole thread, but I assume an "excellent letter" quantifies the applicant's position relative to other philosophy majors in the letter-writer's department. To qualify as excellent, I would assume that, from a small no-name school, a letter-writer would need to state that the applicant is in the top 2% or so, whereas I suspect top 10% would be sufficient from an Ivy, or PGR-endowed department. More personal comments that show potential couldn't hurt — e.g., "So and so's paper on X will be publishable after a few minor revisions"

Barney!

I have two white-boards in my apartment on which I sketch ideas, paper structures, etc. I was stalking the results page, looking at everyone's GPA and GRE data, trying to find out who got into what schools, who's likely to remove themselves from the wait list and whatnot, and I just started writing it down.

I wish it were.

I have a flowchart of wait list hypotheticals on my whiteboard. I think it's more stressful than actually waiting to hear back, the whole so close but so far thing. Best of luck.

Don't we all? Seriously. Phil majors are pretty bad with that.