alethicethic

I'd like to formally upgrade your contrats...to formal.

I also like to listen to pure shit, 80s pop trash.  Synth-pop garbage.  I really don't know why.  I think it's some kind of personal defect.  I think it's loud, predictable.  It's a sensory experience.

The informal notifications are reported when a faculty member reaches out to the accepted student and tells them that they have been recommended for acceptance, which essentially means there is only a couple days of red tape between now and the official acceptance. It is meant to personalize the acceptance process and make you feel special as an applicant.

I can't listen to music while reading. I find that it distracts me since I'll end up focusing too much on the music. In fact, when I listen to music it's always something I do by itself, not jointly with another activity. 

When I listen to music while reading philosophy, I typically choose something minimal or ambient that will fit nicely in the background. Sigur Ros and Brian Eno are popular choices. I find it difficult to focus on what I'm reading if the music has lyrics.

Somehow, by applying to Utah I got on their mass email list. Today, I received an email saying, "It's not too late to apply to the U!" I nearly had a heart attack. I was like, "I thought I already did?" I freaked out and checked my application, and sure enough, everything is complete. Whew! 

Thank you! Hmm, I suppose there's no harm, since others have also posted acceptances: Duke!!! I am thrilled.
 
I feel as though something could go wrong, though...like, oops, just kidding, it was unofficial, we've decided not to admit you after all. I guess that explains my hesitation to tell anyone?

Thank you! Hmm, I suppose there's no harm, since others have also posted acceptances: Duke!!! I am thrilled.
 
I feel as though something could go wrong, though...like, oops, just kidding, it was unofficial, we've decided not to admit you after all. I guess that explains my hesitation to tell anyone?

Thank you! Hmm, I suppose there's no harm, since others have also posted acceptances: Duke!!! I am thrilled.
 
I feel as though something could go wrong, though...like, oops, just kidding, it was unofficial, we've decided not to admit you after all. I guess that explains my hesitation to tell anyone?

Thank you! Hmm, I suppose there's no harm, since others have also posted acceptances: Duke!!! I am thrilled.
 
I feel as though something could go wrong, though...like, oops, just kidding, it was unofficial, we've decided not to admit you after all. I guess that explains my hesitation to tell anyone?

Thank you! Hmm, I suppose there's no harm, since others have also posted acceptances: Duke!!! I am thrilled.
 
I feel as though something could go wrong, though...like, oops, just kidding, it was unofficial, we've decided not to admit you after all. I guess that explains my hesitation to tell anyone?

They wouldn't have told you about it if there was any question left in their minds. Unofficial is as good as official. I say congrats and share the good news! Now you have us curious! 

Whatever you feel comfortable with. Unless they told you not to tell anyone, it's perfectly alright to say, and many of the 'acceptances' on the results are unofficial results similar to yours.

This is a bit like going to a bar and telling the patrons all they do is drink. It's a forum that's only purpose is to talk about graduate school admissions. You're not exactly getting an accurate picture of the posters' lives, let alone enough to make psychological diagnoses. 

I have it on good authority (someone that I know read it on WGI and saw my post here) that the deadline for UC Riverside was 12/17 last year. So, I would expect a later date for feedback. 

I'll be the optimistic one and predict that at least one program will send out first-round acceptances tomorrow, January 17.

I'll be the optimistic one and predict that at least one program will send out first-round acceptances tomorrow, January 17.

philosophy and language are two different things. if you have a reliably well translated text, with explanations when necessary, then it isn't necessary to study the mother tongue of that philosopher.

if you want to spend your time squabbling over trivial nuances in diction or made up words, then you're a dumbass .

I'm not at all familiar with the particulars of Ancient Greek philosophy, but I believe there are concrete translation concerns over the fact that Greek does not have definite/indefinite articles, and that there are actual issues on specifics lines in Aristotle and Parmenidies (I'm more familiar with Parmenides since my school focused on the pre-socratics), where the interpretatation depends on whether or not an article should be there or not. This isn't something you'll be able to determine, or even be aware of as an issue, if you're reading a translation. I should also say I don't understand your dismisal of Rollontheground's example.
 
You need to be familiar with Greek, and not just on a surface level, but know the various ways in which a Greek person might try to articulate the definite/indefinite distinction without having specific terms for it.
 
Which is another point. If you're reading something in translation, you might not even be aware of there being an issue, because the translation glides over some nuance, mistranslates, or just doesn't translate something.

In very practical ways, foreign languages are needed for graduate research. When you are collating a preliminary bibliography, you need to know be able to decide whether foreign language works are relevant to your project. You need to be able to read the title or abstract. You do not want to be google translating every second citation in a recent publication to find out whether it is relevant to your project or struggling to decipher one hundred abstracts. 
 
English might be the main academic language, but there continues to be work done in European languages. While seminal works in one area might be translated, most recent publications will not have an English translation to follow. On this point, however, maybe it is different in philosophy. My background is classical philology and there is an expectation that a PhD thesis will show an understanding of all relevant secondary literature, including non-Anglophone literature. 
 
Finally, a few people have mentioned using google translate. I wish more of the philosophers tackled this ... philosophically. Does a translation ever accurately reproduce the original? I guess in terms of extracting raw propositional content, a translator (or even google translate) might be effective. But in translation, you also lose a lot of other features of the text (the sound, syntax, tone, etc). You might lose puns or irony, which a translation does not necessarily render. As a classical philologist I often find this is a problem when I observe philosophers engage with Plato, where in the original text, there's a lot of punning, plays on sound, highly ornately organised sentences, and often irony. 

I can just see your letter now... "He is very persistent, and hyper-aware of deadlines."
 
That said, I wish I had this sort of tenacity. 

Wow, great advice. I'll add some of the things that worked for me. 
 
Spreadsheet: I also created a spreadsheet for my applications on Google Docs. I had the same sort of information, plus a little more (when their earliest acceptances were posted). When I finished working on an application, I changed the row color from white to yellow, indicating that my part was done and I was waiting on letter writers. Once I got notified that they had all been submitted, I changed it to blue. Now, as the acceptances/waitlists/rejections roll in, I'll change the row colors accordingly. It makes it really easy to get a "big picture" type of progress update. 
 
Nitty-Gritty Application: I would get all of your materials collected in one area, and then complete all of the applications in one time period. This makes it easier on your letter-writers (who don't have to wait for each individual school that you apply to), and on yourself (you don't have to remember which applications are still incomplete). 
 
Transcripts: Order transcripts all at once. Do not order them when you are applying to each school. Instead, make sure you have your schools narrowed down early and print off a copy of each school's address to have them send it to each school that requires it. I just sent my transcripts to every school that I applied, because I didn't want to have to deal with the process over again. But if your school charges a lot or you'd rather not go through the hassle, just look at the guidelines for each school. 
 
Letter-Writers: Ask them as early as you can. In an ideal situation, they can give you advice about where to apply.  Once you have narrowed down the list of schools (preferably with their help), send them a list of schools with the application deadlines. Don't pester them endlessly, they have done this before and they know how important it is. 

I thought it might be nice if we had a thread collecting advice for next year's applicants while the process is still fresh in our minds. Looking back now, what would have saved you time and pain?

I started my process by making a spreadsheet to keep track of all the schools I was applying to, which was enormously helpful. Information to include on your spreadsheet: deadline, whether GRE's are required, whether official paper transcripts are required, and anything additional a particular school might require (for example, a "statement of personal history" in addition to a statement of purpose). Be sure to check deadlines and requirements both the phil department's AND office of grad admission's site. Several of us have encountered discrepancies here. 
I also kept track of whether I had set up my letter-writers, sent in the app, etc. on my spreadsheet. 

I wish I had made all my files as small as possible at the very beginning. Early on, I encountered upload limits of 2mb and 1mb, and I had some trouble getting a readable scan of my transcript that was under that. The last app I filled out (Pitt) had a limit of 600kb, which my writing sample was over. Figuring out how to get it under probably took me about 4 hours. (seriously)

​You want your files to be as small as possible for two reason. Like I said, some apps have pretty low upload limits. Even if you could upload a bigger file, though, the smaller your file is, the easier it is to open it on the receiving end. 
 
TIPS FOR LOWERING THE FILE SIZE OF YOUR PDFS:
Scans:
Scan in greyscale and at the lowest possible DPI that will produce a readable file. I think 170 worked for me. Try several different ways of scanning (change contrast, noise reduction, etc.). It was MUCH easier for me to fiddle with my scanner's features and scan in a small file than to scan a larger file and try to reduce it on my computer. If you're using a mac, preview's reduce file size feature is basically guaranteed to render it unreadable. There are many PDF-size reducers online, which may work for this, but I didn't try them. You may want to be wary of uploading your transcript to these services, though, especially if it has your social security number on it. Some apps require scans of the back side of your transcript, so be sure to get that too. Text-only PDFs (exported from a word processor):
Use a font that's on all computers for your writing sample, personal statement, and CV (because you'll want to use a serifed font, that means really either times new roman or georgia). It turns out if you use a non-standard font, it needs to be embedded in the PDF file, which takes up a fair amount of space. Preview's reduce file size feature and online PDF-size reducers try to reduce the size of your PDF by lowering image quality, so they will not work on a text-only file.  Adobe Acrobat Pro's file size reduction tool is more sophisticated and worked for me. There's a free trial if you don't have it.