ianfaircloud

Southern Baptist Convention is one of the most conservative denominations in America -- politically, socially, theologically. If you were expecting anything else, then I'm not surprised that you were disappointed! By really, really conservative, you must mean something that's shockingly conservative. I know about the home-birthing movements, the preaching against use of birth control, the parochial views on family and relationships. So you must be talking about something more conservative (or more shocking) than that...

Thanks for the message. I hear that Wisconsin has reduced the wait-list to 15. It's hard to believe it was ever longer than 15! If you were wait-listed and did not receive the email telling you that you are among these 15, then you presumably are rejected. Thanks for the positive comment! Which is easier? Actually, that question is more difficult to answer than I once thought. LAW is much easier (in my view) than philosophy admissions for me. It's much easier for people who do well on the LSAT. If you're someone who can't do well on the LSAT, then law admissions becomes perhaps tougher than philosophy admissions, depending on how you look at it. Philosophy admissions is difficult with any numbers, because the numbers just don't matter as much. It becomes easier with strong letters of recommendation, a nice academic pedigree.

Yup. Agreed.

I really appreciate this, and I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate it. I think your main point (as you say) is that asking questions can be helpful. Agreed. I do want to say, though, that admissions in philosophy could be quite different than admissions in religion. Philosophy is one of the few fields in which the writing sample is taken very, very seriously. I think there are other differences, too. I have some experience in religion and theology at the graduate level. In my experience, GRE is weighted more heavily among those programs that don't weight the writing sample as heavily (or perhaps don't even ask for a writing sample).

First of all, thanks for letting us know. I received a message in private about this, but because it's now public, I will congratulate those who survived the cut. Unless there's been some mistake, I'm probably now eliminated from consideration in philosophy -- shut out, as it were. The irony! I'd be glad to share my writing sample with people, now that I'm out of philosophy. (I'll do this only privately-- please email me at ianfaircloud at gmail dot com. I don't expect that many will want to see it, but perhaps a few will.) I'm curious what others would think of the sample. If it's a good sample, and I think it is, then let my experience be an example of someone who seemed to check off all the boxes and yet utterly failed in admissions. Of course, people should keep in mind that I applied only to the top-20, plus a few strong programs in the 21-30. Hardly anyone does that, and rightfully so -- if philosophy is your only path, then you should entertain offers from lower-ranked programs. (In fact, even if philosophy isn't your only path, you may want to do so! There are plenty of great programs not high in the rankings!) I'm not quite as disappointed as I expected I would be. I just have to look at this as a difficult decision between law school and graduate programs in philosophy that I now needn't make. I'll be happy studying law and perhaps teaching law or practicing law. If I apply to philosophy programs a third time, it will be as a candidate for JD-PhD (and only at the school at which I study law).

Good choice. I remember turning down an unfunded offer from Virginia Tech, too. Gotta say, I was more successful before my MA than I was after! Was admitted to like five T-7 master's programs and an unranked PhD program. This time? Well, just take a look at my signature...

Update on the survey: Responses have slowed today. There's now an option in the form to submit much less detailed information at the end. Instead of entering specific data for each program to which one applied, one can now opt to exit the survey after answering a few questions concerning one's overall success (e.g. "Of the T-50 programs to which you applied, to how many have you been wait-listed or admitted?") I also moved the form to an external Google form site. The worry is that some people will not see the final "Submit" button, which would mean that we lose the data. If you exit the survey before hitting 'submit', then your data is lost. That's just the way Google forms work. If I were more tech-savvy, I'd have a solution to this. Thanks for your help! Again, the survey is here: http://faircloudblog.wordpress.com/philosophy-admissions-survey/

I do think much of this depends on one's views. I don't mean to represent what everyone would say.

Well, there's no perfect answer here. I do think that some of the programs in religion offer more than most of the programs in philosophy. Truly there isn't a lot of quality philosophy of religion among mainstream PhD programs in philosophy. A few people at Cornell are good. Notre Dame, obviously. Also the answer to this question may depend on your views and goals. There are some unranked departments that take religion seriously. Baylor? Texas A&M? Saint Louis University? SLU is nice, because you have WUSTL down the road -- a solid academic community. The reason I sound so hesitant about these is that placement isn't quite as strong, depending on how one measures placement. I know some folks at SLU, and it's a department that manages to attract some bright people.

The survey really should be for this year's cycle only, because much of the data used is current for this year only. (E.g. the rank-reputation data) However, I know that a few people filled out the survey for a previous year's cycle. My dilemma is this. Either I add something in the preface, specifying that the survey is for this year's cycle only, in which case we lose some valuable data. Or I add a question that allows people to specify the admission season, in which case I introduce the problem of people using anachronous data for a previous admissions cycle. I think I'll add the question and allow readers to interpret the results as they would like to interpret them. So to answer your question: Yes, you may use the survey for other admission cycles! Thanks for mentioning this. EDIT: I added a question to address this potential issue.

Responses are coming in! Thanks for contributing! I reduced the number of programs allowed from 25 to 22, because Google docs can't handle the amount of data in this survey!

Update on the survey: We received over 30 responses this afternoon. I hope we can get at least 300 people to participate before May 1. That's going to be REALLY hard to do. Please encourage others to complete the survey. http://faircloudblog...issions-survey/ Thanks!

Your institution isn't on the key but is top-40 USN? The only way for me to verify this is to figure out which institution is missing from my list. Or you could send me a message in private... I'm finding some small mistakes on the survey, which is to be expected. I somehow didn't include UW Milwaukee in the list of graduate programs in philosophy. So I've corrected that. Also, some people have attempted to enter information in the graduate programs section about programs not in philosophy. So I've added a note to remind people that this is primarily a survey of people who applied to graduate programs in philosophy. How someone did in applications to, say, psychology programs is not within the scope of the survey. Bar_scene_gambler: I checked again, and I can't figure out which institution is missing. I count that I have the right number. Is your institution USN top-40 (or top-50?) National Univ. or Liberal Arts?

I'm glad you brought this up. I didn't know whether to specify that the survey is limited to 2014 applicants. It gets tricky, because some of the questions ask for information that changes from year to year. E.g. rank-reputation of undergraduate institution. I'm open to suggestions on this. If the survey is for applicants from 2013, too, then maybe I should add a question to the effect of, "Which application season . . . ?"

I wish I could do that. The tool doesn't allow me to do this (to my knowledge). I agree that asking for the time seems a little silly and pointless. Maybe I should just eliminate it from the survey altogether??

OK -- I fixed this, too. Now it informs people to skip the question OR to use 12:00 a.m. if they don't know the time. I hope people remember to skip questions that they don't want to bother with. It's not a requirement that you answer every question. Thanks, perpetuavix, for the tip!!

The responses are coming in! I think we're up to 12 now. The survey was posted about 45 minutes ago. That's pretty good!

FIXED! Wow, that's frustrating...!

Well, hopefully the 2015 applicants will benefit from the results of the comprehensive Philosophy Admissions Survey, which has now been posted: faircloudblog.wordpress.com/philosophy-admissions-survey/

Also, you'll notice that I ask only for the INITIAL notification. No doubt this will strike some as a weakness. Here's why I did that. First, I don't want people waiting until April 15 to fill out the survey. The reason is that, as a matter of fact, we will get fewer replies to the survey as time goes on. Second, the INITIAL notification is extremely informative to us. An applicant's being initially wait-listed indicates a certain degree of that applicant's success. I think it would be nice to better understand why some people are on wait-lists and others are rejected outright. No doubt the survey would be even more informative if it asked whether people were eventually admitted to programs at which they were initially wait-listed. But again, then we lose the people who wait until April 15 or later to fill out the survey.

A few things you'll notice immediately: 1. It's heavily western-oriented and particularly American-oriented. I felt that I had to narrow the scope/range of the survey. There's such a thing as a survey that's too wide, too comprehensive to be effective. You will notice that I didn't go to great lengths to accommodate international applicants (i.e. applicants who attended colleges not in the United States). Their input is very valuable, but it becomes more difficult to measure, e.g., reputation of international schools. I admit that it's possible to do so. But keep in mind, it does take a long time to put together a survey with such details. 2. The survey allows people to skip almost every question. I did this because no doubt there will be people who want to skip certain questions. I don't want those people to be excluded. The more data we get, the better. 3. The survey doesn't get too specific about GPA and GRE. This allows us to somewhat protect the anonymity of those who respond. I tried to strike a balance. 4. The survey is quite long. Well, it's the only one out there, so there's a lot of data that we want. Also, I listened to the people on the forum who suggested that we add certain questions (e.g. publications, etc.). These questions make the survey longer. But GUESS WHAT? You can simply SKIP the questions that you don't want to answer! So I figured, Why not include all this? This survey will be a failure if we don't get enough responses. Please, please, please encourage everyone to fill this thing out. It's REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY important that people fill out the survey, even when (perhaps especially when) those people were shut out or rejected to almost every program. We're trying to figure out WHY some are shut out and not others. It's not always as obvious as, e.g., GRE score.

Well, I hope this works. It's not perfect. There are some things about the survey that will strike some as odd and others as reasonable. When I get time, I'll explain some of the choices that I made. I hope that, on the whole, the survey is a powerful tool for the community of academic philosophy in the United States. http://faircloudblog.wordpress.com/philosophy-admissions-survey/ Would you please encourage others to participate? The more data, the better.

Hey folks! Just an update. The survey is taking forever, but I want to do it right the first time. I really, really, really hope we can encourage a lot of people to participate. The more data, the better.

Vineyard, the survey will be anonymous!!!! No one is asked any personally identifiable information. It will work exactly the same way as lawschoolnumbers and other law school admission sites. The surveys are completely anonymous. I just want to make sure you (and everyone else) understands that!!

Sounds like we're on the same page. And yes, all of the relevant data will be public, including the raw data of individual responses. I don't want to serve as a gatekeeper of information, which would set a bad precedent and would undermine the credibility of our findings.