Platonist

Hi, I want to know how the applicant will be informed of the results of his or her application? Should he or she check his or her online application account frequently to see if the results come out? Or will schools sent notifications (either of acceptance or of rejection ) via email? Thanks.

I am really puzzled by many strange things about admission and application for PhD program: (1) The job market for philosophy PhDs is among the worst among all fields, which is probably known by every applicant, so why do people continue to choose to pursue a PhD in philosophy? For the most time that I checked the information on every philosophy graduate program, I found that almost every PhD program in philosophy receives more than 200 applications, and there is only 4 or 5 spaces available. This fact really stresses me out. (2) I saw a guy (Swagato, actually) in this forum that s/he did not receive any offer for the first time s/he applied. But he got into *Yale* at the second time. How comes such a huge difference? (3) It seems every applicant makes reference to the Philosophy Gourmet Report (PGR) when choosing schools to apply to, but is it completely wise to do so? Have you applied to any programs that are not listed in the PGR?

Thanks for your posts, everybody. Yes, it would be rational to wait until you hear from the first choice school. But here is a more difficult dilemma. Suppose you are on the waitlist of your top choice school, and you have received an offer from a less favorite school. You want to wait until the deadline, April 15. But a guy who has received an offer from your topic choice school rejects it on April 15, and now you will get an offer from it on, say, April 17. But you cannot wait until April 17, because you have to accept the offer from the less favorite school on April 15 to be safe. So you will never get into your most favorite school that keeps you on the waitlist until after April 15. That is a real painful situation. What do you think?

Hello everybody, I believe everybody has applied to more than one school (probably more than 5). But the offers of admission come in at different times. If the two offers that come to you first are not your top choices, and you have not yet heard from your top-choice school, what would you do? Would you keep the two schools waiting for your decision until you have heard from your topic choice? Or would you accept one of them because you are not sure if you will get an offer from your most favorite school?