TheVineyard

LOL this is priceless. I don't say my application information so I can't be identified by schools on here. And as far as getting in to schools, only about 5ish schools have even answered back, and we have somebody in to most of them.

So you don't actually know how. That's what I thought

You still haven't told me how to determine if UNC considers me a good fit.

What? I thought that YOU could determine it and so could we! Teach us how! How can I know which schools to apply to or how to tailor my personal statement if I can't determine the level of fit!

Equally justified would, IMO, mean equally likely. I really can't speculate...I guess I should just remove that.

I mentioned fit at least 3 times in this thread now. He was a better fit at other schools. Also, who will be reading which application is information that is denied to applicants. Duke and UNC. I guess it's quick to say I'm rejected, but I know I am not a first-round acceptance.

So you are now saying that it is knowable! So tell me, who will be on the application committee to the Pittsburgh History and Philosophy of Science department. Also, tell me who exactly will be assigned to read my application so I can cater it. Then, please tell me exactly what that faculty member wants in an applicant. Do they want to be mentioned in the statement of purpose, or do they consider that to be too desperate? How many Philosophy of Mind students do they want? If they don't want any then obviously I shouldn't include that...but do they want 3 so I can accentuate my focus in Mind? Please answer Loric so I can be accepted thx. Did you not read the first part of my first post? Nobody thinks every applicant is good. Nobody thinks every applicant is equal. Nobody thinks every applicant is the best. We are all aware there are criteria that make a qualified applicant. However, there is no consistent way of determining who should be accepted among the qualified applicant (re-read the part about Jon Lawhead who was only accepted to one of 12 schools, and that school happened to be one of the best and hardest to get in to).

Again, you must have failed to read. I said it is unknowable in the weak sense, in that it is so complicated and contingent on factors that applicants are not allowed to know (who is on the committee, who reads what writing samples, how they feel that day, how many Philosophy of Language people they want to take that day, etc...) I guess I have to repeat myself: None of us think that the process is Truly Random. So we agree with you in that sense. However, just because a system is knowable in principle, doesn't make it practically random. The simplest example suffices: There is nothing "Truly Random" about a coin flip. Coin flips are entirely deterministic, and if we knew the positions, weight, strength and angle and height of flip, etc etc, it would be predictable. Now I'm not trying to say that admissions are equivalent to coin flips, but both coin flips and the final choice of applicants are both procedures that applicants cannot know about. Again, as I said, we DO know about what makes an application good enough to get to the final rounds. Good GPA, GRE, Writers, Institution, Sample, etc. Each school can only take in about 5 people per year out of 200-300 applicants.

Its time to either feed a troll or enlighten a mind: Okay, here is what people mean when they say random. 1: They do not mean it is an inherently indeterministic system, they do not mean that everyone has an equal chance. 2: What is meant is that there is no 100% agreed upon criteria for judging applicants. With a solid application, you can be sure that you aren't cut out early (decent GRE, solid GPA, at least somewhat noteworthy school and writers, etc.) However, when it comes time to cut down all of the "well-qualified" applicants, that is the part that is almost completely unpredictable. Maybe you catch the eye of a person that happens to be on the committee. Maybe that person alone really likes you and gets you an acceptance when the rest of the adcom didn't see it. On the other hand, perhaps that person was sick today, and didn't actually read your writing sample. Instead someone read it who thinks the position you took was silly. Although it might have been very well argued and valid, because it comes to a conclusion the reader doesn't like, they subconsciously judge this applicant to be naive. Here is why we KNOW this sort of thing is true: Applicants are NOT consistently accepted/denied in rank order of school quality or by fit! For example, Jon Lawhead who does the Philosoraptor blog applied to 12 schools. His first notification was a rejection to the #44 school. Then a rejection to #35, then #18, then #12, then #15 (approximately). Then, finally, he hears back from the final school: Columbia, one of the best programs in Philosophy. He is accepted with full-funding. WHAT? Had he just not decided to apply to Columbia, he would have gotten shut out. He got denied at many many inferior programs, and many of those inferior programs were superb fits for him, with many faculty overlapping his interests. How could Columbia offer him full funding straight away, but University of Washington or something reject him flat out? The process is not straightforward. He caught someone's eye at Columbia, the right person read the right application at the right time. So, Loric, you have failed the first task of a philosopher (and I actually doubt that you are a philosophy student). You failed to be a sympathetic reader. You failed to understand the argument or the rationality behind the complaints of the philosophy students here. We all are well aware that solid statistics, solid writing sample, the right letter writers, etc, matters a whole bunch. In fact, in the end it will be ALL THAT MATTERS. However, being an extremely well-qualified student only gets you so far. It gets you to the table, it gets you to one of the final cuts, where they remove all of the flawed applicants. At that point, people describe the process as "random" not because you have a Truly Random chance at admission, but because the process of choosing between well qualified, good-fitting candidates is unknowable (unknowable in the weak sense...Laplace's Demon would know, but an applicant sitting 1000 miles away will never be able to know what influenced some admissions person to stand up for this one particular candidate). There is no way to "rejection-proof" your application. There is no way to "entice a faculty member to support you" with certainty. TL;DR - 1: Learn to be a sympathetic reader/analyst of argumentation/reasons if you intend to converse with deep thinking people. 2: The claim that the process of admissions is "random" is true in the sense that there is no way to secure yourself an acceptance. There are ways to make your application great, make it more likely to be admitted, and ESPECIALLY ways to make it less likely to be rejected in the first rounds. However, once you get down to those well-qualified and good-fitting applicants, the process is unknown, unknowable to an applicant, and in that sense it causes us to cross our fingers and hope.

Well that's a bummer.

What is impressive is that epistemology has somehow fixated itself on a definition problem (one no more interesting than definition problems in any other subfield of philosophy) and run itself in circles for so damn long.

I'll be getting them shit after application season is over.

Alex Rosenberg and no news from Duke....=,[

Well its a historical induction. Very often people fake one submission. I have never seen multiple submissions @ the same school be fake. Also, I have never seen someone make an account and post on these forums to claim a fake acceptance. In order to change the trolling metagame, yes, someone could put down a mix of like 5 acceptances and boy would that be convincing, each with different spellings (Duke, Duke U, Duke University) with a mix of stats and not stats, mix of email and website, and yeah it would totally get me. Until that happens though, I will classify it along in-person voter fraud as a non-issue until proven otherwise.

Schwitzgebel talks about this in his blog, the splintered mind. I'm on a phone right now so I can't link it to you, but you should be able to google it. Short story is yes, it does happen. Schools all have unique budgetary situations and rules about accepting, and sometimes this means accepting more than you can actually take while expecting a 40-50% yield (UCRiverside), doing limited acceptance then pulling from waitlist (Duke), or not accepting initially and instead have the # you would accept visit, get a look at everyone, have them look at you, and hope the situation works itself out (Cincinnati).

Their waitlist is probably longer than that. No school consistently yields 50%of applicants every single year. However, it is probably about right that only 2-3 will be accepted off of the waitlist.

What you are saying is probably the same situation as the Duke posters, and was the case with other schools earlier. We would typically post that as "Email from POI, unofficial acceptance" or something like that. The letters typically come later. My GF is 3 for 3 so far in Political Science, and 2 of them unofficial-ed before the official and both times everyone posted on Grad Cafe. So tell us the good news!

Yes. GL folks!

Is that true? 3 from Cincin out of 10, 2 from OSU...were those numbers higher last year? EDIT: It looks like OSU's trickle in. Anyway, from what I can tell, about 30-50 percent of applicants post on grad cafe.

This is rather short-sighted, (dare I say blind?) Many, many, many, many, many times, including several this year, the posting has been fake. Many times they have been real. This posting is different in many ways (as noted) from the way Duke typically accepts. It might be real, it might not be, but I have already explained the many reasons that I think it is fake. I might be wrong, but I have reason to be unconvinced. If you think its real, that's fine. We will find out soon enough.

Yes, but when we report that we report it as "website." Also, the last two years it was a Wednesday not a Monday, etc etc. I think its a fake.

Wouldn't a troll? Also, historically, Duke has always accepted via Website, not personal E-Mail.

With only one Duke acceptance, (and nobody on the forums willing to claim it) I'm starting to get suspicious. Last year, there were 5 who posted acceptance/waitlist in the same day.

Looks like the Duke acceptances have begun...

Cincin already announced decisions and they had the same deadline, so I don't think that'd be too surprising. Try checking the status of your application through the online thingy, see what it says. Also, let me know if they say they got your transcript =P