TheVineyard

Not positive, but if I've read the situation correctly, everyone here is rooting for me.

I don't even have such a thing, and I can't imagine that that is relevant to admissions over and above GPA/school information.

I think one reason that traffic to your site is down because you stopped updating during a huge traffic time. I used to use the notifications section to keep up with stuff but when you took a big break it just threw me off and confused me so I quit checking. However, most people have heard from most of their schools now so it will probably be downhill traffic from here.

Have you taken phil bio courses yet? I'm surprised to see it considering your interests. The philosophy of biology is interested mostly in the actions of scientists. Explaining/rationally reconstructing models, identifying and explaining idealizations, working directly in biological science texts...its basically theoretical biology... None of the philosophers you listed are read in phil bio, and phil biologists are not really interested in ethics...its typically a "we will talk about ethics for one day" kind of thing in phil bio courses. Applied ethics or bioethics might be more what you are thinking? I'm sure I'll be downvoted for this post because some will see it as negative, but I'm a primarily phil bio applicant (and as far as I know, I'm the only one with phil bio as a central focus on these boards) and I just wanted to better explain phil bio because the info posted didn't seem like the sort of thing that phil bio applicants are interested in. I will second the Calgary recommendation for those interested in the phil bio that I described. I didn't apply there, but only because I want to stay in the USA. Also, keep track of Cincinnati...they are incredibly strong at phil bio. They have made several senior hires in the last year, and plan to make more. It will be clear just how good they are on the next Leiter report. Duke and Wisconsin are obviously top phil bio programs, not much more needs to be said there.

I can say that all of their waitlists and acceptances have been given out.

I think this would be fantastic. I'm especially interested to see the data on minority/women applicants vs the white male majority. The only factors that I think would be unhelpful to the quiz are method of notification and date of notification. The rest are all the right kinds of questions to be able to put together a "profile" of a successful applicant, and maybe give future applicants a better idea of where they should aim (or at least, where applicants like them have ended up).

Confirmed rejection for me. Thanks for the ez link.

Oh I have nothing against Purdue, it is a fantastic school. I just have heard the term and PurDUPED reminded me of it. I watch college sports and I know a bunch more. Give me a school and I'll give you a little rhymey name that others use to make fun of it. My problems with Notre Dame are just problems with religion generally. I'm assuming I don't have to say more about that? It is also a great school with many great students and some great faculty. Again, though, my criticism was about the one-school-centrism of the supposed "foundation in metaphysics." If someone had said that most of the philosophers of mind you need to read before going into graduate school are from Duke or CUNY and are straight-up hardcore reductive physicalists, I would question that list just as strongly, even though I agree with those authors and love their programs.

Can I ask how you knew the rest of your app was stellar?

You've clearly sipped on the kool-aid! I can't believe that people would defend a reading list from a Notre Dame PhD that lists primarily Notre Dame Christian philosophers as the "must read" philosophers for a foundation of metaphysics...and then say it's unbiased. It's just laughable. But whatever, anyone who can't see that that is an incredibly biased reading list has too much "faith" to overcome. If you want to study only Notre Dame Christian philosophers, be my guest. I didn't say anything bad about them. I didn't say that they are bad, motivated by supernatural claims, unscientific, radically speculative, or insulated from the rest of the world. I'm just saying that the universe of metaphysics doesn't center around Notre Dame Christian philosophers as your list makes it seem.

I'm not sure exactly what your point here is...I don't know if you are trying to say that the proposed sample of mostly-Christian, mostly Notre Dame philosophers is an accurate representation of a "foundation" in the field, or if you just mean to say that Inwagen is influential in metaphysics. I believe he is, but that doesn't make the former true.

Here's my (new) summary: You don't win this war without people to fight for you. Make it your undergraduate life's work to get people excited about you, invested in your success, and willing to sacrifice for your well-being. Be the most interested and most engaged student in the department. Develop a "hit list" of professors to take and get letters from. Find ones that you think could help you reach your goals, take classes with them, ask for letters early, and consult these professors often. Do what graduate students do. This, I believe, was the key to my application-season success coming from a philosophy program that hasn't placed a student into a top 30 school in 15 years or a top 50 school in 7.

Anyone who lists Plantinga, Loux, and Inwagen (three very religious Notre Dame Philosophers) as the most important/central/fundamental writers on metaphysics (or anything other than mainstream Christian apology) is exposing some extreme Christian centrism and taking you on a ride. If you are only interested in religiously-motivated metaphysics or Christian apology/theism, they might be a good place to start, but by no means do those philosophers accurately represent a "groundwork in analytic philosophy." It is a groundwork in Christian philosophy and Christian metaphysics.

I'm dying to find out as well.

Still nothing new from Mich or UCLA it seems. Carnegie Mellon, same issue. A couple rejections way back, but no acceptances/waitlists, I am among those waiting to hear back. I received Princeton rejection as did several others on here. They haven't sent out waitlists so maybe you got lucky and are waitlisted. I'd contact them. I didn't apply to NYU so I have no info there.

I want to know if logos got waitlisted at CUNY now.

This has been answered and discussed with you in particular multiple times on these forums.

I am not criticizing those who prefer a warm rejection letter. I just don't think it is as valuable as most make it out to be. I guess that its better to get a nice one than a mean one, but really it is sent to everyone and is only faking personality and concern. There isn't anything behind them. Someone is assigned to write a letter that sounds nice that will be sent out to everyone. The content is always the same: You weren't good enough/didn't fit with us, goodbye. Would you like it better if I didn't call it an "obsession" but rather a widely held over-emphasis?

Why do you care enough about why I care enough about what other people care about?

I'm not belittling anyone. I just don't understand the desire for a nice rejection. I paid my money to have my application considered...I wasn't paying for a nice, sweet sounding rejection that represents the exact same content as every other rejection: You aren't in. If I only got emails that said "check application" and the link sent me to the word "Rejection" it would mean the same to me as any other rejection. I don't think more or less highly of a school because of how sweet they are about rejecting me. Rather, I would think more or less of a school depending on how quick they are about rejecting me after they have sent out their waitlists/acceptances. I would be much more grateful to the school that rejected me the day after they send acceptances with "Check Website" than the school that sends me a nicely worded snail mail 2 days later. Don't waste your time/money rejecting, spend the time/effort/money on the students you do take.

I felt absolutely no different about any rejection letter. I only read the first sentence or so to confirm it was a rejection, then moved on. I don't understand the obsession with getting a "nice" rejection letter. Even the letters people say are "nice" are the same ones sent every year. None of them actually were to me personally, none of them told me I was special and different from all the other people. It's just a letter that rejected me, I cross that school off my list and that's that. I certainly understand the power of personalized waitlists/acceptances, but I don't think I will ever understand why people care so much about what is in the rejection letter.

You can edit your old posts btw.

Well...I wouldn't say that's any different than Phil, except the fact that we have one MA program that consistently places its kids top-10...Acceptance rates for Harvard M.D. and Harvard J.D. are much, much higher (around double) than Harvard PhD in Philosophy, this was posted a couple years back and remains true.

Purdouches, we call them.

I think what you mean is that I command immense moral authority in the face of a populous who wishes to put me down! Yeah, looking back on that post it was probably pretty stupid. A thread about how people make decisions was no more useless than any other thread on here. I just thought that it would almost be wrong if someone was convinced to make a school decision based on how another makes a school decision, but then I found myself doing it and because I was doing it it seemed right so...yeah, my bad