Monadology

Wow, congrats!

Here's a few resources, though they're not necessarily up to date or ranked.

EDIT: Actually, I don't even know what "these comments" are supposed to be. The ones in this thread? The ones Leiter has made on his blog and on other blogs? Why are the comments in this thread or the ones Leiter has made "flippin hilarious"?

Yes, Leiter's own remarks about many continental philosophers and those who work on them are often insulting and unprofessional (dismissing huge swaths of SPEP as "hacks and poseurs" for instance). Perhaps that's reason to scrutinize extra carefully how the PGR represents continental philosophy.

I think one of the reasons it matters that the PGR doesn't adequately represent the "continentalists" is that at worst, this leads to detrimental effects for those interested in continental philosophy (as a result of the fact that the status of the PGR in discourse about philosophy programs is as a ranking of philosophy programs and not analytic philosophy programs, no matter what disclaimers might be included in the site) and at best it propagates a still problematic sociological divide between 'analytics' and 'continentals' (for instance if "continentalists" created their own PGR equivalent). Finally, it seems to definitely parallel Leiter's own biases about continental philosophy done in a way he doesn't like and this is further reflected in who is selected to appraise the strength of programs in continental philosophy. So unless the PGR only purports to be a ranking of analytic-philosophy-and-continental-philosophy-the-way-Brian-Leiter-likes-it, it's clearly an issue that needs fixing.

Don't worry, you've flushed out the heretics. It saves time on the purging.

I just got this link in my email today, thought it might be useful for deciding between schools. It has detailed analysis of placement records for the Leiter 50, for terminal MAs, and for Continental Philosophy: http://www.philosophynews.com/post/2013/10/02/Will-I-get-a-Job-Graduate-School-Philosophy-Placement-Records.aspx EDIT: Oops, just saw the acceptance thread. Apparently there are problems with the above analysis? If so, my bad.

At UW Milwaukee, the Fall semester of your second and final year (so your third semester), there is a writing workshop which is primarily used by applicants to get feedback from their peers on their writing sample. Most people apply during that season. Often one's writing sample is developed into a thesis anyway. Though, should you choose to wait a year that's not at all unheard of (though usually it happens because students aren't sure they want to continue in philosophy and then decide they do after they graduate).

I'm here to provide the soundtrack for this thread.

Congrats to the Cornell/U Penn offers! I'm hoping today is an exciting day for a lot of people.

Congrats!

I'd also like to add that in addition to philosophers sometimes confusing their valuing of rationality for their being rational, philosophers are trained at precisely the sorts of skills that make rationalization of problematic behavior (and the evasion of genuine, practical correctives) very easy.

BeatBackBones, I think it's difficult to pinpoint the causes but what little data we have suggests that a big drop-off happens between Phil 101 classes and becoming majors. The underrepresentation seems to be already significantly in play at the level of philosophy majors. The drop-off from majors to grad students (and then from grad students to faculty) is less severe. One thing that's worth noting about the intense/confrontational style is it may be that it is likely to be more unpleasant for those that are already dealing with implicit bias and who feel alienated because of underrepresentation.

The last two years Riverside sent out wait-lists about a month after the initial offers. They will probably wait-list sometime this week or next.

While it is also a good point that the principle runs both ways (it's probably a bad idea for both parties), it's also true that there is a very distinct power dynamic where the professor is in the position of power. That makes it more urgent and important for the principle to be a strict one in the case of the professor.

Congrats! But also: for the love of God I thought the suspense today was over.

If they wrote a letter for you once, chances are they'd be happy to write one again. I imagine it will be up to them to decide if their letter needs alteration or not (based on new work you've done by next year, or maybe feeling like they can add more). Make sure you offer to give them any old papers/work you've done for them if they need to refresh their memory.

My girlfriend just got an offer from Johns Hopkins, so that wait-list is probably real. EDIT: She also got an email offering her a scholarship at University of Kansas but no offer has arrived in her email yet.

This. It was my fifth time around this year and I still got caught off-guard by last minute particularities (like UCSD wanting you to scan front and back of your transcripts even if the backs are blank). Basically, it's boring but start each application early and fill in as much as you can, making sure to check every page/subsection of the application. Not only does it get busywork out of the way (which makes submitting them once your writing sample is done a breeze), but it will help you catch weird features of the application that are unique to the program.

Congrats to all the offers and wait-lists today!

Sorry to hear about the Georgia State rejections. Got my Fordham rejection in the email today. John Davenport ;_;

Apply to both PhDs and MAs. It's probably better to go to a good MA than a bad PhD (check the PhD placement records, btw, you don't want to get an unranked program that also doesn't place its students, you'll still need to compete for community college jobs).

Purely coincidentally I was reading up on the various critiques on the PGR today (I googled the Gourmet Report to look at a certain program's rating and came across this. Some more sources: This one links to a bunch of posts and discussions of it (including some interesting statistical analysis on the same blog) This one has some letters to Leiter regarding the PGR from faculty: [i hope this isn't derailing the thread too much, the PGR seems pretty relevant to our reasons for applying where we do] EDIT: Neither link seems to work. Weird. EDIT2: Fixed, i think.

MA programs frequently take students with a limited philosophical background. If you've been studying Aquinas or Scotus or what-have-you, I'm sure you'll have a writing sample and enough background that you can be a serious candidate for an MA program.

Got my first official rejection from Indiana today.