Gnothi_Seauton

I'm in the same boat. Haven't heard a word from Chicago, and I don't have an MAPH acceptance in my spam folder. I've been assuming rejection for a long time, but I'd be interested to hear what you find out.

Just removed myself from the Penn waitlist. I hope that helps someone!

I'm visiting Duke March 17th-20th, WUSTL March 20th-22nd, and UNC-Chapel Hill March 30th-April 1st. If anyone is attending any of those, feel free to send me a message. It would be nice to know someone before going.

Also waitlisted at Penn.

Claiming one of the Yale rejections!

I understand the feeling. At the beginning of this process, I had a major internal battle with myself about whether I would take Tufts (if offered) over somewhere like UVA. I never really decided. It's good that VA-Tech has placed into USC. That means that the people at USC are familiar with letter writers at VA-Tech. I would be cautious only because USC has become a really elite program very quickly. I have to imagine that admissions is going to be a lot more competitive there in the years to come.

Don't give up on UVA!

That would have to be the "top 7," unless one of them no longer has a program.

DHumeDominates? More like DHumeDominates Dominates! That's awesome! Congrats!

Agreed. It's odd to me as well. I only wanted to indicate why the time stamp on the results page shouldn't count as problematic. There may very well be other reasons to be suspicious.

For whatever reason, grad cafe has a default time stamp of one of the European time zones. I remember noticing it and switching. It's possible that the call occurred this evening and was posted but still carried the European time stamp, which, at this point, would be tomorrow. I think someone in the forums claimed a Michigan acceptance a while back, so I think at least a few are real.

Indeed. Unless you are genuinely open to being convinced otherwise, don't go on a visit. I think that principle generalizes. Only go on a visit if you are genuinely open to being convinced to accept a school's offer. Otherwise, you are holding up a place for someone on a waitlist and wasting the school's money.

Yes, one waitlist was posted. But I was never told I was on the waitlist. I was admitted about a month after the initial acceptances went out. I can only assume that I was waitlisted without being told. It might be the case that others are in the same boat.

It's possible that Duke is operating with an unannounced waitlist. I was only admitted to Duke about a week ago, but I was never told that I was on a waitlist. I know they released initial acceptances back in January. I thought they had waitlisted some people, so I had assumed that I would be rejected. Unless they just forgot to let me know back in January, I assume that they waitlisted me without telling me and then admitted me later on. But I have no idea what's going on behind the curtain so this is all speculation.

I don't fall neatly into any of the categories in the poll. I have a BA from a non-PGR top 50 school. Not even top 100 US News. I switched my major to philosophy after two years and took five years to graduate, so overall three years of undergrad-level philosophy training. I do have a Master's degree, but not an MA. It's an MSc from a UK university. The program lasted one year and my coursework was limited to topics in moral, political, and legal philosophy. As such, the degree didn't have the kind of broad coverage that an MA would offer. So...other?

I turned down an offer from Virginia and took myself off of the waitlist at Arizona some time ago. Hope those help some people here!

Thanks! If it makes you feel better, my writing sample relies on a priori arguments as well, at least in the relatively mundane sense that I didn't bother doing any kind of empirical investigation to justify the moral principles that I endorsed. I'm skeptical that any empirical investigation could justify such principles!

I still think there are plenty of philosophers within epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind who are open to arguments that proceed a priori, but perhaps you have a better feel for the extent to which strong empiricist forms of naturalism have taken hold than I do. I don't pretend to be an expert!

Oh, and I'd be happy to read samples if anyone would like peer feedback. I probably won't know much about the subject, but maybe that's ideal: a clearly written paper should be accessible to someone with little knowledge of the topic.

I think it's probably not true that most philosophers would be uncomfortable with something being defended as justifiable a priori. See, http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl . According to this survey, about 71% of philosophers believe in a priori knowledge. Now, some might believe in very limited a priori knowledge, but still. I have a hard time believing that arguing for something a priori, in and of itself, would be verboten among admissions committees. (In his Philosophy Bites interview, Kit Fine specifically says that a priori investigation is the hallmark of metaphysical inquiry.) On the topic at hand, I think some writing sample topics might find favor in fewer places than others, but I doubt that there's a topic so toxic that it would be poorly received anywhere (though that might be a straw man). Some things might be poorly received at some places and not others. Furthermore, whether something is viewed negatively at a particular school could vary from year to year as the composition of the admissions committee varies. One poster mentioned a paper that depends in part on experimental philosophy. If that paper were sent to Yale, its reception might depend upon whether Joshua Knobe happened to be sitting on the admissions committee that year. I think what I would say is that there are safer and less safe writing sample topics, but I wouldn't characterize "less safe" as "toxic."

I went ahead and did the math on that. If you are constantly checking email for 24 hours in a row, then you're averaging a little under 5.8 million email checks per second. I admire your speed and dedication.

Looks like Georgetown is up!

I'm curious why? There's some empirical evidence to suggest that it is the majority view in the field. See, http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl . Or is there something specific about "here"?

Something for all the UVA prospectives: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2014/02/barnes-cameron-from-leeds-to-virginia.html

I think that ethical properties are real but I'm undecided about whether I think they are non-natural or reducible to natural properties. I lean towards non-natural. Another option: Ethical properties are constitutive of or the output of some idealized form of practical deliberation. That would be the constructivist position, and I'm not sure that it neatly fits into any of the categories in the poll (it could fit into a couple of them depending on how it is spelled out).