Zukunftsmusik

Rank them in terms of what? Faculty quality/reputation? (I don't think I'd be a good judge of that) Placement?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main question I took away from the original post is something like the following: what is protocol for visiting schools that admit you on or around April 15th (after their organized recruitment visits - to which you've been invited on the department's dime but have or are considering declining because of the negative aspects of visiting as a waitlistee, e.g. hurting your chances of an offer, getting your hopes up to be let down, etc.). I think this is a good question to ask, but I'm not sure if any of us can help you much. Not many of us have been in that position before (and if we had, we likely wouldn't be on this forum now). I'm quite confused for the following reason though: you're concerned you might be asked to make a decision on the spot if an offer comes through on April 15th. If that's the case, then you will have to accept or decline on short notice and won't have an opportunity to visit until after you've accepted or declined the offer. If you decline, you obviously have no reason to visit. If you accept, then it's understandable you might like to meet people in the department and get a feel for things. The department would be more than welcoming I'm sure, but as has been pointed out, this will almost certainly be on your own dime because funding such visits is for recruitment purposes only (i.e. helping you make a decision regarding their offer). If you've already accepted their offer, they're no longer recruiting you and there's no decision to be made. So, if the sort of scenario you have in mind is one in which you have to make a quick decision, I don't see how the question about visiting comes into play - either you decline and so don't visit or you accept and so visiting won't help you make a decision. What I feel is tripping people up in addressing your question to your satisfaction is the fact that most people use visits to help make decisions, but the scenario you seem to be worried about is one in which visiting won't help you make a decision. On the other hand, there's the possibility that an offer comes through on or around April 15th and that program doesn't demand a decision right away. I can personally attest to this happening a few years ago - at one the programs where you're waitlisted, in fact. I was made an offer a little before April 15th and they gave me until April 29th to decide along with an invitation to visit. I don't know how common this is and perhaps they'd be less likely to give you time to visit and decide if they already extended such an invitation to you and you declined. In such a scenario where an immediate decision isn't demanded of you, however, I don't see how a department could be anything but welcoming to your visiting in whatever window of time is afforded to you (and they may be willing to fund your visit as it still would count as for recruitment purposes). All you'd have to do is ask (if they don't outright invite you). So, if the department(s) demand an answer right away, visiting is a non-issue. If you decline, you have no reason to visit. If you accept, of course you can do it on your own time for whatever purposes you might have, but they're not going to fund you. If the department(s) don't demand an answer right away - i.e. give you time to visit and decide, the answer seems pretty straightforward: ask.

FWIW, I've declined an offer from Boston U and removed myself from the waitlist at UC-Riverside as of 3/21.

I was hoping that the waitlist thread would be sufficient, but I do know that it was cluttered with off-topic stuff I didn't want to wade through. For that reason, I feared a well-intentioned new thread might similarly become cluttered with off-topic stuff. So, I suggested against this thread because it would mean wading through more off-topic discussion, redundancy, etc. With that said, I do like the idea if people can stay on topic here. As for me: Declined Boston U acceptance on 3/21. Declined UC Riverside waitlist (don't know position) on 3/21. Declined Indiana waitlist (top) on 2/24. FWIW, my interests are in German philosophy (Kant through Nietzsche) and ethics.

I definitely think a thread for declining offers or removing oneself from waitlists is useful. That's actually what I envisioned this thread to evolve into. Sure, I thought it would be useful to have a thread to post and talk about waitlists, but a non-negligible part of that is information relevant to waitlist movement. I'm not sure I see the benefit to having a separate thread for declined offers. Wouldn't it be easier/more convenient/less redundant to post that stuff in here where us waitlistees are already nervously checking for news? I'd rather keep checking this thread, wading through its tangential conversations, than check two threads, wading through more tangential conversations.

Glad to hear that! I think that's a good qualification to make - that you just want to get a feel for the department in case an offer comes through - if you want to request a visit. I really feel the request is reasonable enough without it, but as a nervous applicant who'd be afraid of being judged for possibly trying to improve his/her lot on the waitlist, I wouldn't request a visit without it.

Hey Hopephily, I think I met you last week! There's some truth to what you're saying, Vineyard, but I think your point only goes so far. I'm visiting two programs at which I've been waitlisted. They requested that I do so, will cover my travel expenses, and put me up with graduate students. I've also been told that I'm at the top of each waitlist (for my interests, anyway). Given the extremely low likelihood that they'll rescind an offer from an accepted student who makes a fool of himself, there's nowhere for me to go but down. So yes, it's possible my visit will hurt me. I strongly doubt, however, that the department invited me to visit their programs in order to evaluate me and find reasons to bump me down. On the contrary, they invited me because there's a good enough possibility that they'll make me an offer eventually and they want me to be comfortable turning down whatever offers I've had and investigated in case they do make me an offer. That's exactly what I need because I'm very comfortable with an option I have at the moment. I would hesitate to accept an offer to a program where I haven't met anyone, gotten a feel for the program, its milieu, etc. when I have an offer I'm already so happy with.

Would you regret your decision if, after the MA program, you only got into the same school or comparable schools? There's a lot to like about MA programs, but is what you would gain there worth two extra years of time? (Most PhD programs I've looked at don't give too much credit for courses completed at MA programs, so your time to degree won't decrease much if at all) If you think your answer to the first has a high probability of being yes or to the second has a high probability of being no, then don't do it.

I don't know what can be done about the execution of the idea (e.g. editing entries, etc.), but I definitely like the idea and how everything looks so far. If anyone has info about funding at Columbia, please submit it to Ian or PM me!

Waitlisted at Columbia, will ask for details, but 319 applications for 6 funded positions.

UWM offers won't be out for a few weeks (I can't say why because I don't know, I've just been told that). Hopefully some of you who have yet to receive good (enough) news applied here. UWM is a fantastic place to study and we're placing very, very well this year.

Interesting discussion worth having. You guys can discuss what you'd like here since I don't have any moderating powers, but now we have almost a whole page of waitlist-irrelevant stuff in a waitlist thread. I would prefer we take stuff like this to PM or a separate thread so those of us eagerly awaiting waitlist news and movement don't have to wade through a whole page non-pertinent discussion.

Waitlists news and notifications deserve their own thread. So, here's one. Please post here if you get waitlisted anywhere, get in off the waitlist, remove yourself from one, turn down an offer from a school with a waitlist, etc. I'll start: I'm waitlisted at Pitt and would appreciate knowing if/when anyone with an offer from Pitt turns it down. I also removed myself from the Indiana, Bloomington waitlist earlier today.

Well, I hope it's not the case that they just haven't gotten around to emailing rejections. I hope they're waiting to see the reception their acceptance and wait list offers receive. I'm likely to forego my spot on the wait list (fwiw). I hope that helps!

I agree that it's possible but unlikely that this is a legit post. I do feel like something needs to be said for its possibility though. Applicants self-report on their own schedule or else they don't report at all. There's obviously reason to doubt that this person received a call between 2 and 7:30AM Monday morning, but there's less reason to doubt that this person simply got around to posting their acceptance at such a time. (I might generally post right away but another might not, especially if s/he was notified via phone call on a weekend - s/he could've been away from a computer, with family or friends, etc., etc.) Another problem that comes with self-reporting is that not everybody reports their results. My roommate last year got into U Chicago around 10 days before any posts on TGC and Boston U about three weeks before any posts. It's hard to know just how out of the ordinary my roommate was (he was a philosophical beast machine), but we can only extrapolate so much about first-acceptances from self-reporting given that not every body reports their results. Finally, higher-ranked schools may generally get back to applicants later, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't benefit from getting back to an outstanding applicant they know they want early. Again, I don't have much insight into how common this might be or why it's done (get an early start in courting your favorite applicant compared to other programs while you decide who else to make offers to?), but I don't see any reason why a school's ranking should rule out its using such a tactic.