Weltgeist

I didn't really tailor my statement except a few tweaks in the final paragraph if their website mentioned some sort of description about the department as such that I admired and could say that I fit with. I figured that after a page and a half of describing my interests my fit with the department should be self-evident.

still no communication at all from Columbia - think it's fair to email them at this point? do they have an internal waitlist or anything?

has anyone else not heard anything at all from Columbia?

I haven't gotten any such email from Columbia and nothing's changed on the website ... agh I wish they would just reject me already - I don't want such a sliver of irrational hope.

I don't know that I brought up anything too sensitive. It's not too hard to ask whether students have worked with certain professors, what they're like to work with, how certain intellectual topics or interests are viewed in general (as someone interested in continental philosophy applying to more analytic departments this was, for example, a concern of mine), etc. Every grad student I spoke to had no trepidations in these respects

I'll claim one - which I just the other day declined. I hope that works out for you!

Having just gotten back from a visit, my prime piece of advice is to be proactive. If you don't come with your own concerns and really probe people about how they feel about the program, etc., then you're just going to get the standard spiel you get from the department website. Try to think of concerns and questions you have before you arrive and don't be timid.

that's their weird quebecian way of saying i'm rejected. it is very strange indeed.

I got the "refusal" letter from McGill. it also claimed to list reasons for the "refusal" in the remainder of the letter, which it then did not do. very strange but whatever.

i got the e-mail from the New School with the acceptance. Apparently I've also got some fellowship, the details of which are yet to come, so my timing might not be indicative of others. I will probably decline it in any case.

what do you mean it's totally a book about logic. too much for ur "abstract understanding" huh? that's okay the rigors of speculative thought aren't for everyone

idk I guess all you need to do is write about Hegel and you get a couple offers, which is what I did. which is weird, I figure Nietzsche is somewhat more mainstream (or at least accessible) in general than Hegel

congrats on Columbia, Johannes! They were my last dream school yet to be heard from so it's unfortunate to see that I haven't received anything but with what I've got I can't complain. Best to you.

same with me: I got accepted to Notre Dame but rejected from Georgetown and Stony Brook, all of which I thought would be great fits for me. So don't give up hope! There's indeed no straightforward logic here

i mean i didn't mean to brag - mostly I wanted to express my profound disdain for the whole MAPH affair - being what a cash-cow it is, the automatic acceptance deal strikes me as really unprofessional or at least strange coming from a department I respect as much as Chicago.

I'd be curious to meet someone who actually went through with the program. anyways I just turned down the offer - I wouldn't take it even if I didn't have PhD programs willing to give me money but since I do I really relished it.

so the Chicago rejections and MAPH acceptances are rolling out. I just got one; nein danke.

what I'd be more interested in seeing is how many people get into top-50 programs coming from non-top 50 schools (with and without MA)

I wonder how low of a quant score becomes a liability. Mine's in the fifty-eighth percentile and I've gotten a few acceptances and waitlists at top-thirty programs (which really shocked me to be quite honest).

also rejected at Georgetown - I saw the others and decided to check the website (i.e. i've yet to get an email). Bummed but not terribly so; I would've loved to work with Pinkard and Ver Eecke.

Ah, well if this is the real question then it's an interesting and not immediately obvious one; I don't know much about other fields so forgive my previous hostility. How bad is it in other fields?

yeah, this: I mean did it not occur to you that this is the obvious reason: so their students can actually do their scholarly work in earnest AND not starve?

this was basically my criteria but swap 'Kant scholar' with 'Hegel scholar'

indeed it has been my experience with every grad student I have yet to meet that they have no illusions about the hopelessness of what they're trying to achieve. As above, the first thing my professors told me when i informed them i was considering grad school was THERE ARE NO JOBS THERE ARE NO JOBS and once they got that clear they helped me in whatever way they could. they saw it as something of a moral obligation, really. And it's a difficult obligation to juggle. I don't know how much this is prevalent throughout the field or throughout academia as a whole but it's appreciated. I wouldn't self-analyze but it seems to me that all the graduate students I have known were driven not by idealism and delusion but by a thoroughly pessimistic yet passionate concern for what they study.

if what they want to measure is the ability to commit oneself and be serious, I think there are other measures thereof that are far more accessible and accurate, namely, the entirety of one's undergraduate career, or really, the entirety of one's application is meant to speak to that. And that sort of commitment that THAT evinces is not a blind and instrumental commitment but one driven by earnest intellectual interest and passion. So this justification fails.