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Thank you for your thoughts. I think too much emphasis is being put on a few admissions committee members' opinions as representing the unanimous view of 'the place', rather than the view of just three faculty members and two graduate students. Now, I could care less whether the two graduate students on the admissions committee want me there or not. They have absolutely no power over me and I don't need them for anything in my graduate career, and so I have the luxury of ignoring their opinion. Also, I think that since I am really rejected, and since as one of my recommenders said, there is nothing that will change over the upcoming year that will increase my chances of getting into CUNY, I really have nothing to lose by asking my other recommender to go to bat for me. The very worst that can happen is that he flat out refuses, and/or I really piss him off. That's it. Nothing else. And since if he doesn't speak up for me, I really don't intend on applying to CUNY next year. Besides, my recommender said I should talk to him, and that neither he nor I have anything to lose. I agree someone should ideally not be at a place that doesn't want them. But CUNY philosophy department has over 40 faculty members, and again, the views of three of them do not, in my humble opinion, represent the views of 'the place'. The vast majority of faculty members are not on the admissions committee, don't know who the applicants are, who has been admitted, etc. They only find out when the new faces start showing up in their classes. Also, nobody at CUNY has any ill will toward me (as far as I know!), and if my acceptance were the result of some acrimonious struggle, then yeah, I would seek life elsewhere. But that's not the case here.

So basically I'm assuming it depends on how many people out of their initial acceptance pool actually accept an offer. From what I saw previously on the results page of the grad cafe website, only about four or five people reported getting waitlist notifications from University of Virginia, but I am sure quite a few more received a waitlist notification, and just didn't report it because either they don't care to or don't go on the grad cafe website. I'm guessing they can only go to the waitlist after ALL their initial acceptance offers have gotten back with either an acceptance of the admission or a decline. And some people wait until the last second, like April 14th or 15th, so my guess would be only then would they go back to the waitlist and start deliberating on who to accept. To me at least, it makes no sense to start deliberating now about the waitlist when they still don't know how many people will accept or decline their initial offers. So if I had to guess, we're unfortunately in for quite a wait. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't hear something before the third week in April. But I did see from last year's admissions cycle that Virginia sent out a notice to its waitlist pool around April 12/13 stating that 2 people had yet to get back about their offers, and to "stay tuned." So hopefully they will send out another similar such notice this time around giving us a better idea of where we stand.

Yes I am on the waitlist. I am just trying to get an idea of how big the waitlist is, whether they rank students on it, etc.

Anybody know if anything is going on with the University of Virginia waitlists yet/how many were waitlisted? Anybody plan on/has already taken themselves off the waitlist?

OK, so as you may know I am in the Master's program in philosophy at CUNY. I applied to the Phd program at the same school--and was rejected. I was talking to one of my recommenders, call him John, and he said that one of my other recommenders, call him Peter, was very powerful and influential in the department. John said that basically what Peter wants, Peter gets. He said I should talk to Peter and tell him my situation, and that despite already being in the program and getting all A grades, and despite having recommendations all from professors in the department, I got rejected, and that nobody will even talk to me to tell my why I was rejected. He said to ask Peter point-blank if he would be willing to talk to the chairman of the department, who makes the final admissions decisions, and tell him to reconsider my application. John said that if Peter agrees to do this, I will be admitted. John said Peter may agree to do it, or may not, even though it wouldn't cost him anything to do it, and given he knows me and likes me well enough to have written a recommendation for me. What do you think the chances are that Peter will agree to talk to the chairman for me and get me admitted?

I am definitely not waiting on an acceptance, I would've heard something by now for sure. But perhaps a waitlist, since Michigan has been calling people to tell them they have been waitlisted over the past few days. Who knows. Probably a rejection, but I would appreciate them at long last sending me my rejection letter along with everybody else's.

Possibly, though when I spoke with the graduate coordinator on Thursday, she said decisions would be available by March 15th.

I see that many people are posting Michigan rejections. I went to check the status on my application on their website, but there was nothing. I'm not sure what to make of that. Presumably rejections were uploaded yesterday sometime, but there's nothing to indicate a decision was made on my application. Anybody have any idea what that could mean?

Thanks for the update, and thanks for the well-wishes with CUNY. I'll be sure to post when I hear something.

Does anybody know if the University of Michigan rejections are out yet? They said they would let me know by March 15th, but so far I haven't heard anything.

I'm NERVOUS, Vineyard. Humor me.

Does anyone know if CUNY sends out acceptances and waitlists all at once, or whether they send them out gradually over the course of a few weeks?

I got into it with my brother a little bit before. At this point I've been rejected from most of the schools I applied to, and I at minimum didn't get accepted to the school I currently attend, CUNY (even though one of my recommenders is on the admissions committee...go figure). The three schools I have left are all world-class departments, and I told him I won't get into those. He just kept saying...you don't know that....you don't know that...and I got annoyed, because while *technically* I "don't know that," in all reasonable likelihood, I won't get in. If I didn't get outright accepted from the graduate program I currently attend as a graduate student, and I didn't get in to the bottom-ranked University of Connecticut, Storrs, then I'm not getting into Princeton, Michigan, or Columbia. And I told him it is really counterproductive for him to keep saying "oh well you never know keep some hope," because at some point I have to start being realistic about my chances, and keeping up hope in the face of completely overwhelming odds is only setting myself up for more and more disappointment.

I'm sorry to bring down the mood, everybody. You should know i am a pessimist by nature so it's nothing particular to the CUNY situation that was making me feel down, just my pessimism.

I guess the game is almost up with CUNY, then. If the acceptances are not all international, but domestic too. I would figure that about 5 people reported on acceptances the other day, so imagine two-three more got acceptances but don't go on TGC, so that's almost half of the number they would accept. Maybe they don't send out all their acceptances at once, but the list is definitely getting smaller, and the odds are getting longer....

I sent good, restrained e-mails. I think they understand that it's a stressful time. I just asked them in a calm, measured tone if the acceptances had all gone out, since I had heard nothing.

Do you know if they sent all their acceptances out, or only those wait-listed for funding?

I was thinking, if I get shut out this year, maybe I should try writing a paper or two for publication in a good philosophy journal. Not sure I would be accepted by the journals at this point, but I was wondering if it's worth a try? Did anybody do that this application cycle? What were the results with the admissions committees?

Well, I figure if I were accepted, I would've heard something by now, like everybody else who was accepted. But I didn't hear anything. I'm just hoping if I was rejected, maybe I can hear through the grapevine instead of having to wait 2-3 weeks before they say anything. I'm not good at waiting and uncertainty.

FYI it looks like only one of the acceptances at CUNY reported being waitlisted for fellowships. The others either said nothing, or just commented on the e-mail from Carol Gould.

Sorry to quote 2x...maybe so about the fellowship but CUNY has enough funding for 10 applicants. Is it possible that other people are getting in and getting funding, just not this *special* fellowship?

....and do you believe we'll probably have to wait until at least Monday to find out? I took the liberty of e-mailing a few people in the department to find out what the heck is going on. I figure (a) if I'm rejected, bothering people won't make a bit of difference at this point, and ( if I'm accepted, it's probably too late for them to un-accept me. I seriously doubt they would wait list me, probably just reject or accept, so that wasn't much of a worry. If *anybody* gets back to my e-mails tomorrow, I'll be sure to post.

Why haven't more people posted CUNY acceptances on the acceptance page? There were only two. Surely a lot more than that got in.

I talked to the people in Syracuse's philosophy department and they said they are sending out acceptances a few at a time and that they have more work to do with the applications.

From what I've been able to hear, they usually accept about 15-17 for an expected incoming class of 10. Now, sometimes they have more than 10 accept, which has traditionally been OK, the "extras" just don't get funding. However, starting next year, they will be capped by the Graduate School at a maximum of 10 students, because the Graduate School wants everybody who gets in to get funding. So while next year the adcom will probably be able to make more than 10 offers, they will be careful, because they only are allowed a maximum of 10 new students to matriculate. This is basically the last year the adcom can enroll more than 10. So anybody who applied pretty much got their applications in "under the wire."