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Does anybody know if Arizona has sent out all their acceptances?

I spoke to a professor of mine who is not on the admissions committee and does not know the work of the adcom, but he said he certainly didn't think having an MA from the same institution to which I am applying would be a disadvantage.

Don't forget though, admissions committee members are people, too. Whether they would admit it or not, and whether they even realize it or not, when you come across an applicant's file and say "oh, yeah, Joe Smith, I know him, I've seen him around the department, and I've had him in class" that is bound to have a psychological effect on the admissions committee, whether they like it or not. And plus, it is harder for admissions committee members to reject an applicant who has letters written by faculty members they know and work with. Same thing: the adcom says "yeah, Joe Smith has a rec letter from Jill Jones, I like her/she's a good professor/I get along with her." All these little intangibles matter too.

I think I will resolve this debate about the advantages and disadvantages of applying to a Phd program from the same MA program by e-mailing one or two of my professors. I want to hear from people in the department what they say, and I think that will most likely be the true indicator of what will likely happen. In my two years being at CUNY, each year I have seen people from the MA program get admitted to the Phd program. Even one guy who was the husband of a Phd candidate was admitted the year after she was admitted. So the trend here seems to be positive. But I'm going to confirm that now with a professor.

It's no more unfair than the fact that an applicant to a Phd program who went to that same school's undergrad institution will be perceived more favorably since he is already known to faculty members in the department. It is just the way it is. The fact that someone at the same undergrad institution as the grad program he is applying to has an advantage is by no means unreasonable or "unfair." Like I said, admissions committees likely take into account all materials relevant to the question of whether an applicant can and most likely will succeed in a rigorous graduate Phd program.

I submitted a historical paper on Descartes' Meditation Three. I analyzed and critiqued the arguments of opponents of one view, and supported the alternative view. I hope they don't view it as a negative that I did a historical paper instead of one on a contemporary problem. I mean, I certainly included enough analysis in it. And it was clear, and professionally written, at least as well-written as I could make it.

I think the admissions committee (a) disregards all information that is irrelevant to the question of whether an applicant can succeed in a rigorous and top-ranked Phd program, and ( considers any and all information that is relevant to the question of whether an applicant can and will most likely succeed in a top-ranked Phd program. Saying that a school shouldn't take a book or philosophical article published in a peer-reviewed journal into account is like saying a school admissions committee shouldn't take into account where the applicants when to undergraduate, because it will give an "unfair" advantage to some (those from better schools) over others (those from lesser-ranked schools). The entire process is about being seen in the most advantageous light, and using all your academic assets to market yourself as the best (or one of the best) candidates. Just as it is absurd to say an admissions committee will disregard evidence of publication in a philosophical, peer-reviewed journal, a fortiori the admissions committee will not simply overlook a book. They will at least acknowledge it and its relevance--as they perceive it--to the question of the applicant's merit and ability. That said, for me to get into Princeton coming from undergrad Boston College (a Continental program), the book would need to do an awful lot of work, and they would need to be REALLY impressed by it. Will they be? Personally, I think it is unlikely that that will be the case, all things considered. Like someone else said, I don't know how many cranks submit (e.g. self-published) "books" in the hopes of wowing the admissions committees, but my guess is that these people are pretty seasoned, skeptical folks who aren't so easily taken by one or another credential, however unusual or rare. I don't know, I'm in a pessimistic mood today, but that's my sense of it, at least this hour.

I don't know about the writing samples. I would like to think at this point in my graduate career I know the difference between a writing sample of superior quality, and one of inferior quality, and I would like to think the writing sample I submitted this time around was the best work I've ever done. But who knows. I did get rejected from a few schools already, so maybe the writing sample doesn't count for everything.

. ...Because I don't want to bother the admissions committee with questions about my application status and chances, especially when they have hundreds of applications to go through as it is. Besides, plenty of graduate philosophy schools detail the admissions process, most notably University of Chicago, and what I've read on other sites seems to corroborate what they say to a high degree. That's why. Besides, I asked a graduate admissions person back in July, well before the admissions season, and he never got back to me. All I told him was that I had some questions about the application process, and he didn't want to be bothered. So I didn't want to push my luck any further. There is such a thing as being too pushy, eager, and nosy, Double Shot...

Well then, there it is. And I'm sure everybody knows how difficult it is to get into a top-10 program, and all the professors writing the *recommendation letters* *know* how difficult it is, and so they're pumping up their students more than they should. And an admissions committee has to sift through 300-plus applications with probably dozens of letters written like this? C'mon, how could they? There has to be some randomness in the decision-making.

If the colleges I sent my book to actually look at it negatively, then they're idiots. The bottom line is, a Master's student, not even a Phd student, who has published a book before even getting his Phd--a 132,000 word book--has done something worthy of merit, at least in the eyes of an *admissions* committee. Any admissions committee that doesn't see it that way, well, let me just say those people shouldn't be on admissions committees. I could see how more parochially-minded people at lesser schools could look at it strangely, just as, say, a groundbreaking piece of legal scholarship gets accepted at top legal publishers, but gets rejected at smaller, lesser-known publishers, but the top schools have the top people *because* they think outside the box. They're *prepared* to handle unusual things like submitting a manuscript. They know how to deal with it, and how to go through it to make an informed decision based on the totality of evidence. I can't imagine they would split hairs and actually sit there and say, "yes, well, he did publish a book on philosophy, and it has a publisher, *but* the publisher this and the author that and blah blah blah." To me, if they did that, they would be massively missing the point. The point is, HE WROTE A BOOK GOOD ENOUGH FOR PUBLICATION, and, by the way, if he can write a 132,000 word BOOK, then a fortiori, he can PROBABLY write a 30,000-40,000 word DISSERTATION. At least, that's the way I see it. I don't quite think they'll be as nitpicking and critical as some suggest. BUT I could be wrong. I have never been on an admissions committee, and have never spoken to an admissions committee member about the admissions process. It sure would help if I could. HOWEVER I am not saying at all that I am a sure thing at ANY of the schools I applied to and sent the book to, only that it will overall HELP, instead of HURT.

Most MA programs are unfunded

Maybe, but at a certain level, *all* the applicants are the same. They all have 3.8 or above GPAs, great letters of recommendation talking about how much they're the next Kant or Nietzsche (we know how rampant recommendation inflation is), and all have great writing samples. Are you telling me they're really gonna accept the guy with a 3.99 GPA and reject the guy who "only" had a 3.90? Seems a little ridiculous. Moreover, if you look closely at the cafe's webpage where people are saying where they got in, there's really no logic to it. Lot's of students with 3.9 and even 4.0 GPAs have been rejected, and with great GREs as well. I can easily show you applicants who have better scores who were rejected from schools others got into with lesser scores. There's little logic to it. Someone said they got into University of Virginia with a 3.5 GPA! And I didn't get into UVA, with a 3.83 GPA.

No, didn't send it to CUNY, but got in anyway and am attending. Who says there program is a "cash cow?" I haven't heard that before...

The publisher is Wipf and Stock. I'm in the copyediting phase right now. It's a book about naturalism and skepticism, and seeks to develop a conception of philosophy as a species of "forensic" analysis and abductive inference to the best explanation from e.g. the totality of facts in a given dispute. But it also shows how often traditional armchair philosophical analysis is powerless to do just this, for a variety of reasons I don't really want to list here. The point is, the conception of philosophy as a self-standing methodology that can independently proffer insights into the outstanding questions confronting us, is wrong. Philosophy is best when it cedes methodological primacy to other disciplines along a naturalistic line that gives primacy to the insights of the natural sciences, empirical psychology, etc. Philosophy is most effective when seen as a methodological adjunct and appendix to these disciplines. So e.g. questions of free will, why is there something rather than nothing (I don't really hear much about this one), questions of the existence of God, what perception is really like (whether of an objective material world or subjective cognitive constructions), are not solvable by philosophy *in principle*. The school I'm *most* hoping the book will help me with is Princeton. It's my "dream" school, but personally, I think without the book, and perhaps with it, I would be a long shot. GPA is good 3.83, GREs are good, 1410, 6.0 Analytical Writing, recommendations are good, writing sample is really good, but ultimately not enough to stand out without the book. So at the very top schools, I'm expecting the book to do a lot of work. Incidentally I sent it to one Master's program 2 years ago when I was applying for them, and I got in to that school, even though I got rejected by a school that was ranked 15 places lower on the Gourmet Report. So, I don't really know what the book will do at Princeton or any other school. I fear on some level they are likely to see through the attempt to "wow" them, and stick with more traditional criteria they use to make decisions. Who knows. If I were on an admissions committee, and an applicant submitted a book with the publisher's information, I'd think that was pretty darn good, but that's just me.

But the question is whether they even opened the book up. I sent a copy, with the publisher's permission, to them, even though it is not the final published version. It has all the copyright, ISBN, Library of Congress etc. numbers on it, and of course the relevant publisher's info. I just thought seeing it would be enough for them to see that, yeah, this guy has written a book that was at least good enough to get published by a legitimate academic publisher (the same publisher published a course book we're using for a class of mine this semester). But in my cover letter for the book I outlined why I was sending it, and told them to read the Preface if they wanted an idea of what the book was about. Hopefully they'll just stick to that. I mean, they *can* read parts of it, but *will* they, and will they have the *time*, is a whole other story. I'm thinking I'm lucky if they read the Preface (considering I already sent in a writing sample). Maybe they wouldn't even be *interested* in reading more of it, maybe they just don't *care* that much. But I saw someone else post in the Forum about how he self-published a book on philosophy, and he applied to all the top schools even though his GPA, GRE were pretty bad, and even though only one professor at his school agreed to write a letter of recommendation for him. To me, that's BS. No offense to that writer, but *anybody* can self-publish a book these days, that is absolutely no indication of it's quality. Actually, it is an indication of inferior quality, because even though publishing is cutthroat and most often based on factor's other than strictly merit, a good enough book will find a legitimate publisher eventually. That's why I was siked about finding an academic publisher. Now, look, I'm not saying my book is any good, that's for the readers and reviewers to decide, but I'm saying I *hope* that securing a publisher is *enough* to convince the admissions committee(s) that the book has merit. They *may* read what I told them to read, and may not. I'm just curious whether they *will* read *any* of it.

I I could, but I don't want to piss anybody off by being nosy.

I think hopefully it will turn out OK.

I'm going to put in a call to one of the schools from which I got rejected, and just ask them what the reason was. Not like I'm asking for an explanation of their decision, which they don't have to give me, but just to shed some light on it, so I know better the weaknesses and strengths of my application.

I know I'm not promised anything, and yes, they evaluate my application along with all the others, but c'mon, it's gotta mean *something* when the professors right down the hall from you are recommending that I get in. And it's gotta mean something that my GPA is better perhaps a majority of the students there. Plus, I'm already done with 2/3 of the course requirements for the Phd anyway. The fact that I'm doing well in the very same program to which I'm applying must mean a little something.

I'm a little worried, because I see a lot of students have gotten 2, 3, and in some cases 4 or 5 acceptances already, and all I have is one definite rejection, and two strongly implied rejections. At some other schools I took a chance and submitted a book I had written and had published by a legitimate academic publisher, I thought that might help, but I haven't heard anything from those schools yet, and from the admissions page here is seems they haven't released anything yet- acceptances, wait-lists, or rejections. But I'm just worried that a trend is starting to develop here with my applications, and I don't know what's going on.

What is considered a good enough GPA for the top philosophy graduate school admissions?

So I got rejected from Northwestern so far, and I'm almost certain I got rejected from Brown and Yale too, and will hear from them this week, if they even bother to tell me. I didn't get in the first round of acceptances at University of Virginia, and they told me they will send out their waiting list by the end of next week. Now I think I'll probably get rejected there too. Thing is, most of the schools I applied to are above the top-40 (UVA is ranked 40 by the Gourmet Report). So if I'm getting rejected from a number 40-ranked school, does that mean the rest of my applications, which are around the top 5-35, are in trouble? I have to imagine that the quality of the applicants at the better programs is only that much better, and that the competition is even more fierce. I applied to about 2 safety schools, but they are not schools I want to go to. Are my chances of getting into a good (top 25) program less now because of the rejections lower down?

Alright, so right now I'm applying to Phd programs in philosophy. For undergrad I went to Boston College, which was a disadvantage because their specialties lie in Continental philosophy, and I was interested in Analytic. This semester I am completing a Master's in philosophy from a top-15 analytic department, and I have applied to about 15 schools for my Phd. I have a solid writing sample, and my GPA is 3.83 in the Master's program, 3.805 undergraduate. I am an older applicant, and a few years ago I wrote a book on philosophical naturalism and skepticism, which was accepted by a legitimate academic publisher for publication. I included the book with my application file to a few places, hoping that that would give them evidence of my ability to write large-scale projects at a scholarly level. Now I'm wondering whether they will see it that way....will they take it into account in a positive way, or will they discard it as irrelevant? I hope I didn't hurt my chances by sending it...

I can't seem to post/start a new topic in any of the forums. Why is this? I was able to do it, with difficulty, a couple of nights ago, and now, there's not any link or option that will allow me to post anything. I want to ask a question in philosophy.