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burroughs

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  • Location
    Canada
  • Application Season
    2014 Fall
  • Program
    Philosophy

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Decaf (2/10)

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  1. There's a single acceptance for the MA program, which isn't that surprising given that something similar happened last year. So, the acceptance appeared early Monday morning (no later than maybe 8.00 AM in Toronto), which struck me as a little odd. I'm inclined to give this the benefit of the doubt and suppose that the acceptance is perfectly legitimate, but I was hoping that (for example) they'd have sent their PhD acceptances, or contacted the relevant applicants, around the same time. So, the fact that they got in touch with PhD accepts on a weekend (or, at least, one of them) adds a little credence to that report. There's a certain urgency to my knowing whether or not those accepts are out (and so whether or not I can suppose that I've been rejected) since I've also got a couple of nice job offers that I have to accept/reject at some point. Anyway, I hope that makes sense of the request. Thanks for the response.
  2. Occam's Razorburn, I don't suppose that you could let me know whether or not a) that Toronto acceptance was for PHD or for an MA, and b ) roughly what day of the week & time it came at.
  3. This poll seems reasonably good as it is, especially since the ideal poll (which would give one space to be clearer about where one went, was admitted, was rejected, and so forth) isn't something that can, so far as I can see, be handled by this software. One way to do it, of course, would be for one person to compile, and for everyone to state whether or not they took an MA, whether or not they attended a top-50 university, and which universities (anonymized according to approximate ranking) they had been accepted into, or rejected from.
  4. I tend to be less available to the world when reading, so I've spent most of my free time reading. The problem, however, is when I have work to do at a computer. The temptation to refresh my e-mail is much too great, unfortunately. I suppose, at least, it gives me some strong intuitive evidence in favour of akrasia.
  5. I don't suppose that anyone has anything to say about the UofT MA accept. I'd be interested in the details of that, if they were forthcoming.
  6. I'd be happy to read you sample, zblaesi, though I fear that I wouldn't have much to say that hasn't already been said. Probably there are certain obvious topics (introducing the demi-urge can solve our metaphysical problems, fluid mechanics is robustly gendered) that are just about appropriate for a philosophy essay while nevertheless being, as has been put, toxic. So, we know there are some. The problem, then, would be that some philosophers take a paper defending (say) eliminativism to be another of these topics that are appropriate, but that give a sense of a philosopher as being unserious, inclined to spurious argument, & so forth. So. if someone who holds your topic to be trivially misguided reads your paper then, absent a quite magnificent exertion, they will judge it with that in mind. A really good paper on the demi-urge is still just a really good paper on the demi-urge. A second problem will be that some philosophers just dislike certain arguments. Suppose that philosopher X really dislikes Mackie's argument from Queerness. Now, there are good reasons to dislike this argument, but (perhaps) some good reasons to like it too. It seems to me (at least) that a paper that uses that argument will appear worse to philosopher X, even though it may be defensible, and even though it may be appropriate to the argument. These aren't really problems that you can get around with anonymity, or other tricks along that line. The problem just is that philosophers dislike certain arguments, and that it's doubtful that, reading so many applications, they all put the effort in to focus solely on quality (as if we knew what that was) and not on topic-choice, argument-form, use-of-hopefully. Anyway, I think that admissions would be disinclined to accept someone just on account of their topic if either a) that topic is taken by them to be a misguided one within philosophy or b ) most of the members of the committee strongly dislike a certain line of argument presented in most (all?) papers on a topic. The second one just about qualifies as being rejected on account of one's topic choice, I think. Of course, there's also the chance that your paper is bad, that the committee is composed of poor judges or that there are a lot of better applicants. I suppose that a two or three line response to your application (although far too much work to be worth it to any sane committee) would be nice, just insofar as it would make these problems clearer. Absent that, I think that a certain conservatism within applications is appropriate.
  7. So, here's a situation in which a sample unrelated to your AOI may be a disadvantage. Professor X, with whom you want to work, is consulted on the applications. Your sample, and the sample of Applicant Y, are both of a similar strength, and you are qualitatively identical candidates except that Y has written on your AOI & you've written on Spinoza. Professor X recognises Y's paper as a reasonable contribution to the literature, and takes the greater relevance of Y's writing as being the decisive factor. It's not a likely occurrence, of course, and requires a quite abnormal set of coincidences. What is more, it's certainly true that the capacity to write strong papers outside of one's AOI is indicative of philosophical ability. Nevertheless, it's something to bear in mind. Writing on one's AOI and writing on some other subject both have costs. Whether those costs are relevant to most of us is, perhaps, the better question.
  8. I voted Kantianism, though I already regret that vote. It seems to me that the interesting disagreements aren't between Kantians & Utils, though those can be reasonably fruitful, but instead between kinds of Kantian (between (say) Korsgaard & everyone else). So, Kantian constructivism, but qualified in two ways. First, it only resembles the form of Kantian constructivism, as these things are filled out so very differently by different people. Second, my preference is mostly an aesthetic one, and I tend to fear that a reasonable inference from past failure would have me hold the position only very tentatively.
  9. So, suppose that I'm generous. I grant that you're asking these questions because you're somewhat concerned about your future chances in philosophy. Now, your remark isn't an insight. This is the sort of thing that a modicum of critical thought & a brief survey of top-25 faculties could generate. So, given that this isn't a question that requires any formidable intellect, and given that it's been written about many times before, it would seem that your question was not the sort of thing that needed asking. Given that other questions that you've asked are similar to this, and given that we want to be generous, we might conclude that you're not especially good at asking questions, or that you ask them too rashly. So, let's grant this (and not a broader stupidity, or malice). The conclusion is that you are a defective questioner, and, as such, it might be worth developing that skill, and asking fewer questions with more prudence & tact. So, do that.
  10. A realistic chance? I'd doubt that top-50, or even top-25, is sufficient for a realistic chance. There are, of course, philosophers who teach at top-25 universities who attended (say) a top-50 university, or a top-100 university, or an unranked university. Their chances, though, probably weren't realistic. I'd say that top-50 leaves it within the realm of distant possibility, but I'm not sure how many graduate students attending those universities would be advised that their chances of ending up at a top-25 university were 'realistic'. I'd hazard that most would be told that it would be optimistic, the sort of thing at which one aims without being under the impression that one has much chance. Suppose that you get 5 new graduate students a year at each top-25 university. Now, some of these will drop out, and others will prove to be weaker philosophers than their application & earlier performance had led admission committees to believe. Nevertheless, there would still be enough graduates to populate the top-25 universities, and then many left over. Of course, this isn't entirely straightforward. Some departments will place especially well, others will put out graduates in necessary but underpopulated areas, and some highly-ranked departments will place poorly. Still, I think it should be clear that even the average graduate of a top-25 university would be optimistic in hoping for such a position.
  11. I'm not sure that this is a coherent question. One may ask how long the wait-list of a particular program is, but the differences between programs is a determinative factor. The very strongest programs may rely on having a significant number of their first-choices accept their offers, whereas programs that are, for those same applicants, prudential second-choices, may not. So, programs will have bespoke wait-lists, tailored to their expectations & experience.
  12. It seems to me that one has to distinguish between philosophical maturity & something more akin to graduate-level philosophical maturity. So, the latter would require that one possess the capacity to express assent & dissent in graded terms, to read charitably, to identify precisely the premiss/inference that one rejected in an argument & to be able to present sensible objections & counterarguments. All of this is a reasonably general sort of academic maturity that could apply to most programs (most of it cribbed from something that Oakeshott once wrote). Given that, one would also need to know some philosophy. If one has those capacities, then one can at least succeed in a graduate program. We might say that one has to be philosophically competent. Philosophical maturity, though, strikes me as something more hard-won.
  13. I fear that you overstate the significance of simply having written a book. It's certainly an achievement, regardless of quality, and given that you've got a reasonable GPA and have attended a decent MA program one might even suppose that it'll be quite good. The sort of thing (say) that indicates an awareness of the problems and some attempt to resolve them. Nevertheless, books aren't always impressive just as books. A lot of books are overly long, containing a core of decent philosophy and then a rather too heavy crust of other work. So, it may be that a paper, or perhaps a presentation, is a better medium in which to indicate your capacity to write philosophy. Given this, the question will probably not be whether or not you've written a book, but instead how strong your writing sample is. Reading your posts, you tend to spare little room for remarks on your writing sample and give too much space to the fact that you've written a book. So, what are you to do next? Presumably the same thing that everyone must do. You improve your sample, and work on the issues. The question isn't whether or not you may (at some point) write some extensive treatise, the question is whether or not you can produce terse & solid philosophical writing. On Denoting, not On What Matters.
  14. I don't see that one has to ignore the results page, given that most of the time these reports are pretty accurate. The problem, so far as there is one, only arises for those programs that may send only a few confirmatory missives. From what I've read, the suspicion appears to be that the strongest programs might do this. What is more, it seems that anyone hoping to deceive tends to claim (though I may well be wrong here) to have received confirmation from only the most desirable programs. So, one only really needs to be a little wary of claims to have received something from those programs. Most of the time the results page has been accurate and, just as important, updated with a creditable speed.
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