Glasperlenspieler

Rationally-justified distaste for the GRE has guided this discussion. I fully agree with the two main critiques: that the GRE is poor tool for philosophy admissions (though I maintain that it still has legitimate academic relevance), and that its monopolistic price-gouging are reflective of structural problems in admissions and in higher education generally. We can all pine for a government-administered, European-style national graduation exam in the U.S., which would entail all kinds of other, desirable adjustments to our wildly unequal public education system. But in the (possibly eternal) meantime, there will remain demand in graduate admissions for a standardized measure, which I maintain is a legitimate counterbalance to disparities in grading and rigor at undergraduate institutions. In other words, it is something we, as applicants, should want.
Just in case there is anyone reading this thread, now or in the future, who has not yet taken the GRE, I want to caution against a potentially costly contempt for the exam. So long as the GRE is required for philosophy admissions, respected schools will be awash in top-scoring applicants, who also have excellent profiles, grades, etc. In other words, they are as smart as you in every way, and they have top scores. Some people have pointed out how applicants with perfect scores are frequently rejected, suggesting that this confirms that the GRE is trivial in admissions. While these instances certainly show that the GRE cannot get you accepted, they do not indicate that GRE's were ignored, nor that ten other candidates weren't eliminated using the GRE. The bottom line is that you cannot afford to neglect any component of your application. This is especially true if you envision yourself at a school within a country mile of the top of the field.
There are so many factors beyond your control when you apply to grad school, but the good news is, the GRE is not one of them. The high-end courses and tutoring @soproperlybasic mentioned, which no doubt can help your score, boil down to structured study time and months-long game plans. It is not necessary to pay for the courses, nor do they provide secret silver bullets for the exam. Exam tutors will tell you that the way to improve any standardized score is to simply practice the test, hour after hour, until you can take it in your sleep.
Again, this is not to champion the test, nor to suggest you should spend time on it that would detract from your writing sample, statements, etc. Just don't do yourself the disservice of sending out fabulous applications and then appending a mediocre score. Even if you take the view that the GRE is entirely arbitrary and unjust, your self-interest should motivate you to ace it anyway.

In philosophy (unlike in history or in many of the sciences and social sciences), you are generally admitted to the program and not to work with a particular faculty member. Often, you won't even have an official advisor (aside from the DGS) until the second year or later. That being said, in terms of admissions, they will certainly take into account the compatibility of your research interests and those of the professors in the departments. If you want to work on Hume and there's one Hume scholar in the department, they will probably expect that you will end up working with her, even if you don't mention her name in your application. If it turns out this professor already has 3 advisees and doesn't feel she can take on any more, they may decide not to admit anyone whose primary focus is Hume (that's not to say that every department would operate this way, but it's certainly a possibility). 
In other cases, especially if your interests are more broad, they might admit you (assuming they like your app) but with no expectation that you'll end up working with any particular professor. I don't think it's necessary to name drop. If your interests are clearly articulated, it should be pretty clear which professors are good fits. If it turns out that nobody matches with your research interests, you probably won't get admitted. Name dropping can be risky. If you mischaracterize someone's research, name someone who is leaving the department, or fail to name someone who would be a good match, that may look poorly. On the other hand, if you have a specific connection to someone's work and can speak intelligently about how it has influenced your philosophical trajectory, that's probably worth mentioning. 
I know for a fact that at one of the places I was admitted, there was a faculty member who was very interested in my application and pushed for me (and helpfully, that professor was on the admissions committee). Now, from talking with people, it sounds like my application was received pretty favorably by the committee as a whole at the program, so I may have been admitted even if this hadn't been the case. But if someone on the committee sees your app and decide they want to work with you and go to the trouble of convincing everyone else, that will definitely help your odds. 

Part of this can be choosing the right program for you. Do grad students seem to live out of their offices or does the program encourage getting work done on your schedule and then doing what you want? The second is usually less stressful than the first. A program that doesn't care if you're in the office all day, as long as your work gets done, is one that allows for activities like exercise and game nights. If I go to one program, I've learned at least one grad student teaches a spin class on campus and two in my potential cohort want to teach other exercise classes. I could take these classes as a way to be social with my fellow students, decompress from all the work, and stay fit. It's also important to me to have a walkable campus so, even if I don't get to the gym, I can get in all my steps for the day.

As for cooking, well...I'm definitely more concerned about that. Hoping crockpot meals and meal prep will help me there.

In philosophy (unlike in history or in many of the sciences and social sciences), you are generally admitted to the program and not to work with a particular faculty member. Often, you won't even have an official advisor (aside from the DGS) until the second year or later. That being said, in terms of admissions, they will certainly take into account the compatibility of your research interests and those of the professors in the departments. If you want to work on Hume and there's one Hume scholar in the department, they will probably expect that you will end up working with her, even if you don't mention her name in your application. If it turns out this professor already has 3 advisees and doesn't feel she can take on any more, they may decide not to admit anyone whose primary focus is Hume (that's not to say that every department would operate this way, but it's certainly a possibility). 
In other cases, especially if your interests are more broad, they might admit you (assuming they like your app) but with no expectation that you'll end up working with any particular professor. I don't think it's necessary to name drop. If your interests are clearly articulated, it should be pretty clear which professors are good fits. If it turns out that nobody matches with your research interests, you probably won't get admitted. Name dropping can be risky. If you mischaracterize someone's research, name someone who is leaving the department, or fail to name someone who would be a good match, that may look poorly. On the other hand, if you have a specific connection to someone's work and can speak intelligently about how it has influenced your philosophical trajectory, that's probably worth mentioning. 
I know for a fact that at one of the places I was admitted, there was a faculty member who was very interested in my application and pushed for me (and helpfully, that professor was on the admissions committee). Now, from talking with people, it sounds like my application was received pretty favorably by the committee as a whole at the program, so I may have been admitted even if this hadn't been the case. But if someone on the committee sees your app and decide they want to work with you and go to the trouble of convincing everyone else, that will definitely help your odds. 

Lol.
It might be helpful to provide arguments for this position as opposed to just name-calling. Nobody is saying that the Philosophical Gourmet report is the word of God, but it's a useful starting point for researching grad programs, especially if you focus on the specialty rankings. The Kant ranking in 14-15, for instance, consisted of evaluations from Anne Margaret Baxley, Andrew Chignell, Maudemarie Clark, Paul Guyer, Stephen Houlgate, Pierre Keller, Michelle Kosch, Derk Pereboom, Peter Poellner, Michael Rosen, Helga Varden, Eric Watkins, Robert Wicks, and Allen Wood. Those are opinions I would probably want to consider if I were looking to write a dissertation on Kant
The SPEP list you mention, on the other hand, lists no methodology whatsoever. However, the note on top stating: " If you wish to submit a departmental description, or to report a broken link, please click here to email us" suggests that this is merely a list of those graduate programs who have contacted SPEP and asked to be included. It's a strange list too. It includes, for instance, UT Austin and WUSTL. Now, Austin has a few people working in German philosophy but the department is by and large focused on rather technical areas in analytic philosophy, so I doubt I would suggest that some one interesting in "continental" philosophy attend there. WUSTL, while certainly a strong program, strikes me as having even less to interest someone focusing on German or French philosophy. UCSD, on the other hand, is no where to be seen, despite being one of the strongest places to study Kant right now, as @be. rightly notes. Neither is UChicago, which has a breadth in German philosophy that few departments can rival.
Having someone who works on Kant/19th century philosophy is hardly a sufficient condition for a being a good place to study Kant. This is doubly true if one hopes to attain an academic job afterwards.

Lol.
It might be helpful to provide arguments for this position as opposed to just name-calling. Nobody is saying that the Philosophical Gourmet report is the word of God, but it's a useful starting point for researching grad programs, especially if you focus on the specialty rankings. The Kant ranking in 14-15, for instance, consisted of evaluations from Anne Margaret Baxley, Andrew Chignell, Maudemarie Clark, Paul Guyer, Stephen Houlgate, Pierre Keller, Michelle Kosch, Derk Pereboom, Peter Poellner, Michael Rosen, Helga Varden, Eric Watkins, Robert Wicks, and Allen Wood. Those are opinions I would probably want to consider if I were looking to write a dissertation on Kant
The SPEP list you mention, on the other hand, lists no methodology whatsoever. However, the note on top stating: " If you wish to submit a departmental description, or to report a broken link, please click here to email us" suggests that this is merely a list of those graduate programs who have contacted SPEP and asked to be included. It's a strange list too. It includes, for instance, UT Austin and WUSTL. Now, Austin has a few people working in German philosophy but the department is by and large focused on rather technical areas in analytic philosophy, so I doubt I would suggest that some one interesting in "continental" philosophy attend there. WUSTL, while certainly a strong program, strikes me as having even less to interest someone focusing on German or French philosophy. UCSD, on the other hand, is no where to be seen, despite being one of the strongest places to study Kant right now, as @be. rightly notes. Neither is UChicago, which has a breadth in German philosophy that few departments can rival.
Having someone who works on Kant/19th century philosophy is hardly a sufficient condition for a being a good place to study Kant. This is doubly true if one hopes to attain an academic job afterwards.

I'll share the narratives of my two campus visits, which were on opposite ends of the spectrum, and which might help you in planning your visit.
School A: I was admitted and attended a "Recruitment Weekend" with every other admitted student. In groups we met with one faculty member for lunch, who may or may not have been in your area (mine was not). The planned itinerary consisted primarily of events with grad students, apart from a party which was attended by grads and faculty.  It was only after I arrived that I discovered that it was incumbent upon me, beforehand, to have set up appointments with professors of interest if I wanted to meet with any faculty individually!  Since I had not made arrangements ahead of time, and at the time I was quite shy and nervous, I had very little interaction with faculty.
School B: Prior to my visit I was issued a (pretty much) to the minute itinerary for a two full day visit which included scheduled appointments with professors I'd mentioned in my statement, and even some professors I was unaware of who happened to be interested in my application, a brief meeting with the department chair, as well as some seminars to attend, lunch and dinner with grad students, etc.  I didn't really need to prepare at all.
It would be worthwhile, once you start talking to the DGS of programs you were admitted to about your visit, to ask if the visit will be more like School A or more like School B!  Keep in mind that everything may not be taken care of, and you may be in charge of planning your own visit to some degree.
My other advice would be: if you attend you'll have 5-8 years to sit with these folks and show off how much Lacan you've read, but you may only have a day or two to decide whether you like these people, this environment, this city.  You've already been admitted, so you don't need to prove how smart or well read you are, focus on getting to know whether or not you want to live and work in this place.  Likewise, your future colleagues are more likely to want to find out who you are as a person; while research interests are a good conversation starter, yours are likely to change a half-dozen times in the next few years anyway!
By the way, I attend School B now.  While School A is a fine program, B definitely made me feel more like they were invested in me, and cared about who I was, which was an important factor in my final decision. These are things to think about as you visit a campus, as I'm sure you've heard enough tales about grad students who feel adrift, neglected, or abandoned by their programs (and if you haven't, believe me, it happens).
   

Your philosophy GPA is the GPA for every philosophy course you have taken. Your undergraduate advisor is right when they say that admissions committees mostly just care about the grades you get in your third- and fourth-year courses (i.e. 300+ level courses), but they have a look at those for themselves. It's separate from your GPA. When they ask for your philosophy GPA, they're not asking for your GPA from your last couple years.
 
It can make sense to do that, but you have to decide whether it's worth the trouble. If your faculty advisor thinks your sample is good enough, then that's sufficient for a go at applications. Remember, too, that you don't just get one try at this. You can always apply again. Given that it's just about February, I'd say that you have more than enough time ahead of you to perform substantial revisions on your sample and re-learn your HS math for the GRE. I suspect that if you give yourself another year, your writing sample won't end up being all that much more polished than it would be anyway.
 
Yes--provided you do well in them. If you tank them or just do OK, then that's going to harm your application a little. What doing well in a grad seminar tells the committee is that you're capable of working and doing well at a level that approximates the grad level (since UGs in grad seminars are usually graded as such). And it gives you a taste of what it's like in there. But remember that the expectations are different and that, as an UG, it's not actually a seminar for you (it'll be up to you to keep up, rather than up to the teacher or the rest of the class to slow down if you're not caught up). If I were you, I'd take or sit in on one or two that were of interest, but I wouldn't overdo it.
 
As a graduate student newly on the job market, it's normal to have a list of graduate courses you took (that is: classes taken as a graduate student), and it would be normal to include independent studies on that list. As an UG, it's not normal to do that. I assume those classes show up as independent studies on your transcript, right? It's just that the transcript doesn't say what it was on? In that case, you can mention it in your statement of interest if you want, but otherwise forget about it.
 
It's reasonable, sure, but I wouldn't think about my applications that way. I'd apply to whatever the best programs are for my two prospective AOSes, and at least one prospective AOC. In your case, I guess that's philosophy of language and epistemology, modified perhaps by mind or metaphysics more generally. But determining which programs are the best isn't simply a matter of looking at the PGR; it's a matter of exhaustive research, and of finding the best set of supervisors you can for your interests. So by all means, start with the PGR's specialty rankings (forget the overall ranking for now; besides which, given those interests, it'll track fairly closely). But then read up on all the departments in that set of rankings. Find out what the faculty working in your areas of interest are working on. Find out who's cross-appointed where. Find out what ties exist between the philosophy department and departments that complement your interests (linguistics, cognitive science, etc.). If you're serious about philosophy of language as an AOS, then you should really be seeking out a university with a strong linguistics department, too. Find out what the progression requirements are, and compare them--try to determine whether you could reasonably complete them all in the time allotted. Look to see which programs have the strongest, most active colloquium schedules (that's a good way to figure out whether the department's rolling in money or tightening its belt). Look to see which departments will give you a few teaching opportunities without having you teach too much. Scour the graduate student profiles and CVs, and try to get a sense of what yours might look like when you get to their point.
As for jobs... look. Landing a job is not actually correlated with overall PGR rank. Landing a job at a PhD-granting institution, on the other hand,, does seem to be loosely correlated to rank--at least insofar as the top few departments are concerned. But here's the thing: nobody's chances of landing a job are good, not even graduates of top programs. Top programs do tend to get the flashier placements, but those bright successes obscure a struggling underclass of newly-minted PhDs. Prestige matters a lot more than it should, but it also matters a lot less than factors over which you have a fair bit of control: who your supervisors are, your publication record, your research agenda and future plans, your teaching experience, and your academic network. Your network is probably the most important factor here, because it's through that network that you get professionalized, make important contacts (for letters, grant and postdoc applications, etc.), and are offered CV-boosting opportunities. Your choice of supervisors is really, really important, because they're supposed to introduce you to their own networks and get you settled in.
I'll let you in on a secret. Well, it's not really a secret, but people often don't realize this in time, if ever: Name recognition matters in this discipline, but it's your name that needs to be recognized. Institutional prestige is really just a proxy. If committee members were to ask their friends in the relevant subfield to list the five or so best graduate students/new PhDs in the subfield, you want your name to come up on as many of those lists as possible. That will get you an interview (which is what your job-seeking goal really is). For publications, you're aiming for an R&R because outright acceptances are so very, very rare; for jobs, you're aiming for an interview for similar reasons. But that means you need to be pretty prolific as a graduate student--all over the conference circuit, well-published, and well-integrated into a broad professional network.
 
Not as much as everyone seems to think. It's obviously great if you have a letter from David Lewis saying you're the best undergraduate student he's ever seen (provided, of course, that he doesn't have a reputation for inflating his letters!). But most applicants don't have those kinds of letters, and most UG applicants are exceptionally poorly placed to even know whether their references are prestigious, or just how prestigious they are. Philosophical subfields are small, and there are some very well-known people who don't teach in fancy departments, or even at PhD-granting departments. You're not a very good judge of how well-connected your professors are.
The kind of letter that you actually want, anyway, is one that can speak directly to your abilities, and in a lot of detail. It doesn't really matter who those letters comes from (as long as they're philosophers, have a PhD, and are at least associates). What matters is their content. If David Lewis can't explain in detail why he thinks you're the best, his letter isn't worth much.
 
They'd have to be aware of the inflation, or at least believe it to be true. In my experience, UGs talk a lot about grade inflation, especially compared to their institutional rivals, but that's all it is: talk. I don't know that there's much evidence that it's true, or (even if it is!) that anybody outside the rivalry knows or cares about it. (The real exception is for UK students, whose grades are radically deflated--like, seriously. 60% is actually quite a good grade.)
Look: your grades barely matter. They matter only insofar as they're not bad, and won't rule you out. Getting lots of Bs or lower--especially later in your UG career--is not good. Beyond that, nobody really cares all that much.
 
Yes, it matters. But again, not as much as people sometimes seem to think it does. What really matters is that you're a strong applicant coming out of a strong philosophy program at a legitimate university the committee has heard of and recognizes as a decent program. And it helps insofar as you've had access to opportunities and resources to which other applicants haven't had access. But PGRness doesn't really have anything to do with it; it's a measure of the prestige of PhD programs, not BA programs. An UG version of the PGR would be a very different ranking.
 
A little, but not much. Any awards or scholarships you might have received matter more.
 
No. Include any awards or scholarships you've received, any community-, department-, or university-level service you've performed, jobs you've had, any teaching experience you might have, that sort of stuff. Publications of any kind, if you have them (just be clear that they're not peer-reviewed and academic, if they aren't). Most of that will fall off your academic CV as you go along, but for now it's all pertinent enough.

Lol.
It might be helpful to provide arguments for this position as opposed to just name-calling. Nobody is saying that the Philosophical Gourmet report is the word of God, but it's a useful starting point for researching grad programs, especially if you focus on the specialty rankings. The Kant ranking in 14-15, for instance, consisted of evaluations from Anne Margaret Baxley, Andrew Chignell, Maudemarie Clark, Paul Guyer, Stephen Houlgate, Pierre Keller, Michelle Kosch, Derk Pereboom, Peter Poellner, Michael Rosen, Helga Varden, Eric Watkins, Robert Wicks, and Allen Wood. Those are opinions I would probably want to consider if I were looking to write a dissertation on Kant
The SPEP list you mention, on the other hand, lists no methodology whatsoever. However, the note on top stating: " If you wish to submit a departmental description, or to report a broken link, please click here to email us" suggests that this is merely a list of those graduate programs who have contacted SPEP and asked to be included. It's a strange list too. It includes, for instance, UT Austin and WUSTL. Now, Austin has a few people working in German philosophy but the department is by and large focused on rather technical areas in analytic philosophy, so I doubt I would suggest that some one interesting in "continental" philosophy attend there. WUSTL, while certainly a strong program, strikes me as having even less to interest someone focusing on German or French philosophy. UCSD, on the other hand, is no where to be seen, despite being one of the strongest places to study Kant right now, as @be. rightly notes. Neither is UChicago, which has a breadth in German philosophy that few departments can rival.
Having someone who works on Kant/19th century philosophy is hardly a sufficient condition for a being a good place to study Kant. This is doubly true if one hopes to attain an academic job afterwards.

Lol.
It might be helpful to provide arguments for this position as opposed to just name-calling. Nobody is saying that the Philosophical Gourmet report is the word of God, but it's a useful starting point for researching grad programs, especially if you focus on the specialty rankings. The Kant ranking in 14-15, for instance, consisted of evaluations from Anne Margaret Baxley, Andrew Chignell, Maudemarie Clark, Paul Guyer, Stephen Houlgate, Pierre Keller, Michelle Kosch, Derk Pereboom, Peter Poellner, Michael Rosen, Helga Varden, Eric Watkins, Robert Wicks, and Allen Wood. Those are opinions I would probably want to consider if I were looking to write a dissertation on Kant
The SPEP list you mention, on the other hand, lists no methodology whatsoever. However, the note on top stating: " If you wish to submit a departmental description, or to report a broken link, please click here to email us" suggests that this is merely a list of those graduate programs who have contacted SPEP and asked to be included. It's a strange list too. It includes, for instance, UT Austin and WUSTL. Now, Austin has a few people working in German philosophy but the department is by and large focused on rather technical areas in analytic philosophy, so I doubt I would suggest that some one interesting in "continental" philosophy attend there. WUSTL, while certainly a strong program, strikes me as having even less to interest someone focusing on German or French philosophy. UCSD, on the other hand, is no where to be seen, despite being one of the strongest places to study Kant right now, as @be. rightly notes. Neither is UChicago, which has a breadth in German philosophy that few departments can rival.
Having someone who works on Kant/19th century philosophy is hardly a sufficient condition for a being a good place to study Kant. This is doubly true if one hopes to attain an academic job afterwards.

This is abusive and utterly inappropriate behavior. Sadly, though, to protect yourself, you need to be very careful about what you do, depending on your graduation and post-graduation plans. Some questions to get you started:
Is there someone else who can act as your advisor instead of your current advisor? I ask, because it's entirely possible, if not likely, that if you complain he will know who the source was and that he won't appreciate it and will retaliate. You may be able to graduate without his support if there's an official complaint against him, but you also need to consider your post-PhD plans. If you want to stay in academia, it'll be hard not to has a letter from him. Your life will be easier in a variety of ways if you can switch to someone who is both not abusive and whose support you can count on. I would personally choose to do this even if it meant changing directions of research somewhat (within reason).  Is there a history of similar complaints being taken seriously? Or conversely of students leaving him and switching advisor? Do you expect to have your department's support? You may not immediately know. If he is famous and/or tenured, it'll be much harder. You'll leave in a few years and he may stay for decades, and politics may dictate that they'll prefer to keep the calm by sacrificing you.  Are there external resources to support you? An ombudsperson? Mental health services or a support group? The Title IX office? Regardless of anything else, you should seek this kind of support, because what's happening is not okay and no one should deal with it alone.  It's sad that these are the questions you have to ask yourself, but this is the reality. I am certainly not advocating for continuing to take the abuse, certainly not as a default. But you need to consider what fighting back would mean, and what prices you're willing to pay. Make informed decisions, whatever they are. I would also urge you to consider that there are other wonderful people in your field, and that you shouldn't choose to quit just because of one person, if you otherwise want to stay in your field! Good luck to you -- I hope you can find your way through this and it all works out! 

Lol.
It might be helpful to provide arguments for this position as opposed to just name-calling. Nobody is saying that the Philosophical Gourmet report is the word of God, but it's a useful starting point for researching grad programs, especially if you focus on the specialty rankings. The Kant ranking in 14-15, for instance, consisted of evaluations from Anne Margaret Baxley, Andrew Chignell, Maudemarie Clark, Paul Guyer, Stephen Houlgate, Pierre Keller, Michelle Kosch, Derk Pereboom, Peter Poellner, Michael Rosen, Helga Varden, Eric Watkins, Robert Wicks, and Allen Wood. Those are opinions I would probably want to consider if I were looking to write a dissertation on Kant
The SPEP list you mention, on the other hand, lists no methodology whatsoever. However, the note on top stating: " If you wish to submit a departmental description, or to report a broken link, please click here to email us" suggests that this is merely a list of those graduate programs who have contacted SPEP and asked to be included. It's a strange list too. It includes, for instance, UT Austin and WUSTL. Now, Austin has a few people working in German philosophy but the department is by and large focused on rather technical areas in analytic philosophy, so I doubt I would suggest that some one interesting in "continental" philosophy attend there. WUSTL, while certainly a strong program, strikes me as having even less to interest someone focusing on German or French philosophy. UCSD, on the other hand, is no where to be seen, despite being one of the strongest places to study Kant right now, as @be. rightly notes. Neither is UChicago, which has a breadth in German philosophy that few departments can rival.
Having someone who works on Kant/19th century philosophy is hardly a sufficient condition for a being a good place to study Kant. This is doubly true if one hopes to attain an academic job afterwards.

It would be helpful if someone knows the non-Leiter ranked programs (either because they choose not to be included, or because they wouldn't be ranked) that have strengths in Kant, which I understand as having at least 2 people actively working and publishing on issues in Kant scholarship. I don't know myself what programs those would be, but the information would be helpful. Also, as others have mentioned, it matters what area of Kant you're interested in (whether moral philosophy, metaphysics, aesthetics, and so on). The very top Kant scholars (people like Guyer and Allais) will know it all anyway, but most other people will tend to have a specific part that they focus on. Take that all with a grain of salt though, as I don't really know the current state of Kant scholarship that well myself. 

I would say, don't get too sore at particular departments about a lot of these things, a lot of them are standardized at the college-wide or university-wide level. If an English department wanted to stop requiring GRE scores and official transcripts they probably couldn't do it without getting the change made globally across whatever college they were in, it is very difficult to do anything in a university bureaucracy.
With regard to dates and fees:  I can totally understand the points made about application fees, I dropped like $800 on them, but there needs to be some way to keep the number of applications down because application reading is exceptionally laborious.  That probably sounds like a whine, but imagine a school that requires a 3 page SoP and a 20 page writing sample gets 400 applications.  That's 9,200 pages of reading, not inclusive of CVs, transcripts, and letters of rec, all of which have to be read carefully in order to ensure a good application process.  The adcom at my program has 6 people on it, who break out into groups of two and divide the applications evenly between them for the first round.  Even then, you're still looking at 3,000 pages of reading just for the SoP and writing sample.  If you don't find some way to decrease the total number of applications, then you would have to fall back on some other quick cut metric, like, for example, a greater reliance on GRE scores as a cutoff, which is already a bugaboo.  
Pinning down an exact date for responses is also quite difficult given the nature of academic committee work.  As one person pointed out, profs do not get any kind of work release for adcom work and so those thousands of pages of application to review come on top of their current teaching, writing, conference, and research responsibilities.  It can be very difficult to coordinate an adcom on a particular date with so much involved in actually completing the review process.  What if a member of the adcom has something come up, becomes ill or has a death in the family, would you want them zipping through your SoP at the last minute in order to get it read on time?  They're also probably thinking of their already underpaid and overworked department administrators, because what do you think will happen to them if the responses happened to go out a day... or hell even an hour late?
Getting anything done in a University setting involves a lot of moving parts, cat herding, and bureaucracy.  Even something as trivial as updating an out of date website can require multiple layers of approval from various functionaries.  While there are doubtless a great many ways the process can be improved, there aren't easy solutions.

Lol.
It might be helpful to provide arguments for this position as opposed to just name-calling. Nobody is saying that the Philosophical Gourmet report is the word of God, but it's a useful starting point for researching grad programs, especially if you focus on the specialty rankings. The Kant ranking in 14-15, for instance, consisted of evaluations from Anne Margaret Baxley, Andrew Chignell, Maudemarie Clark, Paul Guyer, Stephen Houlgate, Pierre Keller, Michelle Kosch, Derk Pereboom, Peter Poellner, Michael Rosen, Helga Varden, Eric Watkins, Robert Wicks, and Allen Wood. Those are opinions I would probably want to consider if I were looking to write a dissertation on Kant
The SPEP list you mention, on the other hand, lists no methodology whatsoever. However, the note on top stating: " If you wish to submit a departmental description, or to report a broken link, please click here to email us" suggests that this is merely a list of those graduate programs who have contacted SPEP and asked to be included. It's a strange list too. It includes, for instance, UT Austin and WUSTL. Now, Austin has a few people working in German philosophy but the department is by and large focused on rather technical areas in analytic philosophy, so I doubt I would suggest that some one interesting in "continental" philosophy attend there. WUSTL, while certainly a strong program, strikes me as having even less to interest someone focusing on German or French philosophy. UCSD, on the other hand, is no where to be seen, despite being one of the strongest places to study Kant right now, as @be. rightly notes. Neither is UChicago, which has a breadth in German philosophy that few departments can rival.
Having someone who works on Kant/19th century philosophy is hardly a sufficient condition for a being a good place to study Kant. This is doubly true if one hopes to attain an academic job afterwards.

UCSD is perhaps the best graduate program in the U.S. for studying Kant. Lucy Allais, Eric Watkins, and Clinton Tolley teach there, and they are three of the very best Kant scholars working today.
I would be wary of Brown, as Paul Guyer is probably close to retirement. Same goes for Indiana: Allen Wood will likely retire in the next few years. 
Also, you might check out Princeton, which just hired Andrew Chignell away from Penn.

A new edition of the Philosophical Gourmet rankings should be coming out soon (by the end of the month, I think), so keep a look out for that. Lots of people on these boards are highly critical of those rankings, and for some good reasons. I do think they're useful though, as long as you take them with a grain of salt. The specially rankings are compiled by an anonymous survey of (a selected group) of specialists in the field, in which they are asked to evaluate programs on a scale of 1 to 5. (Anonymous in the sense that we don't know how a given person ranked each department. There is, however, a list of evaluators). 
All of the programs you list are strong in German philosophy. However, with the information you've given us, it's hard to say which programs you should be looking at. People who work in Kant and 19th C German philosophy approach it from wildly different perspectives. The best thing to do is probably to try to read some papers from different people in the field and see which approaches align with your own. You could start with some of the professors at the universities you list (Paul Guyer, Beatrice Longuenesse, Allen Wood, R Lanier Anderson, Pierre Keller, Robert Pippin, Eckart Foerster, Clinton Tolley, etc.). Philosophy admissions are extremely competitive, so it may not be a bad idea to apply to many departments with the hope that you can get into at least a couple of them. 
There are certainly people working on Kant and German philosophy in German and religious studies departments, but they tend to gravitate towards different approaches than what you'll find in philosophy departments, so it definitely depends on what you're looking for. Keep in mind though, if you go to a German studies department, you will be expected to deal with German literature to some extent and in a Religious studies department, you would likely be expected to take into account other aspects of religious studies as a field.

Part of the issue is that most schools expect that students should only be applying to 3-5 places, where they fit best. 
The advice I give my students is to not apply to more than 6, and only that many if there are compelling reasons. 
The arms race of the sheer number of schools students are applying to doesn't help anyone- it means fewer truly tailored applications, more people that get into a school they aren't a good fit for, and more work + cost for everyone. 
Part of the reason behind application fees is that it helps to prevent students applying with a shotgun approach, and promotes carefully selected options. 
I also don't know anyone that has really benefited from applying to a ton of schools over finding a handful you're a good fit for. 
"Reach" schools and "Safety" schools are OK in undergrad admissions, but they're generally a crappy idea in graduate school applications. The criteria that matters the most is fit, and you can't have "reach" fit and "safety" fit. Apply to where you feel like you will mesh with the department and be happy. Don't apply to schools just to get in, don't apply to places just because they're prestigious.

A new edition of the Philosophical Gourmet rankings should be coming out soon (by the end of the month, I think), so keep a look out for that. Lots of people on these boards are highly critical of those rankings, and for some good reasons. I do think they're useful though, as long as you take them with a grain of salt. The specially rankings are compiled by an anonymous survey of (a selected group) of specialists in the field, in which they are asked to evaluate programs on a scale of 1 to 5. (Anonymous in the sense that we don't know how a given person ranked each department. There is, however, a list of evaluators). 
All of the programs you list are strong in German philosophy. However, with the information you've given us, it's hard to say which programs you should be looking at. People who work in Kant and 19th C German philosophy approach it from wildly different perspectives. The best thing to do is probably to try to read some papers from different people in the field and see which approaches align with your own. You could start with some of the professors at the universities you list (Paul Guyer, Beatrice Longuenesse, Allen Wood, R Lanier Anderson, Pierre Keller, Robert Pippin, Eckart Foerster, Clinton Tolley, etc.). Philosophy admissions are extremely competitive, so it may not be a bad idea to apply to many departments with the hope that you can get into at least a couple of them. 
There are certainly people working on Kant and German philosophy in German and religious studies departments, but they tend to gravitate towards different approaches than what you'll find in philosophy departments, so it definitely depends on what you're looking for. Keep in mind though, if you go to a German studies department, you will be expected to deal with German literature to some extent and in a Religious studies department, you would likely be expected to take into account other aspects of religious studies as a field.

That's the beauty of Chicago style.

Small topic to distract us for a day:
When I started the last year of my BA I had to select an advisor for my BA thesis. I decided to select someone whose expertise was American fiction because I felt like I hadn't done enough of it. My other alternative was to do something about Samuel Beckett, but I was worried that I had done so much work on him that I would be too specialized. Since then I have not done a single piece of work on Beckett but have continued with my BA thesis topic over two MAs and have now proposed it for my PhD (it has changed, of course). When I was applying for programs several places had Beckett experts and I wanted to say 'Hey! I'm a huge Beckett fan! I've done X work on him', but since it was completely unrelated to my current topic, and I haven't really worked on it in years, I didn't. Similarly, there are a bunch of other topics that I wanted to work on but have put on hold and hadn't worked enough on to declare as a stated interest for the PhD.
Another example: when I met with my advisor I came in with two ideas: the one I wound up pursuing and something on Chuck Palahniuk. Since then the first one has become my main research but I have done some work on Palahniuk and because it's fairly self-contained I've managed to present those pieces at conferences more often than my main research. Looking over my CV I realize that like 80% if not more are about Palahniuk and material outside of anything I mentioned in my proposal, simply because it didn't fit, as those are ancillary topics for me.
So, what things were going to be 'your field' which aren't anymore? Or things you're interested in but couldn't fit into your proposal?
 

While @kretschmar makes some good points, I think I would disagree with the overall force of the comment. If your cumulative GPA remains above 3.7 and and your philosophy GPA is really a 4.0, then I think your grades are high enough that your application would get a serious look, assuming everything else is in order. Philosophy grad admissions are notoriously competitive, so that's no guarantee of anything. However, I don' think you will be rejected merely because you had some poor grades in non-philosophy classes (with the possible exception that you want to specialize in philosophy of science or a particularly technical subfield). Generally speaking, I think the quantitative aspects of your application are what make sure you get past the first cut. After that, they don't admit students because of good scores but because they think that will be successful graduate students in that program and, eventually, successful philosophers.

While @kretschmar makes some good points, I think I would disagree with the overall force of the comment. If your cumulative GPA remains above 3.7 and and your philosophy GPA is really a 4.0, then I think your grades are high enough that your application would get a serious look, assuming everything else is in order. Philosophy grad admissions are notoriously competitive, so that's no guarantee of anything. However, I don' think you will be rejected merely because you had some poor grades in non-philosophy classes (with the possible exception that you want to specialize in philosophy of science or a particularly technical subfield). Generally speaking, I think the quantitative aspects of your application are what make sure you get past the first cut. After that, they don't admit students because of good scores but because they think that will be successful graduate students in that program and, eventually, successful philosophers.

While @kretschmar makes some good points, I think I would disagree with the overall force of the comment. If your cumulative GPA remains above 3.7 and and your philosophy GPA is really a 4.0, then I think your grades are high enough that your application would get a serious look, assuming everything else is in order. Philosophy grad admissions are notoriously competitive, so that's no guarantee of anything. However, I don' think you will be rejected merely because you had some poor grades in non-philosophy classes (with the possible exception that you want to specialize in philosophy of science or a particularly technical subfield). Generally speaking, I think the quantitative aspects of your application are what make sure you get past the first cut. After that, they don't admit students because of good scores but because they think that will be successful graduate students in that program and, eventually, successful philosophers.

This may be true for the sciences but is typically not the case in the humanities from my experience. In the humanities, students are usually funded by the department as a whole and teaching positions, not through individual professors.