ineedwine

I'll add my own here, for additional hope. My overall GPA is 3.01 and my Phil GPA 3.59 (I got a D+ once upon a time and a few B-range grades). I was accepted to BC's MA program. What helped was having a decent sample, doing okay on the GRE, but most of all having a few very enthusiastic letter's, one of which did address the grades. I also made efforts to raise my GPA in my last two semesters, leaving with a 4.0 in philosophy classes in my last semester. 

If you have a low GPA, there is still hope. Form positive relationships with a few philosophy professors (and hopefully impress them) so you can secure outstanding letters, and write the best possible sample and statement you can. Then apply to many MA programs, because the chances are better there for low-GPA students like myself. Once you get into an MA program (maybe even a lesser-known one) you then have an opportunity to prove you can do graduate level work. Oh! One more thing, in the mean time, if you live in an area with a few colleges, check out their Philosophy departments and ask about auditing classes. That will show determination and also help keep you doing philosophy, and maybe even get you a letter-writer.

 

What I more meant was events, not necessarily auditing courses. Either way, BC itself seems like an exciting place to be. NIU is not fully funded, it is a possible one-year tuition waiver. I'll be taking on debt at either school. BC also has on campus opportunities, positions in departments and so on. I will be applying for a position in Women and Gender studies that is 20 hours a week and provides a 15k a year stipend for two years. If I landed something like that, it would seriously reduce the amount of debt I'll need to take out. It is also not as if I will be supporting myself completely. I will be moving with my boyfriend, who will have a full time job and help support us financially. 

I just can't feel okay missing out on a lot of exciting opportunity to study things I really wanted to anyway (Russian language as the language requirement, for instance, philosophy of film as well.) Sure, I could study independently, but I thought being surrounded by like-minded individuals was part of the magic of getting a graduate degree. I have so far met two other future MA students at BC, and both of them have pretty similar interests to my own. When I look at the course list, I get excited. When I look at NIU's 4-hour comprehensive exam on a topic I probably won't find very interesting, I feel a little dread. I think, would I thrive there?

What's more valuable? Doing what makes you happy and would probably make you a better and more interesting philosopher, or doing what's financially responsible? 

What I more meant was events, not necessarily auditing courses. Either way, BC itself seems like an exciting place to be. NIU is not fully funded, it is a possible one-year tuition waiver. I'll be taking on debt at either school. BC also has on campus opportunities, positions in departments and so on. I will be applying for a position in Women and Gender studies that is 20 hours a week and provides a 15k a year stipend for two years. If I landed something like that, it would seriously reduce the amount of debt I'll need to take out. It is also not as if I will be supporting myself completely. I will be moving with my boyfriend, who will have a full time job and help support us financially. 

I just can't feel okay missing out on a lot of exciting opportunity to study things I really wanted to anyway (Russian language as the language requirement, for instance, philosophy of film as well.) Sure, I could study independently, but I thought being surrounded by like-minded individuals was part of the magic of getting a graduate degree. I have so far met two other future MA students at BC, and both of them have pretty similar interests to my own. When I look at the course list, I get excited. When I look at NIU's 4-hour comprehensive exam on a topic I probably won't find very interesting, I feel a little dread. I think, would I thrive there?

What's more valuable? Doing what makes you happy and would probably make you a better and more interesting philosopher, or doing what's financially responsible? 

Congrats. Now you have the enviable problem of deciding between programs. Is Buffalo providing any funding? 
 
If it were me, I think I would treat Buffalo seriously. This is especially so since Rodolphe Gasche is in Buffalo, albeit in a different department, but any chance to study Deleuze with him is always highly appreciated. James Lawler is also someone to study with for aesthetics and Marx. The rest of the faculty though, seem to be mainly geared towards analytic variations of ethics.
 
Good luck.   

I've met a bunch of people who go to Buffalo and love it, and I've been consistently impressed with their people. I think it's an underrated place for sure.

Accepted at UConn!!! It feels so good, especially after last year's shut out. I hope to see you overoverover and reixis there!

I got my official rejection from Western today and then my acceptance to SUNY Buffalo. 
Buffalo was my "safety school," so I will likely be going to BC instead. Hopefully I can figure out how to afford it!

Ryerson is a butthole and told me when I asked my status that my application was not even under review because I hadn't uploaded anything to "English language requirement." I had assumed that didn't apply to me, and no one ever notified me that my application was incomplete. Terrible form, I no longer wish to go there.
It's Boston or Buffalo for me. Thoughts?

Hey—I haven't been active this year, but have been checking in now and then to see how acceptances are going.
I am currently a student at UW-Milwaukee and, though I'm not informed on the decision making process regarding applications, I have heard something about the timing of sending out decisions. From what I know, there are university-wide fellowships that each graduate department in the university nominates some students for each spring; and, if the any of the philosophy department's students receives an award, then it brings in more funding to the program. And the additional funding (or lack thereof) allows the department to admit a greater (or lesser) amount of students  for the following school year. That said, the university says that they make decisions about the fellowships in "the middle of March"—so the decisions should probably be come out very soon. Also, since spring break is next week, it could be that the University's fellowship notices will be released before the break. But if not: info may not come until the week following spring break. Yet, of course, there may be (and probably are) other factors at play in the timing of the department releasing acceptance decisions.
 
Either way, good luck to everyone. And if you get accepted and want to DM me, feel free. (I don't check the site that often, but if I get a message I'll reply as soon as possible.)

My parents had never gone to college or really knew much about it, so they didn't push me in any directions at all. I think they assumed that aside from Harvard all colleges were about equal. An 18 year-old from a small town with no college graduates in her immediate family isn't really set up to make informed choices! 

I'll go ahead and join in too. I came from a generally unknown (though large) state school. Acceptance rate of about 70% with around 30,000 enrolled. Furthermore, the school has a reputation among some for being kind of silly given our unorthodox core requirement program (among other things). SLACs in the community refer to us as a community college. However, my philosophy department I think is quite strong though lacks prestige. That is, a lot of the professors came from good programs and have friends in PGR top 20, 10, and 5 programs, but they themselves don't have major clout with their publishing record (though some of that is changing). My GRE was also sub-par (159v, 152q, 5.0a) but I had a high (though not perfect) GPA. 
 
EDIT-I should probably add that my program does have a pretty good placement record though. We've sent multiple people to UW Milwaukee, at least one to Georgia State, at least one to University of Houston, at least one to Simon Fraser, one was at CUNY at some point (though I don't know if they went through an MA first), another got into all T7 MAs and then got accepted off the wait list at U Conn., one at Carnegie Mellon (Logic, Comp, and Methodology) and someone this year applying with me got into Boston University (their goal school). 

I had a dream I was accepted to Oregon, my absolute dream school, but the funding was unacceptable. Like $2,000 a year. I was so upset.

I'll risk being an annoyance and just add that I did come from a small state school. Some 6,000 in the student body if I remember correctly, and we admit literally everyone. In fact, I went there because I had extremely poor high school grades and did terrible on the math portion of the ACT. I just looked up our acceptance rate, and it is 63% (or 89% from another source). My philosophy department was about 5 or 6 professors, one of whom mainly taught humanities and religion classes. The dept. chair is relatively well-known and has published several books and is pretty active in conferences and so on, though I did not get a letter from him. We are not listed in your link.
I consider myself pretty lucky I got in anywhere at all. 

I'll add my own here, for additional hope. My overall GPA is 3.01 and my Phil GPA 3.59 (I got a D+ once upon a time and a few B-range grades). I was accepted to BC's MA program. What helped was having a decent sample, doing okay on the GRE, but most of all having a few very enthusiastic letter's, one of which did address the grades. I also made efforts to raise my GPA in my last two semesters, leaving with a 4.0 in philosophy classes in my last semester. 

If you have a low GPA, there is still hope. Form positive relationships with a few philosophy professors (and hopefully impress them) so you can secure outstanding letters, and write the best possible sample and statement you can. Then apply to many MA programs, because the chances are better there for low-GPA students like myself. Once you get into an MA program (maybe even a lesser-known one) you then have an opportunity to prove you can do graduate level work. Oh! One more thing, in the mean time, if you live in an area with a few colleges, check out their Philosophy departments and ask about auditing classes. That will show determination and also help keep you doing philosophy, and maybe even get you a letter-writer.

 

I'll add my own here, for additional hope. My overall GPA is 3.01 and my Phil GPA 3.59 (I got a D+ once upon a time and a few B-range grades). I was accepted to BC's MA program. What helped was having a decent sample, doing okay on the GRE, but most of all having a few very enthusiastic letter's, one of which did address the grades. I also made efforts to raise my GPA in my last two semesters, leaving with a 4.0 in philosophy classes in my last semester. 

If you have a low GPA, there is still hope. Form positive relationships with a few philosophy professors (and hopefully impress them) so you can secure outstanding letters, and write the best possible sample and statement you can. Then apply to many MA programs, because the chances are better there for low-GPA students like myself. Once you get into an MA program (maybe even a lesser-known one) you then have an opportunity to prove you can do graduate level work. Oh! One more thing, in the mean time, if you live in an area with a few colleges, check out their Philosophy departments and ask about auditing classes. That will show determination and also help keep you doing philosophy, and maybe even get you a letter-writer.

 

I'll add my own here, for additional hope. My overall GPA is 3.01 and my Phil GPA 3.59 (I got a D+ once upon a time and a few B-range grades). I was accepted to BC's MA program. What helped was having a decent sample, doing okay on the GRE, but most of all having a few very enthusiastic letter's, one of which did address the grades. I also made efforts to raise my GPA in my last two semesters, leaving with a 4.0 in philosophy classes in my last semester. 

If you have a low GPA, there is still hope. Form positive relationships with a few philosophy professors (and hopefully impress them) so you can secure outstanding letters, and write the best possible sample and statement you can. Then apply to many MA programs, because the chances are better there for low-GPA students like myself. Once you get into an MA program (maybe even a lesser-known one) you then have an opportunity to prove you can do graduate level work. Oh! One more thing, in the mean time, if you live in an area with a few colleges, check out their Philosophy departments and ask about auditing classes. That will show determination and also help keep you doing philosophy, and maybe even get you a letter-writer.

 

I'm in! I'm in! Received an offer of admission from Boston College in the mail today. After having resolved to begin planning my apps for next year. I can't believe it! 
Not sure about financial aid situation yet, I'll figure it out when I can think straight.

Time for celebratory wine!!!

I'll add my own here, for additional hope. My overall GPA is 3.01 and my Phil GPA 3.59 (I got a D+ once upon a time and a few B-range grades). I was accepted to BC's MA program. What helped was having a decent sample, doing okay on the GRE, but most of all having a few very enthusiastic letter's, one of which did address the grades. I also made efforts to raise my GPA in my last two semesters, leaving with a 4.0 in philosophy classes in my last semester. 

If you have a low GPA, there is still hope. Form positive relationships with a few philosophy professors (and hopefully impress them) so you can secure outstanding letters, and write the best possible sample and statement you can. Then apply to many MA programs, because the chances are better there for low-GPA students like myself. Once you get into an MA program (maybe even a lesser-known one) you then have an opportunity to prove you can do graduate level work. Oh! One more thing, in the mean time, if you live in an area with a few colleges, check out their Philosophy departments and ask about auditing classes. That will show determination and also help keep you doing philosophy, and maybe even get you a letter-writer.

 

Wait-listed at the University of Georgia. 

Has UW-Milwaukee already notified those who were accepted? I've only noticed one acceptance (and decline of that acceptance) in a signature. Is anyone else still waiting on them?

No, this is the first I've heard from them. It was via snail mail though, so who knows when they sent it out. 

And thanks everyone!!

I'm in! I'm in! Received an offer of admission from Boston College in the mail today. After having resolved to begin planning my apps for next year. I can't believe it! 
Not sure about financial aid situation yet, I'll figure it out when I can think straight.

Time for celebratory wine!!!

I'm in! I'm in! Received an offer of admission from Boston College in the mail today. After having resolved to begin planning my apps for next year. I can't believe it! 
Not sure about financial aid situation yet, I'll figure it out when I can think straight.

Time for celebratory wine!!!

No, this is the first I've heard from them. It was via snail mail though, so who knows when they sent it out. 

And thanks everyone!!

I'm in! I'm in! Received an offer of admission from Boston College in the mail today. After having resolved to begin planning my apps for next year. I can't believe it! 
Not sure about financial aid situation yet, I'll figure it out when I can think straight.

Time for celebratory wine!!!

I'm in! I'm in! Received an offer of admission from Boston College in the mail today. After having resolved to begin planning my apps for next year. I can't believe it! 
Not sure about financial aid situation yet, I'll figure it out when I can think straight.

Time for celebratory wine!!!