ThePeon

Having known a number of graduate students in philosophy, I do think social fit is underrated. After all, you are choosing to spend the next 5-7 years of your life working in this one department, so I wouldn't downplay it's importance for you even if it isn't directly relevant to your future job prospects. I personally know a couple of graduate students who say they regret not factoring social fit more into their decision (though whether or not they would have ultimately made a different decision is a different question). Even from a purely career-focused perspective, feeling like you don't fit in can make it harder to stay positive and motivated through the difficult process of a PhD (which, remember, usually 40%+ drop out rates IIRC). But also keep in mind that you are basing your perception of social fit on first impressions. On the flip side, not having professors who share your research interests can be difficult, as well. It can be isolating in its own way, and makes your research harder. However, given that you are coming right out of undergrad instead of a masters program, you should also keep in mind that your research interests may well evolve over time, so I'm not sure a school having a single professor in your area who is a good fit should on its own be decisive. Academic fit is much broader than that. For instance, if A had more professors working in you general area than B, then you should weigh that as well, even if they have no one professor who is as good of a fit as the one at B. Have you also considered other factors, like placement rate, ranking, location, the diversity of areas of specialization in each department, and so on? I know you said these aren't your primary considerations, but perhaps they could serve to tip the scales if you're genuinely undecided.

Some schools have a hidden waitlist just in case they go through everyone on the normal waitlist before filling all the slots. I know someone who got into a program this way (just received a call in mid-April out of the blue asking if he was interested). Not saying that is necessarily what is going on here, but it's a possibility.

A friend of mine didn't hear back from a school they were waitlisted on until late-afternoon on April 15.

Deleted: I think I misunderstood the post or something.

For the benefit of others, please decline as many acceptances as you can as soon as possible. It will help decrease the odds that people who are waiting to hear back from a school they were waitlisted at from being put in a bad position on April 15th. (Why am I posting this despite being shut out? I know some people IRL who weren't, so I'm still witnessing this process play out)

I would also look at not just the placement rate of the schools, but at what kinds of jobs people were placed at. If you want a research job, for instance, University X may have better placement in those kinds of positions than University Y due its prestige.

I'm not completely sure at this juncture, but I'm leaning toward not reapplying next year and instead fully committing to exploring non-academic employment for a year or two, and then reevaluating whether or not I want to apply again. There are other career paths open to me that I think I could be happy pursuing, and they would have much better pay and better long-term job prospects than graduate school in philosophy. When I was an undergraduate, I had a hard time imagining being satisfied with anything other than a pure life of the mind. Now that I have been out of college for six months, and have participated in multiple internships and become familiar with my various career options, I can imagine myself being satisfied doing other things. Perhaps as I gain experience I'll realize that I won't actually be satisfied over the long-term in non-academic employment, but I don't have much evidence of that at this point. In addition, I think the application process has made me much more viscerally aware of just how competitive academic philosophy is in 2018. It seems you need a near-publishable writing sample to just to be accepted into a graduate program, and from what I've read the expectations only get higher from there in graduate school and on the job market. While going into this process I understood that level of competitiveness intellectually, I don't think I really had internalized it at a gut level. Now I have. I love philosophy, and I think I have the potential to be successful in academic philosophy, but I really wonder if I love it enough to actually do what it would take to succeed in graduate school and the academic job market. I do intend to keep reading philosophy, and perhaps doing some amateur philosophical writing myself, regardless of what I do.

One big frustration I've had with the application process is the flakiness of my advisers and letter writers. They expressed a great deal of enthusiasm in helping me apply to graduate school when I initially asked, but then dragged their feet in actually giving me real feedback on my writing sample, to the point that I largely revised it alone. I don't know if this is a common experience, a function of my shyness and lack of assertiveness (and concomitant less close relationships with my professors), or a sign that they didn't really believe in me. Other people I knew had professors who were much more involved. Another applicant I know went through four or five drafts of their writing sample with multiple professors. I only managed to get feedback on my initial draft from a single professor after much prodding. I suspect this harmed me a great deal.

It'll be interesting to see. The division these days seems based less on active hostility and more on a mutual ignorance borne of institutional inertia and laziness, which is in theory more tractable. Still, the divide is still pretty vast even on that basis, in my experience. I've run into multiple analytic philosophy graduate students who hadn't even heard of figures like Derrida and Heidegger, for example. At the same time, I ran into a non-philosophy humanities graduate student who seemed to sincerely believe that logical positivism was a major current in contemporary analytic philosophy.

I would add some other things to consider, in addition to the important point by @machineghost. One, the opportunity cost of going to GSU for two years. Very few masters courses transfer to PhD programs, so you'll be in graduate school for an extra two years if you go to GSU, making less money than you might otherwise in those years either teaching or establishing a new career in the private sector. Two, I've heard that the teaching requirements at GSU are quite intense, so make sure you factor that in. It's going to be an intense two years while at the same time you'll be forced to draw on your savings. Three, recognize that going to an MA program is a real risk when you already have a PhD acceptance in hand. There is no guarantee that you will be accepted to PhD programs after the masters just because you were accepted to a PhD program now. There is also not a guarantee that if you are accepted into a PhD program after the masters that you will be accepted to Memphis again, or that the school will be as good or better of a fit for you as Memphis is for you now. I've read anecdotes of people being accepted to only worse programs after an MA, or no programs at all. To be sure, it might be a worthwhile risk, as you get another shot at getting into a higher ranked program, this time with a better application. Your odds will be better, but there is still a chance of there being a worse outcome.

As much as I defend the PGR, the way they treat continental philosophy is really indefensible.

I emailed him yesterday morning and he got back to me yesterday evening. Perhaps that means they haven't made a decision yet on your application?

I just got a solicited rejection from Mitchell Green from UConn. I'm officially shut out.

I didn't get apply to masters programs, but I feel similarly. I do enjoy philosophy and find it valuable, but I wonder if I love it enough to do the work required to compete both in the application process and in graduate school when the competition is so high level, especially given the low standard of living one has to accept on a graduate stipend. That must be very frustrating. Perhaps you just had bad luck? There is randomness to this process.

With the acceptances and waitlists for most schools having been out, some of us are starting to find out that we are very likely if not certain to be shut out this cycle. With that in mind, I thought a discussion thread for those of us in this situation might be helpful to process and commiserate about our status. Possible topics of discussion (these are just suggestions): How do you feel about being shut out? Disappointed, devastated, numb, tranquil? How are you coping? What are your plans? Will you reapply next year? If so, what will you do differently? If you have other plans or are unsure, why? Gripes about the application process. Theories about why you were shut out. What, if anything, would you have done differently?