ThePeon

In one case somebody found out about a rejection via the portal and posted it in the results thread, and then I checked and I was also rejected. The letter came the next day. That's the only instance, though.

I second this.

This is the philosophy acceptance thread, I doubt we can provide much insight here! Try looking at this subforum for psychology: https://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/8-psychology/

Now I'm confused, I'm seeing acceptances, waitlists, and rejections for Boston University, but I have heard nothing and in the portal it still just says my application was submitted, no decision posted.

Welp, with Boston University and UConn responses being posted and me not hearing anything, it looks like I'm likely to be shutout. I knew my application had certain weaknesses from the beginning, and so to a large extent I have already made my peace with being shut out. Still, it is disappointing. I didn't put as much time into my writing sample as I should have and my sample (on philosophy of science) mismatched my main AOIs (political and moral philosophy). Furthermore, my transcript had some major flaws, with a low cumulative GPA (3.4), a couple of Ws in my second-to-last semester (though not in philosophy), and a C in one philosophy class (though I still received an A in the final paper in that class, other stuff was going on).

If the past is any guide it would likely be today or tomorrow. However, many schools were roughly a week late this year compared to normal, so we may have to wait until next week.

Rejected from Georgetown. A nice email from James Mattingly letting us know now because the graduate school's process is slow. My hopes are dimming at this point.

Also, not to clog up this thread, but I just the checked the portal and it turns out my Penn application never was submitted. Welp, that's what I get for rushing to fill out applications last minute...

Why exactly do most schools wait so long to send out official rejections after acceptances and waitlists? It seems like it would be so easy to just send a mass rejection email to everyone who didn't get accepted or waitlisted immediately after sending out the other letters.

Rejected by Maryland officially via the portal. I suspect an email will be coming out tomorrow.

Can somebody claim the Penn waitlist? Was it a personalized email from a POI or was it a form letter (indicating that all the waitlists have been sent out)?

I know somebody on the MIT waitlist, and so I know that MIT is inviting at least some of the people on their waitlist to fly out.

I wonder if Harvard will send out more waitlist letters. It seems like the one posted was a POI contact and so they likely (?) haven't sent out others, but maybe I'm just being overly optimistic.

Personally I am strongly opposed to interviews in graduate applications. I don't think they would track academic ability or potential much, and instead unjustly hurt the chances of many classes of applicants. Those with superior social skills and the ability to project confidence will do better, as will those who happen to hit it off well with the professor(s) interviewing them from a social perspective, even if they aren't the best substantive candidates. Those who are quicker on their feet in the moment will be rewarded. Furthermore, those who are not applying while still in undergrad/a masters program will be rustier and won't be able to as easily draw on past knowledge in these conversations.

Not necessarily. Their acceptances trickled out over many days, so there's a chance it's similar with the waitlists. (I say this as much to myself as to you...)

Yeah I've only officially heard back from 2 out of 9 programs as well. It's frustrating.

I really just want to know if I've been rejected for sure at this point. I've made my peace with the possibility of being shut out, but the uncertainty of being likely rejected but possibly on a wait list (or even a later admittance, in the case of Harvard and Penn) is really getting to me.

Yes, this is definitely a humbling part of the process for me too. I get the impression from talking to graduate students and professors at my undergraduate institution that the process has become significantly more competitive even compared to 4 or 5 years ago, and especially compared to 10 years ago. Some of the older graduate students at my PGR T-40 school have said they just sent in their best undergraduate paper with only minor revisions as their writings sample and got into the school. Nowadays, I doubt an application with such a writing sample could get into a PGR program. I don't know if this is because there are just more applicants in general, more applicants from terminal M.A.s, or just more information about making a good application via the internet (or a combination of these), but something is different now.

Could you provide details? Who contacted you?

Yes! It doesn't feel good to be sitting here thinking while there's 99% chance I am rejected from (in my case) Toronto, Maryland, or Yale, I can't be completely sure I'm not on some hidden wait-list or something.

I also was rejected at Brown just now. First school I've heard back from so far.

It's not that extreme, I've heard some Professors say that there are probably about 40-50 qualified applicants per round. Still, when schools only give out 10-20 acceptance/wait-list spots, that means committees are making a lot of difficult and probably somewhat (at least from the outside perspective) random and arbitrary decisions.

I have a bit a dilemma about who to ask for my third letter of recommendation. My undergrad is a PGR school, and so it has a number of well-known Professors in the discipline. My first two letters are from a rising star and a very well-known in their subfield senior professor, but I'm unsure as to who to ask for my third letter because I'm split between two candidates. The first candidate, A, knows me extremely well. I have taken two classes from him and received an 'A' in both, frequented his office hours, spoke up often in class, and have seemed to impress him a great deal. I would say out of all my philosophy teachers, he is the one with the highest opinion of me. He is also the only teacher I've had who taught continental philosophy, which while not my primary interest is one of my secondary interests. The downside to A as a letter-writer is that he is virtually unknown in the discipline. He only received his PhD a few years ago, has no publications, and is a lecturer, not a Professor. The second candidate, B, is more senior and established in the discipline. While I wouldn't say he's a star, he has been around awhile, is a tenured professor, has a lot of publications, and is certainly a name people in his areas of specialty would recognize. However, B does not know me nearly as well as A. I only took one class taught by B (but I did get an 'A' in the class), and because it was on a topic in philosophy I'm not as interested in I didn't participate in class very much nor attend office hours. As such I doubt he remembers me much. Furthermore, B's AoS have almost zero overlap with my areas of interest. My instinct was to get a letter from A: he knows me very well and will probably write me the best letter in terms of content, and I know for a fact that he will be comfortable writing me a strong letter. Additionally, I'm already getting two letters from better known people. However, one person did strongly encourage me to ask B for a letter rather than A. So I'm uncertain. What do you guys think?

University of Chicago is actually ranked 21, and has never been higher than rank 20. Also, I'd partially agree and partially disagree about the PGR. Yes, there are biases and methodological flaws to the PGR. It privileges the views of philosophers who work at R1's and is biased against non-western and most continental philosophy (and if you're interests lie in those areas, it is less useful). And yes, there are schools that are lower ranked (or unranked) that have relatively good TT placement rates, albeit mostly into teaching positions. And yes, most universities with a PhD program in philosophy will have a high quality department with actively publishing scholars. But the PGR isn't (completely) random and arbitrary. It's a fairly large survey of members of the Profession and their views of each program, it's not just Leiter's subjective opinion (in fact, Leiter isn't even going to be running the next iteration of the PGR). The vast majority of TT research jobs in philosophy go to graduates of the top 10-to-15 programs, and there still is some correlation between rank and overall placement rates, though there are exceptions to that in both directions. And, in my own research into schools, the top programs do tend to be stronger in a wider array of subfields while lower ranked programs are often only strong in one or two areas.

Specifically with regards to trying to pick a topic that's not "too popular" a topic for writing samples that year. Some people seem to think that the popularity of a topic won't affect how the paper is received, but others seem to think that if you write on the same topic as many other applications, then your writing sample will be (perhaps subconsciously) held to a higher standard. Of course, there's also the question of how you could even know what the popular topics will be, which is difficult. In the area I'm writing my writing sample in, political philosophy, I think I could make guesses as to what will be popular based on the current political environment, but I'm not sure if that is actually a good basis for my guesses. But even if a topic is popular, would it be best to choose a topic that you are motivated by and want to write about, rather than something less interesting to you but perhaps more strategic? I'm in a weird place right now where I feel like my best option would be to develop a writing sample from scratch for various reasons, but of course that leaves the question of the topic open, and the subsequent issue of how I should pick a topic. What do you all think? Discussion on other issues related to picking a writing sample topic are welcome in this thread, as well.