armchair_revolutionary

I think dumbnamechange said it all best. It is only two years and there is a larger problem at play here: you will not be able to avoid analytic philosophy forever! Of course, no one will be asking someone who is a continentalist at heart to devote their life's work to analytic study, but a decent PhD program will expect you to be well rounded. This is reflected in comprehensive exams. And now there is that little issue of money. If, as you have been told at NIU, you can reasonably expect at least a first year tuition waver that is a lot of money you will be saving. On the other hand it looks like financial aid at BC is sparse to nil, and with a 24k per semester tuition you are easily looking at 100k of debt. And that is not even factoring in the cost of having a roof over your head and eating a meal every now and then. Of course, if cost is not a burden due to familial aid then this is not a major point. I would imagine that not to be the case. I just cannot imagine a circumstance, for me at least, that would justify exiting an MA program and applying to PhD programs with a 100k ball and chain around my ankle.

I imagine I must be just behind you. I hope you get that spot!

Yeah, I've been in contact with her and am in a decent spot on the wait list. I'd just like some closure on this whole process already.

I am wondering the same thing. I am still awaiting word from Marquette. I must say it does feel a bit silly at this point not to know what is going on.

I was thinking the same thing myself, riverstyx. I imagine that the nature of the wait list itself is what has the process held up. I can imagine that if one is accepted to a school and wait listed at one or more others they would want to wait to hear news about whether or not they got in. Still, I imagine for those that have been accepted to multiple schools that it would be reasonable at this point to decline all of them save for their number one pick while waiting to hear potential good news from a school they may be wait listed at. At least we can look forward to the end in less than a week!

I don't know how schools deal in the case of not getting a response by the 15th. It would seem that by that date the admitted student has had plenty of time to weigh their options, and I would hope the school would thus take silence as a rejection and move immediately to the waitlist. In any case, not notifying a school of the intent not to attend is inconsiderate and irresponsible.

I am waiting to hear from Marquette. I am 3rd on the waitlist there with only one of the 4 original admitted students giving an official acceptance and the other three yet to reply. I'm hoping news comes soon as I'd prefer not to have to accept my current offer at the last possible moment.

That is dirty. I'm sorry to hear that, qualiafreak.

I'm hoping that "around the corner" bit happens very soon, as the 15th is just around the corner itself. I am waiting on news from Marquette, and I'd prefer not to be in the position of accepting my current offer at Binghamton at the last possible moment. I understand it can come down to the wire, though, as many others may be in similar positions.

I am 3rd on the wait list at Marquette with 3 of the original offers (out of 4) yet to be accepted or declined. I'm wondering what my prospects are here...

I do think having a bit of specific knowledge on Asacollier's situation would be helpful here to give a more structured answer, but in lieu of that I'll offer some of my general thoughts. I certainly think an MA is worth it in most cases and for reasons already given by philstudent1991. The exception I make here lies with unfunded MAs. In some cases taking even an unfunded MA offer may be worth (a little) debt. We might imagine a student who has trouble making it into top MA programs due to undergraduate grades that are less than ideal. In this instance I would suggest still considering state schools with terminal MA programs since their tuition is manageable. This is actually the route I went myself, though I was fortunate enough to find out not too long before classes started that I was eligible to have tuition covered due to financial need. Additionally, the school I attended, San Jose State, does offer the TA opportunities in the second year which can cover tuition, or, in my case since tuition was already covered, provide you with a bit of money - about 9k for the year if you teach one course each semester. So, in sum, I would certainly not discourage some students who might not have the most attractive admission profile to consider state schools that are much more financially forgiving that say going to NSSR or Boston College. Additionally, although the state school may not fund you in the same manner that a top MA program would be, with tuition remission and a modest stipend, there nonetheless may be an opportunity here and there to help offset the cost. The flip side, of course, is that most state schools do not carry the brand name of top MA programs and thus may not have as great a placement record. Still, I'd like to think that at SJSU we did pretty well last year placing students at UC Davis, UCLA, and U. of Oregon. Another issue that I find worthy of mention is one pertinent to my own experience, and that is that MA programs often allow students to figure out if this is what they really want to do and build confidence as an academic in the process. Assuming that I had gotten similar GRE scores and submitted a decent writing sample coming out of my undergraduate program in Politics at UC, Santa Cruz maybe I could have gotten into a PhD program. At the time, however, I did not believe I was ready, and, moreover, I still had a lingering desire to study philosophy just a bit more before jumping into what I imagined would be a PhD program in political science. I'm glad that I took the time to earn an MA as, not only did it build my confidence as an academic, but also changed my academic course as well from poli sci to philosophy/ lit crit. To summarize in a few bullet points: Unfunded MAs at affordable state schools may be worth considering for those that have less than stellar undergraduate transcripts or even those that don't wish to move too far from home just yet. An MA is a great opportunity to find out more about yourself as an academic and if this is what you really want to do.

"Honorable mentions" I like that. I'm withholding excitement over being on wait lists for a few schools I would like to attend precisely for the fact that I am aware there are cases of excessively long lists out there.

I've got a more general question regarding the length of wait lists at schools of varying prestige. I imagine elite schools would have a very small wait list to no wait list at all while wait list sizes grow as the perceived notoriety of the school decreases, but does anyone have any figures as to the numerical size of such wait lists and how far down one can reasonably expect the department to travel down that list? The two schools I am wait listed at have so far been a bit tight lipped as to my status on the list, so I figure that while I wait it out it wouldn't hurt to see if anyone has any date regarding wait list sizes. Cheers.

I believe it means they do not have one or more of your transcripts Just hit 'em up and let them know you have previously submitted it and can send in another copy if it did not show.

Good luck on those last two. It can be quite a process.

Thank you. Still, it is a bit disheartening to see the very assumptions you critique and try to make visible begin to creep within yourself. And I did think it a bit odd that you had to upload your sample twice at Oregon's application interface. Oddly, although I feel I've certainly put forth a very earnest effort in my application process, during the first few app submissions I could not shake this feeling that everything that I had just turned in was absolutely horrid.

Wow, also to ineedwine, I have to apologize. I was just thinking the other day when I was looking at this forum how sad it is that is is mostly all male, which is one of the unfortunate circumstances of philosophy. The belief must have penetrated me so deeply that I did indeed start to think everyone here was a dude. How sad of me.

I don't know, bro, it makes me suspicious as to whether you are truly into critical theory if you are trying to make friends. I kid. Your areas of interest look nearly identical to mine. I wish you well in your applications. Who knows, perhaps I'll see you at Michigan State, Oregon, or UWO. By the way, I have a few friends attending A&M and they say great things about the program, particularly Tommy Curry.

Hello all, I discovered this forum a few days ago while looking forward to my rejections. I thought I'd create an account seeing as how I'll probably be stopping by until the end of notifications. A bit about myself: 3.6 undergrad GPA at a UC, though my major was in the social sciences 3.93 GPA for my MA studies in Philosophy at a state school GRE scores were 163V/150Q/5.0A No publications I applied to 11 programs: U. Oregon, Michigan State, Penn State, Vanderbilt, Marquette, Stony Brook, U. Memphis, Emory, Berkeley (Rhetoric), W. Ontario (Theory and Criticism), and Binghamton (Comp Lit) Looking forward to another month or so of relaxation before I have to think about getting in the thick of things again.