Duns Eith

Sounds like you're in a great position to start. How you apply depends in part on what you want to study, and what your long-term goals will be. What you want to do determines your target schools. I would start gathering data and putting it all in a spreadsheet. Get the Philosophical Gourmet Report rankings overall and in specialty areas, take note of the faculty you're most interested in, their funding packages, and all the details of the application process (deadline, # of LORs, writing sample length, personal statement length, average GREs of admitted applicants, etc). When you see all that is required in the process, you'll have a clearer idea how to steer your next 9 months. (You're going to be applying to a lot of schools. It is common to apply to over a dozen. Some apply to 20 and get shut out. It is very competitive. You may want to consider applying to a handful of MA programs as well. That said, save up some money, because it's gonna cost about $100 per school) You'll want to make sure your writing sample is as good as you can: clear, well structured, innovative, sexy, and ideally in one of your research interests. If you are planning on doing a senior thesis/senior seminar, it's a good idea to get a good head start on what topics you'd want to write on. You want it looking really good before December 15th. Immaculate before December 30th. Lots of deadlines are in December. Also, make sure you take the GRE over the summer, and get a combined score of 315+ (verbal and quantitative), emphasizing a high verbal score (like 162+). Plan on memorizing 500+ words. Get practice exams from Princeton Review or Kaplan or Magoosh. Do as many practice exams as you possibly can. You may need to take the real exam twice. They are $200 a pop, roughly. (again, save up your money) In summary: Look at PGR for a rough guide of schools that have the strengths in your research areas Gather data on those schools you are likely to apply to (keep track of the ones you have eliminated as well) Save up your money Writing sample is the most important factor of your application GREs are required at most schools, and verbal is super competitive. Shoot for 165 verbal.

Where are you waiting to hear back from? I'm just waiting on SLU, and I'm presuming a rejection -- though hoping otherwise.

Unless this is libel, I'm appalled. I will say, may I be glad things like this are exposed? Not for the controversy, but for the fact that we need to treat famous people with more scrutiny (not less) when it comes to the use of their power (gotten through intellect or prestige, or whatever). That sexual harassment has been exposed in Phil depts across the Nation: we need to have a sea change in the way we see power and how we elevate our favorite authors. Could there be a reform in tenure, that does not make the adjunct problem worse?

Still on waitlist at Purdue. Anyone want to console me, by telling me that they will turn down Purdue soon?* * by 'soon', I mean, like, this week or this very day.

Yes. I can't remember the handle, but I know of one.

@Nichi Did you turn down any yet, like Mizzou or anyone else?

Rejected from UPenn. Solicited. Missouri said I am neither accepted, rejected, nor on their very short waitlist. They said it is possible (though very unlikely) they might reevaluate these limbo apps if they go all the way through the waitlist.

Great program! Congrats

I just wanna give a shout out again to Schopenhauerboy. I think he was the first or one of the first to make a decision.

You are a rockstar. Congrats! May your program be as awesome and fulfilling as you hope it to be!

Supah jeals.

Ah, great. I hope people PM you some better information than I can provide!

Dang. Tufts doesn't fund their students well, so you're better off somewhere else! (Though, Brandeis doesn't fully fund either, do they?) Dang. Sorry to hear!

There are some who applied there, but for Philosophy. (Given your profile info, you might be in the wrong forum) I've heard of people getting accepted without funding, and that's really, really hard to swallow. I almost applied there, because I've got a serious interest in medieval in addition to early modern. They are, however, unranked on PGR. I don't put too much stock into PGR, because the leiter rankings are somewhat apathetic about (or negative toward) continental programs as well as race and gender.

Lol. Glad also that they didn't direct you to the website to see the determination letter either!

I see a SLU post.... It isn't mine, but it's some movement!

I have everything, including links to check status, in my spreadsheet where I collated all the information I ever gathered about all the programs. I am eccentrically organized, I admit. Which is a great quality to have in a PhD candidate! </incaseadcomsread>

Interesting. I'm not sure I've ever heard of someone who was told that they were rejected based on fit. That sucks. I'm sorry. I'm kinda surprised that your POI was the bearer of bad news that you were completely turned down.

I have heard of cases where the adcoms simply didn't think they could recruit, presuming the applicant is far, far over qualified. Imagine if you're unranked, but you can bet they are likely to be accepted by a top 15 program. There's like nothing you can do to win that person over to your program.

If you are going to, send such notice right way. The adcomms would prefer to have that information on the front end, but they may run out of offers already. So make sure they know you are willing to be considered for each.

That could mean you're waitlisted for funding, or that after matriculating you may be considered next year? I'm thinking the former is more likely because the latter wasn't spelled out.

But that would ruin the secret!

Rejected at Michigan (expected) and Wisconsin Madison (dang).

Congrats!! I bet we will! Dear SLU admissions committee who may be reading: we appreciate the time you're taking to make sure you are making your program the best it can be. There's no rush. We just look forward to hearing back! [/coveringallbases]

That wound make sense except that the deadline hasn't been pushed back in recent years AFAIK, yet the prediction was Feb 27th.