TheJabberwock

Well my waitlist at Rice did not turn into an offer. I doubt if I'll apply again next year. Hopefully by not applying, and assuming I would have been accepted, someone in a similar situation to mine will get in instead of where I would have.

This is a hard question to answer. First of all, if my hopes were to be accepted to at least 1 phd program, even though I was waitlisted when I first answered the poll, I still said it did not turn out as I had hoped. Since ultimately that waitlist did not turn into an offer, I definitely think it did not turn out as I had hoped. Secondly, since this is our hopes, not our expectations, it seems that most people were hoping to get into their top choice. Based on these two criteria, the weak one and the strong one, it seems that the grad cafe users are not representative of the community of those who applied. The majority of applicants did not get accepted anywhere and even fewer presumably got into their top choice. If the question was framed to ask if this turned out as one had expected, then the numbers would make more sense. A further and more interested question is: why the grad cafe seems to have met their hopes this application season? Was the site helpful in forming good applications? Are the majority of the users attending schools with good pedigrees? Are people who are more confident and with stronger applications using the website, and those who are not as sure in their applications not using it? Anyway congratulations to all and I hope those who did not get what they hoped for, or even expected, have better luck next semester or with whatever they are pursuing now that application season is over.

I don't think anyone here is going to 'attack' you with anything more than downvotes. Since I don't have experience with DePaul or the city of Chicago, it is still worth pointing out that for the most part your comments were not helpful to the OP. Ok, so the culture of the university might be 'lame' and the city might be 'second-rate.' But given what the OP said it seems that she wants to continue doing serious research in her area of interest while also obtaining an international joint degree. DePaul is a good school to study philosophy at, especially phenomenology. Whether or not it is artsy or counterculture seems to be something that one should dictate to the culture of the area and not the other way around. If you want to hang out with a certain scene of people, I am sure there are others who share your interests. I don't see how it could be helpful to your desire to have more alternative people and culture at DePaul by telling others who might share that desire not to attend... Enough of this trollish, mostly unhelpful digression. I second the recommendation of Chicago. Also worth a mention is McGill in Montreal, they have a great program, but I do not know who you should contact directly. Other programs that would be worth looking at further, but maybe aren't at the top (Like Chicago, Toronto and McGill), are Stony Brook (one of the best in Continental Philosophy), Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Emory, Fordam, and Duquesne. They all should have people working on phenomenology. Since my list is not exhaustive, look at: http://pluralistsguide.org/program-recommendations/continental-philosophy/#awp::program-recommendations/continental-philosophy/ This should give you an idea of the ones worth investigating further. The ones you mentioned and mentioned so far are probably the best, but there really are a lot of schools that might be worth looking at (I don't know why Chicago is not on the list, they are one of the best overall and especially in Continental). To answer your question about funding, it seems that you are on the wrong side of the deal. UK schools are relatively expensive and then US schools are even more expensive. They tend to offer funding for their own students and then allow them to study abroad and even obtain joint degrees. For example, King's College London offers a joint philosophy degree with Humboldt in Berlin and with Singapore. So the cost of attending a US university is more than the typical foreign university, so they offer to pay for your studies abroad (since the typical US PhD is fully funded with a living stipend). To sum up, it seems difficult that you will get funding from these institutes without first being accepted into their program and then studying abroad. I would think your best bet is to see what sort of funding the Sorbonne would offer for this and to contact schools you are interested in directly. Their information is far better than mine, but I hope I was a little bit helpful.

There is a lot of movement the closer it gets to the April 15 deadline. People might have been accepted elsewhere and are viewing the current problems in the department as a reason not attend if they can avoid it. One would assume that they would send a personal letter, but that shouldn't be a reason to doubt its legitimacy.

I am still waiting on Rice. That is my only option, as I was rejected elsewhere. I would be extremely happy to go there since it does match up to my AOI nicely and would allow me to study secondary philosophy interests (mind, ethics, political philosophy). The DGS said I should hear something around today, so I am hopeful it will be good news! I am anxious because I am afraid I am too far down on the waitlist to be accepted. Good luck to those still waiting!

(Long-time lurker here) I am not on UMD's waitlist, but I am on Rice's waitlist. I feel pretty much the same as you have said. I am not sure exactly where I am on the waitlist, but I know I am not near the top. My chances feel a bit better than impossible, but it is hard to say if I'll get an offer. From what the DGS said, it could also come down to the 15th from me. I am happy waiting for good news, however if it's bad news it'll make it that harder having waited this long. So, I am definitely going stir-crazy from waiting! Also, I have been rejected from ten, waitlisted at Rice and I have one presumed rejection (still waiting on Duquesne!). You should take it with a grain of salt! It seems that a lot of schools are a bit hesitant in telling students where they are located on the waitlist. One reason might be that they don't want to give students false hope, or completely rule out their chances. These schools have a waitlist for a reason, they have to dig into them. And some years they might have to dig deeper than in others. It would be nice if they could tell us how many slots are open to the waitlist and where we sit on that list (Rice recently gave more information about how many slots they had and on a follow up they told me roughly how deep I am on the list), but some schools don't want to give that information. It seems like there is a lot of luck, even for the schools themselves. They are also waiting on people to accept or turn down an offer and those people might be waiting on another University and so on. On a positive note, we'll all know by the end of next week how it will all wash out, so the best of luck!

A couple of things. First, it does seem to be true that philosophy programs do not accept their own MA students (or BA students) into their PhD programs. Typically they refer to wanting students to come in fresh with a diversity of views, i.e., they want to foster plurality (although I fail to see how this would work, since in applying to a PhD program, they want you to be familiar with their department and who you would want to work with). Whatever the reason given, typically programs do not accept their own. That being said, whether or not it is helpful it depends on your philosophical background. If you have a mediocre undergraduate GPA, have taken a break since graduating, or have gaps in your philosophical background, then it could be worth attending a MA program. It can also allow you to develop a strong writing sample. Furthermore, if your undergrad pedigree was not the best, attending a top MA program can help position you to attend a top program and can allow you get "better" letters of recommendation. All of this depends on how you perform at a MA program (if you do poorly, it would not be too helpful). If you went to a good undergraduate school, did well, have good letters of recommendation and a solid writing sample, then an MA is not for you. A further warning about MA programs, is that it might better to attend a dedicated MA program than one offered by a program that rejected you from their PhD program. Schools like Brandeis, Tufts, and Georgia State are pretty good terminal MA programs. See http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/maprog.asp for more information on MA rankings. The last thing to say about an MA is that it can also help you better decide if studying philosophy academically is the right thing for you. For me, attending an MA program made it clear that this is what I want to pursue (and it strengthened my writing sample), whereas as an undergraduate I was unsure if becoming an academic was what I wanted.