abisch

Headed to UConn!

Then again, I guess not every program can be on top of their squanch.

Just declined Wisconsin, Arizona, and UNC. 

Just declined Wisconsin, Arizona, and UNC. 

L. A. Paul might be moving from UNC to Pitt.
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2016/04/pitt-makes-senior-offer-to-north-carolinas-laurie-la-paul.html
This is probably a huge deal from some folks -- she was one of the main reasons I applied to UNC. Keep this in mind as you decide. Since the news is out now, it might even be appropriate to email her and ask how seriously she is considering the offer, if you haven't accepted UNC's offer yet and want to work with her.
 

Morning vent:
Dear admissions committees, please put us out of our misery so that we can focus on the options that we still have. There's no need to wait another month just to reject us, it will not help you and it certainly will not help us. 
xoxoxoxo
philosophe 

Off the wait list and officially accepted at UNC! 

Congrats!!! Now if only you had offers from places that would help me get off of one of my wait lists... 

Congrats!  I'm still hoping more people to turn down ND and to do so sooner than later

Off the wait list and officially accepted at UNC! 

Off the wait list and officially accepted at UNC! 

Off the wait list and officially accepted at UNC! 

Off the wait list and officially accepted at UNC! 

Off the wait list and officially accepted at UNC! 

Off the wait list and officially accepted at UNC! 

Wow, people really get off this forum on the weekends... It's like a ghost town in here...

I am also waitlisted at UMass

Stanford needs to just reject me already so I can focus on what I have and stop unjustifiably hoping....

UNC offer officially declined.
Another person will be declining UT Austin and Stanford soon.

Can we please not let this turn into an analytic-vs-continental argument....

No - I declined this weekend. I very much wanted to visit, but I thought it would be more helpful to the department and less selfish to decline the offer before the visit, so that someone else could go and use it more fully/not just in order to meet people.  

Not a vent so much as an expression of fear (I don't have much to vent about):
I'm just a small-town kid from the south... I've only traveled out of the south twice in my life -- once to go to Hershey Park, and once to go to the 'Creation Museum' (loooong story). The south's all I've ever known. I'm freaked out about leaving it, my family, and my friends behind. Anyone else got the soon-to-be-moving blues?

Pretty much sums up this whole process...

You're right, of course. I understand that my choice of venue was insensitive and my phrasing, tactless (not sure there is a sensitive venue for it other than a silent, unscrutinizing piece of paper, and I've already scribbled on one of those). I do wish people wouldn't imply, in incorrectly associating my frustration with my offer of admission, that I have the emotional capacity of a lightbulb and can only either be happy about the totality of my current state of affairs or unhappy about it. I'm pretty sure, and I hope I'm right about this, that I'm capable of being happy about one thing and unhappy about another. Nevertheless you're correct that I should refrain from going on about the comparatively insignificant bad that I'm experiencing when I've got it as good, in one very significant respect, as I do. I was being sincere in my apology above and I'll say it again: I'm sorry for the way I came off.
I've gotten similar lashings from friends and acquaintances who've scoffed at me and called me "stupid and irrational" for my current emotional state, and I don't doubt they're right. I feel like an arrogant, thoroughly dislikeable and genuinely horrid prick right now, and all I can do is hope it'll fade along with my disappointment. Self-applied tough love is probably the best mindset to adopt insofar as I can, and I know that. Thank you for speaking so understandingly. I'll have some tea for my sore throat now. Tea really is a beautiful thing.
 

I don't want to use the "there are starving children in Africa" trope, but this is basically what it is, man. 
 
It hurts to get rejected, even after getting accepted somewhere, obviously. But it's going to keep happening, and it's something we have to get used to. We aren't all little messiahs, as much as I'd like to convince myself otherwise. Some people are really just going to think we're not all that. Maybe that's part of the messiah thing, come to think of it. 
 
I think that what's rubbing people the wrong way is that your posts are making you seem impervious to other peoples' struggles to get even this far. And it may have been difficult for you too, and it likely has been, but it's difficult to see that when you imply that having to study at Cornell was you settling for less that what you thought you deserved. Meanwhile, a whole chunk of us would have never even dreamed of going to a place like that. And Harvard, man. I'd be so damned proud of myself. Nobody in my family knows any of the schools I've gotten into. Hell, they don't even know what a PhD is. They don't even know what philosophy is, really. I had one family member ask me if that meant I was going to work in a hospital with my mom. But even if they don't all know that, they know that Harvard means you're worth something. You should seriously be proud of that. When I got the news from Stony Brook, I was in my aunt's house in Colombia (they're poor as hell and haven't ever even left Medellin) my cousins asked me if I had applied to Harvard and when I'd be hearing back from them.   
 
My best friend who is the smartest person I've ever met, by far, and probably the biggest reason I've even gotten this far, had so much shit going on during this application season that he probably won't get into the one place he applied to, and he was only able to apply there because there was no application fee. When we complain, we probably sound like we're fishing for compliments to people like him. You got into a school most people dream about AND, most importantly, YOU took THEIR spot. They shouldn't have to console you or feel like they have to console you.
 
But yeah, I do think you're allowed to vent. I myself am feeling a straight panic right now and disdain and contempt, even. I feel like a spoiled bitch, to be honest, and I don't even remember what possessed me to go into a discipline that would turn down so many willing and able devotees. I'm confused and I want time to just stop for a little bit. And I can go on and on and fill whole threads about it. But, again, how can I ask anyone to console me when I'm in such an enviable position? You shouldn't change what you're feeling if what you're feeling is hurt or rejected. You're allowed to feel that way and forcing yourself to feel any other way is dishonest. It isn't that you don't have problems, but you wouldn't go into a leper colony and complain about your sore throat, even though sore throats can hurt like hell. 
 
I've already gotten my lashings worth from people who have told me I have nothing to complain about, even though I truly feel hurt, so don't take this the wrong way. I'm meaning all of this in the friendliest way possible. I'm sure that there are plenty of people who have gotten accepted to multiple programs who feel similarly rejected and hurt. But I think that's part of all of this. At least I'm hoping so.