MVSCZAR

Just declined Boston College. I'll be declining a few more by the day's end. 

Just declined Boston College. I'll be declining a few more by the day's end. 

Just declined Boston College. I'll be declining a few more by the day's end. 

I think we are missing some of the most important information here:
Have you studied a foreign language previously? If so, how did you do?
If you've successfully learned another language before, it will make learning other languages on your own a million times easier. If you have not studied a foreign language previously at all (or were unsuccessful), I think that attempting to learn on your own without any course or guidance would be an inefficient use of your time--it will take you much, much longer to figure it out on your own for the first time.
I have to warn that I am also a classicist, but I would recommend taking Latin first for several reasons:
A) As you mentioned, it's largely taught for reading knowledge right from the start.
B ) Latin has a relatively small regular vocabulary (especially compared to Greek or German) so you'll be able to read texts more quickly with less brute vocab study (there will be a lot of this regardless)
C) Latin is grammar-heavy. The first thing you'll be doing is learning all about the declension system, the conjugation system, etc. This will be extremely helpful when you learn your other languages, like Greek and German, and you're already all too familiar with the dative and future passive participles. It will also allow you to study other languages on your own much more easily.
D) The vocabulary that you do need to learn will translate extremely easily over to French (and Italian and Spanish and Portuguese...). It's extremely easy for me (as a classicist with no formal Italian training) to read Italian. Even if this isn't really a required language, it will open up more opportunities for your own research, and it's great to be able to put down reading knowledge of other languages on your CV with so little extra training.
E) Greek textbooks (and courses) largely assume an audience already familiar with Latin (and therefore can occasionally gloss over important grammar information). Latin courses do not assume prior knowledge of another foreign language. In addition, Latin is significantly more regular than Greek. Ancient Greek is pockmarked with irregularities and is therefore extremely difficult for a first-time foreign language learner (or, frankly, even a second-time one). Much, much more brute memorization.
F) German's structure is much more similar to the structure of English than Latin/Greek/even French are. This makes it easier for you as a native English speaker to teach yourself German than to teach yourself Latin/Greek/even French.

Like MtnDuck I was also originally trained as a classicist, but currently in a philosophy program. I've studied Latin and Greek for about 6 years, French for about 3, and German for about 2. For all of these I've done a mixture of formal classroom study, and informal study (reading groups, independent study, etc.), and I was also able to do a 5 week intensive immersion program for French.
Here's a few pieces of advice: I would strongly recommend not teaching yourself Latin or Greek but taking classes instead. The grammar of both Latin and Greek is significantly different from English as well as many European languages that are commonly studied like Spanish and French (German is an exception, however). If you don't get a good mastery of this early on (which could be quite difficult to do if you're working by yourself), then there's a good chance that your ability in the language will be severely handicapped.
You're right that French and German classes usually focus on conversational skills, and it's often a pain to sit through an intro class with undergrads, most of whom are probably just trying to fulfill a requirement. Nonetheless, I've personally found that independent studying (focusing on grammar and reading skills) and classroom work (confusing on conversational skills) reinforce each other really well, if you're able to either make it through the intro classes or skip them somehow. 
If you want to do some independent study, I've had a bunch of friends speak highly of the book French for Reading. I never used it, but apparently it's the best textbook if you want to teach yourself reading knowledge of the language. I don't really have any recommendations for German though since most my German work has been through taking classes.

Who's trying to decline Brandeis? C'mon now, I know yall not trying to pay that money. Just send an email saying "Thanks but no thanks," and then mention in passing that you couldn't possibly take a spot away from the great and magnificent Schwarzwald, and that they'd be mistaken not to extend an offer to him. 

Admitted to Rochester - I missed a call earlier today and just got an official email confirming all the details.

I'm just here to scream into a virtual pillow:
I hate these unfunded master's offers. I recently got an email that stated there was very little chance for even university funding on my behalf because they treated master's students like "paying customers." This was from a highly ranked and very prestigious program. I'm a poor guy from a indigent family, and it just feels like I'm being exploited. One of my primary motivators -- freedom from poverty, is being dangled in front of my face with the catch that I must endure greater poverty to achieve it. Something that just wouldn't be the case were I from a higher class. If I was from a higher background, the headline for me would be "Boy gets into great school and loves it" not "Poor douche bag gets poorer trying to claw his way out of the grave." It just sucks. However, one of the main parts that sucks is that if I was truly a great student, I'd have more funded offers from better or equivalently good places, and so ultimately it's my own stupidity I have to blame. Which also sucks, especially since I know I slacked off at times (like all the times) mostly because I didn't understand how competitive I was suppose to be until the end of my undergraduate career, and I didn't appropriately study for the GRE. I feel like I'm so close to something yet so far away, and my dreams are being used to extort money from me, which seems egregious since I'm already at the bottom of the totem pole. (Why can't they pick on people their own size? Lol). Couple this with the fact that even if I had the money, I'd have to deal with trying to impress the faculty for attention when they have better qualified and funded PhD students in front of them jut makes the situation harsh and unpleasant. 
I do have a funded offer elsewhere, and am wait listed for funding at some places, to which I am very grateful and happy. However, the place that sent the message is quite a bit more prestigious and has a better placement record, to which they know, and which is why they can be charging these exorbitant prices in the first place.
Anyway, everyone carry on now, just had to ragesadblog a bit.

So, Hilary Putnam dying really fucking sucks. 

Hm. I definitely agree with you that certain opportunities will pass, and that this presents a strong dilemma. Nonetheless, I think I see reason to be more optimistic than this about potential non-academic job prospects after leaving professional philosophy.
Here are just a few well-paying industries which (to my knowledge) permit entry at any (well, below 50-60) age that someone with the intellectual talent required for philosophy should be able to enter depending on their personality, listed in descending order of my confidence in the preceding claim: law, IT, tech (e.g. software dev), engineering of all kinds, business (entrepreneurial, managerial, etc.), marketing, finance, numerous others I don't know about. There are plenty of jobs that a bright 30 year-old with a BA and PhD could enter with a little bit of training, especially as autodidactism grows increasingly respected in a number of fields (see particularly tech and IT).
As for your more modest claim: these aren't opportunities that "will be passing you by". They're opportunities waiting for you to take them. You're no less able to "earn and save money, travel, buy a house, and establish yourself" after leaving professional philosophy. You're just late to the party. Sure, you can't "get ahead" anymore, but does that really matter? I don't think life is a competition for being the youngest CEO in history or any such thing.
I won't claim that your own career will be easy to return to because I don't know what it is. I will simply claim that if someone finds that philosophy isn't for them, they'll have hardly any more difficulty finding profitable positions at 32 than they would have had at 22, save certain niche occupations that are very age dependent. There are many late bloomers, after all, who bloom no weaker for the fact: Alan Rickman and J. K. Rowling come to mind as immediate examples.

No kidding. I was first on my waitlist, but found out on April 18 (after I emailed).

So who are you Hogwarts admits? I just got into Durmstrang and I'm here to let you know that it's going down in the next Triwizard.

What I've learned:
1) GRE scores are important. But, qualify "important". In most cases GRE scores tell a part of the story - as in, they are supposed to indicate - as to your success in graduate school. Rightly or wrongly, that is their intended purpose.
2) The import of those scores for admission to a program (that is to say, direct admission where only your attendance, and not your funding are considered) is lessened by the successful completion of an MA (or other graduate degree). As you've proven you can be a graduate student.
3) But...funding decisions, if made my a larger entity (the Graduate School, and not the department) may be dependent on your scores. So, the department likes your application in all other respects, but cannot offer you admission with funding (which means you're often not offered admission at all).
Ultimately, most applications don't hinge on GRE scores if it can be avoided. The exceptions to this rule seem to be if either your scores are super low (below 300) or a department has their hands tied by outside rules. Near perfect GRE scores really just tell someone you're good at taking tests. If you'll hold on, I have to head over to this Merleau-Ponty text and do some fuckin' algebra in it.
Edit: All of this assumes you're not an international student (US Citizen, Native English Speaker, US educated). The story may be very different otherwise.

I like to try and think of it this way, picking up on your common-sense observation that "if one is brilliant and smart [and hard-working/persevering/etc.] enough to get into competitive PhD programs, then one is more than likely to succeed in other fields": if someone is indeed that capable of succeeding in many potential fields, then at worst going into philosophy is going to be an adventure. Even if one finds after a few years of professional philosophy that they're unsatisfied by the financial compensation, it will have been an incredible life experience. Those years spent are only wasted if they weren't enjoyed - but nobody would (I imagine) study philosophy professionally if they didn't like it. The opportunity cost may number in the many tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of dollars, but if the time was pleasant that's a fine fee to pay in my mind. And, having decided that philosophy isn't well-paying enough for them, anyone bright enough to be a graduate student should have little difficulty finding lucrative employment elsewhere.
It's yet another chapter in one's life, but to be an author capable of penning such words means that whether one chooses to continue the story to its end, or switch to another arc after thirty pages, the book will be a fruitful one.
TL;DR

How many people do we think are on the Cornell waitlist? 12-18 or so for six spots? 
I know the lists can really start moving come April so I'm curious how many people they end up running through.
I had all but written off returning to school. I pressed the panic button a few weeks ago after getting rejected from what I considered to be my safety schools, started working harder at what was supposed to be a temporary job, and just got a raise that by itself is about the size of a year of graduate funding.
I can't believe I've put myself in a situation where I have to choose between money and comfort and what I'd long considered my passion. Getting some early rejections was a serious wake up call. I now realize how low the odds are of success. Sure, we all said it before, but in the background there's the thought that "Well, I'm different. I can beat the odds." Let's face it, everyone going somewhere outside the Leiter top 20 has murmured that to themselves.

But most likely you can't. If we all could, they wouldn't be odds. So now, knowing that the odds apply to me, I know that I face potential futility in 5-6 years, now that much older, and having forgone hundreds of thousands of dollars in the private sector. 

WTF

(in robot voice): "Too Catholic? Does not compute. Cannot do. Beep boop."

Am I just too Catholic? because I legit cannot take the courting. It makes me want to jump into the sewer and never come out. 

Am I just too Catholic? because I legit cannot take the courting. It makes me want to jump into the sewer and never come out. 

I also just declined GSU. I got the Kant/Post-Kantian German Philosophy Fellowship, so that will go to someone else as well. I'd love to know who it goes to, but I feel that's like keeping in touch with the baby you gave up for adoption. 

Am I just too Catholic? because I legit cannot take the courting. It makes me want to jump into the sewer and never come out. 

.olsz

The system was trying to tell the ad com not to reject you. It was just like (in robot voice), "Rejection? Does not compute. Cannot do. Beep boop." 

The system was trying to tell the ad com not to reject you. It was just like (in robot voice), "Rejection? Does not compute. Cannot do. Beep boop."