gughok

Before I ask: please don't mistake this for hostility. I'm simply exercising the wary naivete I've been made to adopt as a matter of emotional protection this extremely stressful season. Now, my question is: how sure can you be that the phrase "admissions committee is meeting at 3" means what you say it means? That is, don't admissions committees meet pretty regularly? Perhaps their meeting tomorrow is just another congregation of emotional sadists intent on drawing out our suffering ever longer? Did your friend make their meaning clear? If you are indeed sure, thank you for the information! I'll be sure to feel exceptionally anxious tomorrow

Well, if you Cornell folks are out there: congratulations! I've been on the hill for four years, so while I'm not the biggest insider for the philosophy department, I've acquired my fair share of wisdom. Feel free to message with questions.

I would refrain from this interpretation. The poster was likely from a country (not gonna name names) where cheating on the GRE is common, and hence it was likely standard policy to request, in a live exchange, that the applicant confirm the validity of their scores. Given the 165/157/4.50 admit to Yale posted just two places down, I'd venture to say that GREs are, as usual, not of paramount importance here.

MIT pls. Someone, tell me something. Yale hasn't even bothered to tell me they don't want me. We're pretty sure about the MIT prediction, right? I looked over the dates and they've never really released later than the equivalent of today. And Harvard usually releases by now, only last year they released tomorrow, hence the prediction?

Haha, thank you for the confidence! That's the second remark of its kind I've gotten in just this thread. I sort of want to break down into manic laughter at this point. I feel like I'm in a strait-jacket, writhing on the floor, being showered with expressions of hope and screaming alternatingly "what sweet words of comfort you speak!" and "in my failure I shall prove you wrong!" @jacbarcan Thank you for the tip, and congrats to the person!

Who was the lucky fellow wot got an email from Yale on Sunday night? I'm wondering whether they really exist or if someone is trying to mess with us hopefuls. If you're really out there, congratulations!

Case in point: my Yale grieving cookies

No worries, all hope is unwarranted in the grand lottery that is graduate admissions, but that doesn't stop us! Besides, I'm sure there's something Platonic to be said of how much more (illusorily) elated you felt at receiving the news after deep disappointment from a presumed rejection. Congrats again!

Congratulations! Any hints as to whether they're still calling people?

I don't know, but will guess "probably", since in past years acceptances have been posted more or less all at once, save a few late posters who presumably got in from the waitlist. Personally, I've decided that if (if) I'm lucky enough to get a phone call from any of the places I've applied to, I'll try to edge in a question about whether/when all acceptances are going out. Then report here.

My recalcitrant half wants to spew objections and dissent, citing bitter memories of March 2012 for which I should technically be thankful, and accepting the persistent reassurance I'm being offered as a challenge to show all of you that I will indeed fail. But my moderated, appreciative half is very grateful for your kind words. And as I've said many times here before: I can only hope. The best of wishes to all the rest of you in your own applications!

This is starting to feel a lot like my applications to undergrad, four long years ago... ...except I'm being drawn out on a board and slowly stretched to a breaking point, instead of disappointed in one fell swoop.

I wish I had that - my advisors each offered one round of serious review. Pretty sure my sample is complete garbage.

Congratulations, you're doing damn well this season, especially with Pitt and now Yale!

This is absurd. Another weekend of suspense.

I'm calling BS on the MA postings. PhDs usually go out first and they haven't yet (someone here sourced that they wouldn't come out until March), and MAs have never been earlier than March. Nobody is claiming them, and I don't see anything on my application status. Very likely fake, especially given the one poster mentioned "smaller school". Toronto is the exact opposite of a small school.

Anyone claiming the Toronto MA? If I got rejected by the one MA I applied to... as a Canadian...

Thank you! For now I'm just sitting here staring at a screen... and my phone... back and forth... WAIT IS THAT AN EMAIL FROM YA - nevermind it's something about careers. Pfft. Who needs those eh?

Thanks, I'm just desperately hoping I won't be shut out. I guess it all rides on my sample. My top choice is Rutgers; I may be biased because both my major advisors studied there.

If Yale doesn't send out its acceptances today I will be forced to conclude that the entire graduate admissions system is conspiring to maximize the cruel suspense I'm being made to suffer; they've never, in our extensive recorded history of approximately five data points, released any later than the equivalent of today. To set a record now would be mental assault on us applicants. Still one hundred percent in the dark.

Regarding the latter: my second writing sample argues that while she's definitely heading in the right direction, don't think she took her model far enough. I draw out a fully evolutionary model by which convention doesn't exist except as an emergent property.

I know, I guess our fees were just an hourly wage for people to read this stuff, eh? But anyway, thank you. I can only hope I don't end up in one of those horror stories where everyone including the committee expressed optimism about the application only to have to raise their hands apologetically and mumble "we're so sorry we just can't take you it's... it's not you it's us."

Update: my other advisor just emailed me about a paper, and appended: "I contacted people at UCLA and Rutgers I know to tell them not to miss out on you. They said that your application 'looked amazing'... So I'm hoping that bodes well. Not knowing is hard, but I'd be cautiously optimistic." This, at least, is a sliver of light cutting through the thick gloom.

So here's the awkward and unfortunate part: through astronomical misfortune I did not have an iota of exposure to science fiction until maybe a year ago (I was an avid reader of fantasy, somehow never made the step). Even then I didn't quite realize how amazing it is. As of a few months ago, however, I've been trying to get my hands on as much as I can. The problem is our library doesn't really carry that sort of thing, and the public library is too far, so I'm stuck reading online shorts in prozines. I've mostly just inhaled thousands of pages of Asimov (fiction and non-fiction). Beyond that, largely just short fiction (though I've also read H. G. Wells and Douglas Adams). I'm trying to get more but... the books just won't come fast enough. That said, the sci-fi I write is an application of the philosophy I do/read. Usually it's some sort of intersection between mind and ethics, the sort which I am not trained to do academically. I've also studied physics et al. so I do that, too. I've found I can't really read the whimsical, imagination-gone-wild sort of science fiction. I'm more of a hard sci-fi person. Unrelatedly, and I'm only writing this here because it seems like the most appropriate thread: I spoke to my advisor today, who said she had heard from friends at UCLA that they were having difficulty opening my personal statement. They were alleged to have contacted me, but I can say with certainty that never happened. Apparently they figured it out, but this leaves me perplexed that somehow my pdf screwed up, and terrified that it cost me big.

In other news, I've been writing and submitting sci-fi shorts to online magazines for the past month to keep me distracted - got two rejections this morning. The magazines are five times as prompt as grad schools, so at least I've got some flow of information in my life.