brush

Maybe you're on the waitlist (I think I read somewhere they already sent out acceptances, but I could be wrong).

nooooo, rejected from wisc and syracuse. hopefully my ma apps are more succesful!

My USC portal now works correctly and contains the rejection letter, so if you still have nothing that's a good sign. It is nice that USC promptly sends out rejections though, unlike most other schools.

Anyone else getting "User is not authorized for this process" when they try to check their decision letter in the USC portal? I'm sure I'm rejected but it'd be nice to see for myself.

They probably meant to quote one of the previous posts about the cold

and Arizona (as far as I know they've sent out both acceptances and waitlist already)

I don't think anyone can tell you admission chances given so little information. (If you want to know your chances ask your letter writers). From the looks of it, however, you're off to a solid start (though a 3.6 GPA is a bit low). The most important part of your application is your writing sample (or at least that is what they say), and so whether your application has a chance at top schools probably depends on that. I think it is a good idea to wait till after you graduate to apply. (That is, apply in Dec/Jan 2017/2018 if you graduate in May 2017). Over the summer you can work on your writing sample and study for the GREs full time which will certainly improve your application.

While it's true that Cornell seems to only have one permanent metaphysics faculty member, I don't think its uncommon to apply to schools which only have one primary faculty member you want to work with. That said, Cornell's graduate course offerings in metaphysics seem kind of sketchy which I think could be concerning. I looked at the past three semesters at Cornell, and no graduate only metaphysics classes were taught (correct me if I'm wrong). In fact, their course listings are not great compared to other schools (the largest contrast I found was with Notre Dame, http://philosophy.nd.edu/graduate-program/course-archives/, though this is an unfair comparison because the ND department is huge. Still, it demonstrates the course opportunities you could have at one similarly ranked school). I looked at the course offerings at a lot of other schools too, not just Cornell and Notre Dame, and while the difference is not as stark, Cornell's course offerings in metaphysics still seems lacking. edit: in the end, if you already applied, there's no point in worrying about it now

@rising_star You sure love making baseless assumptions about me. "There's actually a reason fast food workers are rarely high school employees anymore." Irrelevant. And I never made any claims about how many fast food workers are in high school. "The job isn't as easy as it looks." Irrelevant. Also I never said it was easy. "If your goal is to make a lot of money without having to work hard" That's not my goal. "maybe you should go play the lottery or something. " Even if that was my goal this is terrible advice. "Also, if you're going to look down on people and their work" I'm not "looking down" on anyone. A job being crappy is separate from the person working that job being crappy. "make sure you also don't require their work for your life." Even if I did look down on such workers it doesn't follow that I shouldn't use their work. "I hope your recognize how lucky you are to be able to live with your parents and not need any income." You don't have to worry about what I recognize.

I never said those jobs weren't hard. In fact, them being hard just makes my point even stronger--you're doing hard work for little pay. Sounds "crappy" to me. Moreover they are "crappy" insofar as they're undesirable jobs (by almost everyone's account) that any high schooler could do with a little training. If that offends you, well, welcome to reality. That said, I see your point. I'll try to be more considerate next time.

So I'm already graduated and I applied for graduate schools this season. Even if I get accepted I won't be starting until the fall, so I basically have 8 months to kill. I double majored in physics and philosophy, but it seems kind of dishonest to apply for a serious job if I only plan on quitting later. So what should I do? Any good temporary job ideas I should look into? I don't really want to work at some crappy fast food place or something like that. I'm living at my parents so I don't have to get a job, but I don't really want to be a moocher.

I guess the important measure is professor to grad student ratio, but even that is unreliable since we really only want to count the professors that are actively involved with grad students. i think the number of undergrads also makes a difference, as less undergrads means less time devoted to teaching them and more time working with grad students

yea I think they must be the largest, they have 47 regular professors listed on their website

by my count Notre Dame has 41 philosophy professors lol

I personally wouldn't try to "explain away" my low GPA unless I had a legitimate reason for doing poorly, e.g. health reasons, serious personal issues, etc. Otherwise you're just making bad excuses, not to mention you're drawing more attention to your low GPA. At least one school (Michigan) explicitly states that "it is not worth your time to explain GRE scores or your GPA".

Of course it matters to some extent, but probably not that much. Most applications ask for your philosophy gpa in addition to your overall gpa, and some schools also ask for your upper division gpa. So admission committees definitely weigh your philosophy and later classes more then the rest. In the end, you can't change the past. Just focus on making the rest of your application great. It also depends on what you mean by "low". An overall GPA below 3.0 is I think a serious red flag--if your overall GPA is that low I think it will seriously hurt your admission chances unless you ace the GRE or have exceptional letters to make up for it.

While 3.6 is high compared to your average university student, its still below average for admitted philosophy students. That said, a low GPA can be made up for by other facts in your application. As Rising said, it is certainly no "nail in the coffin". As for your second question, I don't see why your calculated major GPA would differ then what your school calculates your major GPA to be. In any case, I don't know what they'll look at. My transcript doesn't even display a major GPA, so for me they'll have to calculate it themselves if they want to verify it. I don't think they'll actually waste their time though. They'll probably just briefly look over the transcript to make sure it seems about right. You definitely don't want to lie about it though.

I don't know. I did the same thing as you though and I'm assuming its a common occurrence, so I'd expect it'll work out alright. Though USC says to use 2801 too. But it probably doesn't matter. Guess the only way to be sure is to email the departments and ask.

In Leiter's defense, he calls it a ranking of of departments in the English-speaking world. And it is extremely useful for those of us applying to such departments.

For what its worth, the first paragraph of my intro is basically an abstract. It's not explicitly labeled, although after reading thatsjustsemantics post I might change that. At least one school I'm applying to reviews the writing samples anonymously, which means you need to have your name on a cover page but nowhere else on the paper. For simplicity, I'll probably just use that same format for all my applications.

I'm interested how many PhD's the various philosophy graduate programs graduate each year. I swear I saw this information somewhere before but now I can't find it. I'm just curious since I would expect these larger programs to have slightly higher acceptance rates (relative to similarly ranked schools). Thanks.

If the problem is that prospective graduate students are being tricked into going to graduate school based on false or misleading information about their future career prospects, then I could why people would be upset. But based on my own personal experience at my undergraduate institution, this is not happening. If my experience is representative--that is, if there is in fact no widespread systematic deception of philosophy students--then I don't see any problem at all. If there are people that want to go to lower tier graduate schools in spite of the abysmal job market (perhaps because they think the study of philosophy is valuable in it of itself), then that is their decision. The graduate schools themselves are just giving people with those desires the chance to fulfill those desires. I fail to see how this is a bad thing, unless one could make the argument that prospective graduate students are incapable of correctly judging what is best for themselves.

wtf why is their deadline so early lol. most other deadlines I've seen are early january. anyways I'm super stressed. i'm taking the gre on the 7 but i got no time to study for it because i decided a week ago to write a completely new writing sample because i wasn't happy with my old one, but now im not gonna have time to get feedback on my writing sample. can only hope for the best i guess, can't wait until this is all over

What schools I apply to will be affected by how well I do on the GRE, but I want to take the GRE as late as possible so I have more time to study. To meet Jan 1st deadlines, what's the latest I can take the GRE? Also, will it delay my scores if I wait until after I get my V/Q scores to submit them? Are the scores sent instantly electronically, or by mail? Do all philosophy applications have a GRE score entry section in case the official gre scores come in late?

Funded as in tuition waiver and livable stipend. Or are only PhDs funded?