MentalEngineer

Did they tell you where you are on it? My sense is that there are a lot (like, 10+) initial admits, which means there will almost certainly be admitted people declining their offers.

My Tinder profile, of all things, includes the phrase "I make less than a welder. So what?"

Here's my (personal) answer: Graduate students aren't students. With the exception of a few rich bastards on fellowship, we have a job, and it's not to go to class and write papers. At the least, we TA, and most of us will teach our own courses within a couple of years. That's our utility to the university, that's why we get paid, and it's plenty damn productive. The fact that we like the subject we teach enough to do coursework and research on it is almost incidental.

Can you afford (not "afford with loans" or "afford with certain spending restraints" but "afford," full stop) to pay a year's full-freight tuition in exchange for a fairly small chance of getting to move into the program officially? If yes, then I suppose there are worse things you could be doing. There are almost certainly a lot of better things you could be doing, though.

I am now definitely planning to decline UI-UC by the end of the week.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone or other did, just as happened in your cohort, mine (and very nearly to me!), the one before mine, and so on. @philgrad: I think you would want to know CSU's cohort size before deciding whether or not to be worried. If they only graduated three to five students. it's not implausible to think that everyone had reasons for not applying or happened to strike out this year. Further, if the cohort size were small, the fact that all of them struck out (if they did) wouldn't be very predictive of your own chances. But if they had a cohort of 10 or more and all of that cohort decided to quit or struck out, I would be quite concerned, either that students felt unprepared, were unprepared, or were somehow not being directed well.

Do not do an unfunded MA unless you are independently wealthy. Getting into a PhD program with $30K in loans you don't need is bad. Not getting into a PhD program with $30K in loans you don't need is worse. Independently of that, I will say that very few admitted students visit UWM before accepting. I didn't, apart from a quick wander through campus while I was hunting for housing. It seems to work out well enough.

If anyone is still biting their nails over MA programs, we've just been informed that UWM will be sending out offers "in the next few weeks." I'm not part of the process, but I'm sorry it's taking so long nonetheless.

Failing to anticipate accepting us isn't the same as rejecting us! We just need a sufficiently strong defeater (like the mysterious disappearance of the rest of the applicant pool).

Neither of these programs are in the Leiter 20, but both Florida State and Cincinnati will give credit for a year's worth of classes from a sufficiently good MA. At both places, if you can cover the distribution requirements you could finish your PhD coursework in only one year.

Congrats! One of my undergrad advisors went there. He turned out OK (if you like pragmatism, anyway).

Jonny's the guy with the bourbon. What else do you need to know, really?

I thought these were the same thing? *waves hands and mutters about power* I think this gets at something though - a lot of people agree that there's a difference but not about what the difference is. If you think the distinction's philosophical, then your methodology is fine and you don't need to do anything different. If you think it's political, well, politics is about effecting change. My uncharitable suspicion is that a lot of the analytic defense of the present structure of the discipline is just the philosopher's ability to hyper-rationalize one's own laziness turned up to eleven because the people in question feel attacked or something.

Party! Is there any bourbon left in Jonny's office?

I think a lot of our generation divides philosophy into "interesting" and "boring," with some people from each side of the former divide in each category. Tangent: Of the people who give a shit about the distinction, in my experience it's been the analytics who are most aware of it. I'm thinking, obviously, of Leiter, but also of a metaphysics professor of mine. He would never dismiss Foucault (e.g.) as "not a philosopher," but talk Continental at him and all he'll have to say is "What?" delivered in higher and higher register and with redder and redder face. Knowing him, I know this isn't for lack of trying, but it still reflects the split.

Another thing to consider is applying to more schools. Six is not very many; the recommendation for MA students at UWM is to apply to at least 12, and many apply to more. While there might be particular people at your target programs that you would just love to work with, I promise you there are more places out there that you could do really well at - but you won't have even a chance if you don't apply to them. If there are financial constraints, there's usually a waiver process. It's usually a pain in the ass, but it can be navigated if you budget the time to do so. If there are location constraints (e.g. a partner's job), apply to all the schools in acceptable locations and hope for the best.

All the schools in the UC system have had severe difficulties funding international students for at least the last couple of years. We've actually got someone who was accepted at Riverside but couldn't get funding.

Oh yeah, but for totally different reasons. The two-going-on-three years I've spent in Milwaukee are the most time I've lived in one place since I graduated high school. I was just starting to get settled in a city it turns out I actually rather like, in housing I could see myself staying in for a good few years, and now I have to move. Not to mention that it looks like my most likely options are all in more conservative areas, so my dating pool will probably drop by about half (That is, from ~20 to ~10. Super encouraging.). And I'm going to have to sell at least half my stuff, especially my bed. I like my bed. Joy all around.

I am almost certain to decline Urbana-Champaign by mid-March.

I want to preface this by saying that I don't have strong knowledge about the admissions end of the process, in that I don't know the criteria AdComms are using. What I do know is the profile of the students that have been admitted to my program over the last 3-4 years. I'm speaking only about my MA program, and this is a personal sense rather than truly rigorous data. It probably also comes off as harsh, for which I apologize, but I think it's only fair to answer your question as realistically as I can. MA programs that are funded and of sufficient quality to position you well for PhD admissions are now almost as competitive as PhD programs themselves. While my program is one of those with the aim of taking people with an interest in graduate-level philosophy from nontraditional backgrounds and preparing them for graduate study, I doubt you would be admitted here with the profile you give above. We have admitted a number of students without a philosophy undergrad in the last few years - and they've proven to be excellent philosophers. But to my knowledge all met at least one of the following criteria. 1) Even if they did not have a philosophy major, they had a double philosophy major or a philosophy minor. 2) Even if they did not have a philosophy minor, they had a significant amount of philosophy coursework - more than four classes (two of which, intro and business ethics, are unlikely to say much about your interest or ability). 3) Those with less philosophical background have substantial work in closely related fields, such as economics/public policy, theology, or aesthetics, often including graduate work in these fields, which shows their ability to do work at this level, even if it's not strictly philosophy. I know of nobody in the last three or four years who has been admitted on the strength of four A's and an interest in philosophy. I think, at a minimum, you should consider auditing more courses. This is a good idea from an admissions point of view, but I think it's also a good way to address your question of how to prepare to be in a program. I don't know the details of your four undergrad courses, but my guess is that only philosophy of science was anything like what grad work in philosophy is like. Spending more time in the classroom should help you figure out if this is actually what you want to do, confirm or disconfirm the areas of interest you've expressed, and get you face time with professors who can help you do things like figure out what programs would be a good fit for you.

You and me both...

On the topic of this thread, UIC's 20-some-point, bolded, "APPLICATION DENIED" on the website might be the most demoralizing rejection I've ever seen, appearance-wise.

I know how you feel. I went to 2 or 3 talks by their grad students at the Eastern, and now I'd consider murder as a means of securing a spot even more seriously than I already was. But my gut instinct is not until March. I think I might go all the way to second week of March, actually.

Funnily enough, I was mightily convinced that if I struck out my first year, I'd take it as a signal to walk away and do something else - and that I'd be totally satisfied with that. I still think the attitude of being able to walk away is a mighty productive one to cultivate, actually. Not to mention that it's a wonderful example of practical Stoicism, and so if you can do it you should feel more confident in your identity as a philosopher! But then I stopped having a compelling personal reason to leave Milwaukee as soon as I finished. And so I was sitting around here in the summer and thinking to myself "You know what I wish I was doing instead of playing Diablo? Philosophy. No, seriously!" So I ended up completely ignoring the signal that six months earlier I had been so strongly committed to following, but purely because I wanted to and not because I felt I had to. I don't know about others, but that's when I actually do work worth reading.

"Metaphysics:" First (I presume) he puts on pants and suspenders. Then he puts on a shirt. "Epistemology:" He wears white shirts and black suspenders. "Ethics:" @SamStone, @Ulixes, back me up here.