MtnDuck

For the spreadsheet, predictions are now up for when folks might hear back from programs based on past trends

It's that time of the year again--the Philosophy Admissions Spreadsheet has made its yearly return 🙂 As per usual it is tracking deadlines, application requirements, how to get a fee waiver/deadlines for fee waivers, GRE requirements, etc. Around 120 PhD programs and 100 MA programs in philosophy are included and TOEFL requirements have been added for the PhD programs. I am still working on the MA programs, but they will be updated within the next two weeks or so. Please share this with folks who are applying, are thinking about applying, or who work in a Philosophy Department! I know a lot of folks applying, or who are helping folks apply, won't know about it and the more circulation it gets the better. For transparency, it's free, the bitly link is just so I can see how many folks click on it (roughly speaking), google doesn't pay me to use their spreadsheet system, etc. If you notice any errors or omissions, just let me know or leave a comment on the spreadsheet itself. Link for sharing: bit.ly/PhilAdm

For what it's worth this year was the earliest WL movement in general that I've seen in the last 4 years or so. It looks like, in general, folks are turning down the offers they know they will not accept and that is helping the shuffling start at a few programs. With any luck that will spell good news once the visiting days wrap in another week or so. A caveat of sorts I want to flag for folks is about yield--some programs (including top programs) will make more A offers than they have spots for with the running assumption that a certain percentage of folks will turn them down leaving them with an incoming class of x (or something). In past years there have been times when folks were confused about why SCHOOL's WL didn't move even though 4 folks had declined the acceptance. If a school accepts 12 expecting an incoming class of 8, there's no movement until the 5th person declines ??‍♂️ It's still not totally clear which schools do this and which don't (gathering the stats on that is a work in progress), but it is something to be aware of since folks can decline in a timely fashion and the WL can still not move at all in a given cycle for some schools ?.

Never say never until you have the actual R--a number of schools have hidden waitlists (has been a contentious topic for years) and it's always possible that someone will end up getting off of a waitlist they didn't originally know they were on ??‍♂️. Source: had at least one case of this every year since I started running the spreadsheet.

Many thanks for declining early--sometimes we have folks hold on to schools they know they won't pick given their available options and it's a nightmare on 4/15 as folks try to get shuffled off of waitlists. I'll add a note to the stats page on the spreadsheet that someone has declined their acceptance for this school

Greetings folks, As we head into the chaos of application season I just wanted to plug the Philosophy Admissions Spreadsheet for anyone who is new to the forum and may not have encountered it previously. More or less I track the admissions requirements for programs (mostly) in the US and Canada. (If folks can help fill in the gaps for places in the UK, Australia, and any other country though go for it!). I am also in the process of moving things over to a website but that'll be a bit of a longer goal. These requirements include: deadlines, cost of application fees, how to get a fee waiver, whether they want the GRE, what type of transcript to send in, and how many letter writers folk will need. For MA programs I also look at whether they are funded and, if so, how many folks appear to be funded. In January it also tracks admissions decisions. Feel free to share with anyone else that is applying! bit.ly/PhilAdm There is also a FB group for folks looking to connect with more folks during this application cycle. Philosophy Graduate Applicants

Now that we've mostly come to the end of the application chaos (well done everyone--especially with all the support folks have shown during this stressful cycle), just wanted to give this a bump. We're at about 90 survey responses and the more the merrier!

Greetings folks, It is time for Part 2 of the Philosophy Admissions Survey--feel free to share with other folks not on TGC! Link to the Google Form Survey Folks that applied in past/recent cycles are invited to participate in addition to current applicants. Knowing the information for past cycles may allow us to notice shifts in the current application cycle so all are welcome to participate. For Part 2, we are looking at outcomes (A/W/R), the elements folks considered when applying, how much money folks spent on application fees (some folks here flagged putting together a fund of some sort and that requires empirics), waitlist movement/hidden waitlists (optional questions), how folks picked which program to attend, etc. No identifactory information is required/collected (email, name, program, etc.) and while quantitative data will be shared explicitly no qualitative answers will be shared verbatim (I'll summarize those elements/note trends as with Part 1 but want to maintain anonymity). The summary will also be publicly available and shareable once we get to that point and folks will always be welcome to circulate it around to whomever/wherever. -L

The survey has now been workshopped into a more formal report though there are a number of limitations due to sampling size problems. That said, here's what we have. More on Part 2 soon! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Id7ZHLgXBEbcVb8fqPkhqiY64LYpG6izyZ-BLjjdJ8U/edit?usp=sharing

From FB-- Stanford is now confirmed as of today 3/11

Can confirm at least 4 folks over on FB have As ?. I'm going to try to figure out a way to add when folks are declining to the stats but might take a while ?

For folks not on the FB group: Cornell is confirmed, UoAlberta (PhD) is confirmed (direct report to me), Baylor is confirmed, and University of Missouri-St. Louis (MA) is confirmed. No news on Stanford with respect to direct claims.

I've had a number of folks reach out to me directly when they hear back because they don't want folks to know and then be pressured to make a decision when they're trying to work through their options as best they can. But they still want the spreadsheet to be up to date so folks stay informed and have been kind enough to drop me a few lines. As you said, the vast majority of folks won't be jerks and will decline as soon as they can. For the folks that are jerks, it's not as if pressuring them will likely make them decline from places any quicker ??‍♂️

Looks like they misreported with the PhD designation--it's for the MA program (and they have 4 folks currently accepted based on the stats I tracked from FB?) ??‍♂️

Since some folks aren't over on FB--Harvard has started to call folks with Acceptance offers. Sounds like 4 spots this year though a few (2) may already be filled from folks that deferred last year. No word on WL numbers yet.

Indeed we had a survey a while back about how many schools folks are applying to this year with some elements about potential shutouts that could be extrapolated from the data (somewhat). I believe that as the application cycle wraps up there is intention and a willingness for folks to engage in another survey to see how many schools folks got into, how many As, Ws, and Rs, and to see how many shutouts there are. More on that soon potentially--right now I'm trying to get the data and writeup from the first survey done today/tomorrow so I can make it public facing ?

And now we wait for it to be claimed lol (I suspect that we will hear more reports within the next couple of hours--might be folks aren't by their phones atm). Based on the details I suspect it is a legitimate report but ??‍♂️

I think someone may have to ask the department for data or do a FOIA request through their office of institutional research. I've scrubbed their site and they don't have a nice dashboard that some other universities have.

Too add on: This is still in the works, but one way to project how much the WL might move is to know a) how many initial offers a school makes; b) how many WL offers they make; and C) Look at their offered admission vs yield vs enrollment statistics. I'm adding these elements to the spreadsheet right now under "statistics" (Though some things will need to wait until Summer when I have time to FOIA anything departments aren't willing to share. Though if folks have friends at certain institutions they may already be able to access the info ??‍♂️).

Spreadsheet mod here-- the only rejections I have confirmed are for folks who applied to the LMS department! I ditto everyone else above about some departments not sending out rejections until they have a full class. A few departments have had to go back and un-reject folks in the past (and that's not good for optics to say the least). Other departments have university policies that require them to wait to send out rejections though I suspect Berkley isn't one since LMS sent Rs out already to at least some folks.

Could mean a couple of things! Some places have hidden waitlists (sometimes in addition to their stated ones). BU has done this in the past including last year so it is possible that you could be on a list of folks that they're hanging onto because they do want you still and don't want to accidentally be misleading by notifying too early (at least that's what some departments have said before)

I believe 2-3 others reported WL for funding whilst 3 folks reported acceptances. I know one person who was accepted was also accepted to Notre Dame and two other places and another has 2A and 2WL currently. No indicated movement from folks who were accepted yet but it seems possible that at least 1-2 could end up going elsewhere fwiw.

This is something that @directingdirectionsposted a while back and has been passed along over the years: On that note, here is a a list of potential questions to ask at visits and interviews (I would say most of these are for visits but some fit well for interviews). I recalled that this was posted to the forum last year (and the person who had posted it then had reposted it from someone from the year before..) so I thought (like them) i'd copy/paste it in case someones find it helpful... Topics to ask grad schools: (1) What is the climate for women/minorities like? (2) Teacher accessibility (3) Opportunities to teach (TA vs. teaching) (4) Are grad students happy? (5) Placement / prep for job market? (6) Guaranteed 6th year of funding? (7) How long does it take people to complete program? (8) Teaching workload (how many students; grading help if a lot) (9) Summer opportunities (10) Transition from coursework to dissertation (11) Opportunities to do Phil outside classroom (12) Course selection Questions to ask professors: 1. Are there opportunities to teach or only TA? 2. How does [school] prepare students for the job market? 3. What is financial support like beyond the fifth year? 4. How long does it take people to complete the program? 5. What is the teaching workload like? (How many students? Is there grading help (if a lot)? / How onerous is the teaching + grading load?) 6. What summer opportunities are available to students? What do students typically do over the summer? 7. How does [school] handle the transition from coursework to dissertation? 8. What opportunities are there to do philosophy outside f the classroom on campus? (E.g. reading groups, talks, philosophy society, school-sponsored philosophy conference, etc.) 9. How is the collection of the department library? How often is it updated? 10. Do all grad students /TAs get office space? 11. Links of the dept with professors in, e.g., linguistics, cognitive science, rhetoric, classics, etc.? 12. What do people typically do in winter and summer vacations? 13. People retiring in the next 2-3 years? New hirings planned in the next 1-2 years? 14. How many students is [professor] planning to take in the next few years? 15. Proto seminar- what is it like and what will it look like this fall semester? 16. Support for publishing in the initial years at _______ university? 17. Department fellowships which one can apply for later which can give time off teaching? 18. Your (professor's) current research interests and upcoming projects? 19. How often do the professors meet with students especially during the coursework stage? 20. Do professors come to reading groups and other department activity apart from colloquia? 21. What is the level of support available from the Department to attend conferences, workshops and seminars? How far does the stipend go in that area? 22. Is the funding 9 month or 12 month? What are the avenues for summer funding? Questions to ask grad students: 1. How often do you meet with professors? 2. How often do you talk about philosophy with professors when you're not in meetings/classes? (To develop as a philosopher, it is very important to develop your in-person philosophy skills--thinking on your feet, asking good questions, responding to objections, etc.) 3. Do professors come to reading groups? (Or any departmental events that aren't colloquia?) 4. Do grad students ask questions at colloquia? 5. Do you feel comfortable talking in group settings? Have you felt comfortable talking in group settings since you first came? If not, when did you start feeling comfortable? 6. Do grad students share their work with one another/give feedback with one another? 7. How often are people around the department? 8. What do you like most about being here? 9. What do you like least about being here? 10. Do older grad students spend time around the department? 11. What kind of guidance do you get from your professors/advisor? (very important- you want faculty who really read your stuff carefully and make your papers better. if the faculty are mia or not very careful when they read your papers, you may not get this.) 12. Does the culture feel combative or one-up-y? Do you feel like you have to be "on" when you're in a philosophical setting? 13. Are the students here happy? 14. What are faculty and student working on in [area]? What is doing [area, e.g. metaphysics] like here? Questions about climate: 1. Is there a MAP chapter? (You can usually find this out yourself) 1. If so, contact MAP coordinator 2. What is the climate like at [school]? 3. What has [school] done for women and minorities in philosophy? 4. What percentage of grad students are women? 5. Sexual harassment issues? [prob best to ask a grad student discretely] And here is what @HomoLudens noted a few months ago: The interview is kinda brutal. Make sure you know literally everything that you wrote in your sample/statement by heart. Then be prepared for trick questions. I can't really remember what my questions were. My friend who got an interview last year said that they asked him what he thought about the "libertarian/Communitarian/Liberalism/communism debate". His area of focus was Lacanian psychoanalysis! The only reason they asked him was because he took a class with Michael Sandel at Harvard during undergrad. So get ready for them to ask anything. I know these don't quite map on to what you're asking (and without knowing which school the questions can vary I would imagine), but I would say that sometimes interviews are an additional opportunity to check for fit, see what folks are interested, make sure there are not red flags, and hear more about who you are as a philosopher.

Just to check-in, was this for Philosophy? This is a philosophy thread but it sounds like you're applying to a non-philosophy program and, if so, there may be a different forum that would be able to answer your question!

There are still a few that are accepting applications: bit.ly/PhilAdm (4th tab in). Funding can be a bit more hit and miss, but there are still ones that have funding (such as Loyola).