MtnDuck

It looks like someone on FB updated their status to say that they heard back.

I mentioned this on the FB--the most likely times were right around the 28/29th based on date or next Tuesday based on day of the week. While I put it down as the 28th (which...is odd since on a second look I think day of the week is the stronger lean) I think that next Tuesday is actually more plausible. But I don't want to bake the predictions so it stays. For some predictions if you click the cell you'll see comments that I've added in this year. With the increase in applications and COVID stuff though some predictions will be super off probably ??‍♂️

Guess I get to update that projection ? (I don't have the bandwidth to catch these types of notes from institutions, but when folks find them I can take them into account!)

Given that applications closed on the 2nd, if they aren't accepting anyone then they better refund anyone that applied with respect to the application fee. If they had completely closed admissions I would have through it would have made it's way around the groups as folks went to apply and found that there wasn't a philosophy option.

Yes and no--here it is for folks that want to take a look (I've shared it elsewhere but I don't remember where. Probably FB) but I do ask that it not get circulated since it's a bit of a mess and some data points might be wrong ?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/philgradapp (Philosophy Graduate Applicants)

When the system compiles submissions if there are mixed document types (like .doc and .pdf) or even just with .doc/.docx submissions sometimes the formatting gets thrown off when the system throws things together or when they go to print things out. I think I remember one app I sent in where the application ID info (tends to get printed on top of every page of an applicant's file) would have obscured text from my writing sample if I hadn't changed it over to a PDF ??‍♂️

Yeah that's me ? Though it only really works from everyone who has contributed info over the years/crowd sourcing ?

Since not everyone here is on the FB group, we also have reports of the following interview offers (I'm not the OP, but these are directly from folks in the FB group): UC Irvine LPS (PhD) 1/11 (sounds like they intend to furnish offers to everyone invited) Arizona State HPS (PhD) 1/11

FB group reports acceptances from the following (all of these are direct claims from other folks? Marquette MA 1/7 Edinburgh MSc 1/12 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee MA 1/13 San Jose MA 1/20 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign PhD 1/20 (they released on the 17th last year so they may have found a new early trend)

Well, there goes that prediction. Here is the data from past years ??‍♂️

If you want to share with any friends feel free to use this link: bit.ly/PhilAdm ? It helps me see roughly how many folks are utilizing it (but I don't get any other data besides how many folks click each day/country of the click)

...whoops ? Yeah with a Jan 15th deadline no way it's today. It looks like they use to have a hard deadline of the 7th instead but have recently pushed it back a week. As such...probs should push the prediction back a week as well. Sorry folks! (The part of the spreadsheet with deadlines is relatively new so I haven't put in any time to see how deadlines have changed over time) -L

For the interested here is when they've released historically: (data source: admissions spreadsheets of years past) Unless they go super early this year, I would expect to hear back between 2/5 (a Friday) and 2/9 (a Tuesday) with a slight favor towards the 9th.

Over the past few years I've noticed a number of trends when it comes to departmental websites being less than accessible or clear about what materials they need from applicants and how certain processes work (such as letters of recommendation-i.e., do they go out before or after you submit the application). As an extension of the Philosophy Admissions Spreadsheet (bit.ly/PhilAdm), I am gathering information both on the barriers folks have encountered while applying in recent years and trying to finally get a solid set of numbers concerning how many schools folks are applying to. That's where you and other recent applicants come in! Link to the Google Form survey In order to make asks and create change we are going to need tangible numbers that the APA and departments can take seriously. For better or worse, a survey of this sort might be one of the faster ways to gather this information or, minimally, set the stage for a more formal investigation through the Graduate Student APA council to workshop changes to the system and remove/reduce the barriers for future applicants. -Linds Whittaker (University of Washington)

Just a quick note about GREs since there are some additional reasons school request them. 1) after talking with a number of folks at various universities in the process of putting together the spreadsheet, an often stated reason for keeping the GRE is "the grad school requires it" or they need it for fellowship opportunities. 2) There are robust concerns that they aren't really objective. The worry is that much like the SAT they test your ability to take the test more than, well, a lot of things they are supposed to test and tend to reflect class/SES and access to preparatory programs to some extent (which is one reason a number of schools are ditching them in toto at this point). This isn't to say that what you said is incorrect per se (someone wanting to do phil math who scores badly on the Q section may be flagged as a less than ideal candidate, places do compare them to courses/GPA to see both if someone may have had an inflated GPA and also to see if maybe the GPA is reflective of capability, etc.). It is a bit more complex though fwiw and schools have different reasons that aren't easy to lump into one analysis ?

You've posted the same question in a few other places , but I'll throw in my two cents here. Grad admissions are never a given--things can change drastically depending on who in the department wants new graduate students this cycle, if there are folks in the department that *don't* want graduate students or everyone knows they can never keep a student more than a year (this isn't always common knowledge), if the person who liked your file doesn't show up to a meeting (I actually know a case where this happened--the applicant was obviously quite annoyed after they found out), if a less than optimal person gets tasked with reading your sample, if there are worries that the people you might want to work with are going to leave/retire, if the committee woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, etc. I know someone who got into Stanford just because a faculty member liked that they had a high GRE score in math and were interested in logic (and the prof hadn't had a grad student in a while). They were rejected from everywhere else and the only reason they got in other then merit (which others also had of equal quality) is because the person reading the file liked their file for an arbitraryish reason. I've known folks who get shut out one cycle but apply again with the same sample (though maybe they polished it up a bit) and same letters (with some tweaks) and then get into top 25 programs. No one on this forum can really chance your likelihood given just how many factors there are that go into admissions decisions each year. A number of the factors have nothing to do with GRE, GPA, or even writing sample and they aren't the sorts of things we can predict in this forum as we aren't on the committees looking at your file.

FB has confirmed all four. Based on past histories of releases, they are all within the plausible range of acceptance release dates (the estimates on the spreadsheet can easily hop off by a week depending on when schools start back for their next quarter/semester)

It has changed over the years a bit, but at some points Rutgers, Purdue, Cornell, USC, UNC, Texas @ Austin, Notre Dame (at first), University of Kentucky, and Stony Brook have all had hidden waitlists. Some of them, along with other schools I haven't kept track of explicitly, have a second waitlist that they will pull from if the initial set declines fwiw.

It was confirmed via the facebook group but I think even over there that was the only person who has made a report (doesn't seem like a fellowship offer but who knows)

UNC acceptances are rolling out via phone calls today and into tomorrow/later depending on how long they take (confirmed both on FB and from individual sources). L

Back on track and finally updated. On Sunday 2/9- Monday 2/10 the spreadsheet suffered an outage. It has been returned to working order and (finally) I've gone through and updated a ton of things based on comments and messages I got last week. Thanks for your patience (I'll be update it once a day now that I have qualification paper things figured out) L

There was a claim over on the FB group (or rather a friend of the person told the group about it)

It looks like it's around the correct time for them (I mistyped the estimate as Jan 27 on the spreadsheet, but it would have been around the 24th based on past years so they're right on time). Past years 2015-2018 (last year was on the 23rd as well): February 4 W January 23 S January 28 S January 23 T

UC Irvine (LPS) has sent out interview invitations. Confirmed both by a student at my university and from another person on FB.