The_Last_Thylacine

Declined at NIU. I was offered funding, so hopefully this will help someone who is waitlisted for funding, too. 

A "top 5" Leiter MA program? I didn't realize there was an ordinal ranking of MA programs. 

What have we become?

I, too, just found out I have been waitlisted at UVA.

What have we become?

Declined UT Austin and removed myself from the waiting list at Stanford. 

What have we become?

What have we become?

Waitlisted at SLU, seems like a lot of us were

only 10 hours of productive reading a week? what? If that works for you then great but that's not and should not be the norm.
also I'm not sure what the last two bits are about at all - I'll try working less than 70 hours a week and see if I feel closer to writing the next Tractatus? Philosophy is hard work, whether you're Kant or an assistant professor, and the image of some manic, genius mind sketching up groundbreaking work is poor fantasy (this is probably even more true now in contemporary, professionalized philosophy - which everyone here wants to do - than ever). 

I really wonder what kind of work/study people are talking about. I spend most waking hours thinking about philosophy, but I couldn’t really call that work. I’ve been out of the academy for a few years now, but even when I was studying for my degree, I doubt I could manage more than about 10 hours of productive reading each week, on top of a few lectures. It didn’t hurt my grades, or—it seems—my chances w.r.t. PhD admissions. Talking to my undergrad professors (at a top 10 Phil. Gourmet department) this seems to capture their experience as well.

If you’re spending 70 waking hours reading papers and engaging in directed academic study each week, I imagine you’ll produce beautifully polished academic work, and be up to the minute on all the latest fads... but will it really be interesting, creative philosophy? (—I mean, perhaps you can make that work, but I feel it would hinder more than help?)
Wittgenstein was mentioned as an example of a hard worker. As far as I can tell from biographies etc., that meant open-ended pondering of philosophical questions, reading detective fiction, and discussing philosophy with his friends and students. I can’t imagine that’s the kind of study under discussion here.

To echo what MtnDuck said: the effect cascades. By your decision impacts hundreds of people indirectly, and at least one person directly. Your decline opens up a spot which enables someone to decline their lesser offers. If most shifting happens in April, there just isn't enough time for adcoms to go down the waitlist. If there is on average 3 day per offer turnaround, the adcomms can't get through 10 people on their waitlist in 3 days -- when the declines really happen.
Objections:
But they are willing to fly me out! This is a great opportunity to visit schools and network with professors I am interested in.
This is really an unfair tease. If you know you aren't taking their offer, then you're going on false pretenses, wasting their department's money, and making people wait for minimal gains. Is it really a good idea to use people to sight-see? It isn't like you're going to get a letter of recommendation. Just add them on PhilPeople for pete's sake. But if I decline that doesn't impact you. So what?
For some people, if they were given an offer before the 15th, they would accept your school's offer. You are literally impacting someone's ability to get into a school or get into a better school. It doesn't have to be about impacting anyone you know. The sooner the impact, the sooner others can impact others down stream. I am under no obligation to make any decision before April 15. If I wait, that's my prerogative.
True. Nothing is forcing you to make a decision, and definitely not to rush you. But if nothing will change your mind about the decision, then why take the time? If you are still unsure, that's one thing, but if you already have an obviously better offer, then this shows a character defect when you know this impacts other people's futures. Comparative harm account: you're harming people. You have a right to harm people, but that doesn't mean harming is right. Whatever my choice and whenever I decide to notify them, such course of action would be statistically normal. You cannot expect me to act otherwise.
Okay, I won't argue that it is obligatory, but clearly you don't see supererogatory actions as worthy of aspiration. I hope you're not working in ethics. It seems like it could be in my interest to hold onto the offer. I can use it as leverage.
Sure, if you think they are really comparable. But I'd argue it might even be in your interest to decline. The school might come back with a counter-offer that would not have been available if you didn't give them ample time to put together a more lucrative package.

A "top 5" Leiter MA program? I didn't realize there was an ordinal ranking of MA programs. 

A "top 5" Leiter MA program? I didn't realize there was an ordinal ranking of MA programs. 

This is why I have trust issues with you

No, that's either impossible or inefficacious. I mean was she even counting meal prep?  
But seriously, I've done 90-hour study weeks (with breaks, of course) when I was studying for the bar exam. I even experienced "car sickness" from reading all day. For me, that amount of study would be unsustainable, but for a few months, it was fine (and it was well worth it when I saw my name on the list of people who had passed).

No, that's either impossible or inefficacious. I mean was she even counting meal prep?  
But seriously, I've done 90-hour study weeks (with breaks, of course) when I was studying for the bar exam. I even experienced "car sickness" from reading all day. For me, that amount of study would be unsustainable, but for a few months, it was fine (and it was well worth it when I saw my name on the list of people who had passed).

I just declined UCSB (which almost broke my heart).

I have a concern that mental health is not so much affected by a failure to maintain a work-leisure distinction (whatever this means to you; philosophy is both my leisure and my work) as it is by a failure to meet one's goals. Every students has a set of goals that they wish to achieve, and if your goal is to become an academic philosopher, then to me it seems likely that students (like myself at least) would need to work for about 70+ hours per week to achieve this goal. I have seen a lot of people on here with intimidating intellects, and if you are one of the truly exceptional philosophy students, then this generalization will obviously not apply to you. You may, for instance, be able to produce a publishable paper with only 20 hours a week. 
However, in philosophy, what seems to be the biggest cause of mental health issues (e.g. depression) is that students have a goal of being at the top of their class and they refuse to work the number of hours per week that (for them) would be required to meet this goal. Alternatively, to be at the top of a class, some students may refuse to sacrifice other things that they value more than philosophy (e.g. family life, hanging out with friends, being in a band, et cetera). Sure, sometimes students get sick or their grandparents die, but programs will often treat these kinds of situations as extenuating circumstances. 
I don't really see any reason to talk about mental health here. If you are becoming depressed doing academic philosophy, then you should do what you need to do to take care of yourself, but you shouldn't feel entitled to a job at the end of your graduate education if you've submitted work that is of a lesser quality than everyone else. You've just learned that academic philosophy is not for you.
 

ditto @brookspn
also I just have certain goals I want to achieve that I can't achieve by putting in 30 hrs per week, just not possible - I also think there's people out there doing 70 hours doing stuff much harder than reading some stuff and writing some stuff, so I say work as much as you can handle
and as for how much time is REQUIRED to be 'good' at philosophy depends on you and 'good', but as said, that's not really what's under discussion here.

So, there seem to be two kinds of answers here. On the one hand, there are answers which put a high value on work/life balance, e.g., @hector549. On the other, there are those which do not put a high value on work/life balance, e.g., me, @Prose, and @The_Last_Thylacine. I think one ought to use whichever method works best for one. Still, as long as there are people in the latter camp (and there always will be), it seems that those in the former camp will be at a disadvantage. Maybe they'll have better lives in some sense, but it's unlikely they'll be as productive philosophically.* I mean, even super-genius philosophers like Wittgenstein, Quine, and Lewis (to name a few) were famously hard workers. 
* I should add that, for me, being maximally productive at the thing I've chosen to pursue (e.g., philosophy) is a good life. 

Unfortunately, no, it isn't. It's a "cash cow" program meant only to generate money for the university and to keep enrollments up. If you want to get an MA in philosophy, apply to legitimate, funded terminal MA programs.

Waitlisted at Uconn with 25% chance of admission. I had to solicit. This is my top pick, so fingers crossed here.

lmao

I have a concern that mental health is not so much affected by a failure to maintain a work-leisure distinction (whatever this means to you; philosophy is both my leisure and my work) as it is by a failure to meet one's goals. Every students has a set of goals that they wish to achieve, and if your goal is to become an academic philosopher, then to me it seems likely that students (like myself at least) would need to work for about 70+ hours per week to achieve this goal. I have seen a lot of people on here with intimidating intellects, and if you are one of the truly exceptional philosophy students, then this generalization will obviously not apply to you. You may, for instance, be able to produce a publishable paper with only 20 hours a week. 
However, in philosophy, what seems to be the biggest cause of mental health issues (e.g. depression) is that students have a goal of being at the top of their class and they refuse to work the number of hours per week that (for them) would be required to meet this goal. Alternatively, to be at the top of a class, some students may refuse to sacrifice other things that they value more than philosophy (e.g. family life, hanging out with friends, being in a band, et cetera). Sure, sometimes students get sick or their grandparents die, but programs will often treat these kinds of situations as extenuating circumstances. 
I don't really see any reason to talk about mental health here. If you are becoming depressed doing academic philosophy, then you should do what you need to do to take care of yourself, but you shouldn't feel entitled to a job at the end of your graduate education if you've submitted work that is of a lesser quality than everyone else. You've just learned that academic philosophy is not for you.