Schopenhauerfanboy

1) Changed my dissertation topic 2) Supervisor is apathetic 3) Program doesn't care enough about placement 4) Hostility between "analytic" and "continental" faculty, making the formation of a committee difficult for my topic 5) Not enough opportunities to teach your own courses Tennessee is not ranked as high as my current program, but it does significantly better on all of the preceding, most importantly placement - most (close to 80%) of its grads get TT appointments at LACs or even better (graduate from 2013 got tenured at UI-Bloomington). So I'd definitely take my chances there even if it's my only offer

Love your user name, btw haha!

For what it's worth: I had below average scores 161/144/5.5, and I got accepted with good funding into Tennessee and got waitlisted at Baylor, and am waiting to hear back from the other ten places - no rejections yet. The gamble pays off only if that year's admissions committee members happen to discount lower quant scores. I emailed the DGS for programs to which I applied to ask their perspective on the GRE - many said it didn't factor in their evaluation, others (including Baylor) said it did, which might in part explain why I didnt make the top of their list. It may also have helped that I'm already in a ranked PhD program with good grades..

Congrats! I did my undergraduate and M.A. there. Feel free to PM me if you'd find the perspective of former graduate student helpful!

Congrats on the Syracuse offer! Anybody else heard from them?

I know a lot of people who got into programs that were ranked a lot higher than the ones from which they were rejected. I wouldn't worry yet! Last year, a friend of mine was rejected from Texas A&M, but got into a PGR top 40. This is not as rare as people think from my experience.

I'm happy you got accepted somewhere early enough in the season to mitigate the disappointment of rejections. I assume that the success I've had so far won't last (especially as responses from higher ranked schools start coming), and it's a huge relief to know early that I got accepted somewhere.

Got waitlisted at Baylor. DGS said that someone in my position got accepted three years ago, but not in the past two years.

Got accepted into the University of Tennessee, Knoxville - full funding for 5 years! Haven't heard anything from the 11 other programs to which I applied..

There's reports from the Facebook page of both acceptances and a waitlist for Northwestern.

If this is an open Facebook group, I'd be interested in joining. Please let me know

http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=philosophy by email*

For those who applied, I noticed that someone reported being accepted to the University of Southern California's Philosophy PhD program (on January 22nd).

Congratulations!

The points are well-taken. My point is that if you have perfect stats or close to perfect stats you have very reasonable grounds to believe your applications are more propitious than someone who doesn't. I don't see how that's controversial. Here's another reason to think your chances might be higher than the baseline probability of 5% or whatever it might be. I was told by a number of DGS that you have better chances of getting in if you're working in an area to which the department receives less applications. One department I was told consistently gets an overwhelming majority of applications to Philosophy of Science, M&E, etc, and far less in the history of philosophy, but the department still allots a number of spots to historical students. So if you're working in history, you'd have good grounds to think there's a lower applicant-to-spot ratio.

I see where you're coming from. My position is that needing "knowledge" seems too restrictive. Seems like having adequate supportive reasons would be enough to make at least a reasonable estimation. Every year, some number of untenable applications are submitted. For instance, students who barely make GPA cutoff, no research experience, subpar GRE, an all around "vanilla" application or worse. Why would you assume your chances of getting in are equal to that applicant's if you have superior stats? I mean, of course, you don't have knowledge -- there are cases in which an inferior applicant in other respects has an outstanding writing sample or whatever the case may be. But suppose you have 90th percentile scores, perfect GPA, letters from famous profs, etc. Are you really suggesting that such an applicant's chances are just as likely as every others' ? Sure, unbeknowst to you, an applicant pool could be particularly good one year (everyone has perfect stats!), but that seems like an extremely rare occurrence that shouldn't figure in your considerations. Maybe I am missing something.

For those who are less mathematically inclined (myself included), could you explain how each school's application process (or "trial" as you put it),, is not independent?

I am just trying to argue that if you adopt a couple seemingly safe assumptions, then your applications are likely to succeed at least once! Hope this is comforting to someone haha

For a lot of programs, the odds are considerably worse only if you assume that your odds are as good as every other applicant's. From what I've read, it's usually around 5% acceptance rate. But if you assume that you're above the 50th percentile of applicants, then your odds are considerably better. Suppose there's 200 applications and 10 offers. That's 5% chance. But if you assume you're around the 50th percentile (which presumably you are higher than if you have a good record), then you'd be better than 100 of the applicants. So your odds are obviously better say, 10%. Then across 15 applications, you'd get: 1 - (0.9/10)^15 So, just shy of 80% of getting into at least one. These numbers are, of course, somewhat arbitrary, but you can do a reasonable estimation if you have good grounds for thinking you are at least around 50th percentile. It's not like the 200 applicants all have 3.9+ GPAs, 90th percentile + verbal GRE scores, or whatever other propitious attributes your application possesses. It's the same thing with law school, I would imagine. There are often 1500 applications for say 100 spots, but a considerable number of those aren't plausible to begin with. And if you already know beforehand that your GPA and LSAT are in the range of the preceding class profile, it would be foolish to think you have the same odds of getting in as every other applicant. Of course my story would unravel if it turned out that ALL or almost all of the applicants to PhD programs were of equivalent quality. But from what I've read, most of the people in this forum have records that are a lot better than the average person applying to graduate school.

I don't have any anecdotes, but here's something I found consoling. Suppose you're around the middle of the pack and have a slightly better than average chance of getting in (say, 15%). And you applied to 15 schools. Then: 1 - (8.5/10)^15 So, you have a 91% chance of getting into at least one program. Pretty good odds, I'd say!

Congrats on the early acceptance! I have to resist the urge to check my phone and email for responses. I'm sure many of you can relate.

I am indeed a Canadian graduate student. It's hard to see how presenting at professional conferences as a graduate student (and especially as an undergrad) would not be viewed favourably. What would the case be for that? And in many cases, federal scholarships are awarded to students with more conferences and publications. Ultimately, though, the quality of one's work matters more than the number of venues in which it has been presented (obvious point). But, in the case of professional conferences, acceptance into them is itself a sign of the quality of one's work, and I think everyone agrees with that. I do sympathize with the point that if candidate A's writing sample is better than B's, but B has more conferences, A would still be more likely to get admitted.

Conference presentations (esp., at professional conferences) as an undergrad and graduate student can not only enhance your application, but also make you more competitive for a variety of scholarships that use "research ability" as one of their criteria. In Canada, for instance, the SSHRC competitions consider research potential, and having conferences and publications (even in largely unknown journals) can be incredibly helpful. One of my advisors informed me that my application scored a lot higher because my C.V. showed signs of professionalization and research potential (through having conferences and pubs on it). Also, presenting at conferences can help you indirectly through starting to build your professional network early. You might even, as has often been the case, build rapport with a professor who can influence an admissions committee with the great impression (s)he gleaned from your presentation -- "oh! I saw applicant give an exceptional presentation of blah blah when he presented at University Y." If you can organize a conference yourself (and invite a faculty member with whom you want to work as your keynote speaker), even better! I have, however, heard that as a PhD student, you should avoid publishing suboptimal representations of your work because it can prejudice people against you (even if you later publish significantly better pieces) -- "academic first impression," as it were.

From my experience, you're closer to the average age than you might think. In my M.A. program, we had multiple students in their mid-thirties and even one in his fifties. The grad program was very understanding of their situations (many had kids, other obligations) and always accommodated any irregularities caused by those obligations (e.g. extended deadline because of family problems, etc). However, many professors have mentioned to me that students who took longer to complete their programs (in the absence of extenuating circumstances) are viewed less favourably. For instance, someone who had no significant obligations outside school, but who took closely to 6 years to finish an undergraduate. Timely records of completion are important, for they demonstrate skills important for success in graduate school (e.g. time management, ability to handle demanding workload, etc).

Schopenhauer's pessimism with excursions into Nietzsche plus some sustained engagement with the contemporary literature on moral perfectionism