Nichi

I can see the discourteous angle if someone really is universally and substantially unpleasant to be near because of a removable scent. The word "unprofessional" doesn't appear to mean anything here other than "not in accordance with the aesthetic preferences of the dominant subculture."

I personally don't care that much about the personal habits of others. I don't like beige much, but if you want to paint your walls beige, enjoy yourself.

Taking bets now on whether the post count doubles on 4/14-4/15.

You're not out of the woods yet. For all you know you'll have three schools to choose between next week.

Declined a funded PhD offer from the University of Missouri.

Don't give up hope too quickly. I heard nothing from Arizona as they sent out acceptances, waitlists, and rejections. I presumed rejected, a few weeks passed, and now I'm accepted. On the topic of venting, holy hell I forgot how stressful decision making like this can be.

Having a really prominent philosopher brings many advantages to the department. Stories like this bring disadvantages. So to fix the moral hazard in play we would have to make people care less about prominent individuals and also not penalize departments for misconduct of individuals.

At this stage, getting your writing sample as good as you can is the most important thing to do. If you're worried about the GRE, you may benefit from studying for it. If you do, time yourself because the hardest part of the exam is the absurd time limits. Given you'll probably have one more semester on your records you submit, loading your fall semester with philosophy classes is probably a good idea. I also got a late start, not deciding to do a philosophy major until my junior year. I imagine having an A in metaphysics this fall was to my benefit. Also, get A's in your classes, preferrably without minuses. If your school does A+'s, try to get a few of those.

Thank you for sharing that! Interesting again how placement and ranking don't have a reliable correlation...

Five years, $16.5k stipend plus tuition and health insurance, 0.5 FTE, contingent on continued availability of funds and performance in TAing and student work. Looks like they also help students acquire outside funding.

Spam call!? Unrelated, has anyone heard anything about visiting Arizona?

Just moved off the waitlist and onto the accept list at Arizona!

Got my Rutgers rejection! This concludes the first-order responses for me. Now just to wait and see how my waitlists go.

USC, as well. Most effort to find the rejection letter thus far.

I want to do philosophy. This seems like the easiest way to get someone to pay me for it so I don't have to do some other job.

Everything I've read says trying to impress your way into a program has the opposite effect.

I also got the rejection and the suggestion. If I go into that MA I might be able to get into UCR, though, so it's a worthwhile consideration.

I plan on putting some stuff in my backpack and a carry-on. Laptop, some clothes, my important papers. If you're more established and want to keep more of your stuff, this wouldn't be ideal. I find the idea of a near reset on things to be a little refreshing. It was nice the first time I did it.

A sincere expression of gratitude followed by a brief explanation for why you're moving. Also probably the information that you're moving somewhere in there.

With just over a month before the deadline. Congrats!

Waitlisted at Arizona!!!

Imagine if this was treated like the stable matching problem it is. It might make the visiting part of the consideration trickier, but it would also prevent April 16th offers. Heck, even if it was turned into a SMP after the visits it'd be an improvement.

I finally got a rejection! Also Syracuse.

Some aren't even that clean, and the decision making process occurs each time someone is to be promoted off the waitlist.

When I visited this past weekend nobody really expected any substantial philosophical discussions. Faculty were generally willing to talk about their work and the work of their students, but the focus was very much on the general stuff like what the program is like, general matching interests between people, etc. I think digging into philosophy is good for getting a feel for how philosophy is done there (and for seeing what the grad students there are doing), but unless Mizzou was an odd case, you needn't worry much. I read some papers of the philosophers there beforehand, but that seemed like it wasn't expected. (Though not unexpected.)