Tecumseh Valley

Declined a funded offer from Oregon (PhD). 

Declined a funded offer from Oregon (PhD). 

Declined a funded offer from Oregon (PhD). 

Declined NYU.

Declined an offer to Duquesne. Good luck!  
(I also removed myself from the wait lists at BU and TAMU)

You gave me two negative reps for this? I voice what I thought was a genuine professional concern and makes visits awkward, and you take my posts as inappropriate/offensive to the forum community?
I am talking exclusively about cases where their hair is greasy and disheveled, and you can smell them across the room.

Perhaps a reasonable margin, but that would mitigate worries only if I had not known they stayed at a hotel...
Even so, current grad students are without the excuse and, percentage-wise, the more frequent offender.

What I don't understand is why philosophy students don't keep up on hygiene. At the two schools I've been to and at my program, prospective students (and some grad students)* have clearly not showered in that day or in perhaps days. Their negligence indicates something I would consider inappropriate and unprofessional; as an administrator, I would consider this an orange flag regarding the worthiness of investment (will they not work well with coworkers? will they be malodorous in front of students? will they not make a good impression on the market, and thus not place well?)
* not talking about current grad students at my program. But more than one prospective student thus far.

this whole hidden waitlist thing is stupid, I don't get it. 

ouch. For my part, I'll be declining as I know, but most of my decision is coming down to visits, so that takes a while. Good luck to everyone on waitlists! Pulling for you for U-Mass, @Dialectica !

FWIW, after an informal email and phone conversation with the DGS at my first choice, I am just waiting on the official offer to arrive before turning down other schools' offers. Others are probably in a similar situation, which is what delays things. We're not Bogarting spots as much as covering our bases. 

Just a friendly reminder: if you know you won't accept an offer, please turn it down as soon as you can. There are many whose fates depend on you, and they are, just as you, trying to plan their—and, for some, their families'—futures. 

Hahaha, point taken. Given the unpredictability of it all though, I am quite alright with however things shake out (and would be thrilled if we ended up as interlocutors!). I'm just here to offer any helpful information I've dug up along the way! 

Waitlisted at UMass Amherst!
"I am happy to report that you are on our waiting list, and that, given past history, I think that there is a reasonable chance that you will receive a fellowship offer from us with full funding."
I'll take it! This is one of my top-choice schools!

First thought is that, if you want to apply to PhD programs in Phil again, and if you go to Duke, then take graduate classes in their excellent Phil department. That way, when you apply again, you'll have graduate courses on your transcript, showing that you can handle graduate level work in Phil. This will help overcome any questions that PhD programs have about your undergrad transcript. If you hit it off with any philosophy professors there, you also gain another recommender. David Wong and Owen Flanagan both work on East/West philosophy, mostly Buddhism. 

First thought is that, if you want to apply to PhD programs in Phil again, and if you go to Duke, then take graduate classes in their excellent Phil department. That way, when you apply again, you'll have graduate courses on your transcript, showing that you can handle graduate level work in Phil. This will help overcome any questions that PhD programs have about your undergrad transcript. If you hit it off with any philosophy professors there, you also gain another recommender. David Wong and Owen Flanagan both work on East/West philosophy, mostly Buddhism. 

First thought is that, if you want to apply to PhD programs in Phil again, and if you go to Duke, then take graduate classes in their excellent Phil department. That way, when you apply again, you'll have graduate courses on your transcript, showing that you can handle graduate level work in Phil. This will help overcome any questions that PhD programs have about your undergrad transcript. If you hit it off with any philosophy professors there, you also gain another recommender. David Wong and Owen Flanagan both work on East/West philosophy, mostly Buddhism. 

are y'all coming straight from undergrad, and, if so, did your undergrad institution have a phd program, and, if so, how many classes did you take with graduate students?

my understanding is that the 'pedigree' stuff is ambiguous between the fancy shine of good grades from a good school/good letters from a famous person on one hand and the hard-lined evidence that these students can handle graduate coursework. A letter from a moderately well known prof at a program in the 30s saying "this student took a graduate seminar, made some contributions discussions, and did well on a paper held to graduate level standards" will go way further than any number of conference presentations or extra curriculars. 

the sad truth is that not everybody has the opportunity to take these sorts of classes as an undergrad. that's unfair and a bummer. but adcoms are mainly asking the question "will this student succeed in the program?" and if you haven't done graduate-level coursework that leaves a huge question mark. so if you have the opportunity to do a quality MA (or even just audit graduate-level seminars somewhere and try to write a paper, many professors will let you do this if you have an undergrad degree in philosophy), you're showing that you can succeed at the graduate level, even if you don't end up writing a significantly better writing sample. it's possible to still excel coming straight from an undergrad-only institution, and maybe things like conferences will help in this case. but the best way you can show you're ready for graduate-level coursework is taking graduate-level coursework, and for many people, this means an MA is the best way to shore up their application, even if you don't think it'll result in an astronomically better writing sample.

that said, if you're applying from undergrad, that means you've been doing quality philosophy writing for, what, three years max? more realistically maybe two? it's hard to believe that your writing and philosophical abilities won't improve drastically in the intervening year and a half before you apply again, since that's so much time to improve relative to your upper-level philosophy career. 

Just to add to the chorus of voices saying that safe schools don't exist in PhD admissions, I would say not to infer anything about the admissions process from a school's place in rankings. Oregon received 177 applications this year for 7 funded spots. 

Oh my gosh. This is so similar to my situation. My friends have been largely supportive, but that's mostly because I didn't really have friends until grad school (and those two that stuck around from before have always been there, have graduate degrees as well, and are always supportive and understanding of what I want to do). That's beside the point, though. 
My family has known since I first decided (nearly five years ago now) that I wanted to get a PhD, yet, when app time rolled around, I got three distinct talkings to from my mother. Keep in mind that I've been married and out of the house for nearly five years. The first one came five days before my lit subject, in which she asked me if I was doing this "for me, or to impress other people." Lol, like anyone would just put themselves through the wringer that is a PhD program just for someone else. The next one was, I don't think coincidentally, a couple of days before I retook my GRE general, and I was asked what was wrong with taking a few years off, having kids, then going to the school 1.5 hours away part-time "like so many people do" (really? Who that you know, mom?). There have been guilt trips of both the child-bearing(my partner is a few years older than me, so family planning is always on the mind for both of us, and her too, apparently) and "if you move away, you'll kill your family" variety. I've also been asked what's so bad about being an adjunct (what I'm doing now). I've explained that even though I'm working 40+ hours per week, I get paid less than $5/hr and don't get any benefits and that the courses I teach now could just vanish next semester, but I'm not sure she believes me. The whole thing has gotten worse since I started getting accepted to programs and the reality of what's happening is setting in. 
The major problem is that my BA was always encouraged but seen as a "backup plan" in case I, as a future stay at home mom, would need a degree to "fall back on" in a job search. Neither of my parents have degrees, and neither did their parents - I'm the first. So when I broke the mold and went for the MA, she passed it off as a hobby, I think. She doesn't understand that this is a job, this is a path to a job, and hopefully will lead to a stable future for my family (if all things pan out and I actually get tenured). It's more than just a passion for me, but for her, it is just a whim, a thing I'm using to defer having kids (I'm 23 for pete's sake), to impress other people. 
I don't really have an answer for how to deal with this, beyond just trying to explain in plain language what I'm doing in the best way I can. And I'm just going to have to figure out a way to deal with the inevitable emotional consequences of doing something that deviates from her plan for my life. Therapy is helping, but I'm not looking forward to dropping the news that I'm likely headed to California in 6 months.
 

Just curious: What have the reactions been from family/friends/whoever regarding your PhD plans?
About an hour ago, I told a friend I was starting my PhD this fall, and he made a wisecrack: "Putting off non-academia and a real job for a few more years? Good idea."
First off, I was shocked he would say this, even jokingly. He's known me since I was 15, therefore he knows I've been working since I was 15. I worked full-time through the entirety of my undergraduate and graduate education. I had three jobs during the latter, actually: one full-time and two part-time. I haven't been unemployed more than a month in my adult life. I had a career in a different field for a decade. So it was super bizarre and insulting to think about the possibility that he was making some kind of crack about my work ethic. 
Second: Why is it that no one seems to understand that most people are working while doing their PhDs? Teaching undergraduates isn't considered a job, orrrrr? Because that's what I'm doing now, and I get a paycheck...that's what having a job is, right? Or am I confused?
A close family member reacted to my plans as follows:
"Why would you want to do that? Who's going to pay for that?"
After I explained why I want to do that, I also explained that only a small number of applicants are accepted and are given jobs/stipends to pay for their studies.
"Why would they do that for people who want to read books?"
http://gph.is/1sCcMr3
 

Just to add to the chorus of voices saying that safe schools don't exist in PhD admissions, I would say not to infer anything about the admissions process from a school's place in rankings. Oregon received 177 applications this year for 7 funded spots. 

Well, the question was not whether reputation correlates with program quality. It was whether one could get an academic job without a shiny name on the diploma. 
Shot (link)
Chaser (link)
 
Sounds like what OP really wants to do is work in academia.

"A PhD is a PhD." This attitude is why there are so many unemployed PhD graduates out there. Nobody thinks a PhD is a PhD. Not applicants (who almost always pick the best program they get into), not academia (who hire almost exclusively from elite institutions), not even your average person on the street.  

It never really ends, it just lies low for a while. Applying for jobs is exactly the same way, and the publishing process isn't all that different either. 

I got kind of excited by an email in my spam folder this morning, but when I checked it, it was just some silly email asking me if I'd want to get paid to take notes in classes!