LORDBACON

Got a rejection notice from U. of Chicago. If whoever got in to Stony Brook in their third round of applications this season is reading this, congratulations and know that you are my heroic inspiration!

Aesthetics, contra white people can play the blues. Not in my AOI though. Current MA thesis topic is pro self-knowledge as a virtue for Nietzsche. Primary AOI.

Uncanny: have you been checking my mail too? And yes: send pigeons at once, tyrants!

To my mind that is understood to mean UChicago. And who am I to question this pillar on which lies the justification for my anxious freakout which knows no boundaries...

Someone just got the green light from Chicago. Woot, congratulations! I'd be buzzing... Now for my part, it is officially time to ramp up the anxiety!

One example of that is "recommendation for our (typically unfunded) MA program," which NYU, for one, seems to have done last year. My sense is that it is a lame and transparent way of feigning genuine interest in a set of applicants they don't want. And as a user noted last year, what is especially repugnant about it is the element of a sales pitch on top of the (feigned non-) stock response. I got a letter from UNM Admissions in the mail today. With bated breath I opened it to find they will snail-mail you a letter to request missing materials. Guess I picked a good day to check the mail this month... I guess that's better than a cookie cutter rejection notice, but to my mind it fits nicely with the rest of the inexplicable cluelessness that's bound to be on the rise again.

Just stumbled on this thread but how neat! I'll be 36 tmrw and I'm completing an MA in philosophy this semester. Applied out to 25 PhD progs but no word from anyone yet.

I applied to both of those schools as well as USF in Tampa. Atlanta and Florida get blistering hot. I see you're in Manchester which is funny because I just booked a flight there for end of May to meet up with my gf. Open invite for a coffee or pints. Thanks for the needed perspective. It is helping. The regret seems to be welling up more for not taking another long shot or two and applying to too many spep schools as fallbacks instead. I'm seriously starting to doubt the quality of philosophical education I'd receive at some of them. However some of my fallbacks are solid depts.

What if a department has a good continental program and it makes sense to apply for academic reasons, but you're fairly confident it would be a miserable existence? That's where I find myself with one of my fall-backs. Not sure that's a good enough reason for applying, since I'm not sure I'd wanna live there, but fortunately the fee was low.

If that's regarding Lubbock not being everyone's first choice about where they'd like to live, then I understand. GSU may have been a better choice instrumentally, but I only applied to one MA program and was not thinking in terms of maximizing PhD admissions outcomes in the future. TBH convenience was a bigger factor than anything. We're about to see how that plays out.

Welcome! With 25 applications I had to use up all of my savings. Thankfully I'm in a funded MA and can live paycheck to paycheck as a TA for the next few months while my fate is being mulled over. Also applied to Stony Brook, CUNY, and Chicago. Someone's already gotten accepted to Stony Brook!

Humm. Noted, but I wouldn't worry until the warning starts getting consistent across a variety of sources. Of all the depts on my list my advisors only questioned two of them employability-wise: one was multidisciplinary (Committee on Social Thought) and the other is currently #47 on the PGR. They liked Chicago, and TTU leans strongly analytic. I wouldn't take that as reliable data though; my advisors know I'm going the continental route. For me the biggest (but not sufficient!) single sell is the reputation, but overall it's a mix of reputation, inclusivity, and the practical prospects of writing a first-rate dissertation. Overall it's at the top, and is also competetive in competency/proficiency for my idiosyncratic AOI within the dept.

That's another good argument for Columbia. Certainly that also includes Brown, Chicago, WashU, Syracuse, CUNY, and Notre Dame- all for which I've got a line in the water. Did you apply to TTU's MA program? I'm doing a thesis on Nietzsche there this semester, and the dept also has recent placements into Pitt and Rutgers.

Chicago is a world-class department either way you look at it. I value employment outcomes a lot less than the quality of philosophical training, but I'd still give a tentative 'yes'. It has an important place in the history of analytic philosophy (John Dewey, for example). Then again, placement records speak for themselves. Did you look at that and worry? From an analytic approach it would likely be a top choice for me (but we seem to weigh values differently); from a CP approach it is a top choice.

a perfect GRE score is going to get their attention, I'm sure. From that alone I'd bet you've got a killer sample and stellar letters to go with it. Best of luck to you, tmck! In the likely case we don't both end up at Chicago, I'll see you there in a (wildly distant) alternate reality.

myname, Goonasabi, be.: way to go. now here's hoping for choices!

Thanks! It was a list of 27 but I cut out Harvard and Columbia. I wish I would have stuck with Columbia and cut out one of my fall-backs. Now you've got me obsessing over a counter-factual, hahaha. What worries me about wandering too deep into top 20 is my grad GPA. It's not a stretch to imagine an Ivy League dept turning their nose up at that as well as my grad institution (which to me is a dream MA dept). Yup, the SUNY I mentioned is Stony Brook! Analytic-heavy departments seem to reliably exclude too much of my AOI. I'd be happy in a dept without someone competent in my primary AOI (Nietzsche) if they nailed the others. I just haven't seen that in a dept that is not strong in post-Kantian continental traditions, so it's not a requirement per se but de facto, it seems. For my current MA an analytic dept is fine (thankfully, my thesis advisor is competent in existentialism and also teaches it); for a PhD an analytic dept spells 'attrition' in my eyes. Where are you applying, and what's your view on that? BTW congrats on the 'boost' to your MA application, kretschmar! =)

Nice, and thanks, goldenstardust11. After applying to 25 schools and reflecting on all they have done to meet my deadlines I have been wondering about this often, and agree that consequences are not a motive. *Segues awkwardly into first post* I'll be sharing my outcomes and waitlist declines, if any. -158/158/4.5 on GRE (didn't study, hope it doesn't come back with teeth!) -4.0 UG GPA overall (Phil/Engl majors) at school with top 12-ish philosophy MA department (USA) -strong letters, and (my recommending prof's say) strong sample, though it is not in an area I'm intending to do more work in (aesthetics) -3.67 grad GPA at top 12-ish philosophy MA dept -AOI: Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Kant, existentialism, ancient phil, phil of religion (metaphysics/epistemology concerning mysticism and the absurd). My applications are a respective 33/67 split between 20th to 50th-ranked PGR schools friendly to continental (UCR, UCSD, Chicago, Brown, Syracuse, Notre Dame, CUNY... ) and the best (for me) matches from the frequently-touted "speppy" departments (Duquesne, USF, Fordham, BU, SUNY..) Anything here that looks worrisome to anyone, now that I am helpless to do anything about it? I would appreciate thoughts, what you would/would not have done differently in my shoes, suggestions going forward from the review stage, etc. Any continental-leaning grads with opinions on SPEP vs PGR departments? For now I'm happy to sort it in terms of the kinds of offers I receive and the outcomes of resulting visits (thanks again, goldenstardust11). Good luck to everybody, and thanks!