libraryghost

I'll be attending UVA in the fall!

Also wait listed at VA, got the email yesterday...

First of all, this whole dating undergrads goal you have is a disaster waiting to happen. I'm not saying you are going to intentionally try to have some sort of skewed power dynamic, but that's what you're describing. You have to be very careful about this (and I would say don't do it at all), because you are older, you are in a position of authority over undergraduates, and it's possible that your goals in this relationship would be very damaging to the trust and open communication you should have in a relationship.
 
As well, your assumption that someone who isn't familiar with the "male body" and has some kind of "otherworldly fascination" with all things new and sexual is wrong as well. Many guys I've spoken to have some form of insecurity or jealousy when it comes to sex. Some even go so far as to not date women that have had sex with other people, even after they themselves are not virgins (I guess this is what you're saying?). Now this is completely hypocritical, I hope you realize.
 
It's also not necessary that someone have no experience for them to be attracted to you, to have some kind of childlike wonder (a really creepy term to use in this discussion), or to feel some exciting crush with butterflies in your stomach and all that. I feel that about my boyfriend of 2.5 years, and it's nowhere near the first relationship I've had.
 
"Interestingly, quite a few girls that have been interested in me have been like 180 degrees from that, like having almost exaggeratedly grown-up-womanish features. Grad school for some weird and inexplicable reason seems to attract these sorts of women too--except for the Asians. I know this is extreme stereotyping but it's something I notice, especially when I compare them to the undergrads at the same university.
I also fear that the type I mentioned in the beginning--the ones who find the idea of having a boyfriend almost "mythical", are likely to be hideous and/or have really ugly personalities. In one way it kind of makes sense--why would I be the first guy to like a girl--though on the other hand my lack of dating has had to do with introversion and illness--two things that have nothing to do with my attractiveness per se. A female counterpart of me might have just been late to "get the memo" that people around her had started dating."
1. I can't believe people in grad school (who are generally older) look older than people in undergrad (who are generally younger). It's not extreme stereotyping (except the Asian part), it's just how aging changes your face.
2. This theory you have about finding relationships "mythical" and being "hideous and/or really ugly in their personality" is absolutely wrong. There are many people who are very attractive (in looks and personality, if this is the only requirement) who have not had relationships before. You don't know what experiences they have had, and again you're falling prey to this fallacy that you're so special and no one else has experienced this before. You touch on this point, but you don't seem to recognize that it's completely wrong. As well, people can be unattractive to YOU, while being attractive to others. You can also have a relationship, even if you are unattractive. Your constant talk about women's looks, their inexperience, and how special you want to be to them just reeks of unstable and insecure masculinity.
 
 
"I think I kind of had four things that I listed as important in a partner:
1) Someone who is new to relationships, like myself, and wants a more childlike and playful relationship
2) Someone who is introverted and intellectual, but not a rival/in the same field
3) Someone I find physically and emotionally (in terms of "raw" mannerisms and the like) attractive to me
4) Someone who fits, logistically and practically speaking, into my life."
1. For you two to be compatible, you need not have the same level of experience. If it's a good relationship, it's childlike and playful (if that's what the two people want). You mentioned not wanting to be so professional and serious in your relationship. Well I'm here to tell you that it's possible - relationships are not like going to an academic talk. They're fun, you can laugh and play and run around and go on the swings and act like kids and no one should judge you. Even if you're in a relationship with someone who has been in a relationship before. My most childlike and playful relationship is my current one, technically eight years after my first (middle-school type) relationship and four years after my more serious first relationship.
2. Your concern about the person being a rival shows me that you are still a bit confused about how relationships work. Or you're very insecure about competing with people. Either way, this needs to be dealt with before you get into any kind of relationship. If not, this will all be raising some serious red flags for the people you're dating. If it doesn't raise serious red flags for them, I would be surprised.
3. This is very important. However, you can not limit yourself, and don't think your level of attraction to the person when you first meet will be related to how attracted you are to them later on. Things really change as a relationship develops, and for me the best relationships where my attraction got stronger were never the ones in which I was most attracted to the person at the beginning. Because then you can only go down from there!
4. I agree with this. This is absolutely important as well. I strongly believe that most undergraduates would not meet this.
 
So generally, please, please don't start dating until you've dealt with these personal issues and these dangerous misconceptions about women, relationships, and compatibility. All I see coming out of this if you start dating without facing and eliminating these issues is a dangerously power imbalanced relationship where you unknowingly end up taking advantage of the other person, all the while trying to stay special/important to them. And that will not be good.

I’m a little late, but I’m here to claim the SUNY Binghamton, Tennessee, and one of the NIU (MA) acceptances posted yesterday, as well as a Northwestern rejection.

For all their flaws (the fact that they are timed, the fact that the verbal reasoning section is at least 50% a vocabulary test, etc.), the verbal reasoning and analytic writing sections test for skills that you actually do need to be a good philosopher. Vocabulary aside, the verbal reasoning test does test your ability to analyze complicated prose, identify faulty reasoning, discern author intent, etc. Verbal reasoning/logic stuff, basically. The analytic writing section also tests your ability to do those things (although less so than verbal reasoning), and on top of that it tests your ability to explain and synthesize information and make structured, organized arguments. It seems to me like the analytic writing section should be the most relevant of the GRE scores for evaluating philosophy candidates, which is strange because most departments basically don't care about AW at all since they have your writing sample. 
Basically this is all just me leading up to complaining about the quant section. Why is it relevant at all? (Gah, angst) I think the idea is that hey, math is kind of like logic (esp. formal logic), so your quant score might give us a rough indicator of how good you are at logic. Admittedly, it does seem pretty similar to formal logic, so I could see reasonable people using the quant score when evaluating philosophy applicants who want to specialize in formal logic or mathematical logic or something similar. But most philosophers don't use formal logic in their papers, and even when they do, they make their reasoning explicit verbally (or at least, most of them do). You don't necessarily need to be good at formal logic to be good at philosophy - you just need to be decent at discerning the informal logic implicit or explicit in people's arguments, which are usually written in such a way that even people who are bad with symbols can understand them, and you need to be good enough at logic in general to make coherent, logical arguments. So just use the quant score to evaluate applicants who want to study formal logic (or something like it), and ignore it for the rest of us.
But wait! People who like the quant section will argue that the quantitative reasoning test measures some sort of general logical ability, an ability that is relevant to being a good philosophy person in general regardless of whether you do formal logic or not. But this 'general' logical ability, if it is indeed relevant to doing most philosophy at all, starts sounding an awful lot like verbal reasoning and analytic writing. I seriously can't imagine how being good at math could be related to doing philosophy in general (except maybe formal logic and closely related subjects) without basically telling myself that it measures some sort of very general logical ability that ends up looking a lot more similar to the other portions of the GRE. If this ability looks more like verbal reasoning or analytic writing insofar as it is related to most philosophy, then why not just focus on VR and AW scores? Why the hang up on Q?
Also, it strikes me that all the same arguments for why AW are not important should also apply to Q and VR. Either your GRE scores reflect some of your inherent ability or potential to be good at philosophy, or they don't. If they don't, then obviously we should trash them and stop making applicants pay a ridiculous amount of money to take the GRE, prep, and send in their scores. If, on the other hand, your GRE scores DO reflect some of your inherent ability/potential as a philosopher, then presumably it's because they measure your ability or potential to engage with the literature on complicated philosophical topics, interpret arguments, analyze arguments, and construct arguments (I'm taking it as a given that being good at this stuff is basically what makes one a good philosopher). So either this ability is reflected in your writing sample, or it's not. If it is not, then writing samples shouldn't matter. If it is, then all the arguments for basically completely dismissing analytic writing scores apply, and admissions committees should dismiss Q and VR scores just as much as they dismiss AW scores. I think if anything they should be even more dismissive of quant scores because philosophy majors are way more likely to be in practice with analytic writing (since they actually have to write on a regular basis, which means that they can't just let their analytic writing skills atrophy) than they are at Q. The Q section measures something totally irrelevant to doing well in philosophy (except, perhaps, formal logic) and it seems completely ridiculous to suggest, as most admissions committees seem to, that it is more important than analytic writing.
Anyway, you can probably tell from this that my quant score is abysmal (alas, 43rd percentile). *sigh* Apparently when I'm stressed out about the admissions process (have only heard back from one school, and it was a rejection) I just angrily analyze the idea that the weakest part of my application should be given any weight at all.

Hey you guys, long time lurker first time poster, I just wanted to put down my first acceptance at SUNY Binghamton SPEL program. My AOI is political philosophy and I'm really excited to be a part of a program so focused on my interests. For those looking to compare stats by GRE was abysmal V:166; Q:148; W3.0 with a 3.94 GPA. Anyways I'm just really excited and good luck to all the rest of you

Congrats!

Congratulations! Always nice to get that first one in the bank!  
It's starting to feel very real given that it's probably a week and a bit till some of the places I applied start sending information out. It seems from the results database that places that get in touch early tend to do so mostly every year, and same for those that are later, etc.

Hey you guys, long time lurker first time poster, I just wanted to put down my first acceptance at SUNY Binghamton SPEL program. My AOI is political philosophy and I'm really excited to be a part of a program so focused on my interests. For those looking to compare stats by GRE was abysmal V:166; Q:148; W3.0 with a 3.94 GPA. Anyways I'm just really excited and good luck to all the rest of you

Hey you guys, long time lurker first time poster, I just wanted to put down my first acceptance at SUNY Binghamton SPEL program. My AOI is political philosophy and I'm really excited to be a part of a program so focused on my interests. For those looking to compare stats by GRE was abysmal V:166; Q:148; W3.0 with a 3.94 GPA. Anyways I'm just really excited and good luck to all the rest of you

Hey you guys, long time lurker first time poster, I just wanted to put down my first acceptance at SUNY Binghamton SPEL program. My AOI is political philosophy and I'm really excited to be a part of a program so focused on my interests. For those looking to compare stats by GRE was abysmal V:166; Q:148; W3.0 with a 3.94 GPA. Anyways I'm just really excited and good luck to all the rest of you