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Yup, that's me! (As you already know from FB, haha!)

No.

I don't know if there's any sort of standard, but I think if you have good reason, like having seen some things come through a month ago, that's fine. I don't see how inquiring would ever hurt you unless you're rude in your inquiry.

You're amazing. Thanks for all the work on it! It's immensely helpful in so many ways.

There's a few things at play here. There's lots of variation, but here's a few general examples I've seen: The 'typical' two rounds go like this 1. early acceptances because they're offering or nominating these students for a fellowship. These are the exceptional students they really want to attract to their program. Then 2. the other acceptances, later. Alternatively, some programs may do it like this: 1. some programs send acceptances out just once to a large group, betting that a percentage of them will decline, and they'll end up with the right sized cohort. So if they typically have a cohort size of 10 and they have a typical acceptance of 50%, they'll admit 20 to the program. These programs may have waitlists, but only for the rare case that their cohort size ends up unusually small. Or 2. they admit in phases until they get the desired cohort size; say, admit 10 expecting a class of 6, but then only 4 accept, they'll reach out to the next two on the waitlist until they get their desired size. Some schools will also have a hidden waitlist. That is, they plan to admit, say, 8, so they extend to their top 8, then they move on to their waitlist, then they'll move on to their hidden waitlist (least desired, but they're budding or may have some promise they can develop). It seemingly rarely gets to the hidden waitlist. How do you know you're on such a waitlist? You don't, but you may infer you're on it if you haven't heard anything from the program while acceptances/waitlists/rejections have been reported. You may, however, still have some hope if you're waitlisted or even rejected and it's April 15th. I've seen several cases where these students are offered spots/funding after April 15th because some other admits didn't get back to them in time, and the program has a set number they want in their cohort (or need in their cohort to keep their level of funding). But, if it were me, if I started collecting a lot of rejections or waitlists, I'd ad hoc apply for some funded MA programs as a backup.

Quite a few are still taking applications. That spreadsheet has a list of them and the deadlines. For example, University of Missouri-St. Louis has a later deadline.

Unless the degree or transcript designates it as an online degree (and I doubt it does) then I don't think it makes any difference whatsoever. But you should probably also ask your advisor, as they will know best and, hopefully, will also be a letter writer for you. You can tell them your concerns, get their reaction, and go from there.

Many wait til mid-late February, so there's still lots of time.

You can absolutely decline the visit weekend and say you've already narrowed it down. That way it doesn't waste anyone's time, and they can offer your slot to someone else (potentially). If you're very confident program A is the right fit and that there's no program C or D hiding in wait, then there's not a problem in accepting before the visit weekend. But there's also nothing beneficial about that, either. You can visit, meet potential advisors, and maybe even negotiate your package a little more. I'd wait for the visit to accept just to make sure you're making the right decision and giving yourself the most leverage possible.

Funny enough, I happened upon another thread in another field about this same thing, and it was clarified that all their applications said it, including both those who were eventually admitted and those who weren't. So it's just a logistical update.

That's amazing! As I said to another buddy earlier (who I'm pretty sure I know who it is here), "It's always good to feel wanted." Sounds like you're very wanted there, and that's awesome. Congrats!

Like energeia said, I read this as "if you submit it as a PhD application and you're accepted*, you'll get funding." * You'll very likely be accepted. The alternatively, an unfunded MA, is likely untenable, anyway unless you have the money to support yourself and pay tuition. I don't see a downside to responding very quickly that you'd like it to be considered for a PhD, and then make the decision whether to stop at the MA (and transfer elsewhere) at that time.

Declining the phone call would be weird, in my opinion. You should have it. They might press you for a decision, but that's where you can say something like, "I'm really excited about the prospect of attending X University, but there are at least two other programs I'd like to wait to hear from before making a decision." They'll understand. In the meantime, and given that information, it's a good time for you to ask about additional funding opportunities, be it fellowships or summer teaching. Ask questions about the program, the department, the culture, the city. This is your opportunity to make a great, real first impression and might lead to them extending to you an even better offer.

I was a little confused about the FAFSA mention, as well. I didn't have to do that previously. I'm not sure the circumstances when you'd need to fill one out for grad school if you're receiving a stipend.

At the top of this website > Results. Use the form to document your own experience.

I believe you're in the wrong section. This is for Philosophy programs, not Health Policy.

Your best bet is to go on the results page and see historically when they’ve gotten back to students. Many MA programs will wait until most PhD offers are out so those students can withdraw their application and they won’t waste an offer (or the time to extend an offer) to students unlikely to accept. Some programs also have later application deadlines in hopes that some shutout students will instead apply for an MA in hopes of better preparing themselves for a PhD program in a year or two.

Here's a good overview: http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2012/05/applying-to-phd-programs-in-philosophy.html Good luck!

I hate to burst anyone's bubbles, but two things: 1. A very timely post by Leiter (granted, from 10 years ago) asked people if they Googled grad school applicants' names (https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2020/01/blast-from-the-past-do-admissions-committees-google-applicants.html). It was overwhelmingly a "no" and, in comparison, most said they were far more likely to Google the name of a prospective job applicant, but not a grad school applicant. Now, a caveat: this was 10 years ago. Things change. A lot of things change. Ten years ago, you figure the people on most applicant committees today were probably still grad students or junior faculty, and with technology's change, so too do the people. So I wouldn't doubt if there are some savvy people (with more time than they admit) who do Google grad students. However: 2. In my "regular" life, I've worked in digital marketing at every level, from specialist to executive. And I have some bad news: these sites lie to you, and they're very convincing in doing so. If you, say, applied to Harvard, and you've gone to their website, it's likely the Harvard website put a cookie on your computer. Academia.edu, no doubt, knows how to read these cookies, and can likely even identify the cookie signatures of all the top universities, if not all universities, to some degree. Thus, if you go to Harvard's website, Academia.edu will read the cookie, and put you into a list of, "People who have visited Harvard.edu in the past x days." Then, automatically, they send out these notifications that say, "You've been searched by someone from Cambridge, MA! Upgrade to Premium to get more statistics like these!" It's a marketing scheme, and arguably fraudulent. There are no ethical bounds for profit-driven people: they'll do anything for the almighty dollar, which is one reason I had to leave the industry. Never trust a website (like Academia, LinkedIn, etc) where the notifications are tied to upgrading your account. tl;dr: Most applicant committees probably don't search for you online, but a few might. Regardless, never trust these websites.

Not at all. It's completely predatory, and you can't trust those notifications. (Admittedly, I have a profile there, but only to house my CV in an easy-to-update place.) What's important is to have a PhilPeople profile. Link to it/mention it on your CV. Keep that updated. Philosophers will find/follow you there.

Like music said, there's a few who will give acceptances out in late January, usually to those who they feel have a solid chance at a Fellowship. Most will be mid-February-ish. Check out this sheet, on the 2020 Predictions tab there's a running list of predicted dates. Some of them are a little later than what I have down (for my schools, at least), but I think they're fairly good predictions: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yb_yciijFGEp5roVKYJ40U4eiREo3ZQTeSQkEjGMSsg/edit#gid=339976266 .

I think you're probably right. After all, just to be honest, if it's between you and someone else who got better grades in logic, and especially if your program has a logic requirement (likely all), then I'd certainly say it's always better to have done well than worse.

There was a good thread about this over on Cocoon. It seemed many respondents said they're inclined to lie on many of those, or say they simply don't have the info to respond to it accurately. So I wouldn't count on it.

I saw someone post a line of historical response dates in the FB group. I might reach out directly. I did do what was suggested (search on the results page), but that’s easy enough for me since I’m applying to so few schools. For many of you who applied to 10, 20, even 30, that’s a significant amount of time and would be helped by such a spreadsheet.

I've seen elsewhere that there's another spreadsheet tracking the dates that programs historically got back to candidates. Is there a way to merge that sheet with yours? Would be really useful as another sheet on your invaluable document.