angelucia

Not an applicant, but I hope it's okay for me to vent here. My girlfriend applied to many philosophy PhD programs this cycle. She's brilliant, but she doesn't have the best GPA and goes to not the best school. She goes to a state university that has a phenomenal graduate philosophy department (her school's graduate philosophy program is in the top ten or so in the world, I think). She's made the most of the fact that she goes to an overall good-but-not-great school with a mediocre undergraduate philosophy program by taking several courses in the amazing graduate philosophy department each semester she's been there, taking classes with the big name people working in the graduate department. She's personally gotten close with several of those important professors and they've write her rec letters and such, and one of them even told her she's one of the best students they've ever had, and that he would bet, despite her grades, that she would get into most of the programs she applied to. The dude who told her this is, I think, a big deal, and he also doesn't sound like the type who would bullshit something like that. He's to some degree involved in this prestigious graduate department's admissions, so surely he wouldn't just say something like that so flippantly, right? So far she hasn't heard back from anywhere. And I know this doesn't mean rejection necessarily, but it kind of does, right? Sorry. I know everyone else here is dealing with the same thing, and I know she's not that special. I'm prejudiced of course in how great I think she is. I know she'd never come on here and post about how great her professors have told her she is and whatever, or how wonderful her writing sample is, but I know those things are true. I don't know, it just hurts that the professor she's close to got her hopes up that, despite her GPA, she could do this, in expressing such certainty and confidence. It's upsetting to me, and even though she's already trying to resign herself that she knew this would happen and it's not a big deal, I don't want to see her dreams crushed. Sorry again, because I know you all deal with this too and this isn't special. But yeah, just wanted to vent.