Kantattheairport

Ay, congratulations! That's such a fantastic programme!

Congratulations! :)

I also decided to leave it in because I figured it would help some one 'in some way', but alas, I was diligent enough to make sure I filled it out for each school! Haha, tbh I think you're right, the info is probably for the grad school in general rather than the admissions committees in particular. Or hopefully, anyway, at least until after the decisions are out!

I mean, the forms typically say explicitly that your answer there will not have any bearing upon the final decision... but yes, as soon as I read @The_Last_Thylacine's post I also went 'Oh no'. ?

Ah, my opinion is that if you have a application fee waiver for a college, then you have absolutely no reason not to apply there (given that you're mostly sending the same things to most colleges!). So I think you're good! Another note about numbers that might be helpful: I also had the worry that I was applying to too many places last year, when applying to 10. Nobody had told me this, it was just a worry I invented by myself. Crucially, I hadn't really had the opportunity to speak to anyone else who was applying (and honestly I didn't really have that much contact during the process with my letter-writers or advisors either, though I did receive a lot of encouragement before I started). I discovered TheGradCafe around the time I was receiving my final couple of decisions, and at the same time discovered that some people had in the past applied to 30-40 places. So! Don't worry about it. :) Also, should note that I missed out a very important 'not' in my last (now apparently uneditable) post: I meant of course that you should not place yourself or your family in financial peril! ?

Nope, and I'm pretty puzzled about what your letter writers could mean. I've never heard anyone say that you can apply to too many programmes; one of the first bits of advice I received when embarking on this process was that I should apply to as many places as possible, within the limits imposed by my budget. Perhaps your letter writers mean that your application is so strong that you needn't have spent money applying to that many places because you're sure to get in somewhere really good? Other than that, I don't see any drawbacks to applying to a bunch of places (as long as you're placing you or your family under financial strain by doing so), so I don't think you really need to worry. :) Also, your situation sounds similar to mine last year! Though I applied to a relatively small number last year: 8 PhD programmes, and 2 MAs.

Definitely a non-typical story, I think - congrats on your successes! EDIT: Though to be fair, I didn't decide to apply to philosophy programmes until practically after my undergrad was finished either; though I've had a bit more time since then.

I suppose one administrative reason might be just to do with the numbers generated; I assume the admission statistics are sent to some board or committee somewhere that evaluates how 'desirable' or 'prestigious' the department is, partly based on whether admitted grad students turn them down, and maybe this affects funding and such? This is pure speculation from me, but I've heard about this being the case at an undergraduate level, so it's at least plausible that it might be the case at a post/graduate level as well.

I don't think there's really a unifying hashtag, so the thing to do would be to follow philosophers on Twitter! Some of the popular accounts are here.

That's awesome, well done!

Can relate. For reasons already spelled out by others, I don't think of any schools as 'safety schools' either; however, I did add a bunch of schools from both higher and lower in all the usual rankings with the view that applying to more schools automatically boosts chances somewhat. I might not have applied to all of those schools if I were only putting down what I thought were the best fits, but I would of course be happy to attend any of them. So while none of the specific schools are 'safety schools', the general process of bloating the number of places you apply to, I think, is a safety procedure.

Congrats! I see Toronto is one of your top choices - I'm sure that's going to make the rest of this process much more relaxed for you!

My understanding is that UNC don't keep a formal waitlist (i.e. nothing they would tell you about), but do have backup list of students they might admit (so an effective waitlist, if I understand right). If you haven't heard either way, you're probably still in the running!

Congratulations!

Not sure about Northwestern, but no news leaves a non-zero chance!

Ditto; rejected with the exact same email I received last year from Marc Lange - which, I was told, was the exact same email that had been sent out the year before! (Tbf it is a pretty kindly-worded email.) Oh well. At least it came out relatively early this year - I remember wondering last year whether they had just forgotten my application! ?

Just wanted to note, I had similar worries when applying last year - it seemed very difficult to even imagine getting things together to reapply. But once the dust settled on the decisions phase and I hadn't received any viable offers, I got in touch with my letter-writers; they were all supportive about reapplying, and I had a good Skype conversation with my advisor in which we strategized about things that could be tweaked and improved. I also got to spend a fair amount of time over the year reading and strengthening areas of philosophy that I had wanted to learn more about, as well as look up more references for my writing sample (and I'd be surprised if anyone here didn't suddenly think up ways to improve their sample right after submitting it!). And of course, having an extra year also gave me more time to do some non-philosophy things and broaden my outlook generally. All of that allowed me to plan a little in advance and organize my material better in the run-up to this year, with the result that I feel much better-prepared to do things this year, regardless of how the results go this time. Which is all just to say, I hope you both have successful cycles and get into great places this year, but even if you don't, the only way is up! Do your best not to worry, because these decisions are all only the short-run anyway. I end up saying this a lot, but I think the process is sufficiently random that you never know who's going to like your application. So definitely don't beat yourself up about applying to more difficult places!

That sounds super-encouraging!

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Congratulations!

The PGR has been pretty useful for me as a starting point for research when applying, so I'm grateful for that. At the same time, I also find the arguments that in the long run, having a prestige-based ranking system as a point of departure like this harms the development of the discipline fairly convincing. So... I dunno, I suppose I don't have a settled opinion on it! Leiter himself, I don't think I would like as a person (though I've been meaning to read some of his academic work for a while). I've for the most part given up reading the philosophy bits of his blog (some of the other links he posts I still find useful). Though I've also given up reading Daily Nous, so it might just be the current shambolic state of online academic philosophy (apart from the group at TheGradCafe <3).

If it helps... think of the application fees! ?

Congratulations!!

Ooh, good luck!

Remember that there's a significant degree of randomness in this process. 'The fault is in the stars, dear Horatio', not in you! :) Also that other opportunities will always open up, there might be the possibility of transferring, and so on. Good luck with your coming decisions!