fromthearmchair

@VentralStream You can infer that--but yeah, you're right.

@The_Last_Thylacine PM'ed you just now!

Declined offers at WashU, UBC, and UMass Amherst. Also off the waitlist at Arizona and UCSD. I'm done. Good luck!

@dy77706 PM'ed you.

Just declined Rice's offer--good luck to whoever's next!

There's nothing wrong with MAs in philosophy, but DON'T DO THOSE MAs! We all got recommended to NYU's terrible cash cow bioethics MA with our rejections, and CUNY, UChicago, etc. all put out similar offers. These are attempts to cash in on prestige that the discipline broadly agrees won't treat you very well. Save yourself!

I've been advised that if you get into a funded PhD, you ought to go! There's no guarantee you'll do better if you take the long route through a MA, and you might end up with worse offers after all that. Whatever drive you have to work extra hard to do better on the market is best spent on publications instead of a roundabout MA, in my humble opinion.

Got the formal NYU rejection today, with bioethics MA rec.

@Anti-Climacus Someone did on my behalf, yeah.

I'm also thinking this one through. I can give up almost everything else, but I can't sacrifice the library. How much mileage can you get out of checked bags on an airplane? Maybe even eating the overweight bags fee is more cost effective than shipping?

(Secret insider knowledge I heard though the faculty: I'm on the UConn waitlist.) UConn didn't bother to tell me (and still hasn't), though--I had to learn secondhand.

I think at this point I can safely assume rejects at the last few stragglers, given that they've already announced accepts and waitlists. That means I'll end my season 6a/4w/8r//18, barring surprises. I sunk an ungodly amount of time and effort into applications, but I know that's a great overall season and I'm super happy it! (I'm leaning CUNY, but we'll see how the visits go.)

To add some more anecdotal support to @crunderdunder's writing advice: a grad student told me once that he opted for a non-published sample chock-full of clever insights over a published journal article in a relevant sub-field as his sample. Your goal with the sample is to showcase how philosophically clever you are to the committee. But I think that's compatible with spending an ungodly amount of time revising the thing if you can. A major part of thinking it through and coming to all those clever insights is writing it out, after all!

Plugging the guide to grad school apps I lived by: http://schwitzsplintersunderblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/applying-to-phd-programs-in-philosophy.html Get a lot of feedback on your writing! Try and settle into a research rhythm with your sample with a professor you can count on, ideally a letter writer--not just have a few professors look it over a few times. Similarly, rewrite and rewrite and rewrite your statement(s). The only way to get pieces of writing that stand up to applications is brute repetition.

@EsseEstPoop I was in the top 5, with a "high likelihood" of getting an offer.

Declined UC Davis, and withdrew from Maryland's waitlist. Hope this helps someone! (First post.)