HopOnMyCrates

Effective 5:00 PM EST on April 6, CUNY GC will no longer be extending offers for admission to PhD programs (all depts, incl philosophy). This means that the wait list will be no more. If you've been offered admission and are decidedly not interested in CUNY, I highly recommend you communicate this to the committee today or early tomorrow. This allows the dept to extend offers to those on the wait list before the offer freeze goes into effect. The April 15 agreement is still in effect, those to whom offers have already been extended do not have to make a decision before the aforementioned deadline. If you're still somewhat seriously considering CUNY, then don't let this force you to make a snap decision. This is just a friendly request to allow waitlisted applicants their normally fair shake that is unfortunately being cut due to budget concerns arising from COVID-19. The interim president of the GC wants to keep this secret, so as to minimize cohort sizes and consequently future expenses. I think that's a bit scummy, and would rather let people know about potentially life-changing opportunities, especially in a time of unease like this.

CUNY has cancelled its prospectives' day. No further info about online alternatives yet, but they will work something out. Admitted/waitlisted applicants will receive an official email about this soon, I reckon.

Current CUNY GC student here. While I've only been here for a year, I've talked with a number of more senior students and there are a couple of factors that, while they may not entirely exculpate CUNY's less-than-stellar placement record, do give some explanations. First is that a significant number of PhD students are international students-- I'd say at least 1 in 3. Couple that with the financial stress of living in NYC on a graduate student stipend and it can cause people to leave before finishing the dissertation. Differently, those who are not dissuaded by this may get caught up with teaching extra courses at the expense of neglecting writing their dissertation. These two types of cases in mind, it is not entirely easy to place people in jobs when they don't actually get their PhDs. Another difficulty is that some of the program's key areas, Phil of Logic+Math, Mind, and Language, and of course the pull that Carroll et al. have for Aesthetics, have not been areas that hire as frequently as, say, Ethics, Social Phil, and Political Phil (just doing some cursory looking at https://www.aerodatalab.org/philjobs-trends ). It might be the case that CUNY is not preparing competitive applicants for these less popular areas compared to other schools with similar strengths. On that, however, I can't say much -- they're not my AOSes so I don't really keep up with those hires/trends. When CUNY does finally send out decisions, people on here can feel free to message me with any questions about the program and I'll do my best to answer. There will be a prospective students day in early April, so hopefully y'all get your decisions sooner rather than later in order to make the appropriate travel arrangements.

This, also inquire as to if/how students normally go about getting additional funds outside of normal (non-academic) side jobs. TA or solo teaching opportunities vary in availability, not sure how Austin is. Additionally, the graduate school entity (i.e. the bureaucracy that oversees all the grad programs) might provide support in the form of smaller grants/stipends, though these are often competitive. Also worth consideration is the health insurance plans provided by both, as well as any other benefits that are provided by the university that don't make it into the stipend dollar amount. Overall, I can't possibly weigh the importance of professor fit and whatnot as well as you can, but I would lean towards the higher stipend purely for the reason that greater economic security is a very nice thing for your peace of mind. A few people in my program have expressed anxieties about this to the extent that it affects their coursework/research, which would completely undermine your original reasons for choosing the lower-stipend school. /2cents

I'm sympathetic to this interpretation. The Philosopher's Cocoon recently touched on the subject with this post, although the cases in question vary from yours (and each other). Personally, C&C, I think you're overthinking it. This seems to be a fortunate gesture by the prof in question, and I doubt it will have any significant impact against your admission chances. Best of luck with the paper, regardless!

IMHO if I were you then I'd be content with GRE. Duns Eith is right about the sample, run that thing through the wringer.

Someone developed a site that worked off of data from GradCafe that listed average GRE scores for different institutions/programs/years. Unfortunately I never bookmarked it, however somebody else may have a link. Suffice to say, many of those who were offered admission at PGR top 30 programs regularly scored correspondingly higher (165+). That being said, due to the high level of competition in admissions several people with such scores were also denied admission. Speaking personally, my scores were 159Q 162V 4.5W iirc and I was lucky enough to land in such a program (waitlisted at one other, fwiw), so you're likely on the right track, if not fine where you're at. Are your scores from an official test, or one of the practice ones? Additionally, if you have the funds, I don't think it would hurt to take the test twice (if you haven't already), especially if you've targeted weak spots and improved upon them in practice. I took the SAT twice in high school and did something like 180 points better the second go around, but with the GRE I only improved by about 3 points (1Q, 2V). YMMV I was able to speak with a chair who said that his program specifically (other institutions may vary) used it as a preliminary quasi cut-off for how critically they'd look at applications: higher scores got put into a "make sure to give these people a good read" pile, while average-to-lower scores were left together. Part of the rationale was to identify top applicants early on in order to give them offers earlier than other schools, hoping that they bite. Every application, he assured me, certainly got read with some care. I might add, when I attended one institution's prospective students' event the professors with whom I spoke who also happened to be on the committee immediately remembered my WS or my LORs when I introduced myself. These things give you personality that the GRE simply can't convey, which is why the GRE holds a significantly lower (though still necessary) importance in the application. As Hector remarked above, so long as your scores are not alarmingly low there is no reason for a program to reject you if the rest of your application is competitively strong.

Accepting a PhD spot at CUNY. I'm a big city boy now, mama!

Let me preface by saying that I am a wee baby in regards to how academia operates, including the intricacies of the admissions process. If my question seems naïve, that's because it is. Similarly, I don't know the etiquette of name dropping acceptances and such on here. If you'd like further specification I'd be happy to oblige. My situation: I've got an admissions offer at a PGR T20 PhD program and am waitlisted at a slightly lower rated school, however I think it might be a better fit. I just got back from the waitlist school's prospectives day and loved everything about it. I'm visiting the other school in early April, and intend to make my decision between the two shortly thereafter. The variable here is in regards to when I might hear back from waitlist school. Obviously this varies year to year and school to school, but how close to April 15 do people typically hear back from waitlist schools?