sokratis

Stop spamming the results page with Princeton trolling!

I’m not sure about the MSt in Practical Ethics, but best of luck!

Michigan “nearing the final cut” is starting to sound a little bit like Zeno’s Paradox!

Michigan “nearing the final cut” is starting to sound a little bit like Zeno’s Paradox!

I got shut out of PhD programs two years ago. I did a funded MA and now I have 4 offers, 0 rejections, and 8 still pending. It's very doable.

A gentle reminder that this is the rejection thread.

Admissions are, and always have been, a chaotic shot in the dark for everyone applying with a ton of variables including arbitrary ones like who read the sample, who remembered to show up to the faculty meeting, who is on the admissions committee, etc. in addition to the application itself.

Folks are invited and encouraged to take a look at the conversations from years past on this matter and to take the conversation either to DMs or the venting thread. This isn't the place for it.

L

Is anyone able to claim the Duke rejection? I’m yet to hear back from them at all.

Is anyone able to claim the Duke rejection? I’m yet to hear back from them at all.

Thanks for starting this thread! To kick things off, I saw a poster on another thread refer to "programs worth attending". Would anyone be willing to offer a set of criteria at which a graduate philosophy program becomes not worth attending? Perhaps if it falls beneath a certain level on the PGR? Or if it's placement statistics fall beneath a certain threshold?

Going to give you the answer that pretty much everyone on this forum will (because it's true!): not inherently implausible, but a much, much more likely path is getting into a good MA and then a legit PhD from there. Even if you have a great deal of philosophical skill without formal training, you need time to learn the conventions of the field, write a good writing sample, build relationships with philosophy professors who could write letters of rec, etc. This is exactly what terminal MAs are for: helping students with non-traditional philosophical backgrounds learn the ins and outs of academic philosophy before applying to a PhD program.
Also, I said this recently to another poster with a similar question, but you should note that even substantial self-study and writing is very different from studying philosophy formally, or doing philosophy professionally! This is certainly not to say you don't know what you're talking about/you wouldn't actually like it or anything like that - just something to keep in mind as you keep exploring this.

Don't think of programs as being in or out of your range. Apply to the best programs for your interests, and let them do the sorting and cutting. Honestly, you should attend the best program you can, given your interests, not just any old program. It really makes a difference on the job market. Stanford and Rutgers, for example, are great, but don't go there primarily to do aesthetics/philosophy of art. (That said, 'the best program for your interests' may not strictly track the PGR rankings. Pay careful attention to the specialty rankings, to the number of people working in your areas of interest and their impact on the field, and to recent placements. Don't rely on the overall rankings as an ordinal ranking. But do also remember that prestige really does have a big effect on the job market.)
By the by, the PGR is a ranking of PhD programs, and does not translate to a ranking of undergraduate or Master's programs.