ShadyCarnot

One thing to look into at SFU is if you would also have access to people/courses at UBC.

This is super generous, but note the caveat before blasting Alexander with emails: 'particularly those who don't get in anywhere'.

Lots of people didn't have their shit together freshman year (myself included). Showing commitment to continued learning and improvement is a good indicator of your seriousness, so I don't think this is something that will (or should) be held against you. This is also something your letter writers could mention if you point it out to them.

Just chiming in to say that (based on personal experience) this is largely correct. LPS is in the school of social sciences which requires interviews before sending out actual offers. In the past, LPS has treated this 'interview' as essentially a formality and a chance to sell their program (mostly by taking people to the beach ?). The philosophy department at UCI is in the school of humanities, so they are going to do things a bit differently. I would not take UCI LPS as indicative of anything regarding other programs.

These are great suggestions. I know most places are done accepting applications, but here are a few additional comments for posterity. UC Irvine LPS has JB Manchak if you're into GR and Jim Weatherall if you're into cosmology or QM. Pitt HPS also has John Norton and Marion Gilton, as well as Mark Wilson and Robert Batterman over in the Phil department. Columbia has Jennan Ismael. Rutgers (Barry Loewer) could be another (very selective) place to look, as well as Princeton (Hans Halvorson), and UCSD (Craig Callendar, Kerry McKenzie, Eddie Kemming-Chen). Less selective places I would check out include UC Davis (Alyssa Ney), Arizona (Richard Healey), and UCSB (Tom Barrett). I would not recommend Utah as they are fairly explicitly focused on Phil Bio (which they are great at). Cincinnati also seems more focused on the life/brain sciences. Somebody above mentioned MIT and CMU which I would also not recommend (at least for phil physics).

Cameron Buckner?

awesome!!!

Hopefully testing will be more widely available by the time Fall quarter/semester rolls around - in theory that would make some sort of on-campus operations more feasible.

LOL I did finally get rejected this morning. I knew I wouldn't get in (based on what you mentioned), but this was the final school I was waiting to "officially" hear back from.

? Here's a few more unsolicited thoughts. Assuming the best case outcome post-PhD is an academic job, I think (as you said) hiring committees will look differently on a CogSci vs. Phil degree. It's likely that if you go the CogSci route you will be hirable in a CogSci/Psych/CS department, but probably not a philosophy department. But if you had a Phil degree you might be able to teach in a CogSci department and Phil department. When I visited UC Davis a number of Phil faculty there were cross-listed in CogSci (and were instrumental in starting the undergrad program itself). My guess is the placement data is a bit out of date, but that while their placement % may have gone down that might not affect you given your interests. What I mean is that AOI is not reflected in placement %, and that LPS is now graduating so many people who specialize in PhilPhysics that they may end up competing with each other for the limited jobs in that area. As for your last question, I will most likely be at Pitt HPS which seems like a better fit for me personally - even if they are hundreds of miles from the beach! ? Best of luck to you, those are both great programs and you really can't go wrong!!

Fair enough concern, and I'm not really sure about the standards/requirements for reporting placement outcomes. I do know from a reliable source that the LPS department has grown quite a bit in recent years, so perhaps those earlier cohorts were just smaller to begin with. I would maybe read that alumni list as providing an existence proof - it is possible to get a 'decent' non-academic job coming out of the LPS program, so that might assuage part of your original concern about whether LPS was geared only towards training future professors (of course dependent on whether or not those sorts of non-academic jobs are of any interest to you). I also share your concerns about the seemingly inevitable economic recession/depression, but assuming both programs are ~6 years it's hard to know what the job market will look like when you graduate. So for example, if you entered grad school in 2008 things would have looked like shit, but maybe they looked slightly less shitty if you then graduated in 2014 (certainly the non-academic job market improved in that time frame). FWIW I was on that LPS visit with you last month and the faculty seemed open to people exploring/cultivating interdisciplinary interests outside the department, so I suppose it partly depends on how much time you want to spend in a lab vs. elsewhere over the next 6 years. i.e if you were in CogSci you would have to do lab work, and if you were in LPS you probably could do some lab work if you wanted (maybe as part of a masters degree or something). I'm not trying to persuade you one way or the other (especially since I will probably decline my LPS offer), just some thoughts.

check out the recent alumni for LPS, I count several software engineers and lawyers and actuaries - so it seems LPS folk might have an easier time on the non-academic market than those coming from a more traditional philosophy program. https://www.lps.uci.edu/grad/alumni.php It might be worth trying to chat with a few of them, my recent experience is that people are usually willing to talk with prospective students about their time in grad school.

has anyone been rejected from Duke yet?

I emailed Stanford, while they have not yet officially cancelled the prospective visit, they did recommend NOT travelling to Stanford "at this time".

that's a tough call. this might be more appropriate for the 'Decisions 2020' thread, but what factors will you prioritizing for your decision making without being able to consider department visits?