Estudiante Graduado

It's not clear to me that the UT placement record is that much better than CUNY's. In fact, if you look at the people who ARE successfully placed at CUNY, most of them are in your AOI, so I wouldn't let that weigh TOO heavily on you. I hope you hear something from them. I'm pretty excited about having gotten into CUNY after thinking I was going to get shut out of the top 15 (also waitlisted at UNC), but I'm still considering my options.

I'm a graduate student at Texas Tech. They are still reviewing applications. If you have any questions about the program feel free to reach out to me.

Correct. But the FAFSA is important for additional funding opportunities at Texas Tech, such as work-study, university-wide fellowships, etc.

Rejected from Northwestern via an email that made me go check the application portal! Okay, so the smile is for a few reasons: (1) They recently lost faculty that I would have loved to work with, (2) my bad news means someone else got good news, and (3) I'm happy with the acceptances I have gotten, and there's no use in making myself more anxious than I already am. Good luck to all on this wild ass ride.

Got into WUSTL (#21 USA), so I'm very happy about that, since my goal was to be in a Top 25 (USA) school. But now...I am SO anxious to hear back from the Top 20 (USA) schools! I haven't heard anything from any of those schools, and with the exception of Berkeley, it doesn't look like anyone has heard anything from them yet. Am I wrong about this, or have more of the Top 20 schools made decisions? Anyone else feeling this way?

Accepted at Davis yesterday.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to this. Get your FAFSA in ASAP and as long as you apply before the APPLICATION deadline, you will almost surely be funded if you are admitted.

I sure hope so.

I'm just now seeing this, but I have to strongly suggest that you add Texas Tech University to your list of terminal MA programs. Not only is it one of the MA programs consistently mentioned in the top 12 by the PGR, I can say that their funding package may not seem generous, but it actually is fine given their location in west Texas. The faculty is first-rate, and they are currently hiring for a position in M & E. The job candidates all have AOS in metaphysics, epistemology, or mind and graduated from places like NYU, Rutgers, U. Mich., UVA, Chicago. They have also recently placed three people at Rutgers (I promise, go look at the current Rutgers grad students!) Last year, students also got offers from USC, UNC, UT, Ohio State, Northwestern, USCB, and more. Additionally, they consistently place people at top 30 schools. One thing to consider when looking at the placement record is that a significant amount of the students don't apply out because they have no interest in going further. The students that DO pursue PhD programs generally fare very well. Even better news for you...the deadline is FEB 15! I think you'd be a great fit for the program. I have some overlapping interests with you, and I've already gotten shortlisted for admission to WUSTL and UCSB (I applied out for PhD programs this year).

I think it would have been an even worse experience had I not already heard back from a PGR Top 21-ranked program. ALSO, one of my colleagues was waitlisted there.

I too have been rejected from Baylor! I got an email telling me to check on an online portal which told me I was rejected.

I don't have much else to say that Marcus_Aurelius hasn't already said. I think that we should have little to no degree of confidence that they will even look, and further, that my intuition is that reading less developed work will more likely harm rather than help an admissions decision in the rare case that they do read them.

My suggestion to you is to situate yourself in a pluralist department, like e.g. Northwestern. There you will both be in a better situation pragmatically, and you will still be able to pursue your interests.

I agree. I actually think this could count against you. You only want adcomms to see your writing sample. That is the piece of philosophy that demonstrates your best work.

As someone who is a second year MA student at one of those schools listed I have to say that the majority of your focus must go into polishing your writing sample and ensuring that you can get STRONG letters from professors who are professional philosophers. This is a general rule for all of the top terminal MA programs. If you have some GPA/GRE issues, but you have a strong sample and strong letters from philosophers they will often be willing to overlook the GPA/GRE (I think in general the GRE is becoming less and less important to admissions committees.) They will see first-hand (from the writing sample) and second-hand (from philosophers) that despite the numbers, you can do interesting philosophy. Do not focus your energy on publishing in journals, because unless they are in the top 20 or so general journals (see Leiter's blog for this) or a top specialist journal no one really cares. I know that sounds harsh but the truth is you MUST focus your energy into your writing sample and try to have a healthy amount of philosophers/philosophy graduate students read it and provide comments on both content and style. The writing sample is the single most important part of your application, followed by your letters.