A_bad_philosopher

Unfortunately no. I haven't heard back from them at all. No acceptance, waitlist, rejection. Kinda confused. Same here. I've emailed Dr. Boehm about the waitlist movement and she just said "3 people have accepted their offers and we are currently waiting on the other 4." I am not entirely sure what this means in terms of my prospects though ?

Thank you for this! I sent an email to the MA program at UWMilwaukee since it's been 3 weeks since I've heard from them that I was placed on a waitlist. This is my first choice so far so I really hope I can get in but... I wasn't 'high' on the waitlist so seems like my chances are slim ?

I am in the same position. People solicited and apparently the only response they sent back to the soliciting applicant was "we are still deliberating and we don't know yet sorry" so CUNY is really, really taking their sweet time. I guess I'm not giving you a determined answer but just kinda venting about the same situation I am in ?

Same here. I am assuming a rejection though, it seems like UC Berkeley has a history of just holding on to their rejections as long as possible and sending them out at the absolute last moment (i.e. April 15th-ish). So I doubt that they'll be sending out anything to the rejected applicants anytime soon. It sucks, I know.

I see. Thanks for letting me know! Hopefully I will get bumped up to a higher position on the waitlist then. Good luck to you with SFU and TT!

I know personally at least one person who got accepted to UW-Milwaukee. I think they did send out acceptance offers. Also according to the FB group there were a bunch of people claiming that they are going to decline the offers soon, so I am hoping that that opens up some spots for us.

I think the definition of 2:1 might differ based on institutions so you should double check with the individual institutions you are planning on applying.

This is interesting because even the 'significant' funding in the eyes of a person who did a masters in the UK is actually deemed to be insufficient by many masters applicants in the States. That is, they do not offer full funding and one has to still pay around thousands of dollars to pursue the degree; this means that they do not necessarily have 'advantage' over other programs such as UWisconsin Milwaukee, Northern Illinois University, and Georgia State University, which are the three best masters programs that offer full funding + tuition remission. They also all have excellent placement records (even though they might not be as good as Tufts -- they really are at another level). (Perhaps this is not the place to discuss this because the topic is 'UK Philosophy programs' so I apologize if this is an irrelevant post that the OP would find unhelpful)

Yes hopefully this works out for both of us! I also applied to NIU but Brandeis/UWM are my top choices for now. Of course I'd be happy to go to NIU if they accept me. Fingers crossed!

I mean why not just use the forum rather than the results page to spam irrelevant stuff there... I don't get it ?

Waitlisted at UWMilwaukee MA program. This is my only semi-positive response I've gotten this cycle so if anyone accepted is not interested in the program and is planning to decline please do so as soon as possible, it would be greatly appreciated!

If that ends up happening I will make sure to do so! Hoping that this works out!

@PHILOKEV @MtnDuck Oh my god that was me. I just realized I put waitlisted at PhD instead of MA ?? I'm so sorry! I don't know how to fix the results page entry. I'm assuming I can't. Well, I guess the entry will remain as my being waitlisted at an imaginary program that does not exist...

@washabirva @PHILOKEV thank you for your replies. It truly is extremely difficult to not take the rejections personally. It feels so personal on so many levels. And as you said, @washabirva, I am starting to doubt my professors' credibility as well. I would be ecstatic to receive some kind of offer in the eleventh hour but I doubt that's gonna happen. I didn't even get any kind of waitlist offers. There is a school that has sent out all offers for acceptance, rejection, and waitlist where I still did not get anything from them. I've heard that this most likely means that I am on their 'hidden waitlist' and I've also heard that it is extremely rare to receive an acceptance offer if you're on the 'hidden waitlist.' so probabilistically if I actually end up with an offer that would literally be a miracle. and I guess I am not necessarily looking for an eventual professorship at Harvard or Princeton. I just want a job in philosophy. But my professors at my institution told me that if you want a job then it is in your best interest to go to a school in the top 20 range to optimize my chances, although, of course, getting a job coming out of a school that is not in top 20 is not impossible. I don't know at this point. If this process is truly just luck-based then is there a point in trying next year and next next year and... so on? Ironically, precisely since it is luck-based it may be worth a try, but at the same time, the 'chances' are like 4-5% (the avg acceptance rates among top 20 philosophy grad schools, probably). So what am I really going for here?

At this point I am 99% sure I am shut out. Currently I am waiting on six more schools but they are all assumed rejections (except Harvard and Princeton, but, really, am I going to be magically accepted to them? lol) I don’t know what I did wrong. I wish someone could tell me specifically what I did wrong. In an ideal world that would be possible. But that is a luxury not allowed in this world. All the rejection emails say “we cannot provide you with individual feedback regarding your applications” so they probably don’t want anyone to be asking around for feedbacks. Pretty confusing and, honestly, demoralizing. I don’t want to disclose too much identifying information but I’d like to provide some context on my apps and my background. I am a student at one of the USNWR top 10 schools. But it is not a school that is one of the PGR top 10 schools. Nonetheless, my friends in the past years have gone to excellent schools such as Yale, Stanford, Princeton, etc. and I’ve heard from the undergradute director of the philosophy department that previously students have went to excellent departments such as Rutgers, Harvard, Michigan, Yale, Princeton, etc. For some reason that made me feel weirdly confident about my chances. I was like, ‘if all the students from previous years got to go to these departments I surely can, right?’ I mean, I didn’t only count on that and it’s not like I did no work regarding my apps. I took grad courses, established good relationships with my potential letter writers, wrote (or currently writing) an undergrad thesis, presented at a few conferences, really polished my writing sample with the help of my professors and grad students, etc. I really did try my best I can and I thought I had a decent chance. My professors encouraged me that I will be able to go to a high ranked department and that I am philosophically very capable. All of these boosted my ego. I decided to apply to 14 schools all within the top 20. My letter writers did not stop me from doing so. (In fact, one of the letter writers told me that this is a “good move.”) And guess what, now I am at 8 rejections and 6 pending (although most of them are presumed rejections). I am going to be shut out this cycle. I don’t know where I went wrong. Was I too arrogant? Did I not try too hard? My friends and previous students at my institution were all able to gain admissions to excellent programs and I genuinely did not think that I’d be the outlier. But alas, I am an outlier. And the fact that I am an outlier makes me think if I am worthy of pursuing this thing called philosophy. Philosophy doesn’t need me, perhaps. Sorry if this sounds arrogant and full of myself. It was not my intention to be arrogant. I guess I was just reflecting on how arrogant I was when I was submitting apps back in January. I realize that I was very stupid and immature.

Also, I know this is not the place to say this perhaps, I want to give you a huge thank you for administering the philosophy admissions spreadsheet, you are literally a lifesaver. Keep up the amazing work

Thanks for letting us know, do you know how the yield is though? That is, for 8 spots, how many acceptances would they usually give out? Just to have a rough idea of really how competitive Tufts is. But if you have no idea then that's completely fine too!

Yeah of course programs like Tufts or Brandeis were always quite competitive but, afaik (but correct me if I am wrong), programs such as GSU had a relatively high acceptance rate, somewhere in the 30-40%, right? I'd say that is a pretty high number at least in the context of philosophy programs, no?

@eleatics yeah makes sense. I also do hope all the departments would be open for applications next cycle. Perhaps some departments will reinstate their GRE requirements and that would make the competitiveness go a bit lower. I'm sure all departments waiving GRE had something to do with the increase in competitiveness.

It really is crappy isn't it? ?? I know you mentioned that there's a reason why one should reapply next year if one gets shut out, but wouldn't you say that admissions cycle next year will be as competitive, if not more competitive, as this year's cycle?

Wow, this is kinda rough. So there's a nontrivial possibility for me that I'll get shut out from even the MA programs, whereas the MA programs in the past were kind of like the 'safety' options for applicants? What a sad and anxiety-inducing situation to be in... ?

So I'm just wondering if the MA programs are also going to be even more competitive compared to the previous years, just like how PhD programs turned out to be more competitive this year. I've applied to as many MA programs as I could, although a lot of them were already past due, but I just want to have a realistic sense of my chances at the MA programs. My reasoning is that since there was a surge of applicants for PhD programs it only makes sense to think that the same would happen for the MA programs as well, as many of applicants would have applied to both PhD and MA programs (unlike me, lol) I know nobody probably has like an answer to this but just wondering what people think about the competitiveness of MA programs this year.

Thank you! Unfortunately Oxbridge closed their apps it seems like. ? I’ve sent you a message for further questions!

I'm heartbroken as I've applied to 14 schools so far (for PhD) and I've heard back from 11, all rejections. Three left but I am not counting on them, probably gonna be rejections. I know it's last minute but I am now applying to masters programs. I've already applied to Brandeis, UW Milwaukee, Georgia State, Texas Tech, and Houston for the US ones. I am also looking into the UK ones but I am not sure if I should bother applying there for the purpose of doing the masters and coming back to the States to do a PhD in the States. The ones that I'm looking into right now are SASP (St. Andrews and Stirling combined program), Sheffield, Leeds, and Birmingham. I wasn't able to find any kind of placement information for these programs so I am wondering if these programs are worth doing if I want to be able to pursue a PhD in the States afterwards. I am aware that these are all 1-year programs and I am also aware that these are not funded. I have some saved up money + parental funding so money is not that big of an issue for me, so I'd just like to know if anyone has done these programs or know any further information about the MA programs in the UK. Any kind of help would be appreciated. Btw, my AOI is in LEMM. Thank you