thomasf

On the other hand, I can testify that I had at least two letters from full professors who are known as experts in their (and my) field and I haven't had a single acceptance yet, even from schools that were billed as being a sure thing. My grades are stong (summa) and my GREs were mediocre (low math/very high verbal/high AW), but I'm sure my sample was grad quality and my statement was at least well-written. They both knew me for 3 years of undergrad, and I can tell you the letters were very glowing. I was given one to read. I think they were both overconfident of the influence they would have over my admission, and actually counseled me against bothering to apply to some lower tier programs. Boy do I regret listening to them on that point. Just to be clear, one of them is the co-director of the national association of professors in this field, which is not exactly narrow. I think strong recs like these are prereqs, not guarantees.

I will be declining the offer, principally because I don't believe in university 'prestige'. I may be naive, but aside from finding competent/nurturing faculty, I believe that the program that you're in is simply not so important relative to what you actually accomplish there in terms of research to merit such a large price tag. Of course, if my parents/the government/anybody wanted to pay my way--fine. That said, I didn't apply to any programs I felt lacked strong faculty to my area of interest.

that's very interesting...while my profs were very enthusiastic about this program they didn't mention anything about it being competitive and I've heard from other sources that they're ambivalent about it mostly because it's an interdisciplinary degree. But I know I would be very happy there indeed, and in fact I may have formulated my interests as too interdisciplinary for other programs so here's hoping.

I'm impressed they offered you any tuition remission. While normally the expense is so stupidly burdensome as to be insulting to a ph.d. applicant, in your case I would certainly consider it because you would get to study with the regular philsoophy dept. faculty. If there are people there you really want access to then it could be just the good thing. On the other hand, if you are not especially enamoured with the specifics of the program I would go with any funded ph.d. offers you get. If it was me.

Anybody else applied here? Anybody even heard of this program? I emailed the dept. and they said they were sending out mail this week but didn't tell me what my status was...any chance anyone out there has already heard via email/phone? I'm wondering whether these will only be rejection notices and thus uneccessary torture to anticipate...

all we can do is wait and see, but my confidence is waning at this point and I would no longer characterize myself as 'eager'.

Looks like they went out, but I didn't get it yet. Must be the kids in chicago. What a wonderful monday that will be.

i would just like to confirm that I have indeed heard nothing from depaul yet. doesn't look good.

Here is an illustrative example: FAIR: I like the graphs on yuster, I think we should have graphs here too. LAME: I Like the graphs on yuster, I think we should copy and paste the image to our server every day and claim them as our own. Better yet, let's just hotlink them! Meri falls into the first category, yuster and the guest (most likely Mr. Yuster or a lackey) clearly falls into the second. Ethics is all about particulars, and while no universal ethical formula has yet been devised, any human being not crippled by neurosis or prejudice can see this is the case.

Have you been to Providence, though? It's actually kind of a hip town, and only a few hours from Boston and NYC. And the Great Chowder Cookoff! Plus Brown is a great school, at least in the fields I'm familiar with (philosophy/english)--I'd be hapy to go there.

meridionale- I highly doubt you need to be told this but it is clear you are on the moral, if not legal high ground (and I only say that because I do not have enough knowledge of copyright law). There's no way an objective observer would agree with "Guest"'s comments, but this is what you get with the internet. Information and ideas have a tendency to replicate. You have the better community already, if you want to hang on to your spot just keep working to make your site better. what's the yuster guy gonna do, spend 30 minutes/hour every day ripping off your survey? He's degrading himself and certainly not making it up in adsense dollars. I mean come on--I bet my mom's blog get's more visits/day than him.

wow. well either this site is a skewed sample or my theories about gender imbalance in this field are deeply flawed. on the other hand, i know someone in the BC program right now and it's heavily male. maybe it's the heidegger focus

I certainly hope there's a more favorable ratio in the program I end up entering, the intellectual pissing contests that tend to occur among groups of all males with ego/security issues who don't know each other well is very trying. Luckily I had a fairly tight group of compatriots when I was an undergrad who could discuss philosophy over many beers without worrying over the stupid things we inevitably said as a result in vino veritas

great news about BC, although I am not really hopeful at all about receiving an offer from there. way too competetive from what I've seen (I know some people in it)

thanks, hopeful, for letting us know. even if it means more waiting, it's good to know for sure we're not just waiting for them to get it together to send of rejections. and perhaps this applies to other schools as well... northwestern has an excellent program--I wonder how long habermas will be there....are you into critical theory, or perhaps culture & pluralism w/ Taylor? Damn now that I think about it NW is awesome good luck to you.

I have been surprised by how few girls I met in the phil. dept. as an undergrad. So I'm curious, how many girls reading this are planning on graduate study in philosophy? Additionally, what is other people's experience of this?

That is really disappointing to hear. I have certainly heard of faculty being brusque everywhere (especially at an open house), but funding issues like that are really unacceptable. I really applied only because I wanted an option to attend an MA program if necessary. Whatever faults they have, they certainly responded to my email quickly enough:

this is probably nothing, but did anybody else who applied to the new school get strange emails about the open house? why would they send these to applicants? i would consider it just a mistake but i received two of them and one of them was from the email address "socialresearchadmitted" w t f

nothing from depaul yet; I assure you I will post here and to results as soon as I do.

i feel you sea. i am waitlisted on my so-called safety school and I saw someone else was waitlisted at depaul , which you could say i have my heart set on. so I don't want to even think about my dream schools. My GRE was 790V/540Q/5.0A and I have faith in my sample and one of my letter writers is good friends with several of the depaul faculty but oh well. competition must be stiff this year.

My god. You're me. I haven't heard yet, but I'm phil/pol theory and all I've gotten is one wait-list notification (although it's the only school I've heard from so far). Just greeeeat.

I don't know if you have anyone on your 'team' wit hthe web dev skills to set up an rss stream, but it'd be lovely.