MattDest

Congrats!

Congrats! You definitely kan get in now. (I grimaced while I wrote that awful joke. I don't even know why I'm keeping it.)

Waitlisted at Indiana. I've also heard on the rumor mill that some committees take GRE scores very seriously, and it's not simply a threshold type deal.

Yeah, just a small (though nice!) e-mail. Dear Matt: I am truly sorry to inform you that we are not able to offer you admission to the MIT philosophy Ph.D. program. This year, the number of exceptionally talented applicants for admission to our department greatly exceeds the number which can be accommodated and it has been necessary to refuse admission to many fine applicants. We very much appreciate your interest in our program and we hope that you will successfully pursue your graduate education in philosophy. Thank You.

I can give more information about MIT rejections, if someone needs it.

My own advice from advisors on this topic was to pick my best philosophical work, and not worry about it not relating to my AOI. My AOI are philosophy of mind and epistemology, but I submitted a paper on theoretical rationality. I don't think it negatively impacted any of my chances that the two were somewhat unrelated.

A good thing you apologized, then.

I got accepted to Syracuse and waitlisted at WashU today. I'm currently visiting Arizona and loving it, so it is very likely I will turn these offers down. EDIT: So, I completely fudged my results entries. The comments with WashU should be applied to Syracuse. WashU was just a waitlist spot. But, at least the notifications are up.

Nice!! Hopefully there is a lot of movement for you.

I know people are going to split hairs about poll options (and perhaps justifiably - what about non-cognitivism, moral relativism, etc.?), but I think this could be a neat poll to do. I put utilitarianism, because I think some form of consequentalist reasoning that relies upon broadly utilitarian considerations is our best moral reasoning tool.

Nice, I didn't know you applied there but I was pulling for you. Congrats!

Can we say recent ones? I loathe Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. It's such an awful argument.

Congrats to the Notre Dame admits/waitlists and MIT admits - very cool!

For future reference, the username is above the 'Mocha' area. 'Mocha' seems to be a name that references how often that person posts here, while their username is above that. Just in case anybody else is confused.

Shut up, stupid head. Nobody likes you or your reasonable advice.

Nice!! Congrats.

I hope so! I'm visiting this weekend, and if I like it I may make an early decision.

Congrats! That's a good start to the season.

Wait, then why were you making such a fuss elsewhere about someone saying a book wouldn't be an advantage?

I don't think one is expected to be "philosophically mature" in graduate school, nor should they be. That's precisely what graduate school is for. I will confess that I don't actually know what 'philosophical maturity' refers to, but I suspect it means something like these two conditions: (1) is able to contribute to philosophical research and (2) has reached a certain threshold of knowledge in the field. Far more important is personal maturity, which will go a long way in helping one with the rigors of graduate school. I think for some taking time off to "accumulate life experiences" is a good thing, but for others it may not be necessary. It's especially good for those who may not know if philosophy is something they want to pursue for the rest of their lives, or haven't had any other types of jobs, etc. I don't think there are any reliable 'markers' of maturity that will tell one when they are ready to pursue graduate school.

This has to be a troll... right?

Yeah, dude(tte), easy with creating new threads. Most of the questions you've been posting have easily identifiable answers if you just look through the already existing threads.

Good luck all!

Did you crib this from the Plantinga interview?

I understand why you're nervous (all of us are, believe us!), but I'm just relaying the testimony that I've gotten from advisors and other graduate students. Cheers!