humean_skeptic

I also applied to Toronto's Ancient and Medieval Collaborative Program. So, wait, Toronto gives out those offers at a separate time? We still have a shot at getting into Toronto?

I applied to 14 Philosophy PhD programs in the 2012/2013 season and was accepted -- in February 2013 -- at a Top 25 Leiter ranked program. I was also rejected by places like Rice, Rochester, and several other places in the 30s (and a couple others in the 40s).

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-mathematics/ I found the Stanford article on Phil. of Math to be a good starting point, and a really nice overview. What's especially useful is the extensive bibliography.

It's extremely disconcerting, but here's a piece of evidence suggesting that your guess might be right: Some departments think that the importance of the writing sample should be decreased: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2014/02/phd-admissions-writing-samples-and-ma-programs.html Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of the 81 responses posted publicly on the Leiter Blog seem to suggest that most people in philosophy (including profs) disagree with that opinion [in italics] and the justification provided for that opinion.

Not sure what the 'badgering' and 'this has nothing to do with you' attacks are about. But I do apologize if I've offended you in disagreeing with you and providing what I think are good reasons for doing so -- it was my intention to clarify, not to offend. Given the amount of money and time I've invested in my applications, I do think the application process has something to do with me. About your conjecture that people with low stats are less likely to post their stats on the grad cafe results page: Sure, you might be right. But given the anonymity of posting on the grad cafe results page, it seems more likely than not that people would just go ahead and post the stats if they care to. If they don't care, they won't post them. Further, I know that I personally *definitely* have an interest in posting accurate stats when I post results on the grad cafe results page: Everyone else will post accurate stats too. About your claim that every single part of the application other than the writing sample can be quantified easily: Letters are hard to quantify, as is fit. But suppose you're right, and every part of everyone's application is easy to quantify *except* the sample. Well, even in that case, it's still true that the sample is probably the important part of the application. (I'm going by what it says on pretty much every Leiter-ranked department's admissions-info page.) Seems to follow, then, that you still won't be able to know a ton about the overall quality of your application. Still, the stats could be helpful, especially when they are -- as you point out -- from a large data set.

I see. So you think people are more likely to anonymously provide false information when submitting results to the grad cafe results page than anonymously provide false information when filling out the grad admissions survey? Seems like a very speculative suspicion to me. To be a little more precise: I see no reason to posit that the probability of applicants with mediocre stats filling out the grad admissions survey is higher than the probability of applicants with mediocre stats reporting those stats on the grad cafe results page. But, of course, the main issue is this: 1) The quality of the writing sample can't really be quantitatively measured, and 2) The quality of the writing sample is, according to all the admissions advice and information I've read on every department page, an extremely important part -- if not the most important part -- of one's application.

http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=philosophy

I think you said you have a lower than normal GPA, though? I double checked your posts and yes, you did say "I have a lower-than-average GPA".

Isn't it almost certain that you did better than expected on admissions because your writing sample was better than you thought? I mean, sure, you had good stats and all, but so does almost everyone else. The quality of the writing sample is *absolutely* crucial, especially if all else is equal, and it's not measured by the admissions survey, as far as I know.

Has anyone wait listed at UConn actually heard from UConn yet?

Get the DUCK to St Louis!

Settled for Harvard, eh? Congrats!!!!

Sorry to hear about the result of your PhD applications. You have extremely good stats -- better than everyone on here who's posted acceptances at T20 or even T10 schools -- and you seem to be coming from a great MA program, so I guess you were unlucky in selecting that writing sample topic. Best of luck to you at law school.

Thanks! And congrats again on Stanford!

Congrats!!!!! Over two months of waiting paid off. Now everyone still wait listed at UVA hates your guts That doesn't include me, fortunately.

FYI: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2014/04/prospective-phd-students-considering-cornell.html

April 15th is the national deadline for all departments to get back to applicants with decisions, and all applicants to get back to departments with decisions. So, theoretically, a lot of wait listed applicants could be waiting until 1159pm on Tuesday to hear back from departments, and a lot of departments could be waiting until 1159pm on Tuesday to hear back from applicants to whom they've extended offers. Of course, only so much can be done in the space of sixty seconds. As a consequence, a lot of activity would occur on the Wednesday (April 16th) and maybe even a few days afterwards, during which there are previously wait listed applicants (who now have offers as of the last minute on April 15th) deciding which offer to accept, asking for a little more time to decide, and so on. I suspect departments would have to be pretty understanding about giving an applicant an extra 24 or 48 hours to decide, after April 15th, if that applicant was given her offer at the last minute.

You think Baylor *would* be ranked in the Top 50 US departments?

Congrats!!! Last Friday, I saw Prof. Soames give his 'Propositions are Cognitive Acts' talk at the RMPC. I'm still convinced his thesis commits a category error, but he certainly had interesting arguments!

So you must be going to NYU, Rutgers, Princeton, Harvard, or Michigan?

Thanks I'm already in at a T25 PhD program, so it's definitely not the end of the world. I still feel like crap though!

Rejected off the University of Arizona's wait list, after two months of waiting (and being encouraged to do so).

Congrats!!!!

What about 50 such emails (from 50 different applicants, of course)?

Everyone mentioned in this song: