2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread

[Kantattheairport]

10 minutes ago, prtrbd said:

This process confuses me immensely. I don't understand how you can be rejected from Notre Dame and Wisconsin and waitlisted at GSU but also waitlisted at MIT and NYU. It's absurd.

Yeah, my professor told me early on that there was a good amount of randomness in the process, but I still wasn't prepared for this set of results!

[Lostmyreason08]

On 3/5/2018 at 2:20 PM, hi_hello said:

I received an offer of admission on February 28th, from David Bakhurst, their DGS. There's an orientation day on the 22nd of March. 

Additionally, since I've seen people asking about it on the results page: I spoke to the graduate administrator at U of T, who said that they will make MA decisions by the end of the month latest, but likely the week before. That's in line with what seems to have happened last year. 

I suppose it's fair to say that they'll be arriving at decisions soon if orientation is on the 22nd. Thanks for the info.

[Rose-Colored Beetle]

Anyone heard back from Boston College yet? Still no??

[LORDBACON]

19 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Dasein said:

Anyone heard back from Boston College yet? Still no??

still nah

[Halcyon23]

10 hours ago, ThePeon said:

So besides that one UConn acceptance, has anybody heard anything from them as far as waitlists or other acceptances? They're the last school I'm waiting on. I just want to know my fate at this point, whatever it is.

I'm going to send them an email asking about it. I'll be sure to post in here when/if I get a response.

[syn]

8 hours ago, prtrbd said:

This process confuses me immensely. I don't understand how you can be rejected from Notre Dame and Wisconsin and waitlisted at GSU but also waitlisted at MIT and NYU. It's absurd.

I had a paper rejected for a Notre Dame graduate conference but accepted to 6 "real" conferences.  I've found quite a bit of randomness around the field, not even just with applications.

[prtrbd]

6 minutes ago, syn said:

I had a paper rejected for a Notre Dame graduate conference but accepted to 6 "real" conferences.  I've found quite a bit of randomness around the field, not even just with applications.

I for one am excited for a career where I can never really be sure I'm good enough, because I haven't had enough of that already in life.

[Neither Here Nor There]

1 hour ago, Rose-Colored Dasein said:

Anyone heard back from Boston College yet? Still no??

No. It's very frustrating.

[syn]

7 minutes ago, prtrbd said:

I for one am excited for a career where I can never really be sure I'm good enough, because I haven't had enough of that already in life.

Oddly, I've actually found it encouraging.  A paper I had rejected by APA-Central was accepted -- in the exact same form (just with a slightly longer abstract, per the guidelines) --- for APA-Pacific.  Just blanket submit, see what comes back, and accept/decline from there.  Much like the application process, lol.

[hermansnewticks]

1 hour ago, Rose-Colored Dasein said:

Anyone heard back from Boston College yet? Still no??

I'm still waiting, as well.

[hermansnewticks]

2 hours ago, Rose-Colored Dasein said:

Anyone heard back from Boston College yet? Still no??

Has anyone solicited an answer from them?

[illuminatice]

Anyone heard from Toronto (masters) ??

[Zimmy64]

In at Georgia State University (off the waitlist) plus I got their Liberalism Scholarship. The extra funding will help in Atlanta plus for my first year I will be a research assistant to the Andrews Cohen (both of which are good friends of my undergraduate mentor). Also in at Bowling Green State University. I feel bad for declining BGSU. Their email was very nice and they seemed very excited about me. Kevin Vallier would have been an awesome mentor and dissertation supervisor + Brandon Warmke's work on forgiveness seems incredibly interesting. Still it's not really  that hard of a choice between the better funding, chance at a really good Ph.D. program in 2 years, personal connection with the Andrews Cohen, and better city with a better climate (I'm from Minnesota and I've had it with snow). I'm absolutely thrilled barring a absolute miraculous shock (i.e. in at Virginia or Arizona) it looks like I'm moving to Atlanta this August. 

[JeshZhavvorsa]

22 minutes ago, Zimmy64 said:

In at Georgia State University (off the waitlist) plus I got their Liberalism Scholarship. The extra funding will help in Atlanta plus for my first year I will be a research assistant to the Andrews Cohen (both of which are good friends of my undergraduate mentor). Also in at Bowling Green State University. I feel bad for declining BGSU. Their email was very nice and they seemed very excited about me. Kevin Vallier would have been an awesome mentor and dissertation supervisor + Brandon Warmke's work on forgiveness seems incredibly interesting. Still it's not really  that hard of a choice between the better funding, chance at a really good Ph.D. program in 2 years, personal connection with the Andrews Cohen, and better city with a better climate (I'm from Minnesota and I've had it with snow). I'm absolutely thrilled barring a absolute miraculous shock (i.e. in at Virginia or Arizona) it looks like I'm moving to Atlanta this August. 

I wonder if they’ve given out the award for the Scholar in Political and Legal Philosophy yet. Since I already received my funding offer, I doubt I’ll be receiving it unless I’m possibly on the waitlist.

[gvg]

15 minutes ago, JeshZhavvorsa said:

I wonder if they’ve given out the award for the Scholar in Political and Legal Philosophy yet. Since I already received my funding offer, I doubt I’ll be receiving it unless I’m possibly on the waitlist.

I originally received the Legal and Political Philosophy Scholarship, but declined GSU's offer of admission. So as far as I know, it's still available to someone. Good luck!

[Vivec]

11 hours ago, LORDBACON said:

Thanks Vivec!  Was looking like a shutout but I'm glad I decided to dig extra deep to fund the process.  It sounds like a neat city, and the department is a great fit for me.  I love how much Heidegger and Nietzsche (and a lot else) they have going on.  What was your sense about metaphysics and epistemology from your experience in the department?  They seem fairly inclusive across the a/c divide from what I see so far.

If you like Heidegger and Nietzsche, you'll probably really enjoy what the department has to offer. Professor Rayman does a lot of neat work w/ Nietzsche, and Professor Braver is particularly focused on Heidegger and continental thought writ-large. Metaphysics and epistemology are big topics, though due to the composition of the faculty, I'd say we have a continental slant with metaphysics/ethics, and an analytic slant with our work in epistemology, due in part to faculty composition. We've also got an incredible talent in Professor Ariew for early modern history of philosophy.

Fun anecdote about our epistemology stuff - I had a chance to take what is probably the best capstone course ever: "On Truth and Bullshit", and it lived up to its name.

The city is...pretty great actually (minus the heat). While I was growing up here I literally never thought I'd say that, but it's come into its own. The area around campus on the other hand is less than fantastic, but once you spend some time around it, it's not too bad. Also, if you're not a hockey fan yet, you'll probably wind up becoming one if you stay too long - it's pretty much the only sport we have left. 

Oh, and go to Tampa theater at some point. Definitely the coolest cinema in the southeast. They show cheesy 80's movies and cult classics pretty often - I actually caught a showing of David Lynch's Dune about a month ago. 

[thanksbro]

12 hours ago, prtrbd said:

This process confuses me immensely. I don't understand how you can be rejected from Notre Dame and Wisconsin and waitlisted at GSU but also waitlisted at MIT and NYU. It's absurd.

I suspect that this sort of result is actually pretty common. This cycle, I applied to almost 20 schools and have only been accepted by a top 20 school that is consistently ranked number 1 in my subfield. I've also heard of someone at my undergrad who got rejected everywhere except for NYU, where he was waitlisted.

Based on my experience, I think that there are a couple of sources of randomness going on here. One is that fit matters a lot, and it can be difficult to assess fit from the outside. The other is that even if you are a good fit for a certain program, it's still pretty random as to whether you get accepted, as you're probably competing against several other people who have your same AOI/level of fit with the program and have applications that look pretty much identical to yours. So even if you're a very strong fit for a certain program, it's still a dice roll as to whether you get in.

Both of the above things can dramatically affect what results you get, but aren't related at all to how meritorious an applicant  you are in any sort of objective way (grades, GRE scores, quality of writing sample, strength of recommendations etc.) Which is a bummer, but I also think that means that even if you get shut out, it doesn't necessarily mean that your application was bad on any of those dimensions (though, if you got shut out, it's probably worth consulting with one of your professors about whether there was something that went wrong with your application).

This is all purely speculative on my part, of course. But I do think that at the very least, it's not worth getting upset about getting into only one school, or only getting in to a PhD program on a second cycle. If you got in, you got in (and if you didn't get in, it could be worth trying again, though that depends a lot on your individual case).

[hi_hello]

2 hours ago, illuminatice said:

Anyone heard from Toronto (masters) ??

I spoke to someone there last week who said decisions at end of month latest, but most likely two weeks from now. 

[Rose-Colored Beetle]

2 hours ago, hermansnewticks said:

Has anyone solicited an answer from them?

Nope.

I'm curious to know what you all thought of BC's strange application (where you basically construct your transcript), as well as whether anyone listed Peter Kreeft under faculty that interest you. I debated that one, and ended up including him.

[SlumberingTrout]

Someone on the results page is upset they weren't admitted to Hogwarts. (I do admit that whomever recycled the "Standford"/"Sitford" joke missed that one -- the original gag just happened a week ago!)

To take a less flippant turn, I notice in the results page that there have been reports of Bloomington and SLU admitting, to average it out, ~1 student from the wait list every year. I take it that acceptance from wait lists in general would be akin to winning a small lottery?

[JeshZhavvorsa]

2 hours ago, gvg said:

I originally received the Legal and Political Philosophy Scholarship, but declined GSU's offer of admission. So as far as I know, it's still available to someone. Good luck!

When did you decline?

[hermansnewticks]

44 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Dasein said:

Nope.

I'm curious to know what you all thought of BC's strange application (where you basically construct your transcript), as well as whether anyone listed Peter Kreeft under faculty that interest you. I debated that one, and ended up including him.

Very strange. I guess they want some of the legwork done, in terms of assessing what is actually relevant on your transcript (though, it was somewhat helpful for me because my background is in political theory, as opposed to philosophy proper). I didn't list Kreeft; for me, the draw to BC is Richard Kearney.

[shadowyBeing]

Finally rejected from British Columbia.

[soproperlybasic]

I solicited Rutgers and got a rejection today morning.

[Descartes blanche]

On 3/6/2018 at 3:16 PM, be. said:

I can claim the NYU acceptance. Phone call from Jessica Moss, who seems super nice!

Congrats! That is a really impressive list. Also, I noticed Simon Fraser on your list as well, are you just coming out of undergraduate school?