2018 Acceptance/Rejection Thread

[SlumberingTrout]

12 minutes ago, mynameismyname said:

Waitlisted at SLU. I'm ready for this process to be over. 

I was also waitlisted at SLU. Concurred re: ready for the process to be over!

I see that you were accepted at FSU as well -- congratulations! I applied to their program but never heard back.

[Scoots]

14 minutes ago, Aboutness said:

The problem in trying again the next year is that of being outside of an institution. No recommender would evaluate your recent work in philosophy and you become alienated from the whole discipline.

I’m a couple of years out from undergrad, and while I haven’t had any success so far, I can at least say that you don’t need to be isolated if you apply from outside the academy. I’ve attended philosophy meet-ups and become friends with philosophy professors from top institutions around the world, several of whom provided helpful and substantive feedback on my recent writing. I kept in touch with my recommenders, and they were just as happy to recommend me for grad school as they were when I was in undergrad. 

Best of luck with your remaining applications, and if needs must and you apply again next year, best of luck with that too.

 

Edited February 23, 2018 by Scoots

[PhiloStorian]

9 minutes ago, Aboutness said:

The problem of trying again the next year is that of being outside of an institution. No recommender would evaluate your recent work in philosophy and you become alienated from the whole discipline.

I know that others have done it, even being accepted to programs with excellent reputations. I'm pretty sure some have posted in this thread. It's more difficult I'm sure, but this whole process is a crapshoot. It's increasing your chances by a fair amount just to try again without making changes, let alone actively improving your packet.

[PhiloStorian]

6 minutes ago, Scoots said:

I’m a couple of years out from undergrad, and while I haven’t had any success so far, I can at least say that you don’t need to be isolated if you apply from outside the academy. I’ve attended philosophy meet-ups and become friends with philosophy professors from top institutions around the world, several of which provided helpful and substantive feedback on my recent writing. I kept in touch with my recommenders, and they were just as happy to recommend me for grad school as they were when I was in undergrad. 

Best of luck with your remaining applications, and if needs must and you apply again next year, best of luck with that too.

 

I'd upvote you to hell but apparently I'm all out of reactions today.

[prtrbd]

Disagree entirely. There are other paths in this life. If the discipline doesn't want you, who needs them? Smart people should not be spending yet another year trying to read the mercurial minds of aging admissions committees in the hopes of getting $25,000 stipends leading to job market insecurity.

[Guest RoughAnatomy]

20 minutes ago, Aboutness said:

The problem of trying again the next year is that of being outside of an institution. No recommender would evaluate your recent work in philosophy and you become alienated from the whole discipline.

Tough love alert.

Feeling forlorn is not useful at this stage, for two reasons:

1. You don't know that you've been rejected. 

2. If you are, it's an unproductive emotion. 

If you are rejected - again, you're waiting on programs that are ranked significantly lower on the PGR and thus likely have a higher probability of acceptance - then pick up the pieces, assess your application, and create an action plan for improvement. Some questions to ask, in case you are rejected:

1. Were you really a fit for the program? I mean, really. At the Ph.D level, your supervisor becomes your de facto babysitter. Want to form a committee? Supervisor does that. Exams? Supervisor. Challenge something in the department? Yes, supervisor. Because of the umbilical attachment between you and a supervisor, committees ensure that faculty is there to properly supervise your activities. If your AOI has, like mine, been ghettoized, that requires a judicious eye. 

2. Is your application really as good as it can be? Be brutal with yourself: is the paper you submitted the apogee of your philosophical ability? How about the SOP? Did you synchronize your SOP with your recommendation letters such that your achievements are presented in the best possible light? Do not underestimate the force of a well-manicured app package: people with less impressive hard factors are admitted over more impressive applicants with a shocking regularity, precisely in virtue of their application's strength. 

  

Edited February 23, 2018 by RoughAnatomy

[mynameismyname]

13 minutes ago, SlumberingTrout said:

I was also waitlisted at SLU. Concurred re: ready for the process to be over!

I see that you were accepted at FSU as well -- congratulations! I applied to their program but never heard back.

Maybe you were waitlisted at FSU? If so, I'm likely to turn down their offer (I was just waiting see if I get a university fellowship I was nominated for there) and I hope you get the accepted then. 

[lyellgeo]

35 minutes ago, prtrbd said:

Disagree entirely. There are other paths in this life. If the discipline doesn't want you, who needs them? Smart people should not be spending yet another year trying to read the mercurial minds of aging admissions committees in the hopes of getting $25,000 stipends leading to job market insecurity.

Just to add to this: there's a (often not well appreciated) tension between being a philosopher and an academic professional. Many philosophers (e.g. Mill and Spinoza, just to name a couple) had day jobs or did their most important work outside of academia. As the neoliberal pressures on the academic job market are only increasing, it's becoming more likely that the tenure-track professor route to being a philosopher will be increasingly become less sustainable. 

Edited February 23, 2018 by lyellgeo

[MishaPanda]

Can anyone claim the CU acceptance? Would love to congratulate and hear details such as AOI, what form the acceptance came in, etc ?☺️

[be.]

5 minutes ago, MishaPanda said:

Can anyone claim the CU acceptance? Would love to congratulate and hear details such as AOI, what form the acceptance came in, etc ?☺️

I can claim that. It was just an email to check the application portal.

[MishaPanda]

6 minutes ago, be. said:

I can claim that. It was just an email to check the application portal.

I might have suspected, you legend. Congrats! 

[PhilosophyMatters]

20 hours ago, BL16 said:

From what I've heard, next week.

Really?!! Where did you hear that from? I've been checking the decisions for the past years and they all heard back around Mar. 5-8

[Guest RoughAnatomy]

15 hours ago, Devotions said:

Congrats!! Did you hear back via post or email from BC? I thought they used post

Has anyone else heard back from Boston college? 

 

"Boston College has sent out letters to the top five students admitted to the doctoral program. Decisions have not been made on the remaining applicants and no other letters have been sent out."

 

From BC. 

 

I didn't even apply there, but, as a few of you guys did, I sent them an email. 

Edited February 23, 2018 by RoughAnatomy

[SlumberingTrout]

1 hour ago, mynameismyname said:

Maybe you were waitlisted at FSU? If so, I'm likely to turn down their offer (I was just waiting see if I get a university fellowship I was nominated for there) and I hope you get the accepted then. 

Maybe so, and thank you for your kind hopes on my behalf! Have you been accepted by your top pick as of yet?

[mynameismyname]

5 minutes ago, SlumberingTrout said:

Maybe so, and thank you for your kind hopes on my behalf! Have you been accepted by your top pick as of yet?

Yeah, WUSTL was my top pick (out of schools I thought I had a reasonable chance at acceptance). I applied to NYU but of course don't really expect positive news from there. 

[MishaPanda]

47 minutes ago, RoughAnatomy said:

I didn't even apply there, but, as a few of you guys did, I sent them an email. 

This is maybe my favourite sentence I’ve ever read on this forum. 

[lyellgeo]

Also: accepted at Memphis, but on a waitlist for funding. Even if I don't get into a funded phd this year, I'm feeling much better at this point about going to one of the several MA programs I applied to (such as KU Leuven) before reapplying in a year or two.

Edited February 23, 2018 by lyellgeo

[Metanoia]

Anxiously waiting for Columbia...

[Guest RoughAnatomy]

11 minutes ago, Metanoia said:

Anxiously waiting for Columbia...

Decisions are coming next week, good or bad. Also emailed them. (That email was born of anxiety, though: I did apply there.) 

Edited February 23, 2018 by RoughAnatomy

[Metanoia]

10 minutes ago, RoughAnatomy said:

Decisions are coming next week, good or bad. Also emailed them. (That email was born of anxiety, though: I did apply there.) 

Thanks, that’s good to know. Hopefully, Princeton should declare results soon too. 

[AngelaMercy]

3 hours ago, Stencil said:

Also, has anyone else who applied to UCLA still not received a decision? Several people have reported getting rejections from UCLA today, but I still have no sign of an email and there's no decision for me on the application website.

Same here. I'll probably waiting for it all day. If I can get it today, even a bad news seems to be okay
 

[kretschmar]

51 minutes ago, RoughAnatomy said:

Decisions are coming next week, good or bad. Also emailed them. (That email was born of anxiety, though: I did apply there.) 

Well, there goes an entire week of pointless anxiety 

[Philodoxia]

14 minutes ago, kretschmar said:

Well, there goes an entire week of pointless anxiety 

Speaking of pointless anxiety, anyone know anything about either UCSD or Notre Dame? The former's usually released earlier than this week, whereas the latter should come out by next week.

[Guest RoughAnatomy]

3 minutes ago, Philodoxia said:

Speaking of pointless anxiety, anyone know anything about either UCSD or Notre Dame? The former's usually released earlier than this week, whereas the latter should come out by next week.

Want me to email them? #noshame ?

[PhiloStorian]

16 minutes ago, kretschmar said:

Well, there goes an entire week of pointless anxiety 

Yep. All the things I could have done this week instead of anxiously peruse GradCafe, yet I'm still here...