Rants, Venting, and Speculation

[kretschmar]

I thought this outlet might ameliorate the somewhat chaotic discourse in the admissions thread– which is, after all, supposedly about offers of admission.

One thing eating me is that I will have to turn down offers from very nice people working in wonderful departments. What a waste! Also, why is time slowing down as decisions come out?

[soproperlybasic]

After seeing that some Rutgers notifications are out and I have yet to hear anything, I'm pouring myself some wine and sitting back for the night...

[kretschmar]

The increasing quantity of my wine consumption is, sadly, inversely correlated with the quality of said wine.

[PhiloStorian]

I feel awful not getting any notifications tonight. I'm not sure why, I've already had good news from great places. Perhaps my expectations are/were unrealistic. My drink of choice is whiskey, and I am partaking.

[maxhgns]

2 hours ago, kretschmar said:

One thing eating me is that I will have to turn down offers from very nice people working in wonderful departments. 

On the plus side, most of them will never remember!

[TorreAttack]

When application deadlines were incoming I just wished my professors would submit on time so everything would be fine.

When this decision period first started I just wished I wouldn't get shut out so everything would be fine.

Now after I got my first acceptance to a school which happened to be a near perfect fit I just wish I could get another one so I have a meaningful choice and everything will be fine.

When will things be fine? T-T (maybe in like 30 years if I get tenure at a reputable institution???)

[syn]

So two schools I applied to have sent out some acceptances and some rejections, and one has sent at least one waitlist.  So I'm very confused on why I've received none of those statuses yet.  I'm not complaining, per say, since it's not an outright rejection.  I prefer to look at it optimistically as a "possible waitlist."  But, still.. I don't get the logic of the depts.

[GuanilosIsland]

Waiting to hear back from schools is making me utterly incapable of focusing on anything else, and it's really starting to piss me off.

[Schwarzwald]

I'm just mad that I applied to so many places that be. did.

[Guest RoughAnatomy]

1 hour ago, Schwarzwald said:

I'm just mad that I applied to so many places that be. did.

"They don't think it be like it is, but it do." - Oscar Gamble.

[lyellgeo]

One of the eye-opening (but also frustrating) things about the process is just how many good students there are applying. For example, multiple professors have said I'm the "best undergrad student they've ever had," "better than the majority of their grad students," or whatever other (somewhat useless) cliches you'd like to throw out in instead. But I also come from a relatively average state school, where it was easier to stand out, but where there also weren't as many options to make connections within my areas of interest. Whereas many others are not only standing out at their programs, but are also coming from much better schools where they've had the ability to develop better philosophical training, get better letters, develop stronger connections, get a better sense of the current state of scholarship in their areas of interest, and so on.  Not a complaint so much as it is just an observation. 

[ThePeon]

12 minutes ago, lyellgeo said:

One of the eye-opening (but also frustrating) things about the process is just how many good students there are applying. For example, multiple professors have said I'm the "best undergrad student they've ever had," "better than the majority of their grad students," or whatever other (somewhat useless) cliches you'd like to throw out in instead. But I also come from a relatively average state school, where it was easier to stand out, but where there also weren't as many options to make connections within my areas of interest. Whereas many others are not only standing out at their programs, but are also coming from much better schools where they've had the ability to develop better philosophical training, get better letters, develop stronger connections, get a better sense of the current state of scholarship in their areas of interest, and so on.  Not a complaint so much as it is just an observation. 

Yes, this is definitely a humbling part of the process for me too. I get the impression from talking to graduate students and professors at my undergraduate institution that the process has become significantly more competitive even compared to 4 or 5 years ago, and especially compared to 10 years ago. Some of the older graduate students at my PGR T-40 school have said they just sent in their best undergraduate paper with only minor revisions as their writings sample and got into the school. Nowadays, I doubt an application with such a writing sample could get into a PGR program.

I don't know if this is because there are just more applicants in general, more applicants from terminal M.A.s, or just more information about making a good application via the internet (or a combination of these), but something is different now.

Edited February 22, 2018 by ThePeon

[coffeepls]

I'm hoping that the next week or so brings me some news, be it good or bad. Over the past 24 hours, I've seen 3 people claim acceptances to my top choice in the results log, and I'm slightly heartbroken about it. 

[PhiloStorian]

Has anyone already turned down at least one offer? It's early days yet, but I'm still interested to hear who might be drawing from waitlists.

[lyellgeo]

1 hour ago, ThePeon said:

I don't know if this is because there are just more applicants in general, more applicants from terminal M.A.s, or just more information about making a good application via the internet (or a combination of these), but something is different now.

Yeah. Along with that, I would likely blame the increasingly stagnant/shrinking academic job market, especially considering that applications have gone up quite a bit since the crash in 2007 (whereas the job market hasn't really recovered), both of which put more weight on the admissions process. Then there's also increasing costs of tuition (party due to the expansion of the student loan system), making funding more of a necessity. And it seems likely that, aside from any crisis or major restructuring of our education system, things will continue to get more competitive. 

I don't have anything wrong in principle with working part time while going to grad school, or even paying something for tuition while doing so. But 40-50k a year in tuition (e.g. Chicago's MAPH program) just doesn't seem reasonable. 

Edited February 22, 2018 by lyellgeo

[totorotaro]

2 hours ago, coffeepls said:

I'm hoping that the next week or so brings me some news, be it good or bad. Over the past 24 hours, I've seen 3 people claim acceptances to my top choice in the results log, and I'm slightly heartbroken about it. 

At this point, almost all of my schools have sent acceptances. I have received two rejections. I am reconciling with the fact I will probably be shut out. And this requires copious amounts of wine. I hope this next week brings you some response and, ultimately, the acceptance to the school of your dreams! 

[angelucia]

Not an applicant, but I hope it's okay for me to vent here. My girlfriend applied to many philosophy PhD programs this cycle. She's brilliant, but she doesn't have the best GPA and goes to not the best school. She goes to a state university that has a phenomenal graduate philosophy department (her school's graduate philosophy program is in the top ten or so in the world, I think). She's made the most of the fact that she goes to an overall good-but-not-great school with a mediocre undergraduate philosophy program by taking several courses in the amazing graduate philosophy department each semester she's been there, taking classes with the big name people working in the graduate department. She's personally gotten close with several of those important professors and they've write her rec letters and such, and one of them even told her she's one of the best students they've ever had, and that he would bet, despite her grades, that she would get into most of the programs she applied to. The dude who told her this is, I think, a big deal, and he also doesn't sound like the type who would bullshit something like that. He's to some degree involved in this prestigious graduate department's admissions, so surely he wouldn't just say something like that so flippantly, right?

So far she hasn't heard back from anywhere. And I know this doesn't mean rejection necessarily, but it kind of does, right?

Sorry. I know everyone else here is dealing with the same thing, and I know she's not that special. I'm prejudiced of course in how great I think she is. I know she'd never come on here and post about how great her professors have told her she is and whatever, or how wonderful her writing sample is, but I know those things are true. I don't know, it just hurts that the professor she's close to got her hopes up that, despite her GPA, she could do this, in expressing such certainty and confidence. It's upsetting to me, and even though she's already trying to resign herself that she knew this would happen and it's not a big deal, I don't want to see her dreams crushed.

Sorry again, because I know you all deal with this too and this isn't special. But yeah, just wanted to vent. 

[lyellgeo]

30 minutes ago, angelucia said:

Sorry. I know everyone else here is dealing with the same thing, and I know she's not that special. I'm prejudiced of course in how great I think she is. I know she'd never come on here and post about how great her professors have told her she is and whatever, or how wonderful her writing sample is, but I know those things are true. I don't know, it just hurts that the professor she's close to got her hopes up that, despite her GPA, she could do this, in expressing such certainty and confidence. It's upsetting to me, and even though she's already trying to resign herself that she knew this would happen and it's not a big deal, I don't want to see her dreams crushed.

Sorry again, because I know you all deal with this too and this isn't special. But yeah, just wanted to vent. 

Thanks for sharing—it's great that you're so supporting of her interests! My emotional process was similar, as I had a professor (not necessarily a huge name, but someone good enough to have multiple OUP publications) more or less tell me the same thing. There's definitely the frustration of someone close having gotten your hopes up. I think many professors who give that advice may be out of touch, though it's hard to say, especially given that those professors are themselves frequently on admissions committees. Anyway, hoping that she at least hears back something positive from somewhere. 

[ThePeon]

I really just want to know if I've been rejected for sure at this point. I've made my peace with the possibility of being shut out, but the uncertainty of being likely rejected but possibly on a wait list (or even a later admittance, in the case of Harvard and Penn) is really getting to me.

[kurumetarou]

Didn't even get waitlisted yet, let alone acceptance. It's pointless to be sad, but it surely is quite depressing to think I don't even get a chance to make something out of my life. But then again maybe that's just how life works.

[genderphage]

blarg I feel like a warning to future applicants despite still having 8 places to hear back from (although implied rejections from 2...), top-ranked undergrad, near-perfect GRE, good letters from well-respected people (including a world-leader in my AoI), writing sample that was my thesis which already got a 1st so I do know it's good, but not great marks because apparently having 18 hours of exams at the end of two years is a sensible way to determine three years of progress

asdvhaiogaskalsdf

i should be optimistic because my rejections so far are from two of the most competitive programs and there's still a bunch left but it's hard to keep your head up (also, y'know, depression etc.)!

[Scoots]

When I was applying my professor said I was applying to too many programs (12) and that I should be more optimistic. 6 rejections later........ 
 

edit: it looks like actually 7 (several implicit) rejections so far. There was I going and being optimistic again lol

Edited February 23, 2018 by Scoots

[prtrbd]

How seriously should I take "implicit rejections"? E.g. (at the moment): Pitt, Toronto, USC, Rutgers, Virginia, Harvard. That's half of the schools I haven't heard back from.

[syn]

39 minutes ago, prtrbd said:

How seriously should I take "implicit rejections"? E.g. (at the moment): Pitt, Toronto, USC, Rutgers, Virginia, Harvard. That's half of the schools I haven't heard back from.

None at all.  To be honest, the term kind of pisses me off.  What a pessimistic thing to say.  Look, if it's not a rejection, you're still in the running.  Be an optimist, acknowledge you're still in the running, and look forward to hearing back.

[Cogitodoncrien]

2 hours ago, syn said:

None at all.  To be honest, the term kind of pisses me off.  What a pessimistic thing to say.  Look, if it's not a rejection, you're still in the running.  Be an optimist, acknowledge you're still in the running, and look forward to hearing back.

The term also irritates me, but for a different reason: if one has not been told anything, not been given a linguistic or conversational act at all, then nothing has been implied, because there has been nothing to do any implicating. I prefer the phrase “inferred rejection”, which is what it is. But, as abductive inferences go, there is always discounting evidence in favor of another explanation.