Interpreting Rejection Letters

[Jon Andrew Greig]

Greetings all,

I recently received the last response to 11 applications for graduate programs in philosophy, and to my partial astonishment (and lack of surprise, in the end), I was rejected at all schools, except U of Edinburgh (MSc in Ancient Philosophy), for the programs I directly applied to. (You can see where I did and did not get accepted in my signature below.)

That being said, I received counter-offers for other programs from two schools. University of Dallas informed me that their philosophy department suggested I take the Humanities graduate program first and pick up basic philosophy courses that way before reapplying for the philosophy PhD program there.

University of Leeds, by contrast, notified me that the program director for the taught MA in Philosophy of Religion saw my application and was interested to consider me in their program. Philosophy of religion is of some interest for me, although my main interest is in ancient philosophy with ties to patristic thought in neoplatonism--which could be the reason for the interest.

I have ended up accepting U of Edinburgh's offer, but I am also trying to determine how I was rejected and received counter offers from these two schools. My undergraduate GPA was at 3.2, which I'm sure is one reason for the mass of rejections otherwise. How would others assess the responses with counter-offers? I'm slightly flattered, but also trying to understand what this means for my past applications and for making future applications to PhD programs.