2013 Applicants (Philosophy)

[humean_skeptic]

Texas Austin, Columbia, CUNY, Michigan Ann Arbor, Toronto, Boston, Maryland... But I'm already in a Canadian PhD program, so "safety" schools not necessary. 

 

Sounds like a great list of schools. What areas do you work in? (Apologies if you've already explained fifty times what areas you work)

[ἀκρατής]

USC results are out, both acceptances and waitlists. Seems like most schools are kind of early this year compared with the results in the last few years...

[napoleon314]

Hello All:

 

Just got the reject from MIT, and am despairing a bit. 

 

UG GPA: 3.6 (film major; philosophy, math minor). Law GPA: 3.6 (magna cum laude). GRE: 170/166/5.5

Both UG and Law School are reasonably well ranked. UG philosophy grades not stellar (even mix of A's and B's). Philosophy of law grades from Law School all A's.

 

Recommendations: two well-known philosophers of law at Law School and an economist (well known in the field of law and economics, but maybe not so much in philosophy).

 

Publications: Have several publications in law and economics, and a presentation at a major economics conference. Am coauthoring a book with the economist on the philosophical foundations of law and economics for Cambridge University Press as part of a series on philosophy of law. 

 

AoI: Philosophy of Law, Logic (semantic and set theoretic paradoxes).

 

Applied: NYU, Rutgers, Oxford, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Mich, Columbia, UCLA.

 

Mostly, I'm concerned about the grades. Assuming recommendations and WS are fine, anyone think I'm in for a disappointing application cycle? I realize my schools are extremely competitive, but I've got an Econ backup, so there was no sense in applying to "backup" schools. The book helps, but it's forthcoming (we're still writing it), so I'm not sure how much stock adcoms will put in that. Still, major university press. I just don't know what to expect, and I'm freaking out a bit. 

Edited February 24, 2013 by napoleon314

[lovephil]

Sounds like a great list of schools. What areas do you work in? (Apologies if you've already explained fifty times what areas you work)

 

Moral, social and political philosophy (colonialism)

Feminist philosophy

Philosophy of Emotions (political anger, forgiveness)

[superhamdi]

Really sad about USC, that was one of my top choices, esp because of fit.

 

I'm confused by some of the stuff going on. People are posting rejections to a number schools that I haven't heard from at all! 

[lesage13]

Really sad about USC, that was one of my top choices, esp because of fit.

I'm confused by some of the stuff going on. People are posting rejections to a number schools that I haven't heard from at all!

Have you been formally rejected, or are you inferring a rejection?

[BernardJOrtcutt]

Napoleon, Maybe I'm a bit too jaded coming from an MA program where the received wisdom is to apply up and down the Leiter rankings, but my understanding is that what matters most is writing sample, statement, recommendations and mostly luck. Once you reach a certain threshold of 'good enough to get looked at' it comes down to some faculty member being interested in what you are doing. The other thing they are looking at is "do we think this student could place a TT job in a school with a graduate department/do serious research in philosophy?" And sadly, unless you post your letters, your statement, and your writing sample, your other stats just won't tell us enough to give you any great advice on what to expect.

[Kcdc]

For other Maryland applicants, can you access your accounts now, or does it say unavailable? I haven't received a rejection yet...

[incontradiction]

For other Maryland applicants, can you access your accounts now, or does it say unavailable? I haven't received a rejection yet...

Same boat as you regarding rejection (or lack thereof, I suppose). My main application is available, but my ASF sends me to an error/unavailable screen.

Maybe a good sign? Though there really is no data to decide if it's good or bad.

[incontradiction]

Also, anyone heard anything else from UCSB? Still nothing for me, and they started sending rejections days ago!

 

I emailed Alicia Baker, whose contact information is listed on the site, a few days ago but she has not responded. That struck me as odd because in January she and I were in correspondence over my university's mishandling of my transcripts, and she always responded within a few hours.

Edited February 25, 2013 by incontradiction

[AquinasDuo]

By your name, I imagine you are also interested in medieval philosophy, and Aquinas. Someone (who would know) told me Phillipa Foot, perhaps my favourite ethicist, used to read some Aquinas and some Montague before writing--it focused her on the things that really matter. Toronto would be an excellent place to pursue your interests, and your application looks strong enough to get in. Right now, my options are Yale (acceptance) and Pittsburgh (waitlist). I would be interested to know where you end up--keep me up and I wish you the best of luck. If you are accepted to Yale, I look forward to meeting you.

 

Aquinas was my first love, but we have parted ways a bit since. Yale would be a dream, but I am not bold enough to fully hope - especially since I haven't heard back and you have. Toronto, however, while also a dream is one that I am indeed hoping to hear from, and soon. Thank you for your vote of confidence and congratulations on the top notch acceptances. 

[napoleon314]

Bernard: Yeah, obviously no one can say without WS, statement, and LoRs. The question is whether I get past the hurdle, "good enough to get looked at."

[Billy Goehring]

Bernard: Yeah, obviously no one can say without WS, statement, and LoRs. The question is whether I get past the hurdle, "good enough to get looked at."

 

I don't know--after a while all these numbers start to look the same. And I never understand crowdsourcing for something that's ultimately pure speculation. How would we know what to say about your stats? 

 

Good GRE scores, a book deal, and a string of publications. I don't know what to tell you--your GPA looks pretty par for the course as far as the results page is concerned. Yeah, there are some admits with 4.0 averages; but then again, there are plenty of 3.6's and even a 2.97 with good results. 

 

Judging from what you told us, it's not unreasonable to think that your application was "good enough to get looked at," but the rest is conjecture--what about department fit? Did you tailor your statements to each department, or did you use the same for all? I think fit would be a much greater factor here than whether your book has yet to hit the presses. 

And besides, what do these numbers mean? For the most part, it's a crapshoot. 

 

[lovephil]

I'm kinda dying inside right now. No news from Toronto, even though a few people have been accepted. No news from Maryland, although a few people have been rejected. CUNY and Michigan had some results out by now last year. 

[napoleon314]

I don't know--after a while all these numbers start to look the same. And I never understand crowdsourcing for something that's ultimately pure speculation. How would we know what to say about your stats? 

 

Because at this point, speculation soothes the anxiety. Or fuels it. 

 

Good GRE scores, a book deal, and a string of publications. I don't know what to tell you--your GPA looks pretty par for the course as far as the results page is concerned. Yeah, there are some admits with 4.0 averages; but then again, there are plenty of 3.6's and even a 2.97 with good results. 

 

Really? I got the impression that less than 3.7 was pretty problematic for the schools I applied to.

 

 

Judging from what you told us, it's not unreasonable to think that your application was "good enough to get looked at," but the rest is conjecture--what about department fit? Did you tailor your statements to each department, or did you use the same for all? I think fit would be a much greater factor here than whether your book has yet to hit the presses. 

 

Yeah, I tailored each statement, mentioning professors, with whom I'd like to study, and explaining why I thought the school was a good fit. And they all are good fits, with the possible exception of MIT and Princeton. Got the reject from MIT.

 

And besides, what do these numbers mean? For the most part, it's a crapshoot. 

 

 

Fair enough. I doubt I'm the only person here feeling inadequate. Meh, this is going to be a hellish couple weeks for me, until I get my first admit (assuming I get one). 

Edited February 25, 2013 by napoleon314

[Philosophizer]

napoleon314,

I'm pretty interested in hearing how you actually do. I think your GPA is definitely good enough, even for a top school (GPA just isn't the most important factor), and your GRE scores are quite good, and I imagine you're just generally a well very well rounded candidate and a rather smart fellow. However, as you know the schools you applied to are extremely competitive and hardly anyone has a good shot of getting in with that particular list (I'm guessing Michigan is probably the least competitive of those), and I get the sense that most philosophers don't care that much about interdisciplinary studies and/or backgrounds. In fact, when I was an undergrad, I was considering double majoring and the advisor in the philosophy department told me not to. The advice was to just focus on philosophy because admission committees wouldn't really care about or know how to assess what I did in other fields. I do know of some people who got advanced degrees (law, medicine, etc) before going on to philosophy, but if I were you my biggest concern would be my relative lack of formal background in philosophy - I don't think this would hurt you at slightly lower ranked schools, but again, you applied to tremendously competitive programs.

[Phil2013]

napoleon314,

I'm pretty interested in hearing how you actually do. I think your GPA is definitely good enough, even for a top school (GPA just isn't the most important factor), and your GRE scores are quite good, and I imagine you're just generally a well very well rounded candidate and a rather smart fellow. However, as you know the schools you applied to are extremely competitive and hardly anyone has a good shot of getting in with that particular list (I'm guessing Michigan is probably the least competitive of those), and I get the sense that most philosophers don't care that much about interdisciplinary studies and/or backgrounds. In fact, when I was an undergrad, I was considering double majoring and the advisor in the philosophy department told me not to. The advice was to just focus on philosophy because admission committees wouldn't really care about or know how to assess what I did in other fields. I do know of some people who got advanced degrees (law, medicine, etc) before going on to philosophy, but if I were you my biggest concern would be my relative lack of formal background in philosophy - I don't think this would hurt you at slightly lower ranked schools, but again, you applied to tremendously competitive programs.

 

I think double majoring depends on the case. I feel in my case it helped me - I double-majored in linguistics. The double major helped me because many of my classes were fairly relevant to philosophy (two semantics classes which discuss in broad outline Frege, Russell, Davidson, Kripke, etc. a pragmatics class that discusses Searle, Strawson, etc). Also, it might have helped justify an interest of mine that wasn't fully developed. My listed secondary interest is in phil of language. However, a phil of lang course wasn't offered until this past semester. Having a linguistics background especially with those sorts of classes helped me justify putting phil of lang as an interest even though I did not have as well of a developed background in it as others might have were they to list phil of lang as an interest.

 

Not only that, but time devoted to the other major is probably key. I took essentially only the miniumum amount classes required for my linguistics degree, and took many classes above the required amount for my philosophy major. So your point that a double major could hurt a focus in philosophy doesn't apply in cases like mine where it is decently clear from my record that linguistics was the "secondary" major.

 

It also depends on your academic history. I actually entered undergrad as a linguistics major only to realize I wanted to do philosophy soon after. Since I wanted to take time to make sure philosophy was right for me, I decided fairly early on to keep the linguistics major and double rather than drop the linguistics major. Once philosophy became my focus, I consistently took 3 phil classes a semester and 1 to 2 linguistics classes.

[incontradiction]

CUNY is apparently in the final round of decisions according to a new result posting. Good luck to everyone who applied!

[AquinasDuo]

I am seeing some acceptances for Toronto up on the list today, but no news came for me. This is quite crushing, I had high hopes for Toronto specifically :-/

[AquinasDuo]

Not only that, but time devoted to the other major is probably key. I took essentially only the miniumum amount classes required for my linguistics degree, and took many classes above the required amount for my philosophy major. So your point that a double major could hurt a focus in philosophy doesn't apply in cases like mine where it is decently clear from my record that linguistics was the "secondary" major.

 

I have to agree with this. My second BA (Poli Sci) was very Theory focused, so essentially I just took more philosophy courses, covering people I would not otherwise have gotten to, from a slightly different angle. Indeed, the only thing that made two-thirds of those classes not philosophy was the course number. That said, I work with someone with two completely disjointed majors and in her case I could see it making here less founded in each than she might otherwise have been. 

[superhamdi]

On 2/24/2013 at 1:03 PM, lesage13 said:

Have you been formally rejected, or are you inferring a rejection?

I am inferring a rejection, but I think they've only just made their offers, not sent out rejections yet.

 

 

On 2/24/2013 at 6:44 PM, incontradiction said:

Also, anyone heard anything else from UCSB? Still nothing for me, and they started sending rejections days ago!

Nothing from UCSB. Or WashU. I'm pretty sure both schools have already sent out acceptances, waitlists, and rejects. 

 

 

 

Also, Napoleon, as many mentioned above, there are SO many factors that go into evaluating an applicant. As someone mentioned already, there are people getting rejected from top programs with 4.0 GPA and perfect or near perfect GRE scores (MIT and Pitt I believe). At the same time, there are people with 3.5s getting into Berkeley and the like. LoRs, WS, (and pedigree, I suspect) are worth a lot.

[AquinasDuo]

Last one for now, sorry to be so prolific for the moment: I see accepts and rejects on the survey for Chicago citing the website, but I can't seem to find anywhere that will give me anything other than 'submitted.' Any insights? 

[ἀκρατής]

Last one for now, sorry to be so prolific for the moment: I see accepts and rejects on the survey for Chicago citing the website, but I can't seem to find anywhere that will give me anything other than 'submitted.' Any insights? 

 

Which Chicago school?

If UChicago: they just haven't sent out the rejection emails yet. Website is irrelevant in their case.

[lovephil]

For those who have not heard from Toronto, does your application status say "under review" or "decision made"?

[Impysh]

I'm stilll 'Under review'