ianfaircloud Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 Well, I hope this works. It's not perfect. There are some things about the survey that will strike some as odd and others as reasonable. When I get time, I'll explain some of the choices that I made. I hope that, on the whole, the survey is a powerful tool for the community of academic philosophy in the United States. http://faircloudblog.wordpress.com/philosophy-admissions-survey/ Would you please encourage others to participate? The more data, the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 A few things you'll notice immediately: 1. It's heavily western-oriented and particularly American-oriented. I felt that I had to narrow the scope/range of the survey. There's such a thing as a survey that's too wide, too comprehensive to be effective. You will notice that I didn't go to great lengths to accommodate international applicants (i.e. applicants who attended colleges not in the United States). Their input is very valuable, but it becomes more difficult to measure, e.g., reputation of international schools. I admit that it's possible to do so. But keep in mind, it does take a long time to put together a survey with such details. 2. The survey allows people to skip almost every question. I did this because no doubt there will be people who want to skip certain questions. I don't want those people to be excluded. The more data we get, the better. 3. The survey doesn't get too specific about GPA and GRE. This allows us to somewhat protect the anonymity of those who respond. I tried to strike a balance. 4. The survey is quite long. Well, it's the only one out there, so there's a lot of data that we want. Also, I listened to the people on the forum who suggested that we add certain questions (e.g. publications, etc.). These questions make the survey longer. But GUESS WHAT? You can simply SKIP the questions that you don't want to answer! So I figured, Why not include all this? This survey will be a failure if we don't get enough responses. Please, please, please encourage everyone to fill this thing out. It's REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY important that people fill out the survey, even when (perhaps especially when) those people were shut out or rejected to almost every program. We're trying to figure out WHY some are shut out and not others. It's not always as obvious as, e.g., GRE score. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 (edited) Also, you'll notice that I ask only for the INITIAL notification. No doubt this will strike some as a weakness. Here's why I did that. First, I don't want people waiting until April 15 to fill out the survey. The reason is that, as a matter of fact, we will get fewer replies to the survey as time goes on. Second, the INITIAL notification is extremely informative to us. An applicant's being initially wait-listed indicates a certain degree of that applicant's success. I think it would be nice to better understand why some people are on wait-lists and others are rejected outright. No doubt the survey would be even more informative if it asked whether people were eventually admitted to programs at which they were initially wait-listed. But again, then we lose the people who wait until April 15 or later to fill out the survey. Edited March 18, 2014 by ianfaircloud Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottagecheeseman Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 When you get to the colleges part, you left out "Mail" or "post" for the initial method. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 (edited) When you get to the colleges part, you left out "Mail" or "post" for the initial method. FIXED! Wow, that's frustrating...! Edited March 18, 2014 by ianfaircloud Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perpetuavix Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 When submitting info about grad program, it requires a time stamp as well as a date. You might want to have instructions to put 12:00am if you don't know the time (or even get rid of it). But thanks for organizing this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 The responses are coming in! I think we're up to 12 now. The survey was posted about 45 minutes ago. That's pretty good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 (edited) When submitting info about grad program, it requires a time stamp as well as a date. You might want to have instructions to put 12:00am if you don't know the time (or even get rid of it). But thanks for organizing this! OK -- I fixed this, too. Now it informs people to skip the question OR to use 12:00 a.m. if they don't know the time. I hope people remember to skip questions that they don't want to bother with. It's not a requirement that you answer every question. Thanks, perpetuavix, for the tip!! Edited March 18, 2014 by ianfaircloud Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottagecheeseman Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 Maybe I'll encourage people to skip that particular question OR to use the 12:00 a.m., as you suggest. I confess that I agree that the time of the notification seems less important. People of course can skip questions that they think aren't important. But maybe I should delete those questions. What do you think? If you could change it to just date that would probably work best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 If you could change it to just date that would probably work best. I wish I could do that. The tool doesn't allow me to do this (to my knowledge). I agree that asking for the time seems a little silly and pointless. Maybe I should just eliminate it from the survey altogether?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Establishment Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 I wish I could do that. The tool doesn't allow me to do this (to my knowledge). I agree that asking for the time seems a little silly and pointless. Maybe I should just eliminate it from the survey altogether?? The only potential use I see for that field is if we want to distinguish based on when the applicant's application season was. For instance, I just filled out the survey, but I had to enter data into all the date fields because I wanted to make clear that my application data is from last year's admissions cycle. Ideally speaking, if this survey continues each year, then as people who were successful in the past come to check out this forum/that survey, they can enter in the data from their application season, even if it was a year or two or four back. That way we could build a pretty nice database. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 The only potential use I see for that field is if we want to distinguish based on when the applicant's application season was. For instance, I just filled out the survey, but I had to enter data into all the date fields because I wanted to make clear that my application data is from last year's admissions cycle. Ideally speaking, if this survey continues each year, then as people who were successful in the past come to check out this forum/that survey, they can enter in the data from their application season, even if it was a year or two or four back. That way we could build a pretty nice database. I'm glad you brought this up. I didn't know whether to specify that the survey is limited to 2014 applicants. It gets tricky, because some of the questions ask for information that changes from year to year. E.g. rank-reputation of undergraduate institution. I'm open to suggestions on this. If the survey is for applicants from 2013, too, then maybe I should add a question to the effect of, "Which application season . . . ?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bar_scene_gambler Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 Your college and university key is meant to rank philosophy departments, or just US News rankings? Because my university isn't on there, but it's Top 40 US News. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 (edited) Your college and university key is meant to rank philosophy departments, or just US News rankings? Because my university isn't on there, but it's Top 40 US News. Your institution isn't on the key but is top-40 USN? The only way for me to verify this is to figure out which institution is missing from my list. Or you could send me a message in private... I'm finding some small mistakes on the survey, which is to be expected. I somehow didn't include UW Milwaukee in the list of graduate programs in philosophy. So I've corrected that. Also, some people have attempted to enter information in the graduate programs section about programs not in philosophy. So I've added a note to remind people that this is primarily a survey of people who applied to graduate programs in philosophy. How someone did in applications to, say, psychology programs is not within the scope of the survey. Bar_scene_gambler: I checked again, and I can't figure out which institution is missing. I count that I have the right number. Is your institution USN top-40 (or top-50?) National Univ. or Liberal Arts? Edited March 18, 2014 by ianfaircloud Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 19, 2014 Author Share Posted March 19, 2014 Update on the survey: We received over 30 responses this afternoon. I hope we can get at least 300 people to participate before May 1. That's going to be REALLY hard to do. Please encourage others to complete the survey. http://faircloudblog...issions-survey/ Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnothi_Seauton Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 I'm currently on a visit, but I'll fill out the survey when I get back. Thanks for all the work, ianfaircloud! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 19, 2014 Author Share Posted March 19, 2014 Responses are coming in! Thanks for contributing! I reduced the number of programs allowed from 25 to 22, because Google docs can't handle the amount of data in this survey! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monadology Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 Question: I've applied multiple years. Is this survey just for this year's data and, if not, should I fill it out once for each year I previously applied? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 20, 2014 Author Share Posted March 20, 2014 (edited) Question: I've applied multiple years. Is this survey just for this year's data and, if not, should I fill it out once for each year I previously applied? The survey really should be for this year's cycle only, because much of the data used is current for this year only. (E.g. the rank-reputation data) However, I know that a few people filled out the survey for a previous year's cycle. My dilemma is this. Either I add something in the preface, specifying that the survey is for this year's cycle only, in which case we lose some valuable data. Or I add a question that allows people to specify the admission season, in which case I introduce the problem of people using anachronous data for a previous admissions cycle. I think I'll add the question and allow readers to interpret the results as they would like to interpret them. So to answer your question: Yes, you may use the survey for other admission cycles! Thanks for mentioning this. EDIT: I added a question to address this potential issue. Edited March 20, 2014 by ianfaircloud Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 20, 2014 Author Share Posted March 20, 2014 Update on the survey: Responses have slowed today. There's now an option in the form to submit much less detailed information at the end. Instead of entering specific data for each program to which one applied, one can now opt to exit the survey after answering a few questions concerning one's overall success (e.g. "Of the T-50 programs to which you applied, to how many have you been wait-listed or admitted?") I also moved the form to an external Google form site. The worry is that some people will not see the final "Submit" button, which would mean that we lose the data. If you exit the survey before hitting 'submit', then your data is lost. That's just the way Google forms work. If I were more tech-savvy, I'd have a solution to this. Thanks for your help! Again, the survey is here: http://faircloudblog.wordpress.com/philosophy-admissions-survey/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 24, 2014 Author Share Posted March 24, 2014 We have a lot of responses to the survey, but we really need quite a few more before the results will be very meaningful (in my view). I'm hoping for at least 100, perhaps 200, responses. If you've taken the survey, you know how valuable this data could be!! If you know people personally who applied this year, please encourage those people to complete the survey. A lot of people don't use this forum and will not hear about the survey unless someone like you tells them about it! Again, the survey is here: http://faircloudblog...issions-survey/ . Just send a quick email, please, to people who applied out of your program. Give them a sense of our common goal here. Thanks very much for your help. philstudent1991 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted March 26, 2014 Author Share Posted March 26, 2014 I'm bumping up this thread (and will continue to bump it up occasionally until the end of April). Please take the survey! Let your fellow applicants know to take the survey, too. Again, the survey is here: http://faircloudblog...issions-survey/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted April 1, 2014 Author Share Posted April 1, 2014 Bumping up this thread. PLEASE TAKE THE SURVEY!!!!! Again, the survey is here: http://faircloudblog...issions-survey/ . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianfaircloud Posted April 7, 2014 Author Share Posted April 7, 2014 Take the survey, here: http://faircloudblog...issions-survey/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottagecheeseman Posted April 7, 2014 Share Posted April 7, 2014 Take the survey, here: http://faircloudblog...issions-survey/ Again? ianfaircloud 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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