2015 Rejection/“Plan B” Thread

[psm1580b]

Rejected from UW. 

 

I have to be honest, this is getting a bit old... 

[isostheneia]

God, there sure is a lot of red on the results page today. Keep your head up, folks.

[Infinite Zest]

Rejected from MIT. My dreams of living in Boston are slipping away...

[overoverover]

Rejected from MIT as well. I've basically given up on this admissions season.

[Cecinestpasunphilosophe]

Officially rejected from Yale's Religious Studies program today, though I figured it was coming for a while.

I think we all deserve a drink.

[Nastasya_Filippovna]

Officially rejected from Yale's Religious Studies program today, though I figured it was coming for a while.

I think we all deserve a drink.

I'll drink to having a drink. 

[psm1580b]

I'll drink to having a drink. 

I'm having a drink right now.

 

*liftsglass* 

[overoverover]

several drinks in. cheers, fellow rejects.

[a_for_aporia]

Officially rejected from Yale's Religious Studies program today, though I figured it was coming for a while.

I think we all deserve a drink.

 

In lieu of an actual "up" vote: Yes, we all deserve a drink.

Potentially dangerous drinking game: one drink for every rejection. I might be in trouble here...

[kant_get_in]

Rejected from Washington, Seattle via email. 

[ZiggyPhil]

And so it ends...

 

With the Rice acceptance posted today, I'm now 99% percent sure I've been shut out.  Official rejections from 9/15 schools, strongly inferred rejection from 4/15, and weakly inferred rejection from 2/15 (they haven't sent out waitlists yet).

 

Unlike many, I have a pretty good idea what has kept me out (just look at my stats).  It is frustrating beyond words to have dedicated the last three years of my life to philosophy, earning A's in almost 20 philosophy classes at both the undergrad and graduate level, and picking up two additional degrees in the process, not to mention TAing and running my own intro sections, and knowing that to admissions committees none of that is as important as having blown off a handful of non-philosophy classes almost a decade ago.  

[verificationist]

And so it ends...

 

With the Rice acceptance posted today, I'm now 99% percent sure I've been shut out.  Official rejections from 9/15 schools, strongly inferred rejection from 4/15, and weakly inferred rejection from 2/15 (they haven't sent out waitlists yet).

 

Unlike many, I have a pretty good idea what has kept me out (just look at my stats).  It is frustrating beyond words to have dedicated the last three years of my life to philosophy, earning A's in almost 20 philosophy classes at both the undergrad and graduate level, and picking up two additional degrees in the process, not to mention TAing and running my own intro sections, and knowing that to admissions committees none of that is as important as having blown off a handful of non-philosophy classes almost a decade ago.  

 

Well, I think there might be other factors. GREs aren't that important, and your Q and R scores are stellar for philosophy. But your W score is pretty low. (This is probably nothing, though. I know a guy with an offer at NYU who got a 4.5). Nobody will care about your non-phil GPA if your phil and grad GPAs are that good. Especially not if you have good letters of recommendation, which I assume you have, since few teachers would agree to give you a letter unless they can say good things about you.

 

If I may say so, I think the problem might be with your writing sample. Perhaps it's not bad, just on an outdated topic, or not suited to the faculty interests of the places you applied to. I also think you might have overreached. Having 1/3 of your applications on T20 and 2 more of them in places as reputable as Duke or Brown is a huge risk. But don't let any of this discourage you. Just reapply next year with a better sample and be more strategic about your choices. Focus on keeping good relationships with your recommenders or other potential recommenders, and in showing them that you want to improve for the next season.

Edited February 27, 2015 by verificationist

[ianfaircloud]

Well, I think there might be other factors. GREs aren't that important, and your Q and R scores are stellar for philosophy. But your W score is pretty low. (This is probably nothing, though. I know a guy with an offer at NYU who got a 4.5). Nobody will care about your non-phil GPA if your phil and grad GPAs are that good. Especially not if you have good letters of recommendation, which I assume you have, since few teachers would agree to give you a letter unless they can say good things about you.

 

If I may say so, I think the problem might be with your writing sample. Perhaps it's not bad, just on an outdated topic, or not suited to the faculty interests of the places you applied to. I also think you might have overreached. Having 1/3 of your applications on T20 and 2 more of them in places as reputable as Duke or Brown is a huge risk. But don't let any of this discourage you. Just reapply next year with a better sample and be more strategic about your choices. Focus on keeping good relationships with your recommenders or other potential recommenders, and in showing them that you want to improve for the next season.

 

Verificationist, allow me to offer another view. I agree that the GRE isn't that important. In my experience, it serves to filter out some people, and that's about it. But if it were important, Ziggy did fine on that measure. The writing score generally isn't important, and a 4.0 on writing isn't horrible.

 

The GPA -- even the non-philosophy GPA -- makes a difference. A quick glance at last year's comprehensive philosophy admissions survey at least suggests that GPA is important. I would not be surprised if the GPA did hurt Ziggy.

 

You say that the letters were probably good. I still think the letters can be a negative factor, even when they're good. It matters who wrote the letters and how strong they were. I have no idea how Ziggy fared on this measure, so I'm not ready to dismiss the possibility that the letters weren't a factor.

 

The writing sample may have been a factor, too. But really, even with an amazing sample, a low GPA may prevent readers from taking a serious look at the sample. Maybe some professor who would have loved the sample never got to read it, because that professor placed Ziggy's application in the "low numbers" pile.

 

Performing the post-admission autopsy in philosophy admissions is not always a totally hopeless exercise. Sometimes it is. Even fantastic applicants can fail. In the end, Ziggy may simply have been unlucky. For this reason (and other reasons), applying to philosophy programs can be terribly frustrating.

[ZiggyPhil]

"Nobody will care about your non-phil GPA if your phil and grad GPAs are that good."  Unfortunately I just don't think this is true - I see no reason to believe it and every reason not to.  And I'm not even saying they should disregard it - it's obviously a big mark against me - but there is really little else I can do to compensate that I have not already done.  This is part of why this is so frustrating for me, because if I am correct in my assessment, there is little I can do to improve my standing in subsequent years.

 

There is really no point in discussing the writing sample, since I'm not going to share it - suffice it to say that both I and others whose judgment I respect are confident in it, which is ultimately the only way we have of evaluating our writing samples.  But, it seems to me a mistake to lay the blame on the sample, when there is simpler explanation available. 

 

Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm coming across as defensive or pissy - I'm just having a very bad day.  I've spent the last two years reading every piece of advice on philosophy admissions available, so right now I just wanted to kvetch.  I should really be drinking, not typing. 

[ZiggyPhil]

"But really, even with an amazing sample, a low GPA may prevent readers from taking a serious look at the sample. Maybe some professor who would have loved the sample never got to read it, because that professor placed Ziggy's application in the "low numbers" pile."

 

This is the nagging doubt that makes it so frustrating - the feeling that some fraction of my applications (and who knows what fraction that is) were not even seriously considered.  If that fraction is large enough, then I really have no chance.

 

What I might do, if I decide to apply next year, is email departments and ask for a candid answer as to whether, with my stats, I should even bother applying.  But I suspect that answers will be of two types, either refusal ("we can't give advice on specific applications") or a pat and overly optimistic answer ("we evaluate all applications holistically")

 

Without even a waitlist, the only bright spot in my results is that I know not every school dismissed me out of hand, as someone at one of the programs was interested enough to google me and find my academia.edu page. 

 

I'm tempted to go the law school route.  That was my original plan, and I've already got a 99% LSAT.  I know it would be much easier to secure admission to a decent law program, but I would so much rather be a philosopher than a lawyer. 

Edited February 27, 2015 by ZiggyPhil

[reixis]

Rejected from Cornell. 

[MissingBlue]

Got the infamous Ted Sider rejection :/

[reixis]

Any thoughts on why some schools take a while to send rejections? It's been a couple days since the first Harvard's acceptance/waitlist and I have heard nothing. I know that I'm almost likely rejected, but I think an official rejection wouldn't hurt since many of us (especially international students) have to deal with deadlines that don't exactly match the April 15th cycle.

Edited February 27, 2015 by reixis

[flybottle]

Any thoughts on why some schools take a while to send rejections? It's been a couple days since the first Harvard's acceptance/waitlist and I have heard nothing. I know that I'm almost likely rejected, but I think an official rejection wouldn't hurt since many of us (especially international students) have to deal with deadlines that don't exactly match the April 15th cycle

 

Sometimes, I think, it is because the school operates with an internal wait list (eg UCLA). For schools that don't have an internal wait list, I think it's really just that sending out rejections isn't a priority. Sad truth is, there's a finite amount of time for departments to spend on admissions, in conjunction with all their other administrative tasks, and informing the people they're not trying to convince to come to their program probably gets bumped down the list quite often.

 

Which sucks, but I guess it is what it is. And it means the programs that are very efficient about this-- eg, MIT-- look particularly professional. 

[a_for_aporia]

"Nobody will care about your non-phil GPA if your phil and grad GPAs are that good."  Unfortunately I just don't think this is true - I see no reason to believe it and every reason not to.  And I'm not even saying they should disregard it - it's obviously a big mark against me - but there is really little else I can do to compensate that I have not already done.  This is part of why this is so frustrating for me, because if I am correct in my assessment, there is little I can do to improve my standing in subsequent years.

 

There is really no point in discussing the writing sample, since I'm not going to share it - suffice it to say that both I and others whose judgment I respect are confident in it, which is ultimately the only way we have of evaluating our writing samples.  But, it seems to me a mistake to lay the blame on the sample, when there is simpler explanation available. 

 

Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm coming across as defensive or pissy - I'm just having a very bad day.  I've spent the last two years reading every piece of advice on philosophy admissions available, so right now I just wanted to kvetch.  I should really be drinking, not typing. 

 

My friend, kvetching is essentially the point of this thread! No apology necessary! Besides, this admissions process is enough to make anyone bitter. 

[duckrabbit11]

Sometimes, I think, it is because the school operates with an internal wait list (eg UCLA). For schools that don't have an internal wait list, I think it's really just that sending out rejections isn't a priority. Sad truth is, there's a finite amount of time for departments to spend on admissions, in conjunction with all their other administrative tasks, and informing the people they're not trying to convince to come to their program probably gets bumped down the list quite often.

 

Which sucks, but I guess it is what it is. And it means the programs that are very efficient about this-- eg, MIT-- look particularly professional. 

On a related note: Berkeley sent out acceptances and wait lists at the beginning of February and finally sent out rejections a couple of days ago. The problem is that I still haven't heard anything from them. I doubt I'm on some internal wait list, as it's been a month since they sent out initial wait lists. Should I just assume that they're taking their time/not prioritizing sending out the last rejections or might there be some other cause?

[Page228]

           

From the results board for Oregon:

 

10 Feb 2014 - "178 applicants, 6 admitted. I'm 7th on a waitlist of 13."

 

2 Mar 2015 - "'This year we had 178 highly qualified applicants for a handful of openings.' My ego stings a bit, but those odds make it slightly easier to take."

 

They had exactly 178 applications both years? (Or last year they had 178 total applicants, and this year they had 178 "highly qualified" applicants and some unspecified number of applicants who were not highly qualified, which would still be a weird coincidence.)

 

(In 2013 they said they had 144 total applicants. I was hoping it was 178 and that they just trotted out that weirdly specific number every year. Aw.)

 

I'm still waiting on my rejection email, not that it matters. I accepted another university's offer weeks ago.

[verificationist]

Honest question: why is Oregon so competitive? Are they particularly good at Continental philosophy?

Edited March 3, 2015 by verificationist

[Page228]

They are known for continental philosophy, and yeah, I assume that's why. They're an SPEP program: http://www.spep.org/resources/graduate-programs/

[qualiafreak]

Haven't heard from Oregon, am I to assume that means I'm rejected? Have they sent out all acceptances and wait lists already?