2016 Acceptance Thread

[Erratic_Akratic]

51 minutes ago, brekekexkoax said:

MAPH allows you to take classes in any department in u Chicago. You can therefore specialize, like I did, in philosophy by taking all classes marked "PHIL" and get a faculty mentor from the philosophy department for your thesis. it is my impression/experience from their placement record that phd programs look at that as they would a philosophy specific 2 year masters. It is true there are disadvantages-- no funding, no chance to teach-- but also great advantages. It's a balancing act and everybody should decide for jem selves. Please stop shit talking MAPH when you don't really know what it's about and how it works, everybody. There are plenty of threads on grad cafe already hating on MAPH and I don't go into them and discuss MAPH, however this isn't one of those threads so I'd appreciate the lowering of my MA not to go on here. Plenty of places refer to their masters. You all would not feel great if somebody was devaluing yours. Thanks.

I think you're entitled to feel frustrated at people taking a swipe at that MAPH. Even when we are critical about our own MA programs (as I am about mine), it's always unpleasant to hear others knock it down, especially when they know little to nothing about it. 

Then again, bear in mind that in the context people are just venting their disappointment after being rejected from the PhD program. The MAPH just happens to be a handy punching-bag. That's isn't fair, and it isn't very sensitive either. But don't take it to heart. I think the comments express a surge of disappointment rather than a considered view about the qualities of the MAPH.

Your experience and insight into the advantages of the program (including placement), on the other hand, would probably be extremely useful to anyone on the forum who is in a position to seriously consider the MAPH offer. 

 

Edited February 12, 2016 by Erratic_Akratic

[machineghost]

13 hours ago, MentalEngineer said:

Woo! Hope to see you in April

Yeah I hope to see you as well. It sounds like fun.

[jacbarcan]

7 hours ago, Abendstern said:

I would only add that it would be wise to pitch it as service that would benefit the admissions committee. E.g.: "We understand you probably receive a large amount of emails from anxious applicants asking about when to expect results, so we wanted to reach out to you directly in order to help cut down on this. If you were able to give us a sense of when applicants might expect to hear back about rejections, etc., we could informally advertise that information on the GradCafe forum in a way that wouldn't require any official commitment from you." Something like that?

This is definitely important to me. Hopefully, Nat will be able to take over this discussion later today. 

[philosophe]

9 hours ago, Abendstern said:

Wouldn't it make more sense to email a DGS or the like than to call admins? The latter seems much more likely to give a canned response.

 

If you call you don't have to identify yourself (whereas email obviously has your name). In my experience administrators are happy to let you know if all of the acceptances have gone out (or not), if they know. 

50 minutes ago, jacbarcan said:

This is definitely important to me. Hopefully, Nat will be able to take over this discussion later today. 

I think it might be worse to publicize that you're posting the results on Grad Cafe. Better to have a casual chat with the department administrator and schmooze to see if they're willing to mention what they know. 

EDIT: I just wanted to add, I wouldn't ask about when rejections will be sent out (because we can infer rejections from lack of news). I would ask about whether or not all offers have been made and whether or not there is a WL. 

Edited February 12, 2016 by philosophe

[lisamadura]

Just finished my Skype interview with Penn State. That was a humbling experience 

[jjb919]

Just now, lisamadura said:

Just finished my Skype interview with Penn State. That was a humbling experience 

How so? Who did you interview with? I bet you shined.

[lisamadura]

Just now, jjb919 said:

How so? Who did you interview with? I bet you shined.

I interviewed with Len Lawlor and John Christman. Being probed about my research made me see my weaknesses. It's a naked-in-public sort of vulnerability. They asked me the ONE question I didn't want to be asked, "The word 'singularity' gets thrown around a lot and it is unclear what people mean by it. What do you understand singularity to be?"---Ooof. This question has absolutely plagued me since I started working on Levinas and I still don't have a clear understanding of what it is supposed to mean, although I rely very heavily on the notion of singularity in my work. I know that it's an issue I need to work out, I just didn't want them to know that. 

The interview was intimidating, not so much because I'm afraid of how I did--I didn't get nervous or forget important points. I did my best and they will judge me accordingly. I can sleep well knowing that. It was intimidating because it gave me a sense for how difficult a doctoral program is going to be. These people mean business. Getting a Ph.D. is no f-ing joke. 

[kant_get_in]

10 minutes ago, lisamadura said:

I interviewed with Len Lawlor and John Christman. Being probed about my research made me see my weaknesses. It's a naked-in-public sort of vulnerability. They asked me the ONE question I didn't want to be asked, "The word 'singularity' gets thrown around a lot and it is unclear what people mean by it. What do you understand singularity to be?"---Ooof. This question has absolutely plagued me since I started working on Levinas and I still don't have a clear understanding of what it is supposed to mean, although I rely very heavily on the notion of singularity in my work. I know that it's an issue I need to work out, I just didn't want them to know that. 

The interview was intimidating, not so much because I'm afraid of how I did--I didn't get nervous or forget important points. I did my best and they will judge me accordingly. I can sleep well knowing that. It was intimidating because it gave me a sense for how difficult a doctoral program is going to be. These people mean business. Getting a Ph.D. is no f-ing joke. 

It sounds like they gave your writing sample a pretty serious read. I think that's a good sign. I've always been curious at how closely adcomms read writing samples. A school like UPENN must get at least 200+ serious applications. 

[lisamadura]

I'm revising my attitude re: the Penn State interview. I didn't blow any minds and I showed a lot of my weaknesses but it was an honest representation of my abilities. I'm glad they saw my weaknesses. If they do decide to admit me then I will know they believe I am qualified to study with them (flaws and all)--not just the manicured version of me that they see on paper. 

[dgswaim]

6 minutes ago, lisamadura said:

I'm revising my attitude re: the Penn State interview. I didn't blow any minds and I showed a lot of my weaknesses but it was an honest representation of my abilities. I'm glad they saw my weaknesses. If they do decide to admit me then I will know they believe I am qualified to study with them (flaws and all)--not just the manicured version of me that they see on paper. 

When I interviewed for ND, Chakravartty asked me about the one claim in my paper that I already felt I'd like to walk back a bit, retroactively. My response was literally, "Yeah. That's a strong objection. I wish I hadn't made that claim." Guh.

[bechkafish]

It looks like there's still only one reply from Boston College in the survery results - even given the unpredictability of snail mail, doesn't that seem odd? Wondering if anyone else has heard anything yet.

[philosophe]

do you think chanting "Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown" under my breath for the next 4 hours will do any good? 

[bechkafish]

1 minute ago, philosophe said:

do you think chanting "Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown" under my breath for the next 4 hours will do any good? 

With our powers combined...

[dgswaim]

5 minutes ago, philosophe said:

do you think chanting "Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown" under my breath for the next 4 hours will do any good? 

Prolly.

[brekekexkoax]

59 minutes ago, bechkafish said:

It looks like there's still only one reply from Boston College in the survery results - even given the unpredictability of snail mail, doesn't that seem odd? Wondering if anyone else has heard anything yet.

i'm also waiting on BC so here's hoping for us both! but that person was nominated for a special university fellowship so that may explain it as well.

[jacbarcan]

1 hour ago, Abendstern said:

Or, you know, make a fake email even...

Really, though, the wisdom of contacting departments at all in order to create a more centralized basis of knowledge is a question we might even consider requesting Leiter to ask on his blog. My guess is that a fair number of commenters would support the suggestion, even if they think GradCafe isn't necessarily a positive development in the admissions process. (Though, if that were their belief, then they should recognize the phenomenon as a result of their own departmental failings to send out acceptances, rejections, and WLs all at the same time.)

1. Fake email: both Nat and I are under fake names and emails. 

2. Totally agree that it would be excellent to send to Leiter this question since most of the point is to alleviate the stress on both ends, including on the department's end. I'm sure some professor's don't care, but even from that post on the survey a couple of weeks ago some profs definitely feel harassed. 

[iamtheother]

1 hour ago, lisamadura said:

The interview was intimidating, not so much because I'm afraid of how I did--I didn't get nervous or forget important points. I did my best and they will judge me accordingly. I can sleep well knowing that. It was intimidating because it gave me a sense for how difficult a doctoral program is going to be. These people mean business. Getting a Ph.D. is no f-ing joke. 

In fairness, when you have someone reading your work that you've had laser focus on for awhile, the flaws are apparent to them easily. It sounds like the interview was pushing for clarification more than argumentative assault. You probably did great.

[brekekexkoax]

I called stony brook. They said acceptance letters went out last Friday. Sigh. If anybody got those can you please claim them?

[MVSCZAR]

11 minutes ago, brekekexkoax said:

I called stony brook. They said acceptance letters went out last Friday. Sigh. If anybody got those can you please claim them?

Snail mail? I wonder how many people got in. 

[jjb919]

Has anyone who applied to the Committee on Social Thought at Chicago heard anything yet? I was under the assumption that they'd be starting to notify today.

[brekekexkoax]

16 minutes ago, MVSCZAR said:

Snail mail? I wonder how many people got in. 

i think it was probably email. but it pisses me off cause i emailed the director of doctoral studies on TUESDAY and she told me "

we are in the process of finalizing admissions and regrets.

Letters to all applicants will be sent out only in a week or two."

she should've just said all accepted people had been notified. argh. 

[MVSCZAR]

1 minute ago, brekekexkoax said:

i think it was probably email. but it pisses me off cause i emailed the director of doctoral studies on TUESDAY and she told me "

we are in the process of finalizing admissions and regrets.

 

Letters to all applicants will be sent out only in a week or two."

 

 

she should've just said all accepted people had been notified. argh. 

:/ 

 

There's still the waitlist, fwiw. And nobody else has posted an acceptance since Jan 23. 

[brekekexkoax]

19 minutes ago, MVSCZAR said:

Snail mail? I wonder how many people got in. 

i think it was probably email. but it pisses me off cause i emailed the director of doctoral studies on TUESDAY and she told me "

we are in the process of finalizing admissions and regrets.

Letters to all applicants will be sent out only in a week or two."

she should've just said all accepted people had been notified. argh. 

Just now, MVSCZAR said:

:/ 

 

There's still the waitlist, fwiw. And nobody else has posted an acceptance since Jan 23. 

that's nice of you to say. i don't think they waitlist. i think they just over admit.

[brekekexkoax]

11 minutes ago, jjb919 said:

Has anyone who applied to the Committee on Social Thought at Chicago heard anything yet? I was under the assumption that they'd be starting to notify today.

i saw on the results thing that someday said they got rejected from social thought yesterday via email?

[jjb919]

Just now, brekekexkoax said:

i saw on the results thing that someday said they got rejected from social thought yesterday via email?

Yeah I saw that too, but with only one rejection, no acceptances, and occurring around the same time that a lot of people were being rejected from the PhD program with referral to the MAPH program, I am beginning to wonder if that result was entered wrong. Could it have been meant for the PhD in Philosophy?