2016 Acceptance Thread

[gughok]

What about the Princeton interview? Seems kinda trolly to me but it's not my area of expertise. Do they even do interviews?

The text, for reference: "My WS argued that it is a modal theorem that []p -> []p. Given that, I conjectured that surely its possible that p must be true. Thus []p. But it is a modal theorem that []p -> p. Therefore p. I suppose the interview will be to find out how we could take that further. I look forward to speaking to Halvorson and Hogan."

[FoxAndChicken]

2 minutes ago, gughok said:

What about the Princeton interview? Seems kinda trolly to me but it's not my area of expertise. Do they even do interviews?

The text, for reference: "My WS argued that it is a modal theorem that []p -> []p. Given that, I conjectured that surely its possible that p must be true. Thus []p. But it is a modal theorem that []p -> p. Therefore p. I suppose the interview will be to find out how we could take that further. I look forward to speaking to Halvorson and Hogan."

So, I don't want to be all "As a logic major" but... Reads like a troll. 

[genesis]

I've got modal logic. That interview is a troll. I'm just seeing [] on my phone instead of boxes and diamonds, but no matter what [{ could stand for, that's a load of nonsense. Someone is messing with us very earnestly . 

[o m g]

The writing sample argued for a tautology. The inference from the second to third sentence is just invalid. The most charitable interpretation is that it was on Plantinga's modal ontological argument for the existence of God and there were some typos in the description. Voting troll

[psm1580b]

8 minutes ago, o m g said:

The writing sample argued for a tautology. The inference from the second to third sentence is just invalid. The most charitable interpretation is that it was on Plantinga's modal ontological argument for the existence of God and there were some typos in the description. Voting troll

Even Plantinga admits that Plantinga's ontological argument for the existence of God is not an argument for the existence of God. But I'm a little rusty when it comes to reading bad interpretations of modal logic. I can't really make heads or tails of that post. 

[philosophe]

Harvard accept? I don't know what to believe anymore. 

[MVSCZAR]

... The troll was clever at first and is bad now... OMG. Did we summon Leiter after all??!? 

[psm1580b]

6 minutes ago, philosophe said:

Harvard accept? I don't know what to believe anymore. 

This application season got me like

[Siegfried42]

I'm going to assume (and hope) the Harvard is a troll too unless we see some evidence to the contrary. Thanks so much Nat for calling Princeton! 

[gughok]

1 minute ago, Siegfried42 said:

I'm going to assume (and hope) the Harvard is a troll too unless we see some evidence to the contrary. Thanks so much Nat for calling Princeton! 

Until someone we know and trust outright claims an acceptance, I'm just going to stop trusting these postings. Too easy to fake.

[AnotherKantFan]

Ohh this is getting tiring. Anyone to *claim* the Harvard acceptance?

[502845824]

I'm convinced Yale isn't legit, but now what about Harvard? 

[Cecinestpasunphilosophe]

56 minutes ago, gughok said:

Until someone we know and trust outright claims an acceptance, I'm just going to stop trusting these postings. Too easy to fake.

Can I propose we adopt as a hypothetical imperative? Unless someone posts here claiming an acceptance, we don't give credence to the results postings? We need to stop letting these people have so much fun at our expense. 

[MVSCZAR]

1 minute ago, Cecinestpasunphilosophe said:

Can I propose we adopt as a hypothetical imperative? Unless someone posts here claiming an acceptance, we don't give credence to the results postings? We need to stop letting these people have so much fun at our expense. 

How do adults say this? Something like, I second this motion? Yeah, I second this motion. 

[502845824]

Just now, MVSCZAR said:

How do adults say this? Something like, I second this motion? Yeah, I second this motion.   fuck yes!

FTFY

[pecado]

Strangely enough you do complain about Princeton having only one admitted applicant, and nobody says a thing about Brown having only one too!

 

And, I can't find anyone claiming that admission. Anything to say about it? 

Edited February 15, 2016 by pecado

[Erratic_Akratic]

5 minutes ago, pecado said:

Strangely enough you do complain about Princeton having only one admitted applicant, and nobody says a thing about Brown having only one too!

 

And, I can't find no one claiming that admission. Anything to say about it? 

A notable difference is that the Brown admittance specified receiving a faculty-wide fellowship, which in itself would explain why no other admissions have been extended (or reported, for that matter). In the Princeton post, there were no grounds for allaying suspicion once the post remained a singleton (well, it didn't in fact, there were other posts, but you get the point).  

[ZoliK]

Hey guys, amidst a flood of rejections via e-mail and through the website coming out of Wisconsin-Madison, I have neither received any e-mails nor any updates on my website as to the status of my application. Anyone know how I should interpret this?

[oddnumber]

1 hour ago, pecado said:

Strangely enough you do complain about Princeton having only one admitted applicant, and nobody says a thing about Brown having only one too!

 

And, I can't find anyone claiming that admission. Anything to say about it? 

Hi, claiming the Brown offer. I am assuming I got notified early because of the university-wide fellowship, and that other offers will go out this week (though I don't know for sure). It looks like they haven't made any other offers so far, so I would definitely not be worried about not having heard back yet. Good luck to everyone who applied there!  

[bechkafish]

3 minutes ago, oddnumber said:

Hi, claiming the Brown offer. I am assuming I got notified early because of the university-wide fellowship, and that other offers will go out this week (though I don't know for sure). It looks like they haven't made any other offers so far, so I would definitely not be worried about not having heard back yet. Good luck to everyone who applied there!  

Thank you for letting us know! And huge congrats on the fellowship.

Edited February 15, 2016 by bechkafish

[philosophe]

28 minutes ago, oddnumber said:

Hi, claiming the Brown offer. I am assuming I got notified early because of the university-wide fellowship, and that other offers will go out this week (though I don't know for sure). It looks like they haven't made any other offers so far, so I would definitely not be worried about not having heard back yet. Good luck to everyone who applied there!  

Congratulations to you! That fellowship sounds amazing!!!

[oddnumber]

6 minutes ago, philosophe said:

Congratulations to you! That fellowship sounds amazing!!!

 

32 minutes ago, bechkafish said:

Thank you for letting us know! And huge congrats on the fellowship.

Thank you both! Just for some detail, I just got an email with title 'Decision made' on Friday afternoon. This just told me to check the website, and there was an official decision letter there. So expect something like that and not an email from a professor. Good luck!

[philosophe]

2 minutes ago, oddnumber said:

 

Thank you both! Just for some detail, I just got an email with title 'Decision made' on Friday afternoon. This just told me to check the website, and there was an official decision letter there. So expect something like that and not an email from a professor. Good luck!

Good to know, thanks for the tip!

[dgswaim]

I emailed Minnesota today and they informed me that initial acceptances and wait lists have all gone out. Bummer for me.

[jacbarcan]

7 hours ago, ZoliK said:

Hey guys, amidst a flood of rejections via e-mail and through the website coming out of Wisconsin-Madison, I have neither received any e-mails nor any updates on my website as to the status of my application. Anyone know how I should interpret this?

Just as a general answer to this question:

My dad is a phd candidate (in his 50s, go dad!) at one of top twenty PGR ranked schools (though he doesn't do philosophy) and he's in close contact with the professors who explained a little something to me the other day. (Makes a lot of sense too.) Generally as we know, schools will keep some if not all rejected candidates waiting. Since they accept so few candidates and (at least some schools) have so little funding, they don't really have a choice other than keep people waiting.

Now responding to the question above, it's definitely a good sign if you're not included in the first round of rejections, but I can't imagine everyone in the first round is everyone at all that'll be rejected (not including wait lists). (And for those in the first round, don't be alarmed. There are so many reasons you might be rejected. It'll mainly be because of a fit problem. You did too much phil of mind. They don't have a phil of mind prof, don't want any new phil of mind students this year, or have too many phil of mind applicants. We've all heard they try to fill certain spots. Sometimes you are the perfect candidate for a spot they're just not interested in this year.) As we've learned with CUNY in the past (and maybe USC this year as well), some schools do send out a lot of rejections first, but also send a waves after. Be happy you didn't get one, but don't read too much hope into it. They're probably just trying to notify the first group so people can just hear back as soon as possible.

As to the question (not posed above) about why they don't just wait list more people. I'm not really sure, but if they have to fund visits in any way, that could be a reason not to do that.