2016 Waitlist Thread

[Kel Varnsen]

On 3/12/2016 at 8:32 PM, panpsychist said:

I'm sure Indiana would be great for you! Both O'Connor and Cao do some fascinating stuff there!

Definitely.  Rosa has a really promising career ahead of her.  I'm sure Indiana will rise in the Phil of Cog Sci ranking with the next PGR because of her.

[philthrowaway]

3 hours ago, gughok said:

Hm. I definitely agree with you that certain opportunities will pass, and that this presents a strong dilemma. Nonetheless, I think I see reason to be more optimistic than this about potential non-academic job prospects after leaving professional philosophy.

Here are just a few well-paying industries which (to my knowledge) permit entry at any (well, below 50-60) age that someone with the intellectual talent required for philosophy should be able to enter depending on their personality, listed in descending order of my confidence in the preceding claim: law, IT, tech (e.g. software dev), engineering of all kinds, business (entrepreneurial, managerial, etc.), marketing, finance, numerous others I don't know about. There are plenty of jobs that a bright 30 year-old with a BA and PhD could enter with a little bit of training, especially as autodidactism grows increasingly respected in a number of fields (see particularly tech and IT).

As for your more modest claim: these aren't opportunities that "will be passing you by". They're opportunities waiting for you to take them. You're no less able to "earn and save money, travel, buy a house, and establish yourself" after leaving professional philosophy. You're just late to the party. Sure, you can't "get ahead" anymore, but does that really matter? I don't think life is a competition for being the youngest CEO in history or any such thing.

I won't claim that your own career will be easy to return to because I don't know what it is. I will simply claim that if someone finds that philosophy isn't for them, they'll have hardly any more difficulty finding profitable positions at 32 than they would have had at 22, save certain niche occupations that are very age dependent. There are many late bloomers, after all, who bloom no weaker for the fact: Alan Rickman and J. K. Rowling come to mind as immediate examples.

Thank you for your thoughts, @gughok. 

[dgswaim]

8 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Definitely.  Rosa has a really promising career ahead of her.  I'm sure Indiana will rise in the Phil of Cog Sci ranking with the next PGR because of her.

This seems to suppose that the PGR specialty rankings move in a broadly rational manner.

Edited March 14, 2016 by dgswaim

[Kel Varnsen]

3 hours ago, dgswaim said:

This seems to suppose that the PGR specialty rankings move in a broadly rational manner.

Yep.  It is stated that "...in many cases, the ratings reflect the presence of only one or two faculty in a department..."  We'll see.

 

[Cecinestpasunphilosophe]

17 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Yep.  It is stated that "...in many cases, the ratings reflect the presence of only one or two faculty in a department..."  We'll see.

 

Which is why the rankings, especially area rankings, should always be taken with a shaker of salt.

My favourite example of this is comparing the phil of religion PGR rankings from 2011 to 2015. In 2011, UNC-Chapel Hill was ranked 2nd (I think) in the English-speaking world for philosophy of religion. In the most recent ranking, it's nowhere to be found. Why? Because the Adams family moved from UNC to a 3-year position at Rutgers' new Centre for the Philosophy of Religion, which is also why (along with Zimmerman) Rutgers is currently in the PGR's second tier. 

Especially when dealing with smaller/less well-known AOIs, the PGR should only be used to point you towards those departments where big names in the field are to be found... and even then, if you've done your homework, you should be able to do that without the PGR's help :)

Edited March 14, 2016 by Cecinestpasunphilosophe

[philosophe]

12 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Definitely.  Rosa has a really promising career ahead of her.  I'm sure Indiana will rise in the Phil of Cog Sci ranking with the next PGR because of her.

She was sitting in on a class I was taking and I had no idea who she was until after the fact. Shame! I just thought she was some post-doc, haha. 

[metaphysician]

Has anyone else not heard from UNC-CH? 

[AnotherKantFan]

1 hour ago, Cecinestpasunphilosophe said:

Which is why the rankings, especially area rankings, should always be taken with a shaker of salt.

My favourite example of this is comparing the phil of religion PGR rankings from 2011 to 2015. In 2011, UNC-Chapel Hill was ranked 2nd (I think) in the English-speaking world for philosophy of religion. In the most recent ranking, it's nowhere to be found. Why? Because the Adams family moved from UNC to a 3-year position at Rutgers' new Centre for the Philosophy of Religion, which is also why (along with Zimmerman) Rutgers is currently in the PGR's second tier. 

Especially when dealing with smaller/less well-known AOIs, the PGR should only be used to point you towards those departments where big names in the field are to be found... and even then, if you've done your homework, you should be able to do that without the PGR's help

Exactly. I don't grasp how Berkeley is ranked "rounded mean score less than 3.0" for Kant whilst having 3 good Kantians, and amongst them a star (H. Ginsborg).... -.-

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, Cecinestpasunphilosophe said:

Especially when dealing with smaller/less well-known AOIs, the PGR should only be used to point you towards those departments where big names in the field are to be found... and even then, if you've done your homework, you should be able to do that without the PGR's help

Yeah, this is really how I used the PGR.  I checked the specialty rankings and then looked into departments individually to decide where to apply.

 

1 hour ago, philosophe said:

She was sitting in on a class I was taking and I had no idea who she was until after the fact. Shame! I just thought she was some post-doc, haha. 

Haha, that is unfortunate..I'm looking forward to meeting her!

[dgswaim]

2 hours ago, Cecinestpasunphilosophe said:

Which is why the rankings, especially area rankings, should always be taken with a shaker of salt.

My favourite example of this is comparing the phil of religion PGR rankings from 2011 to 2015. In 2011, UNC-Chapel Hill was ranked 2nd (I think) in the English-speaking world for philosophy of religion. In the most recent ranking, it's nowhere to be found. Why? Because the Adams family moved from UNC to a 3-year position at Rutgers' new Centre for the Philosophy of Religion, which is also why (along with Zimmerman) Rutgers is currently in the PGR's second tier. 

Especially when dealing with smaller/less well-known AOIs, the PGR should only be used to point you towards those departments where big names in the field are to be found... and even then, if you've done your homework, you should be able to do that without the PGR's help

The philosophy of biology rankings are an absolute mess. Wisconsin is the best place in the world to do philosophy of biology? Please. Sure, they have Elliott Sober.... but they only have Elliott Sober. He's the only person doing philosophy of biology there, and most of his stuff isn't really at the cutting edge of the field anymore. Columbia is pretty highly ranked in phil bio just because they have Phil Kitcher, and Kitcher hardly does any phil bio anymore (and he's about 30 seconds from retiring).

The best place for phil bio is probably UC Davis (and most of the folks in the field that I know of would agree). They're ranked in group 3 on the PGR. Utah should be much higher (again, group 3). Cincinnati dropped out of the phil bio ranking altogether in the most recent addition of the PGR, which is totally inexplicable given that everyone I know in phil bio agrees it's one of the best places in the country to do phil bio (they've got 3 leading figures in the field). But these places have one thing going against them: they're not generally prestigious institutions. 

[Siegfried42]

Does anybody happen to know how Cornell operates its waitlist and approximately how many students are on it? Is it ranked or AOI-based? Trying to figure out how realistic/unrealistic an offer of admission is..

[AtticusGatsby]

On 3/15/2016 at 0:55 AM, Siegfried42 said:

Does anybody happen to know how Cornell operates its waitlist and approximately how many students are on it? Is it ranked or AOI-based? Trying to figure out how realistic/unrealistic an offer of admission is..

Cornell don't rank their wait list, so I would guess that it's based on AOI. They have six places but make more than 6 initial offers, because they expect some rejections. The number of extra offers is based on trends from previous years. So they expect to make 0 offers to people on the wait list. However, last year they made at least 2 offers to people on the wait list. Unfortunately, that might mean they sent out more initial offers this year.

Cornell is my first choice, but I am on the wait list. Alas.

[Siegfried42]

24 minutes ago, AtticusGatsby said:

Cornell don't rank their wait list, so I would guess that it's based on AOI. They have six places but make more than 6 initial offers, because they expect some rejections. The number of extra offers is based on trends from previous years. So they expect to make 0 offers to people on the wait list. However, last year they made at least 2 offers to people on the wait list. Unfortunately, that might mean they sent out more initial offers this year.

Cornell is my first choice, but I am on the wait list. Alas.

Ah, I see.. That's not good news, but it's very informative - thanks! Best of luck!

[epoche]

Does anyone know anything about the CUNY waitlist? 

[itsbits]

Still have not heard anything from Berkeley... anyone else in my boat?

[Davidspring]

Anyone wants to claim the new waitlist at UMass?  Did anyone get accepted off their waitlist?

[dgswaim]

Waitlisted at Florida State. Might remove myself.

[MentalEngineer]

29 minutes ago, dgswaim said:

Waitlisted at Florida State. Might remove myself.

Did they tell you where you are on it? My sense is that there are a lot (like, 10+) initial admits, which means there will almost certainly be admitted people declining their offers.

[dgswaim]

Just now, MentalEngineer said:

Did they tell you where you are on it? My sense is that there are a lot (like, 10+) initial admits, which means there will almost certainly be admitted people declining their offers.

Nope. Just that there's a good chance they'll be moving to the WL as April 15 approaches. Sounds like they just finished finalizing the WL, which seems odd. But I dunno. Rawling made it sound like I have a decent shot at getting admitted. have they told you what the funding is like? That's gonna play heavily into whether I consider them at this point.

[trish88]

Anyone planning to decline Cornell (socio cultural anthropology)? Please do so soon. Many thanks 

Edited March 19, 2016 by trish88

[Metanoia]

1 hour ago, trish88 said:

Anyone planning to decline Cornell (socio cultural anthropology)? Please do so soon. Many thanks 

Wrong forum.

[Adequate Philosopher]

Hello everyone (first post),

I was waitlisted for Texas A&M's MA program back in February. If you're considering declining, just remember you might benefit someone whom you've never met. 

[bechkafish]

Waitlisted at The New School, which was the last place I was waiting to hear from. So, grand total for the season: 0 acceptances, 2 waitlists, 5 rejections. My self-esteem is pretty damn low right now, but hey, even if they don't come to fruition, the waitlists are making me feel a bit better.

[philosophe]

20 hours ago, bechkafish said:

Waitlisted at The New School, which was the last place I was waiting to hear from. So, grand total for the season: 0 acceptances, 2 waitlists, 5 rejections. My self-esteem is pretty damn low right now, but hey, even if they don't come to fruition, the waitlists are making me feel a bit better.

A high amount of eventual attendees come from the WL. Don't give up yet! Getting two positive responses is great, just hang in there another two weeks. Good luck!

[metaphysician]

I am on the wait list at UNC-Chapel Hill and Florida State. If you are inclined to decline an offer / wait list, please do so! Good luck with decisions!  

Edited April 2, 2016 by metaphysician