2016 Waitlist Thread

[Kel Varnsen]

On 2/24/2016 at 1:23 PM, TheJabberwock said:

Okay cool. If I were in your place I would wait until I had visited the other schools as well. Thank you for the information!

I emailed Gwen tonight to turn down the acceptance.  So you've moved up another spot.  Good luck!

[TheJabberwock]

6 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I emailed Gwen tonight to turn down the acceptance.  So you've moved up another spot.  Good luck!

Thank you for doing it so quickly! I appreciate it.

[kantbook]

8 hours ago, MVSCZAR said:

You perfect person... I could kiss you. 

 

If you have any questions about Toronto feel free to let me know! I won't be here during the visit week but I've been here for far longer than anyone should be anywhere. 

[AnotherKantFan]

WL at Brown and Cornell. Will be declining - good luck to everyone else  

[psm1580b]

Waitlisted at Western!!!

Oh god I want this so bad.... 

This came via email letting me know that, sadly, they're only able to fund very few international students, but I'm on their waitlist so we'll see.

[759]

Would it be just way too neurotic to start a thread where people announce which of their offers they plan to decline? This info probably won't actually help any of us know if we'll be bumped up, but so far we have an acceptance thread, a wait list thread, a rejection thread,...seems like it would close the neurotic loop. 

[Dialectica]

Just now, WVE said:

Would it be just way too neurotic to start a thread where people announce which of their offers they plan to decline? This info probably won't actually help any of us know if we'll be bumped up, but so far we have an acceptance thread, a wait list thread, a rejection thread,...seems like it would close the neurotic loop. 

I like it. But that's because I'm neurotic. Also, all I've got going for me are my waitlists thus far.

[matchamatcha]

1 hour ago, psm1580b said:

Waitlisted at Western!!!

Oh god I want this so bad.... 

This came via email letting me know that, sadly, they're only able to fund very few international students, but I'm on their waitlist so we'll see.

Congrats!  I'll be refreshing my email frantically to see if I finally get a response from them today.

[psm1580b]

1 hour ago, Dialectica said:

I like it. But that's because I'm neurotic. Also, all I've got going for me are my waitlists thus far.

Same. And same.

[Dialectica]

4 hours ago, WVE said:

Would it be just way too neurotic to start a thread where people announce which of their offers they plan to decline? This info probably won't actually help any of us know if we'll be bumped up, but so far we have an acceptance thread, a wait list thread, a rejection thread,...seems like it would close the neurotic loop. 

The question is, now, who would be willing to start such a thread? What lovely person has the ability to start declining or announcing what s/he expects to decline?

[MVSCZAR]

5 minutes ago, Dialectica said:

The question is, now, who would be willing to start such a thread? What lovely person has the ability to start declining or announcing what s/he expects to decline?

@lisamadura started declining already. She should start it. 

[lisamadura]

19 hours ago, MVSCZAR said:

@lisamadura started declining already. She should start it. 

Aaaaand I'm under the bus. 

[MVSCZAR]

26 minutes ago, lisamadura said:

Aaaaand I'm under the bus. 

Teeheehee

[psm1580b]

I started the Declining 2016 thread. I couldn't wait. 

[TheJabberwock]

I just got waitlisted at Kentucky, very high among alternates! Fingers crossed, this is one of my top choices!

[MVSCZAR]

57 minutes ago, TheJabberwock said:

I just got waitlisted at Kentucky, very high among alternates! Fingers crossed, this is one of my top choices!

Bourbon and derbies! WOOWOOO!!!

 

AND CHICKEN!!!

EEEEEE

Edited February 27, 2016 by MVSCZAR

[currentphilgrad]

I think I remember seeing an NYU waitlist. Anyone want to claim it?

[MickeyRay]

15 hours ago, TheJabberwock said:

I just got waitlisted at Kentucky, very high among alternates! Fingers crossed, this is one of my top choices!

 

[TheJabberwock]

3 hours ago, MickeyRay said:

 

Thank goodness I don't necessarily do just continental philosophy (writing sample was in phil of mind/epistemology)! That being said, if I am extended an offer I will be happy to be pursuing my PhD and to continue doing research that allows me to publish and continue attending conferences. On the other side of a PhD, I have fortunately experiences and qualifications to fall back on. If placement were the sole reason we were going into PhD programs, then I think many of us would have the wrong idea. Even the best of us, who have the best offers and attended the best programs (hoping they make it through), will still have difficulty getting placed in a tenure track position. That's the sad reality of this whole endeavor. First step however, regardless of any school's record in placement, is actually getting in a program in the first place (and not going into debt to attend one)!

Edited February 28, 2016 by TheJabberwock

[philstudent1991]

1 minute ago, TheJabberwock said:

Thank goodness I don't necessarily do just continental philosophy (writing sample was in phil of mind/epistemology)! That being said, if I am extended an offer I will be happy to be pursuing my PhD and to continue doing research that allows me to publish and continue attending conferences. On the other side of a PhD, I have fortunately experiences and qualifications to fall back on. If placement were the sole reason we were going into PhD programs, then I think many of us would have the wrong idea. Even the best of us, who have the best offers and attended the best programs (hoping they make it through), will still have difficulty getting placed in a tenure track position. That's the sad reality of this whole endeavor. First step however, regardless of said schools record in placement, is actually getting in a program in the first place (and not going into debt to attend one)!

Dangerous words friendo

[TheJabberwock]

47 minutes ago, philstudent1991 said:

Dangerous words friendo

I know! Applying and attending is a risky business and everyone should be well aware of that. If I had a choice between schools, I would definitely look at placement, but since I am still sitting on the outside looking in, getting in seems to be the first step. Now whether or not the end goal should be tenure track positions coming out of a phd program is up for debate, but this is not a priority for me. Therefore, attending a program is my focus and priority.

[MickeyRay]

54 minutes ago, TheJabberwock said:

I know! Applying and attending is a risky business and everyone should be well aware of that. If I had a choice between schools, I would definitely look at placement, but since I am still sitting on the outside looking in, getting in seems to be the first step. Now whether or not the end goal should be tenure track positions coming out of a phd program is up for debate, but this is not a priority for me. Therefore, attending a program is my focus and priority.

Did you apply last year?

[SamStone]

I'm not really sure which thread to ask this question in but this might be the right one...I see that John Hopkins has several waitlist notifications that have been posted. However, I only see 1 acceptance up. Based on the info, which of these options (if either) seems correct: 

(a) Because the WL have been sent out, the acceptances probably have as well—just that no one posted an acceptance on the board.

(b) They sent out WL, but there will probably be acceptances this coming week? 

Or...the third option:

(c) It is just too hard to guess because every department does it different just to make us go crazy.

[Calyspo06]

In reply to SamStone's question:   I have no specific info on Johns Hopkins per se, but the unfortunate answer is that it seems that not everyone who lurks around on GradCafe to check results necessarily shares their own results.  So we are not getting a complete picture of the whole acceptance/wait-list situation.  So there are likely to be a number of JH acceptances that have not posted their acceptance.

Also, I am familiar with at least two methods departments use to make decisions:   

(1) They have X number slots available, but they make roughly 2X admission offers, on the idea that they will get around the right number of people to accept their offers as they have slots available.  They have a wait-list, but the wait-list is already fairly disadvantaged and perhaps they don't notify those people what their status is unless they have to.

Method 2)   They make offers to their top choice applicants and send out wait-list notifications at that time, see who bites, then start making offers in a second round after they get some people who decline.   But-- and here is the sticky situation that I was in several years ago-- they do not always tell all wait-listed people that they actually have been wait-listed.   They just simply keep them in limbo in case they have to go that far back before getting a bite.   I was finally made an offer 5 days short of April 15 the year I got admitted to my PhD program.   I had no idea I had been wait-listed because I had never heard a thing from the school that eventually made an offer to me.  And I was also in that very same situation at another school as well, and they weren't able to make an offer till AFTER April 15!.  

Also, many departments divvy up the slots they have according to area of interest.  They want to bring in a class of people that represent all the different areas in the field, rather than pick just the absolute top applicants.  This way they don't end up with, e.g., all M&E people and then make their ethics and philosophy of language faculty ticked off for not bringing in students for them to work with.  So if you get wait-listed at various places, you gotta hope that the correct applicants (the one's in your AOI) decline their offers, because that is the wait-list line you are in.   And that's why it's extremely difficult to gauge your chances based on the postings here on GradCafe.  You rarely can tell most people's AOIs since most of the Results posters are not forum participants and many people are not even posting in the Results.   

If you don't hear ANYTHING from certain schools you applied to by mid-March, I would suspect you are on one of those wait-lists where they haven't yet told you that you're wait-listed.   Unless it's a big bureaucratically run school like U of Arizona.   I didn't hear a thing from them till like June, when I finally got not one but TWO rejection letters from them!  I don't think I was ever wait-listed there.  I think Arizona is just extremely inefficient about sending out rejections.  So, moral of the story:  call the department if you haven't heard anything in what seems like a reasonable time to hear something.   Especially if you are holding onto acceptances while waiting to hear from a school you really have your heart set on.

The unfortunate reality is that this whole application season game actually really does play out all the way to the very last minute, with tons of people making their decisions in the very last week and triggering a cascade of wait-listers to move up a notch, and with many departments having to dig back several people down the line on their waitlists before they get a person to accept their offer.   It's agonizing and brutal.  

 

[TheJabberwock]

23 hours ago, MickeyRay said:

Did you apply last year?

Yes, but not to Kentucky. Of the twelve or so schools I applied to last year, I only applied to two of them again (Oregon and Rice). Last year I applied to more continental schools. This year, with the advice of a professor who works on Husserl/Heidegger, I was recommended to not apply to the sole continental schools (e.g. Duquesne, SUNY Stony Brook, Emory) since they will look at my analytic tendencies in a less positive light (oddly enough). I like both sides of the divide, and the Nietzsche scholars I focus on are the 'analytic' types. So, I applied to schools with split departments, places where they emphasize working across the divide, and schools with philosophy of mind departments that are sympathetic to German philosophy.