Declining 2016

[dgswaim]

10 minutes ago, Abendstern said:

Actually, if it were NYU, I think the email would read:

 

NYU

*mic drop*

 

[Disgruntledlurker]

I just declined an offer from UBC (accepted off the waitlist). Good luck waitlisters!

[philosophe]

I love this thread. So much hope! 

[MVSCZAR]

Is it better to wait until after you get the official acceptance letter to decline, or have you all been doing it on the spot? I said I would wait until I got all my results before declining and I'm just waiting up on one, really, with another two presumed rejections. 

[gughok]

23 minutes ago, MVSCZAR said:

Is it better to wait until after you get the official acceptance letter to decline, or have you all been doing it on the spot? I said I would wait until I got all my results before declining and I'm just waiting up on one, really, with another two presumed rejections. 

Not that I've really had a choice here but my thought was that even if I got in somewhere I didn't immediately prefer to my current acceptance(s), I'd wait to see what details they have to offer. A sufficiently attractive funding package might make up for slightly weaker department or something.

[Calyspo06]

13 hours ago, Dialectica said:

I know it's selfish, but I was really hoping this thread was going to fill up a bit more today, as I'm increasingly coming to grips with how dependent I am on my waitlists this season. 

I don't think it's a selfish hope, I think it's just the reality of how it all works.  Arguably, it's selfish to hang on to multiple offers all at once for very long.   Lots of people get multiple offers while the best others get is a pile of wait lists.  The people with multiple acceptances can't accept every place.  May as well free up some spots ASAP and get this whole ball rolling for those are are agonizing about getting in anywhere.  Yet I suspect we won't see a whole lot of movement for a few more weeks.   People still have to do campus visits.  Also what makes a huge difference is when you choose to commit somewhere versus hold out for a place you're wait-listed at to finally come through for you.   Some of the "top 1%" (I saw someone make that socio-economic comparison in of these fora once) are likely disappointed with the fact that they got into, e.g., Yale and Harvard but not NYU and holding out for a late offer, meaning a Yale spot (or whatever top 10 place) could be given up later in the game.  This happens at all strata.  So, unfortunately, I think a lot of people push it to the last couple weeks and in my experience a lot happens in that last week before April 15.  That last week is a crazy domino effect.    So part of me doesn't mind it taking a long time for the people "ahead" of me to bide their time if it means they get better offers later in the game.  

I'm in a special situation myself.  I haven't technically applied anywhere this season.   Rather, I am trying to return to my original PhD program from which I had to leave several years ago for major medical reasons.  Due to funding issues, being reinstated back in my program depends on the top two people they made offers to in my subfield declining their offers, so I am essentially wait-listed.  At my age, and after having done an MA and all my PhD coursework, it makes a lot more sense for me to finish up in my program than to try to apply at other places and do another PhD worth of coursework all over again at some new place.  Plus I've established relationships with all the people I will work with.  So for me, it all rests on these two applicants declining their offers.   Praying so hard that these two applicants get better offers elsewhere and are wise enough to realize, for their own academic and professional interests' sake, that my department is suddenly extremely handicapped for future work in my subfield, particularly for those who are at coursework stage but also for anyone who plans to embark on a dissertation 3 years from now.  There's no indication that the dept. plans to improve this situation.  The Leiter specialty rankings do not reflect this new deficiency and I'd say there are about four schools we appear to be above in those rankings who totally ought to be above us now due to our situation plus other faculty moves that strengthen other schools.  

(Happily, for anyone reading this, given my special situation, basically no one here is "competing" with me.  Nevertheless, how the cascade of Declines plays out is all-important to me.   So I am feeling everyone's pain without actually feeling like a competitor in this year's game.  I do have to say, however, that after you all get through this Olympian feat, since that's how bad just getting into the PhD system has become nowadays, academia is nothing but one Olympian feat of competitive prowess after another.  The admissions process is just the beginning.   Academia is more brutal than whatever  you've been told and whatever you can imagine.  You've been forewarned.  Also, I've come to realize, in watching the admission process this season versus how it was 10 years ago and 8 years prior to that, that the game has become increasingly based solely on your academic pedigree alone.  If you weren't lucky enough to go to an outstanding undergraduate institution with name-brand professors in the field-- as if you could have known as a high school senior that you wanted to do a PhD in philosophy!-- then it's like you can kiss your chances of getting into a T15 school goodbye.  You are judged all too heavily on your letters of rec and, if you look at the GRE scores of some of the folks admitted to T10 schools, clearly those don't really matter.  Basically, the game is rigged so that talented students from no-name institutions or even good schools with no-name profs will never have their application dossiers given much consideration.  In addition, students are coming into programs far more polished and with more advanced level writing/research skills than they had as first-year students 20 years ago.  I just want all of you to realize how absurdly competitive it is now, compared to how it was 20 years ago when I graduated from a small, good, liberal arts college.  At that time, it was not unreasonable for me to expect to get into a PhD program-- I did political science at that time so that's what my program was.  Now, if I were graduating from that same liberal arts college, I do not think it would be possible for me to get into a PhD program.  I would certainly have to do an MA first at a very good program before being able to get into a respectable PhD program.   So I just want everyone to realize how much the picture has changed in favor of elite pedigreed students.   If you get in anywhere ranked at all, even just on a wait list but never get accepted this season, without that cream of the crop pedigree, you should be very proud of yourselves, not down on yourselves.  If you don't gain admission this round, try for an exceptional MA program with faculty whose names will be much noticed on your letters of recommendations.)

I, of course, have other middle-aged wisdom about this whole matter, but I will refrain from any downers and even quite possibly psychologically freeing advice that is nonetheless not welcomed by people under 30.  :-)

Good luck to us all.  

[Calyspo06]

1 hour ago, gughok said:

Not that I've really had a choice here but my thought was that even if I got in somewhere I didn't immediately prefer to my current acceptance(s), I'd wait to see what details they have to offer. A sufficiently attractive funding package might make up for slightly weaker department or something.

I disagree about the importance of highly attractive funding packages.  If you are really serious about making a career in academia, then you should attend the school that is best positioned to give you the best academic experience for your area of specialization and frankly the best letters of recommendation and credentials you can possibly get when it comes to going out on the market.   Those letters will make a huge difference for you!  The market is so absurd right now that really the only people with good to decent chances of jobs are those coming out of T10-15 schools.  It's just not worth it to take a couple thousand dollars more for the sake of creature comforts in your grad school school years when the school you go to plays such a huge role in whether your dossier gets reviewed in job applications.   Of course, if you can't actually live on the funding offered, or you have a child you are rearing, that is certainly something to consider.  But usually decent programs offer funding that is enough to make it by on (or better) in the location the university is located.  That's my 2 cents.

[abisch]

On 2/28/2016 at 6:10 PM, torpedofish said:

I feel entirely too lucky. I'm also about to decline UNC, which will be equally draining, I think - such a great place.

Just out of curiosity, are you planning on visiting UNC before declining? 

[torpedofish]

3 hours ago, abisch said:

Just out of curiosity, are you planning on visiting UNC before declining? 

No - I declined this weekend. I very much wanted to visit, but I thought it would be more helpful to the department and less selfish to decline the offer before the visit, so that someone else could go and use it more fully/not just in order to meet people.  

[psm1580b]

Don't forget to post your declines here!

[dgswaim]

Declined Oklahoma wait list (ranked 3rd on list)

[FILOS]

I declined OSU earlier, I will very likely decline Texas soon. Anybody thinking about declining Pitt?

[dgswaim]

8 minutes ago, FILOS said:

I declined OSU earlier, I will very likely decline Texas soon. Anybody thinking about declining Pitt?

Anyone thinking about declining PENN??? 

[FILOS]

1 minute ago, dgswaim said:

Anyone thinking about declining PENN??? 

Sure, but convince someone to decline Pitt?

Actually I plan to visit Penn mid-March, but very likely I'll decline. A lot depends on whether Pitt materializes for me.

[dgswaim]

7 minutes ago, FILOS said:

Sure, but convince someone to decline Pitt?

Actually I plan to visit Penn mid-March, but very likely I'll decline. A lot depends on whether Pitt materializes for me.

This will truly test my skills of argumentative persuasion...

[Davidspring]

5 hours ago, torpedofish said:

No - I declined this weekend. I very much wanted to visit, but I thought it would be more helpful to the department and less selfish to decline the offer before the visit, so that someone else could go and use it more fully/not just in order to meet people.  

You are a perfect person! Maybe I'm just selfish, but I sincerely hope that the lucky birds who would probably decline Notre Dame's offer do so sooner rather than later. I was wait listed at Notre Dame.

[psm1580b]

1 minute ago, Davidspring said:

You are a perfect person! Maybe I'm just selfish, but I sincerely hope that the lucky birds who would probably decline Notre Dame's offer do so sooner rather than later. I was wait listed at Notre Dame.

I feel the same about Indiana and Western.

[doxazein918]

14 hours ago, FILOS said:

I declined OSU earlier, I will very likely decline Texas soon. Anybody thinking about declining Pitt?

I've declined a spot on their wait list.  I hope it helps!

[FILOS]

15 minutes ago, doxazein918 said:

I've declined a spot on their wait list.  I hope it helps!

Thanks for letting me know! Here's hoping.. And congratulations on Columbia!

[jacbarcan]

Hey guys,

I have some information from me and a few other people either wanting to remain anonymous or not on TGC.

Two declined UCLA

One declined Cornell

One (probably) soon to be declined Cornell

One declined Brown wl

One declined UCSB

One soon to be declined UNC

One soon to be declined Pitt WL

One (probably) soon to be declined Pitt

I'm sure this'll all help somebody out. Let me know if you guys want me to confirm when one of the "soon"'s is officially declined. 

 

[jacbarcan]

A few more:

One soon to be declined Duke

Another soon to be declined UNC

[FettuccineAlfrege]

Just removed myself from the Toronto waitlist. Hope it helps!

[philosophe]

54 minutes ago, jacbarcan said:

Hey guys,

I have some information from me and a few other people either wanting to remain anonymous or not on TGC.

Two declined UCLA

One declined Cornell

One (probably) soon to be declined Cornell

One declined Brown wl

One declined UCSB

One soon to be declined UNC

One soon to be declined Pitt WL

One (probably) soon to be declined Pitt

I'm sure this'll all help somebody out. Let me know if you guys want me to confirm when one of the "soon"'s is officially declined. 

 

hey Jac, were the UCLA declines distinct from the ones mentioned in the threads? (I think someone got an offer on March 1st and declined after posting in the venting thread? and the other was an international student who's going to hold off until visiting, but will probably decline?) 

[jacbarcan]

I'm not sure about one of them, but the other is definitely not someone on here. She doesn't post on gradcafe.

[philosophe]

Just now, jacbarcan said:

I'm not sure about one of them, but the other is definitely not someone on here. She doesn't post on gradcafe.

Excellent. I'm feelin' that UCLA limbo rn.