Another Promising Wait List

I just received virtually the same email from North Carolina-Chapel Hill as I received from Michigan. An excerpt:

[Y]ou are high on our waiting list – the Admissions Committee was very impressed by your application. We have made our initial offers, but the admissions process still has a way to go. I’ll be sure to inform you immediately of any developments…

Again, this is not yet an acceptance. But both the UNC and Michigan offers are promising because of the nature of the Ph.D. admissions process and the stature of these two schools. Both of these schools are competing with Harvard, Princeton, NYU, Stanford, etc., for the same students. Since a student can only go to one school, that means that they will have to turn down their other initial offers. Two of the schools some of them will turn down will be Michigan and UNC, which means spots will open up for those (like me) who are high on the waiting list.

At the moment, I would probably put UNC ahead of Michigan. Although the money is a bit better at Michigan, I’ve heard much better things about the departmental culture at UNC, and UNC’s job placement record is better than Michigan’s, replicating that of an Ivy League school rather than a prestigious public school.

Anyway, at this point, neither of them is a firm offer, but the chances are high that they could turn into offers. I’ll let you know.

A Promising Wait List

University of Michigan emailed me tonight to inform me that I have made their ’short list’. Although this is not (yet) an acceptance, this is promising. The email said that people on the wait list have a ‘very good chance’ of being offered admission and that ‘most members of the short list’ have been offered admission in the past. The email said that I shouldn’t accept any other offer until I have spoken with Michigan. In addition, I’ve been invited to visit the department at the end of March for a Prospective Students’ Weekend, a trip that the dept will mostly pay for. So this has been good news.

Michigan is a very good philosophy dept–arguably one of the top 5 in the English-speaking world, certainly one of the top 10. They also provide excellent financial support for their Ph.D. students, a big plus. The opportunity to go to Michigan would be amazing–although Barb and I aren’t sure how we feel about returning to long, cold, and snowy winters after 2 years away.

Un-success

From the Oxford Philosophy website:

Successful applicants will be notified of their offer of admission (by e-mail) by Monday 27 February.

I didn’t hear today. The reasonable inference is that my application was unsuccessful.

I could hold out for an actual rejection cuz I could be on the waiting list, so I am (tentatively) changing the Oxford status in the sidebar to ‘Wait List’. But I’m not holding my breath. Since I still haven’t secured any funding for attending St. Andrews, it looks like our chances of going to the UK are growing ever dimmer.

Also, a friend of mine in the department received word last week that he was accepted at UCSD. I applied there as well, but haven’t heard anything yet–no ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I’m assuming I’ve been waitlisted there as well, so I’m changing the UCSD status to ‘Wait List’.

It’s Out of My Hands

I turned the final pre-defence draft of my thesis over to my committee members yesterday. That means no more revisions unless some are requested at the defence. That means I’m more or less done with it. This is a good thing, as I’m starting to get distracted by other things these days.

I feel quite good about the thesis. I think it is tight, well-argued, and carefully written. Happily, my advisor agrees. I saw him in the hall the other day and he gave it the thumbs up. That leads me to believe that the defence will be more of a formality than anything.

Anyway, I’m sure many of you will not be interested, but for the curious, you can download a copy of my thesis draft here. If you do take the time to browse through it, let me know what you think. Any comments are always helpful.

Breaking the silence…

…with some bad news. We found out yesterday that I won’t be receiving the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Fellowhip I applied for. This one hit hard. I somewhat expected to get it. I thought I had a strong application and I thought they were giving out a good number of them. It turns out they weren’t giving out as many as I originally thought (and I guess my application wasn’t as strong as I originally thought).

This fellowship would have really helped out because we could have taken it anywhere–it wasn’t limited to being in Canada.

Still no other news on schools. I’ve been corresponding with some people at St. Andrews and UIC to get a feel for the places. Both seem to be good atmospheres, UIC a little more so that St. Andrews perhaps.

By the way, my thesis is getting its final review from my advisor. The full draft goes out to my committee members early next week. I defend in 12 days.

Hitting the Home Stretch

I printed out a full draft of my thesis for the first time yesterday. Each of the 5 chapters has been through at least two revisions. Now it’s time to read it and re-read it, tighten up the language, erase repetition (I’m sure I’ve repeated myself throughout the 5 chapters), smooth over the chapter transitions, etc. I’ll go through it with a fine-tooth comb this week and submit the whole thing to my advisor and 2nd reader on the weekend. After that, I’ll get one last list of revisions, complete those, and then defend (in only 3 weeks!).

This thesis is pretty much the only thing on my mind these days, so until the defence is over, don’t expect many posts from me on any other topic. Once it’s complete, I’ll post a link to it so those who are interested in reading what I’ve written (I don’t expect there to be many of you…) can download it.