Posted by alexandra_k on March 29, 2005, at 17:46:35
In reply to Re: I know... » alexandra_k, posted by gardenergirl on March 29, 2005, at 16:12:36
They lost my application (which is why I hadn't been notified). And then:
>I have located your file, and all the notes regarding it. We had 260 applications, which were divided -- alphabetically -- into three groups.
Each group of 85 files was then read by one of our three committee members, with the mandate that s/he promote 10 of those to the final pile of 30, from which the entire committee would select 15 to whom we would offer admission [thats a lot more admissions than I thought...]. The person who read your file noted that it looked "very interesting," and promoted it to the final 20 (of 85) to which s/he gave careful examination. But in the end s/he wrote that it was a "near miss."
This means that it was not promoted to the final 30, though it also means that it was among the top 60 or so files that we received this year (assuming that quality of file is distributed roughly equally throughout the alphabet).And:
>As for your chances for next year: it's hard to say. I expect that the applicant-pool will be similar to the one we had this year -- a ridiculous number of highly-qualified applicants competing for a ridiculously small number of places. Any of our top 100 applicants is clearly capable of doing very good work in philosophy. But we are in the difficult situation of having to turn away 85% of those perfectly capable applicants. The 30 files that made it to the final round were all shockingly good. I've had a look at your sample and file, and I don't think it's out of the question that you could be among those 30 next year -- but I also don't think it's out of the question that it would again be a near miss. And even if you made it into the top 30, the file would still have to convince a committee of 3 that it was in the top half of *that* group. (At that level, issues of area-balance and the like also come into play.) I suspect things are similar in other departments. So while I think you have a reasonable chance of getting into one of the selective American PhD programs, I can't guarantee that you would. That being said, I think it likely that if you were admitted, you would go on to complete the program successfully. So the worry is only one about the small number of slots and the large number of applicants.
But of course they don't know about my mental health stuff...
So there is is.
And even if you do come out the other end with a PhD from one of those institutions, job prospects aren't all that grand...
I'll apply to Australia and med school in October.
:-(
poster:alexandra_k
thread:475293
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/studs/20050329/msgs/477353.html