In our August "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
University of Chicago recently announced (after announcing their 2021 admissions deadline) that they will not be accepting any new PhD students next year. I have also heard that some departments won't know until September if they will have the funding to accept new students.
Does anyone think this situation will remain an outlier, or come September are we likely to see several programs closing their applications for this year? If not, how many fewer spots do you think will be available for those who do accept new students? Should students applying for their PhD right out of undergrad be looking especially hard at funded MA programs right now?
I realize that some people may be hamstrung in terms of what they can say openly, but it would be great to get some idea of how many philosophy PhD programs are planning to do this. Anyone with inside information willing to weigh in? If you're concerned about open stating what your program is, you can always write a anonymized comment like "My program is planning to not accept PhD applications this year" and comment under your school email address (which is not published) so that I can tell which comments are duplicate entries and only approve one such comment per program. In any case, I think it's probably always a good idea to apply to funded MA programs, which can be great stepping stones to better PhD programs.
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