Virginia Tech for the win.

I just got an e-mail accepting me to Virginia Tech's Masters program. I am on a waitlist for funding.

So far I've been accepted to three of the four places I've applied:
NIU
Tufts
Virginia Tech.

Now I'm just waiting to hear from CUNY, the one PhD program I applied to.

Why did I apply to these schools? Let me tell you.

I studied philosophy at Biola University, a small private school that is not well known. Accordingly, my professors recommended to me that I apply to terminal Masters programs to use as a stepping stone from my small school, at which I did well, to a top-notch PhD program.

According to the Philosophical Gourmet Report, which is more or less respected as authoritative on the matter, Tufts is the top terminal M.A. in philosophy in the U.S. So I applied there. They have a few professors who are doing neat things in philosophy of language and philosophy of logic. (Though, this guy left for Harvard this year, which is sad.) (They also have the famous "bright" Daniel Dennett.) After Tufts, PhilGourmet ranks a little group of schools as having good M.A.'s; so I searched through those to see whether any of them did stuff I was interested in. NIU had plenty of folks doing work in metaphysics (not magic crystals metaphysics; more like the Aristotle kind); Virginia Tech folks doing philosophy of science and logic.

I applied to CUNY because of their emphasis on logic, and because they aren't ranked so prohibitively high that I'd have no chance of getting in. Though, even if I do an M.A. (which would put me in a better position to get into a really good school) I will re-apply to CUNY in a couple years time anyway, because all that I've read of their program really does make me like it and want to be a part of it. I want to go here. The professor that drew my attention to CUNY is Graham Priest, who is awesome.

In other news, still no job.