<p>WildLion82:
I am applying from Brazil, and all my recommenders were Brazilian scholars not widely known among American philosophers (indeed, Brazil and USA do not follow the same philosophical ?school?).</p>
<p>I think it is reasonable that the admissions committee in a department I have applied to may want to verify the authenticity of some letters, especially those which not only come a country whose philosophers are not known in the US, but also say too good things about the applicant. </p>
<p>Though I believe I deserveded a good reference letter from my former advisor, I have reasons to believe that his letter was a little inflated in my favor, especially if one considers my actually so-so grades. If I were a member of one admissions committee and found out that the author of a ?too-good-to-be-true? reference letter had just passed away, I would not be so confident of the authenticity of the letter. </p>
<p>It may sound too neurotic to have this kind of reasoning, but I cannot deny that it has haunted me a lot. Anyway, even if my dead recommender letter may actually have raised that kind of suspicion, I still think that my application had more serious problems. GRE scores were one of them ? I unfortuantely believed some people ?informed? me that philsoophy departments do not really care about the applicant?s performance on that test...Only recently I found out it was not true.</p>
<p>ct9999: the bad thing about the time I spent after graduation was that, when I got my BA degree, I was not decided about pursuing more advanced degrees in philosophy, so I postponed my return to academic life as long as I could and much more than I should, and I engaged in a lot of second-class jobs. Besides, when I went back to school, I spent a lot of time to present my MA thesis, which (only to make things worse) was on a topic (Freud?s philosophy of mind) which is not so inside the style of philosophy developed in the departments I applied to. Coincidently or not, Freud is a name well respected among many literaure theorists ? this certainly counted for me when applied to Cambridge.
A serious (almost fatal) disease I had for many of those years would explain part, but certainly not all, of this delay...
Sometimes I feel I would be better off my doctors had not been so successful...</p>
<p>Thank you a lot, guys! I really admire your country, your universities, and initiatives such as this forum!!!!! I wish I had come across this site much long before I started preparing my ridiculous and shameful applications!</p>