At 1:15pm today I finally pushed the submit button and despatched my PhD application to Oxford. Attached is my three-page proposal which has gone through about six drafts but now looks pretty good to me (not that I have anything to compare it with), together with a CV, and two examples of written work - in my case, an essay on the Duhem-Quine problem and an extract from my piece on comets that I see as now being my dissertation thesis.
Next priority is to make sure that my references get in on time. The deadline is Nov 20th, so there should be enough time, and all three have been primed. But you never know - pressure of work might get to them. So I will need to do some very tactful pressurizing to make sure it is all done in time.
Then it is just a question of waiting. I really have little idea whether my proposal will find favour, though I do have one or two things in my favour. Firstly, I am self-financing, so the big concern that Universities now have that research students won't be able to afford to finish doesn't apply in my case. And secondly, I don't need accommodation. But I can't help thinking that my age will count against me - a similar proposal from a 23 year old might well meet with more favour - yet, having said that, few 23 year olds would have put together my exact proposal. One other concern is the focus of the Oxford Uni study of history of science. Perhaps under the Woolgar influence, it is very "externalist". So my wish to study one of the main participants in any "internalist" history might also be a problem.
So now I just wait - not expecting to hear until sometime in January
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