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Fall 2011


fadoesaudade

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I got NYU admission too. I'll choose between NYU and UPenn. I love NY but I think Penn will be more suitable for my interests. Tough decision.

Good for you. You've already narrowed down your choices into two. I've only heard from two programs so far. Though I guess UPenn silently rejected me.

Since Philly is not far from the city, even if you love NY, UPenn isn't a bad place to go to I guess. To me the most important factor is the fit between me and the program, though I may also have to think about the ranking of the dept as it may have something to do with the employment after graduation. Am I thinking too far?

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I can empathize, vaaarr--I too began my day with a rejection from UCLA and ended it with an acceptance from UC Berkeley! Will you be attending the Open House? I am sooooo excited and happy. I can't believe I am actually going to grad school!

Well, it's a good thing I came out of the woodwork too, then, isn't it? What's your area of specialization? Trying to gauge how many people from each area they've let in.

Did they tell you the same thing about funding (that it's not certain for everyone, and that something "more concrete" will be announced in March)? I'm ecstatic about getting in, but I don't want to have gotten in without any funding.

Finally, an addendum to my stats from earlier: rejected by Ohio State (I was expecting this, since they hadn't sent me anything positive) and ACCEPTED by Cornell, with full funding. I'm still set on Berkeley, though.

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Gosh, a lot has happened since I last posted! Congrats to everyone celebrating acceptances at this point. Wouldn't it be wild if spitz, dilly-dallier, and Jason all ended up at NYU? You'll have to hold a gradcafe pow-wow at the open house (if they have one?).

This week, I was accepted at UC Santa Cruz with full funding (!!) and rejected at Stanford (not surprised). The jury is still out on the University of Chicago, and next week I head down to San Diego for their interviews/open house and should know soon after if I am accepted. At this point, I definitely have a soft spot for Santa Cruz, but I could see myself at any of the three schools...I am hoping visiting will help clarify things. I am most concerned about fit, culture of the program, adviser, and funding...But I guess those are anyone's top four concerns.

Typologaster, the undergrad thesis can be such a slog, but I think it is really great training for grad school. I finished mine last semester and I was surprised by how much I refined it even over the course of writing it up. Typology is fascinating, but I can see how it could become complicated quickly with coordinating compounds. Good luck with it--You'll be amazed with how satisfying it is to finish :) Treat yourself to a beer and a night on the town.

Zouzax, where did you end up applying? Anywhere out here on the west coast? I am also interested in psycholinguistics, so I am curious if we will cross paths at some point.

Pearls, how did your Maryland interview go? I know how nervous you were. Isn't your visit to U Michigan coming up soon? You must be excited preparing for the trip!

Vaaarr, I am interested in syntax and psycholinguistics, as well as cognitive science and language processing. I think I must have gotten the same email as you--"byzantine" system for funding, although they still have many places to look. It sounds like they will do their best to fund everyone; they are probably hoping to have a better idea of who is serious about attending after the open house so they concentrate on those students. That is just my assumption based on the timing, though, not from any facts I received from the school. And congrats on Cornell! I look forward to meeting you in March.

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Zouzax, where did you end up applying? Anywhere out here on the west coast? I am also interested in psycholinguistics, so I am curious if we will cross paths at some point.

i know, this page is blowing up! So, I applied to Stanford on the west coast, and like most people was one of the rejects sad.gif too bad. in hindsight, i wish i had applied to one or two more in Cali because I always dreamed about moving to the west coast.

after reading your research interests, Im thinking we will definitely cross paths at some point. you're like ... my grad cafe soulmate haha. ok, not really but .. yea. I'm interested in psycholinguistics, syntax, language processing, and cognition as well, and wrote exactly this on my SOP. i had also applied to nyu but since everyone already received their acceptances it's pretty obvious i won't be accepted ... so! 0-2 for me so far .. ugh.

i also applied to brown, mit, and yale, and am working on a few apps for programs here in europe. how about you?

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Yeah, spitz and dilly-dallier, let's study at NYU together XD~~

Gosh, a lot has happened since I last posted! Congrats to everyone celebrating acceptances at this point. Wouldn't it be wild if spitz, dilly-dallier, and Jason all ended up at NYU? You'll have to hold a gradcafe pow-wow at the open house (if they have one?).

This week, I was accepted at UC Santa Cruz with full funding (!!) and rejected at Stanford (not surprised). The jury is still out on the University of Chicago, and next week I head down to San Diego for their interviews/open house and should know soon after if I am accepted. At this point, I definitely have a soft spot for Santa Cruz, but I could see myself at any of the three schools...I am hoping visiting will help clarify things. I am most concerned about fit, culture of the program, adviser, and funding...But I guess those are anyone's top four concerns.

Typologaster, the undergrad thesis can be such a slog, but I think it is really great training for grad school. I finished mine last semester and I was surprised by how much I refined it even over the course of writing it up. Typology is fascinating, but I can see how it could become complicated quickly with coordinating compounds. Good luck with it--You'll be amazed with how satisfying it is to finish :) Treat yourself to a beer and a night on the town.

Zouzax, where did you end up applying? Anywhere out here on the west coast? I am also interested in psycholinguistics, so I am curious if we will cross paths at some point.

Pearls, how did your Maryland interview go? I know how nervous you were. Isn't your visit to U Michigan coming up soon? You must be excited preparing for the trip!

Vaaarr, I am interested in syntax and psycholinguistics, as well as cognitive science and language processing. I think I must have gotten the same email as you--"byzantine" system for funding, although they still have many places to look. It sounds like they will do their best to fund everyone; they are probably hoping to have a better idea of who is serious about attending after the open house so they concentrate on those students. That is just my assumption based on the timing, though, not from any facts I received from the school. And congrats on Cornell! I look forward to meeting you in March.

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I think I must have gotten the same email as you--"byzantine" system for funding, although they still have many places to look. It sounds like they will do their best to fund everyone; they are probably hoping to have a better idea of who is serious about attending after the open house so they concentrate on those students. That is just my assumption based on the timing, though, not from any facts I received from the school. And congrats on Cornell! I look forward to meeting you in March.

And the same to you! Definitely attending the open house. Despite Cornell's big offer, I'm ambivalent, since their P-side is quite small relative to Berkeley's... You should probably also know that we (UChicago, my current institution) have quite a few people interested in the sort of thing you are, to the point where several undergraduates usually get pulled into it (as if into a vortex), and we've recently added lab facilities for a Language Processing Lab that focuses on higher-level (syntax and up) processing in real-time. You may want to contact Ming Xiang (new faculty member, runs the lab. female, if you can't tell the gender of Chinese names easily) and Anastasia Giannakidou [ʝɐ.nɐ.ci.ˈdu], a tenured faculty member who is interested in many of the same areas, if you have any more detailed questions on that, since I can't speak to what they do very specifically.

In other news, waitlisted by UMass. Meh.

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You've made your decision already?

I decide to attend the open house of NYU, and I think I will decide to go there. After all, this is the only acceptance I have got, and I withdrew all other applications, except that of MIT. considering MIT has so many applicants.... I think it's highly possible that NYU might be my only choice available...

Edited by spitz
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Thanks for the insight into U Chicago, vaaarr! What a great department to spend your undergrad career in. Dr. Xiang and Dr. Giannakidou are actually the two professors I mentioned in my statement of purpose. Dr. Xiang in particular has done some very exciting work in the past few years and the whole program felt like a great fit for me. However, they accept so few applicants that even applying felt like playing the lottery. Do you have any idea where they are in the process? It sounds like they sent out acceptances earlier in the week and since they mail out rejections, I figure it might be a couple weeks before I know for sure.

You are right too, Berkeley is great for phonology. Do you have a particular language group you are interested in? I know there are a few professors work on Austronesian languages, and the bay area is such a great place for finding speakers of far-flung dialects.

Spitz, even if NYU is your only choice, its a pretty great choice! Full funding, an amazing city right with informants from every possible language family, productive faculty--I hope they wow you on your visit so you can feel really good about going there.

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I agree with Hopeful, spitz - NYU is a great 'only' choice. I hope you feel the same after the open house. I don't know if you've been to NYC before, have lived there, etc, but I'm from there -- so if you have any questions feel free to ask!

In terms of MIT, I think their admissions decisions should be coming any day now -- acceptances came out on this day last year blink.gif but I agree, a lot of people seemed to have applied so it'll be a long shot. Keeping my fingers crossed for us all ....

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Thanks for the insight into U Chicago, vaaarr! What a great department to spend your undergrad career in. Dr. Xiang and Dr. Giannakidou are actually the two professors I mentioned in my statement of purpose. Dr. Xiang in particular has done some very exciting work in the past few years and the whole program felt like a great fit for me. However, they accept so few applicants that even applying felt like playing the lottery. Do you have any idea where they are in the process? It sounds like they sent out acceptances earlier in the week and since they mail out rejections, I figure it might be a couple weeks before I know for sure.

You are right too, Berkeley is great for phonology. Do you have a particular language group you are interested in? I know there are a few professors work on Austronesian languages, and the bay area is such a great place for finding speakers of far-flung dialects.

Spitz, even if NYU is your only choice, its a pretty great choice! Full funding, an amazing city right with informants from every possible language family, productive faculty--I hope they wow you on your visit so you can feel really good about going there.

I agree with Hopeful, spitz - NYU is a great 'only' choice. I hope you feel the same after the open house. I don't know if you've been to NYC before, have lived there, etc, but I'm from there -- so if you have any questions feel free to ask!

In terms of MIT, I think their admissions decisions should be coming any day now -- acceptances came out on this day last year blink.gif but I agree, a lot of people seemed to have applied so it'll be a long shot. Keeping my fingers crossed for us all ....

Thanks a lot for being so supportive!

Actually I think indeed NYU might fit me better than all other schools, and I am looking forward to meeting people there on the open day~

I've never been to NYC before. I hope I will like it. :-)

Edited by spitz
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I got the admission from Toronto. What's weird is that they know from gradcafe that I'm considering between Penn and NYU. Is anyone from Toronto here?

Out of pure curiosity, they TOLD you that they follow the GradCafe forums? They told you that they were able to figure who you were based on your posts here, AND were able to reproduce the contents of your posts? Wow. That level of stalking just might cause me to finally stop surfing here and disable my user account.

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I got the admission from Toronto. What's weird is that they know from gradcafe that I'm considering between Penn and NYU. Is anyone from Toronto here?

Congrats! Yep, I'm in the MA program (and, for the record, I absolutely love it here!). I wouldn't be surprised if someone has indeed had a look at this forum. Not that I think people here are any nosier than usual; it's just that Grad Café is accessible enough that this would be a pretty straightforward place for any department to start looking for additional information about applicants that might help them out.

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Out of pure curiosity, they TOLD you that they follow the GradCafe forums? They told you that they were able to figure who you were based on your posts here, AND were able to reproduce the contents of your posts? Wow. That level of stalking just might cause me to finally stop surfing here and disable my user account.

from the Director: "...Now, I happen to know from your post thegradcafe.com that you have apparently already decided between UPenn and NYU as you choice of PhD program; however, I would recommend that you give the University of Toronto another look."

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from the Director: "...Now, I happen to know from your post thegradcafe.com that you have apparently already decided between UPenn and NYU as you choice of PhD program; however, I would recommend that you give the University of Toronto another look."

that's actually a little frightening

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Well, I guess none of us should be surprised that grad schools are aware of and glance through this board from time to time. Ours is a relatively small field and with an application in hand, it would be easy to identify any of us. I know that the information on this board from previous years was very helpful to me when I was starting to figure out the application process last year, so I don't regret the postings (even if I would have edited a few). Let's take this as a lesson that we should all be more discrete when discussing our decision making process on the internet--And hope that professors don't take comments posted anonymously in a public forum into serious consideration when making admissions/funding decisions.

And Jason, thanks for mentioning that email. It is definitely better to have that information than not.

Edited by hopefulapplicant
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Thanks for the insight into U Chicago, vaaarr! What a great department to spend your undergrad career in. Dr. Xiang and Dr. Giannakidou are actually the two professors I mentioned in my statement of purpose. Dr. Xiang in particular has done some very exciting work in the past few years and the whole program felt like a great fit for me. However, they accept so few applicants that even applying felt like playing the lottery. Do you have any idea where they are in the process? It sounds like they sent out acceptances earlier in the week and since they mail out rejections, I figure it might be a couple weeks before I know for sure.

Actually, from what I can tell, they admitted an unusually low number last year. This year the actual number of admittances is closer to 10, from what I hear in the department chatter, for what it's worth. No clue about specifics. The department is actively expanding the portion you're applying for (the processing lab is brand-new), so I wouldn't be surprised if you had a better chance than you'd expect.

Do you have a particular language group you are interested in? I know there are a few professors work on Austronesian languages, and the bay area is such a great place for finding speakers of far-flung dialects.

I've done most of my research on tone languages as a (broad) group, but most of my work ends up being in Sino-Tibetan. Having STEDT present at Berkeley is marvelously convenient.

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Actually, from what I can tell, they admitted an unusually low number last year. This year the actual number of admittances is closer to 10, from what I hear in the department chatter, for what it's worth. No clue about specifics. The department is actively expanding the portion you're applying for (the processing lab is brand-new), so I wouldn't be surprised if you had a better chance than you'd expect.

Interesting--Thanks for the info!

Edited by hopefulapplicant
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