Berkeley and OSU would be too far from home, but UMass looks good! Thank you for the response!
As far as specific research interests go, I'm interested in oppressive nature of mainstream language ideology, the linguistic and cultural disconnect between teacher and students and its effects, education outcomes of immigrants and children of immigrants in terms of what thier home/native language is, and American dialectology, specifically AAVE.
I'm finding a few faculty members here and there that'd fit the bill, but not so many programs that'd allow me to focus on these things like Penn's program would. But is that case for most people as far as finding a program that matches their interests?