longforit

uh.. My M.A. thesis is not actually a complete one -- as I said, it only contains the literature review and the experiment design parts so far.. I don't know if it is acceptable to submit such a WS because I presume (and some programs actually say it) they want to see my analytic abilities and things like that. Is that true? I just wrote to the Departmental Assistant and she didn't say I am disallowed to do so, but two WS won't enhance the application. I do not intend to enhance the application and do not intend to let both WS read. I just want to provide an optional so that adcom members could choose whichever they want depending on the qualifications they look for in applicants (I'll write a clear statement at the beginning of the paper saying which WS demonstrates what abilities and they are free to choose one to read). Is that an appropriate thing to do?

So here comes my last application (so late!).. I just want to ask if it is ok to submit two writing samples when the program website explicitly says only one paper is needed (and limited to 20 pages)? I plan to submit both my B.A. thesis and M.A. thesis. The M.A. Thesis is most relevant to what I'm working on, but it's just a (long) proposal/literature review+design now. The B.A. Thesis is a complete work but it's in the other field (SLA) and not recent. I want to demonstrate both my analysis ability and my master of the field I'm currently in, so for all the other program I applied to, I submitted both samples and gave the adcom the freedom to choose which one to read. I just wonder if two WS (against their one WS requirement) would affect my application in a negative way.. Any comments are appreciated!

I applied to Chicago too What's the situation of Chicago last year? Did they also enroll many students?

Anyone here applied to Cornell? And anyone knows why Cornell accepted 15 people last year? Won't it make this year's cohort extremely small?..

Hi Robert! Nice to see you here! Now we have three lab phonologists, all attended to the summer Institute!.. How amazing!

Thank you so much Leesies! All the best to your campus visit! (Somebody should invent some panic-killers for us..)

I presume they've sent out all the interview invitations, all at one time.. (but they seems to be reluctant to send out rejections in time judged by posts of previous years...)

Thank you so much! Yes I guess waiting is the best for now. Luckily my thesis is a good distraction.. Good luck everyone!

haha thank you guys for stopping me from clicking the "send" bottom! Onzeheures: can I ask when did you receive the interview invitation from NYU? Do you have any idea if they've sent all the invitations? and does anyone have any news from UMichigan? Today is supposed to be their "notice" Friday. Little variance in the past 6 years...

Hope all the best for everybody! As the final decision dates of some schools is approaching, I grow more panic everyday... Do you think it's wise to send inquiry emails to the departments? Like..even before anybody reports anything about the school on this forum.. It's a Friday and it'll take another two days to go into the next cycle of waiting and being panic... Wish it ends soon.

I sent an email to the department administrator.. No reply. Guess not a good sign..

NYU seems to send out a few interview invitations... Does anyone know if they've sent out all the invitations?..

It should have sent out some (at least rejections) decisions by now (through website). Offers are on its way. Good luck!

When I got panic during waiting, I collect results data of previous years from this website and make a prediction of the time period when I'm expected to hear words from each program.. Not a good way to spend time, but kinda calm me down (You'll probably hear from Chicago from Feb.5-10th if accepted)

Thank you guys! I've already submitted it. But I don't think I did a good job though.. I have a lot more to say about linguistics itself than how I got interested in it

I'm applying to this program that requires both Statement of Purpose and Personal Statement. The requirement of personal statement seems to be not program-specific, and it's expected to be a 500ish-word short essay. After pouring all my passion/what I can think of about linguistics into my statement of purpose, I found I have little to say in my personal statement except a few general statements about my interest in linguistics and cognitive science (the interest in the particular areas have been elaborated in the SoP). I was wondering how much importance an Adcom would attach to a personal statement? I think if I just list my personal experiences in a chronological order it will be not very convincing. Any idea how should I be effective in this essay? Should I give, say, vivid stories, or a more abstract, "philosophical" understanding of linguistics? Thank you!

I didn't got the chance to thank you for the past of few days because of one application ahead. I've incorporated many of your suggestions into my statement of purpose and gave a lot of thoughts of what you said. That really helps. Thanks a lot!

Thank you! That's a great suggestion. I'll start looking into it right now. Just one more question: if it's ok (or valued in some programs) for students to work on independent project (as opposed to derived from their advisors' research), why "fitness to the program" matters so much in the Ph.D. application? Does it mean programs of this kind pay more attention to applicants' academic abilities rather than fitness?

Thank you so much for bringing so many new insights to me. I'll definitely enjoy my project more if I have what you said in mind. Thank you!

Thank you for your comments! Yes lab phonology is the covering term of the things I'm interested in, and better places for this line of study might mostly be along the west coast. I have to limit myself to east-coast programs because my boyfriend is in Cornell.. I actually had a very hard time picking out programs that do lab phon among all the "schools-of-thought" programs. What do you think of the list I have (OSU, UMich, NYU, UChicago, UMD, Cornell, Toronto and Stony Brook)?

By "generative grammar" I intended to refer to not only syntax but also generative/constraint-based phonology. I think both of them more or less use OT as the basic framework (but I might be wrong cause I only read a few of their papers), but I feel like not being ready to accept constraint-based model and reductionist point of view as a matter of fact--maybe they are better explanatory models, but I just want to have a chance to explore other possibilities and make the judgment by myself. Sorry for causing confusions by using "complete theory". I wanted to say "established theory" or something along this line. Professor Flemming, for example, has been working on Dispersion Theory for years. I found this point of view tremendously interesting, and I would love to entertain it as one possible explanation for the issue in question. But I think maybe if someone works with him, he/she is most likely to work within this framework and have a "stronger belief" in this theory? Or I'm not making any sense here.. maybe students don't have to work within the same framework as their professors (advisors)..

Thank you again for your suggestions. I actually incorporated many of what you said in my statement of purpose. I've talked about specific questions I'm working on and what I plan to do to extend my previous studies. I'm so encouraged that I'm on the right track! As for MIT, it seems to be a too theoretical program to me (I don't consider myself a big fan of generative grammar). I know Professor Flemming and Professor Steriade are big names (giant names!) in the field of lab phonology, but it seems that they already have a pretty complete theory about relationship between phonology and phonetics (which I only have a little knowledge of). I might want to seek for more perspectives to explore the issue I'm interested in. That's probably one of the reasons why I have such diverse interest..

Thank you Fuzzylogician! You'are always being so nice and helpful! I've heard that it takes many trail and error to carry out an experimental study. Even to write a script to synthesize serveral syllables would take months! I'm a little envious of PhD students for having years to carry out a study and perfect it over time. I actually quite enjoy the process of encountering problems and readjusting the designs and exploring one particular problem further and further through time. But that's probably not realistic for my M.A. thesis. Am I being too ambitious to expect a "perfect" study (in the sense of confirming my predictions and producing statistically significant results) in my first hands-on research? I really don't know what expectation I should have on myself and what expectation my advisor (and my Ph.D. application admission committe) has on me.. and it makes me sooooo anxious.

I should have looked into this website (I've been here a lot during my last application). It would save me tons of trouble looking for schools! I'm interested in phonology-phonetics interface. I'm currently working on issues on actuation of sound change. My ultimate interest is to figure out (well.. not really figure out but at least know more about) the relationship between categorical/invariant phonological knowledge and continuous/variant phonetic realizations, and I have interest in many sub-topics under this topic, like categorical/fine-grained perception, categorization (agent-level), phonologization (historical-level), phonetically-based phonology (structrual-level), etc.. I'm super interested in the idea of complex system theory, which seems to be able to piece my interests in various subareas together into a big picture. I'm applying to OSU, UMich, NYU, UChicago, UMD, Cornell, Toronto and Stony Brook (not sure about UMass. Any suggestions?). I have several questions: The programs I'm applying to are among the best programs in North America. Do I aim too high? Should I consider some other safety schools? I don't know if my background is strong or weak. I had not received linguistics training in my B.A. study (major in English) but I somehow managed to finish a B.A. thesis on SLA (two papers of this projects have been presented in two US conferences). I came to the US one and half a year ago (Omy time flies!) and started my journey on linguistics. The first year of my focus was on syntax, and I've written two papers that were presented in two conferences. But my love is always on phonology and phonetics. However, because I'm more on the experimental side, and the teaching resourses on phonology-phonetics interface are very limited in my M.A. program, I didn't started my lab phonology research until this semester when I was preparing for my M.A. thesis project. So basically, my previous works scatter around many fields of linguistics, and I lack experience of working in labs. I'm really afraid that these will influence my chance to get into a PhD program... Also, my current interest on phonology-phonetics interface is also quite broad. I'm not sure what strategy should I apply in writing my Statement of Purpose: should I mention all the interests I have (with focuses), or avoid showing such a broad interest in case application reviewers might think that I'm too ambiguous and unrealistic? Any suggestions? I'll really appreciate any comments. Thank you so much!

Hi guys! I'm currently working on my M.A. thesis. It's a study of mid-level complication (I'll recruit two heterogeneous groups through a screening test and ask them to do two perceptual experiments (I'll synthesize the stimuli for one experiment), together with some other background measurements). It's my first time to do lab phonology and it took me 4 months to go through the preparation work (read literature, pin down the experiments that will answer my research questions, write the proposal and the IRB application). I was wondering if it's just me or it's normal to take such a long time to just preparing for a thesis/study.. (My advisor seems not very happy with my slow progress..) I hope I could finish the thesis by next May so that I could graduate in time.. Hope somebody could share his/her research experience. Thank you!