vickysophie

thanks for your reply. I know what you mean. the thing is, the phd i am doing now is more like a job (I actually have a 42h/week contract) and the "study" part is more or less sidelined. It builds up on my BA in political science (I'm doing research on social inclusion/exclusion of people with disabilities in switzerland using qual & quant sociological/pol sci methodology). The Phd in the US (sociolinguistics at georgetown) would build up on my MA in Sociocultural Linguistics, but my project would also be related to disability, namely the linguistic construction/negotiation of disability/disabled identities. So, the two things would actually be related and build up on each other rather than being more or less identical...

Hi there, does anyone know whether you can defer phd positions for more than 1 year (let's say three)? I just received an email that i was admitted to my top priority program, but i had written that off completely because i thought my proposal was not interesting enough and my gre was too mediocre for the school. so while waiting for the replies from the US I accepted a 3-year phd position in switzerland which I am about to start on Monday. so, I'd be grateful for ANY advice and recommendations! Thank you!!!

thanks for the kind replies. where i will eventually apply will also depend on the gre which i will take on saturday (fingers crossed). Decaf you are probably right about berkeley - i basically had in on my list because it "produced" such amazing people like Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall. And thanks for the UC Davis - tipp. I had the school on my list because of their general curriculum and agenda but hadn't looked at the staff profiles yet. so, yes, someone working on language and disability would certainly be a great plus. Since you are a student there, would you recommend the university and the department? how is the atmosphere?

Hello Everyone, I am about to start a last-minute PhD application marathon and would be grateful for your opinions on whether this makes sense at all. I hold a BA in Political Science and a BA in English and American Study (a joint degree in Literature and Linguistics) from the University of Vienna - both with distinction - and now just completed an MA in Sociocultural Linguistics in London (also with distinction). As you can tell from the title of my MA, i am mostly, but not exclusively, interested in social aspects of language, used Critical Discourse and Conversation Analysis, but have also worked quantitatively with corpora. In terms of tests, i scored 119 on the TOEFL, but have not taken the GRE yet. I will take it on Saturday and expect to score in the lower 160s in both parts. In terms of Universities i would like to apply to I will - unfortunately - have to rule out UCSB and Boulder because their deadlines are too early. In addition to those, I would be interested in: - Berkeley - Georgetown - University of Pennsylvania - University of Michigan - UC Davis - CUNY grad school - and the Sociology program with Sociolinguistics specialization at North Carolina State University I would be thankful for any comments on these schools and my chances to get in with so little preparation. Also, re personal statement: how precise should one's research interest etc. be? is it enough to say, f.e.: "I would like to look into the role of language in the social construction of (gendered/disability/ethnic) identities" and possibly bring in potential methodological and theoretical frameworks? Thank you!!!