ColorlessGreen

I don't think anyone here really expects to come to some kind of conclusion on the politics of the professorate as a whole, but discussing our own individual experiences can add to our collective knowledge. A group is a collection of individuals, after all, and when you have the experiences of enough individuals you can begin to make connections and generalizations about the group. If not by survey, how would you suggest examining Gross and Fosse's hypothesis?

I did not apply to Stanford Anthropology, but I did apply to Stanford Linguistics using that same frustrating ApplyYourself website. I got the automated "application successfully submitted" e-mail first, then later received an e-mail from the Ling department's Student Services Officer informing me that my application was complete. I was actually surprised to hear from the SSO; I was under the impression that most departments do not contact the applicants unless their files are incomplete. As it is, I got word from the SSO on December 16, 15 days after I had sent in all parts of my application. Considering that your field probably gets at least twice as many applicants as mine, individually contacting each applicant might take much longer. Winter break probably intervened in their processing of the applications as well, so it might take quite a while for them to get back on track. If you are nervous that something may have gotten lost in the mail, though, it probably wouldn't hurt to try to contact the department again.

I imagine they mean they will request a writing sample before the interview, so as to ask more involved questions about your research, interests, competence, etc. However, I'm not that acquainted with the process for your field, so I couldn't say for sure. I do doubt, however, that any committee would make you write something on demand in the middle of an interview. I hope they wouldn't be that insane.

I'm a liberal, but, since that can be a complicated term, let's say that I'm mostly concerned with social justice, the environment, and fair trade. I don't know about the rest of my department at my current university, but I imagine Linguistics as a whole is filled with many liberals because of the large number of respected linguists today who got their degrees in the '60s and '70s. Many of these linguists didn't let their political beliefs affect their work, but believe you me, I could show you some very amusing papers on cursing and sex and the evils of the war in Vietnam. And, of course, whether they made clear their politics in their work or not, word got around, especially in the case of Noam Chomsky and his students at MIT. I think Noam Chomsky is still one of the most prominent liberal professors in any field. I didn't join the field because of him or any other liberal professor, though. I didn't even know about the politics of these prominent linguists when I began studying, and I still don't know the politics of most of the professors at the schools where I am applying. I consider it irrelevant to my studies, and I imagine most of my generation would agree. So I don't think stereotyping was an issue for me in this case. However, I think that if my field had a reputation for conservative ideals, I might have been a great deal more choosy in applying to schools. I would have tried to find schools that either kept quiet on politics altogether or that had at least a few faculty members who agreed with me, particularly on social issues. I would have been very uncomfortable in a primarily conservative environment. As it is, as part of the liberal majority I had the luxury of ignoring politics in the application process, a luxury that some conservative applicants might not have felt they had.

Ice cream cupcakes from Coldstone Creamery. That will ease any heartache, I imagine. (And if I get in, I will reward myself with them instead!)

In some ways, maybe getting a BA in 3 years could be seen as a positive thing. Perhaps it will give admissions committees the impression they won't have to fund us for as long!

All of these scales still seem to end up with a bunch of applicants packed into the same range of numbers, though, don't they? Or are we just skewing the results with the particular crowd on this forum? By moralresearcher's advisor's scale, I end up with 10.9, same as LifeIsGood. By Lauren the Librarian's scale, I end up with 296, which is close enough to both her and jacib's scores as to make no real difference. And by jacib's scale, I end up with an 85%. I think that no matter what scale the schools might use, they'll always end up with a lot of applicants who appear very similar numerically. So jacib, I hope you are right in that admissions committees must notice extreme scores more than ones lumped in the middle. The more I learn about the application process, the weirder it seems to me. I live in fear of being reduced to a set of numbers and a few short writing samples.

It's not just you - one of my recommenders had the same problem of not receiving an e-mail from UMass. On the bright side, I think I talked to that same incredibly nice woman - she got the link sent in under a minute. Of course, this was after I spent an hour or two fiddling around with the SPIRE website trying to figure out if I could send it myself.

I took the GRE last April, and when I sent out an extra score report to one school in the fall I noticed a change in my AW and quantitative percentiles as well. I decided not to re-send my scores to any of my other schools, though. I imagine a tiny difference in percentile won't matter to the committees - even if they do compare GRE scores of potential applicants, I'm willing to bet they'll be looking at the raw score rather than the percentile ranking. So if you're worried that a percentile ranking of 77 rather than 81 will hurt you on your application, I don't think you should be.

I know exactly what you mean. I carefully researched the full range of reported acceptance notification dates for each school already. I'm trying to ignore my fears until Google Calendar sends me the reminders I wrote for each one.

I haven't heard anything from anyone yet - but as far as I'm aware, it's several weeks too early for me to expect to hear even from the schools with the earliest deadlines. As to which schools have interviews, I imagine fuzzylogician would know.

I think this is a great idea for a topic. I was really lucky in contacting the faculty at one particular school - I wrote to two professors who were both really helpful in answering my questions about their recent research and publications. One of them directed me to a former student of his, who answered about fifty questions I had about the program via e-mail. I am really incredibly grateful to her for her patience and friendliness. Contacted out of nowhere by someone she didn't even know, she nevertheless took the time to write me several long, informative, engaging e-mails about her former program and the people there. Getting that kind of helpful response from her and the two professors I'd contacted made me think that this particular program, which had previously been last on my list of possibilities, would actually be a real joy to attend.

The blog's been updated with the "winners" of the LOR contest now. http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2009/12/letter-of-reference-contest-results.html http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2009/12/lorr-results-continued.html http://science-professor.blogspot.com/2009/12/more-lor.html Let me tell you, these make me feel a lot better about my own LORs. Nothing could be as bad as the real (!) excerpts given in the second link.

The worst part of my application is probably how boring I am. I'm usually the quiet one who shows up to every class (I swear I have perfect attendance!), gets good grades, but is forgotten the instant the semester ends - or earlier. I have a history of teachers forgetting who I am during finals week. This happened to me once in a class of five people. With a professor whose other class I had taken the previous semester. Maybe it was his problem, not mine. Anyway, when searching for recommendation-writers this past semester, I managed to find three professors who know me on at least an academic, if not personal, level - or so I thought, until a month and a half ago, when one of my recommenders, who was actually advising me on an honors project I was doing for his class, forgot my name. Of course, the teacher's first language isn't English, and he does teach several large classes, so I can totally understand it. I mean, sometimes I call my brothers by the wrong names, and you'd think I'd know them by now. At that point in time, though? I did not want to see my (arguably) best LOR writer blanking on my name. Moreover, this was around the same time that one of my other teachers was making it clear that he had no idea who I was, despite my having had perfect attendance all semester in his class of 10, so I had a small freak-out moment there. It's not an immediately apparent weakness - not the type of thing that shows up on my transcripts when I'm applying - but I can't help but think that my LORs can't be that good if so many of my teachers don't know who I am.

Ha, not so productive. I was going to get a temp job over break, but instead I watched half of Hulu. Seriously, don't even ask how many shows I've watched. Currently I'm enjoying "Life." And the worst thing is, I haven't even finished all of my applications!

Unfortunately, here in the US we have other tests we need to take around that time - specifically the SAT and/or ACT. And before those, of course, there's the PSAT, which we have to take in order to be considered for certain awards. And before that, there are the yearly state exams, which test whether students are learning the material they theoretically should be. Personally, I'm so used to all of these tests that all I feel about the GRE is resignation. It's just another test, like all of the others. And like all of the others, it probably won't make or break my application. It's unfairly biased, but it's not going away until the entire US educational system changes. In fact, I liked the GRE better than the SAT - it was a lot easier, in my opinion. If we're voting on tests that should go, my first choice to be thrown out would be the SAT, then the GRE, then the ACT.

I've been getting a head start on my reading for next semester, so mostly typology and SLA stuff. I'm reading through Lydia White's "Universal Grammar and SLA" (principles and parameters) currently. I'm also intending to read Bernard Comrie, "Language Universals and Linguistic Typology," but I haven't started that one yet - I've been slacking off terribly all through break. Those two books aside, there are about 15 papers I need to read for my classes before the semester starts. I should do that.

When I applied for college, I checked the box for "linguistics" under "intended major" on the form because I loved languages, and I was good at them, and I was confused about what "linguistics" meant. Don't ask me what I thought it was - just believe me when I say I was wrong. It may have been the best mistake I ever made. I took my first linguistics class during my freshman year and I loved it. The teacher was great, the class was great, the textbook was great, and the people were great. When I entered college I had the over-ambitious idea that I would triple-major, but before I even got the grades for the semester, I decided to change my Spanish major to a minor so I could concentrate on linguistics. I kept taking linguistics classes, but I kept my Japanese major as well, even though I was already starting to think that I didn't want it. In the spring of my sophomore year, I took the highest-level Japanese language class that was offered and aced it. Unfortunately, I still needed 20 hours for the major, if I wanted to complete it, and I couldn't stand the idea of taking seven (7!) lit and culture classes, when I was only interested in the language. I realized I was in the wrong department, and I dropped my Japanese major in favor of a minor, which I already had more than enough credits for. My safety nets were gone. I was committed wholeheartedly to linguistics, and I loved it. I had always been told I would make a good teacher, and I couldn't really imagine myself in a job where I wouldn't be learning something new every day, and so last year I made the decision to attend grad school and shoot for a job in academia. I signed up for the April GRE, made myself a list of possible schools, and told myself I would get everything done early (that didn't happen). This fall, I followed through on my decision to apply. I think my parents were a bit surprised, but not too much. They've probably always thought I'd do something impractical and low-paying, although they might have been expecting something a bit more altruistic. I know they'll be really proud of me if I get into a program somewhere, though. It's nice to know I have people rooting for me.

I'm waiting for Leverage to begin airing again on January 13th. Until then, I'm watching Pushing Daisies and Black Books. @Serric: LOVE Kung Fu Hustle and Firefly both. Good choices.

Just curious - what are you intending to study? I know Applied Linguistics is different from Linguistics, but although both are taught in the same department in my undergrad school, I haven't actually taken any of the applied classes. Do your interests include the theory behind 2nd language acquisition (and if so, syntax or phonology?), or TESL, or both? Or are you interested in something altogether different?

See, one of my letter-writers completely psyched me out by telling me about another student he's writing a rec for, a student whose research sounds amazing, who has actual teaching experience, and who already has an MA in Linguistics. Then he told me that student was applying to UMass as well. Yikes. What's sad is that I'd been feeling pretty good right beforehand, when he was telling me all the great things he'd written in my recommendation. Now I don't know what to think, so I'm erring on the side of pessimism. Your writing sample sounds really interesting. Second language acquisition is something I'm interested in, too, though I'm more interested in phonological acquisition than syntactic. Anyway, best of luck to you! Hopefully both of us will be reporting back in the spring that we got into several schools, and just have to decide which one to attend.

Sounds like a good idea. My BA's in Linguistics, with a double minor in Spanish and Japanese. 3.73 overall GPA, 3.95 major GPA, GRE somewhere in the 85th percentile. In the Honors program, though not writing an honors thesis. No conferences, study abroad, or teaching experience. Worked as undergraduate linguistics tutor. 3 letters of rec. Writing sample contrasts the decomposition of the phoneme [y:] post-coronally in stressed position with its unstressed counterpart in French loanwords from Middle English to the present day (15 pages without appendices). No outside funding, more's the pity. I'm applying to: UMass (PhD) Stanford (PhD) Indiana (MA) Iowa (MA) Obviously my goal's to get into one of the PhD programs, but I'm trying to be realistic and apply for some MA programs as well. Unfortunately, I doubt my chances are that good. Holding out hope, though.

Next semester, I'll be taking the fewest number of credits I've ever had in a semester (just 15), but I'm quite excited about my classes. The Spanish one is the last requirement I need for my minor - the others are electives. I love being able to choose whichever classes I like. Spanish Literature of the Transition Child Language Linguistic Theory and Second Language Acquisition Acquisition of the Interface Between Syntax and Discourse/Pragmatics (grad-level seminar) Language Universals and Linguistic Typology (grad-level seminar)

Well, I got a 5 by writing a formulaic five paragraph essay (intro, three main points, conclusion). Be sure to address every part of the question, use high-level vocabulary words only if you are positive that you are using them properly, that they add to the paper and that they aren't distracting, and make sure that each of your three main points has around three pieces of evidence to support it (I have no real proof for thinking this, but it seems to me that readers like to see groups of three - I've done very well on every writing assessment since 5th grade by following this formula. It's orderly, somehow). I think you will be fine. Don't sweat it too much - the general consensus seems to be that AW isn't that important.

Gotta agree here. Emotional maturity is something that's useful in any field, and one's life experiences shape the choices one makes of school or program, but I don't see how either of these things is especially relevant in the humanities and social sciences. Maybe for philosophers or moralists starting at an older age might be a blessing, due to the importance of a deep understanding of human nature in those fields, but it seems to me like most research in other fields can be undertaken at any age, given the proper training and motivation.