ExponentialDecay

I mean, speaking English in a non-English-speaking country, and only for 3 months is hardly an immersive environment. You're speaking English with other non-native speakers, so it's not like you can attribute everything to accent. I think you should try to stay optimistic - if only for the confidence boost. I have a few friends from the Baltics (hello, fellow Slavs), and whilst few of them have completely dropped the accent and tend to retain their deep voices, over time (and granted, these people have lived in the States for 4+ years), for some reason, I guess they pick up intonations or something, they don't sound native but they have no trouble being understood. Having an accent is really not as big of a deal in the US as you'd think. Many US citizens have strong accents because they grew up in an immigrant community, they grew up abroad, etc. US academia draws people from all over the world, and they also have all sorts of accents. Whatever you do, just don't go into this thinking people will be cruel or ignorant about it. imho being foreign in the US is much, much easier than being foreign in Europe.

You should expect your accent to fade significantly in the first 3-6 months of being in an immersive environment. In the first few situations, sure, maybe people will find you difficult to understand, but one finds a way around that, you know? Having an accent shouldn't be a detriment to searching for a job in the US, as many people have accents.

How do you get a 3.8 grade? Aren't you graded on a letter system, so an A is 4.0 and an A- is 3.7? If your transcript isn't mostly (by which I mean all but one) As, yeah, I'd mention it. That said, I think you need to be about 50% more chill. You can't change the GPA, your GRE is stellar, and they both don't matter that much. Two degrees with unremarkable GPAs may shut you out of some elite programs, but, with a good writing sample, it's not impossible. Good luck!

Nobody cares about the AWA. The MA GPA is pretty low, though.

publish early, and publish often, or risk getting scooped, and that's not fun at all.

@Homeless what do you want to do? Unless your work straddles two disciplines in a way that you need to be expert in both, such as if you were to do poetics in a way that synthesizes advanced knowledge in, like, computer science or neuroscience, I don't see why you need to be outside an English department. Most (all?) English departments allow for crossdisciplinary work. Pay attention to whether you can find an advisor who is interested in your approach, and that you can build a committee that is prestigious and qualified in all your areas, just as you would in Comp Lit, and make sure the program is okay with you taking classes outside the department in the first 2 years, and you should be peachy. If you can, get a PhD in the discipline you want to teach in. That said, the job market is shitty wherever you go, so if you're particularly enamored of whatever fruity loops interdisciplinary program and you have a hundred bucks, dropping them an app isn't gonna make the weather.

Students in interdisciplinary programs are perceived as lacking depth and focus in the disciplines they study compared to students in traditional programs. Academic hiring committees are looking for employees who can teach the curriculum, and having an interdisciplinary degree communicates that you may not know the curriculum well enough to teach it, unless you are able to demonstrate otherwise. Ergo, an interdisciplinary department is ceteris paribus a suboptimal choice compared to a traditional department that allows you to do interdisciplinary work. I have no idea what intercultural communication is. I would advise you to look at whether the course requirements will prepare you for a literature PhD.

Can I ask, what is the practical reason for which you want to "further your studies internationally"? Neuroscience isn't the sort of field that cares about international experience, and your PhD really isn't the time to go exploring other cultures and all that crap. You should be trying to get into the best program that meets your career goals, and in neuro those are mostly in the US. Entering the US market with a foreign PhD will also make things harder, for a host of reasons. If you want a study abroad experience, get a master's. You will probably need one anyway with that GPA.

Have you networked? Has someone who works in the field seen your resume? Have you hit up your advisors for tips?

How did you get "good grades" an "elite" school and not get a bunch of offers from major think tanks? I went to a pretty decent school, I wouldn't personally call it elite, but undergrads with a 3.6 or above were routinely offered internships and RAships with EPI, Brookings, the various Feds, not to mention offal like Cato and AEI. People from HYPSM (so, elite schools) sometimes get research gigs at the World Bank right out of the gate. I also know plenty of people working administrative positions for 12 bucks an hour, but they were French majors (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but they don't have research experience). Not tryna be shady, but this seems shady to me. Anyway, I think you should get a journal or a therapist, because none of this is a real problem that anybody can help you with. From an objective perspective, you're young and you have a free pass at grad school, so your life is pretty peachy. I don't know what kind of parents are putting this much pressure on you or whose instagrams you're following that you think starting a PhD at >22 years old is the end of the world. Why are you so stressed about missing out on PhDs or not working for the World Bank if, you know, you don't seem to like research all that much? An administrative position isn't the end either, and many of them pay pretty well. As long as you're good at your job, who cares what that job is? Honestly all this reminds me of me at 16, when I was convinced life would be over if I didn't get into Cambridge. Life is long. It's bigger than prestige, comparing yourself to Cindy the startup CEO, and giving your mom stories to tell her friends. As the immigrants say, calmate bro. PS I'm not sure why I'm explaining this to a polisci major, but you most probably are racist. We all are. It's a cultural thing.

Ranking is just formalized hearsay. No, seriously, that's how they do it: they poll a bunch of academics' opinions on programs and average their opinion.

Ask your letter writers or anyone else who has a good idea of your individual competitiveness at this juncture. It depends on what you mean by "not well" and what the math courses were, as well as a bunch of other stuff in your profile, some of which you can communicate to me, and some of which you can't. When in doubt, ask someone who knows your work.

A post-bac for grad school in English is wasted time and money. Maybe you'd be justified if you graduated from a European university in something like CS, but the skills and methods crossover from sociology is sufficient that you don't need to redo the entire degree. It's not like English MA programs are so competitive and over-subscribed that they wouldn't take a good but formally unprepared student (it is, in fact, their business model). If you feel a strong urge to spend a lot of money, you can certainly get accepted to the UChicago MAPH, which is interdisciplinary but will put you in good stead to apply to English programs. However, given you've done independent academic research before, come from a good university with a not-terrible GPA, and assuming good GREs, I think you're not past getting a funded MA offer. What would make a difference in your application is the quality of your writing sample (which must be in literature, naturally), and the coherence of your SOP. If you can take an in-person class (because you're doing it to get a writing sample and possibly a LOR, not to check a box) as a non-degree student at a respectable institution, go ahead.

Dude, what are you even talking about? OP, both of those verbal scores are going to raise eyebrows, so I'd exclude that from your calculus. More importantly, 159 is very low for engineering programs whereas 166 is good, so the obvious answer here is to submit the first one.

Most scholarships and fellowships are taxable, so yes, if you receive one of those, you need to file income tax. Ditto if you fund your studies by working e.g. as a TA or RA. If your country of origin has a tax treaty with the US, you will get your taxes back in some measure, but you still need to file with the IRS. Typically a non-resident alien files for an SSN after arriving in the US, with the help of their host institution. I would get the International Office people on the phone. It should be a fairly straightforward question that won't take up more than 5 minutes of your vacation time.

I am not scolding anyone, not by appearance and not by intent. I am letting OP know that his diction is weird because I am trying to help. I used that as an example - I saw one or two more in, yes, a ~500 word post. Getting shades of meaning right is the hardest thing about learning a language to fluency. It's not a judgment of anyone's character; it's just a reality of being ESL. The slight tinge of condescension from peers and sometimes professors, that you're a foreigner and don't know any better, is also a reality of being ESL. You are probably right that OP is better off hearing the same thing from a professor commenting on his formal writing, but hey, in the case he finds it useful, it's no skin off my back. I am sure OP is an adult person and does not need you to get offended on his behalf.

No problem. I had a momentary blip and forgot that you will have 2 MAs by the time of application. In that case, trying to get a publication out can be beneficial. Here's the thing: submitting an article to a journal and hoping for the best is harming no one. But, it's a long, laborious process with an uncertain outcome which moreover isn't imperative for your application. Conference presentations, on the other hand, are much more immediate and easy to achieve, but they are still a good line on your CV that characterizes you as a serious, proactive student who does work that is original and complex enough to be presentable to the community - i.e. most of the stuff that a publication in a journal would communicate. @allplaideverything got a little dark there, but they're right that publications aren't strictly required for a successful application, and whilst I doubt you'd get blacklisted for publishing in a reputable journal, you have to wonder about the utility of publishing in a second-rate one. Another thing to consider is if the research you're thinking of publishing is something you want to continue and perfect, in which case you're better off continuing and perfecting it and finally publishing a better piece. If you have publishable research, by all means send it off then forget about it. Peer review is great for telling you how you compare to publishable works and where you're falling short. Yes, if they know your name, it would most probably help. Another way to achieve that, however, is to have a letter from a scholar they know or to have the scholar they know introduce you to them, which works a lot better, but that depends on whether you know such a scholar and they are willing to vouch for you. This is particularly important if you have noticeable flaws in your application. Asking them if they're willing to direct your topic (and also if they're taking students this year) is actually the single most important thing you could ask, because it will save you $$$ in fees for a doomed application if the answer is no. I mean, it's not strictly required for you to contact professors, so if you don't want to, don't. In the end, a lot of factors will influence these outcomes, including factors outside of your control, like other applicants in your pool, how many students with your interests are already in the department, whether your PI is taking advisees that year, who's retiring/sabbaticaling/undergoing a sexual harassment suit that will get them fired, department/university-wide politics, etc. You'll get a lot of different answers re "what tipped the scales", but most of those will be gut feelings, because nobody knows for sure why they got in or didn't. Your best bet is to have a strong application and to get in with more senior people who know the topology of your field well enough to warn you of any landmines.

I mean, I'm genuinely not trying to be shady, I'm just letting OP know as one ESL international student to another: most successful international applicants to these highly prestigious places will have verbal scores commensurate with domestic students' and a written command of the language that is indistinguishable from a native's. And I don't mean Brits. I mean Italians, Germans, Indians, Russians, Japanese. As such, an impressive GRE score for any applicant, regardless of their mother tongue, begins with 165, and small nuances in diction and punctuation will be noticed, and the degree to which they will be excused depends, of course, on the other application materials, because they're not the most important aspect of the application, for sure. But it's something to keep in mind. One receives this kind of optimistic advice from American students trying to be helpful, but unfortunately, these students don't sit on admissions committees, advise theses, or employ RAs.

Nobody can tell you if you'll get into program x, y, z, especially on an anonymous forum. How many degrees you have, your GRE scores, etc matters very little (though, given some free time, I would get that verbal up to 165+). Effectively, what matters is getting your application in front of a decision-maker, and having the kind of writing sample that they would want to make the right decision on. The reason people email professors beforehand is to shore up some interest in their CV, i.e. to up their chances of getting their application in front of a decision-maker. A strong GPA, strong GRE, prestigious academic affiliations, and LORs from known entities also help. It's good that you have a Fulbright. The final decision will rest on how much the committee likes your writing sample, which depends on how good it is and also on how interested the committee is in the kind of theoretical approaches/methodologies/periods/writers/whatever that you do. Publications aren't expected, and I'm not sure how useful they would be to you in your position anyway. Keep presenting at conferences. If you want advice on your profile/chances, you're best off making friends with faculty at your US institution and asking them to look over your materials, or asking for their advice once they've seen some original work from you. Also, some of your diction is weird. Like, "obfuscating" here is out of place. I suspect it will improve in an immersive environment, but it's something to be mindful of.

A lot of the questions you post here, including this one, cannot be resolved by anonymous members on an internet forum. People here give excellent general advice, but they cannot advise you on issues that by definition must be resolved between you and the people responsible for those issues. We don't know what the policy on student status is at your university. You being an international student further complicates matters, because then we not only have to guess the policy of the Registrar at this unnamed university, but also the International Office. Those are the entities that can give you the answers you want, not us. You should go talk to them.

The H1-B deadline for this year also passed, bro.

I wouldn't judge what is a top program by US News either, but (will I get pummeled for this?), if you want a job, concentrate on the T10/T20. Depending on your subfield, it may be worth choosing a lower ranked institution to work with a highly respected adviser, but even those don't usually fall outside the well-reputed places.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ If your paper isn't formatted as indicated, it's technically cheating. Also, yes, it's noticeable, and in my opinion a little embarrassing to still be using freshman year tricks in grad school. A word count is used to guide you to the right amount of thoroughness/conciseness in your argument. If you are falling short of the page limit, you are either a very concise writer, or you didn't answer the question. If you are over, you either know/can argue more than the professor expects you to, or you're a waffler. If you honestly believe that your paper is not redundant or waffly and the extra length serves a purpose, just leave it. You won't normally get penalized for doing good work.

Oh fuck, the gym ain't even free??? I get that Fordham isn't the best and brightest, but goddamn, this is some University of Phoenix shit.

There doesn't have to be a universal philosophy about academia! However, I inferred from your posts that you want to become a professor, and if so, then this is the only philosophy that works. I don't really know another way of becoming a professor besides publishing several articles in high-impact journals (or whatever the equivalent of high-impact research in ling is), except maybe becoming a spousal hire or otherwise using your non-professional qualities to get a position, but by all means, if you want to search for one, you should. Just be conscious that time passes and humans are mortal. People here have already given you excellent advice and perspective on how interdisciplinarity works in academia. I can only underscore that, if you want to be the foremost expert in 10 different things, you should have been born in the 16th century. Maybe having a good grasp of various stuff is good for industry, but at the cutting edge of research, you have neither the brain capacity nor the time to do all your research yourself. You need to think of your progress in terms of your measurable productivity, not in terms of how many new things you've learned and how good you feel about having learned them. As for being advised by an untenured scholar, well, all I'm saying is, I wouldn't want to be that 4th year grad student whose advisor doesn't get tenure or gets poached by another institution, you know. I know people who do this, but I have no idea how (or why) they put themselves through it.