isilya

No. Being accepted only to a Master's program means you only get to be there until the completion of your Master's and it's not guaranteed you can continue on to a PhD there. You would have to apply to the program again. Also the funding situation is much shittier for Master's students. To be guaranteed to go through your Master's into a PhD in the same program you need to be accepted explicitly to the PhD program there from the beginning.

Wow, that escalated quickly...

Luckily I don't get all the weird psychology questions since I'm mainly applying to Cognitive Science / Linguistics programs. The questions I do get, though... "Linguistics....so, how many languages do you speak?" "Linguistics? OMG my grammar is so bad lololol!" NO YOUR GRAMMAR IS NOT BAD. YOUR ENGLISH TEACHERS WERE JUST HORRIBLE PRESCRIPTIVISTS. "Cognitive Science, what's that? Does it have to do with cogs, like machines?" No...just, no... I actually don't blame people for this one though, it's impossible to tell what Cognitive Science is unless you already know what cognition is, and it's not a very frequent term in daily use...

I highly doubt you will actually be giving anyone your CV, so I wouldn't waste some fancy paper on it. If you need a copy of your CV at all you can just have it on normal paper. I didn't bring CVs at all to my interview and it was fine (in fact, I think it would have been somewhat awkward to give out my CV).

It seems like they let people know pretty late: http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=penn+state+linguistics

Honestly I didn't bring anything except a small notebook and a pen. I never found myself in a context where I felt I needed to give someone my CV. In fact I would have felt really awkward giving someone my CV... Conversation flowed really well without it!

If you're feeling like Stanford is a better option, then go for it! Palo Alto is extraordinarily expensive -- I did a summer research program there last year and it was incredibly hard to find housing I could afford on my stipend (but we weren't allowed to sublet grad housing). However, I've heard most grad students live in the on-campus housing their whole time, so you probably wouldn't have to worry about that. The one thing I will say is that Palo Alto is extremely boring. There's basically nothing to do there unless you want to go to expensive restaurants or high-end furniture stores...so if you need to get out, you're looking at a 1-hour train ride to SF.

Yay that's awesome!!! Have fun at UCLA!!

Nice! I didn't get the Dean's Fellowship so you're probably getting a higher stipend than others maybe? One of my profs told me that UCSD and Berkeley tend to make ~$20K offers (at least at first, then some people will try to negotiate with their other offers), so I wonder if UCLA is similar. It would be pretty hard to live on that in LA though!

Yeah, I'm visiting every school I've been invited to, so 7... I want to be able to pass my classes and finish my thesis!

Honestly, just what what makes you comfortable. I only saw one guy in a suit at my weekend, everyone else was just in slacks or even khakis with a button down shirt (no tie). It seemed like no one really cared what you dressed like, it was all very laid back. Also it was cold as shit so everyone needed to be wearing boots and coats anyway for when we were outside!

Wow, impressive list of acceptances for you! Congrats I think I'll be doing the one in February. I'm visiting two schools from Feb 26 - March 2 so I'm going to try to just go to one of the open house days since I'll already be missing ridiculous amounts of school...

Just got off the plane and had a voicemail. Assumed it was from my boyfriend who's picking me up. Nope, it was from UCLA! I got accepted! This is crazy!! I can't believe it!

I just had my first interview weekend and it was so fun!!! The faculty were great, the grad students were great, the other prospective students were great....everything was so awesome!! I don't know if this deserves its own thread, but I figured I would start it anyway Has anyone else had interview weekends yet? How were they? Was the department like you expected it to be? What things did you notice about the school that you hadn't thought of before going there? Discuss!!

I see someone just got into UCLA!! Congrats!!

Honestly I think Maryland is acting pretty ridiculous. I talked to two people at another interview weekend who had a horrible time applying there, not getting questions answered etc. One person asked a question about the supplemental form a week before it was due and heard back after the deadline. How ridiculous is that?! I'm really starting to have a bad perception of them.

Sitting in Chicago waiting to fly to Providence!! I'm so excited and anxious!!

Wow, that's a lot of applications! I saw elsewhere on the website that they usually only get about 150 or something...good luck all

Yay, congrats you guys!! I have my first on-campus interview on Friday, at Brown. Wish me luck

I actually wouldn't worry about this one too much. I had one professor who gave me a very short, curt response to my original contact email back in October. I got accepted to that school, and she emailed me the other day saying that she sends those kinds of emails to everyone who contacts her before they apply, and that she was actually very excited that I got in. So, it really depends from prof to prof...don't be scared, just have a good conversation with him and try not to worry about it

So happy I'm not in Boston this weekend! BCS is the last days of Feb so hopefully no storms will strike then...

Wise 17 year old!

Why do we have to wait so long??? Now that the dust has settled from interview invites, I'm freaking out about the NSF GRFP again

They won't. The admissions committee has been doing this for years, they understand that you have other options to consider.

I'm not sure how much luck I'll need given that I already have 5-year funding packages from multiple universities. Goodbye!