Tairy

I've been told that Yale admits like 3 people per year, so it's totally possible that only one of those three-ish uses this forum but that everyone has already been chosen. And I've gathered that if you see people being admitted to a program you aren't hearing anything from, it's basically never a good sign.

Looks like somebody got into Yale today, the last place I've yet to hear from. I wouldn't attend regardless, but I want to know the result anyway!

Thanks for the congrats, this doesn't feel real at all. The only evidence that I didn't actually hallucinate the whole thing was that my phone has a call from Massachusetts in its history. I just need to like, go to bed or something.

Just heard from MIT... I'm in. (exclamation points)

I am admitted "unofficially". Feel free to give your cents, because I'm not sure I'll be able to actually visit. Rutgers isn't at the top of my list, because it has less faculty who's work I'm interested in relative to some other schools I'm admitted to. Specifically, only Mark Baker and Ken Safir are really of interest to me, as a morphosyntaxy person, perhaps also Veneeta Dayal but she seems more on the syntax-semantics side. I could be swayed, though, since Rutgers seems to have a pretty solid job placement rate. An advisor of mine suggested that I should apply there because the culture is more "language-y" in the sense of doing fun things with lots of languages, which suits me more rather than worrying about nitty-gritty theory internal details based on data from English or whatever. I'd also be interested to know to what extent the program facilitates doing fieldwork, since that's a thing I care about a lot, and some other programs I'm considering are pretty big on that, which attracts me.

I'm really bad at math and have like zero instinctual number sense, and I got a pretty average score after a lot of studying. Presumably you can do the same even if you're also numerically impaired. The GRE is probably already the least important part of the application, and your quantitative score is probably even more unimportant. It's just a dumb hoop to jump through.

I looked at a ton of schools in my application preparation and my impression is that the majority do, so unless you're only applying to MIT, UCLA, and U of Connecticut you may as well get the dumb thing over with.

Woo Rutgers!

Anyone going to the UCSC open house? Seems like they sent out open house invitations over email and did unofficial admittance notices over phone, which is what happened for me and at least 1 other person I know.

I do plan to go, Santa Cruz isn't at the top of my list (particularly having an offer from UCLA) but they're still a very good department and I can imagine being swayed based on my impression of their department. And the $400 reimbursement potential is nice, most invites I've had so far are limited to $300.

Looks like UCSC sent out open house invites, I got one and see on the results thing that like 4 others (who use this site) just did too.

For any other UCLA admit-ees, while the official financial information hasn't gone out yet I've been told that the current stipend is about 25k for everyone. And they also seem to have various opportunities for additional funding over the summer and travel funding and such, so it seems like a pretty decent deal altogether. If I go (and I personally will unless I get into MIT or something) I'll probably try to find a roommate, though, since the rent in LA is pretty high.

Oh, I sort of assumed that was a default thing since their website has no information on it, that's encouraging.

Are they UCLA people? If not it's sort of irrelevant, but if so I'd be curious to know. I suppose I'll know eventually, I was told that "We are offering you the Dean's Fellowship and a full five year financial support package" which I of course do not know exactly what it entails just yet.

I'm going to do the February one. Now I'm finding myself worrying what the specifics of the funding package are. The email said I have 5 years of funding, but Los Angeles is not cheap at all.

Just got into UCLA. (!!!!!!!)

That's kind of demoralizing but you're probably right. Oh well, can't win everything, at least Yale likes us for some reason.

Hm, well I didn't get accepted to Berkeley but I didn't get rejected either, application status is also still just "submitted". Does that mean I might be waitlisted or in decision-limbo, or maybe that they haven't bothered to send a rejection email yet?

I'm told that you never necessarily know whether a department is doing interviews with people at the top, bottom, or middle of the list, so you never exactly know whether being interviewed or not means your chances are good or not so good, though I think it's valid to assume that if they bother to interview you at all, they at least think you have potential.

"Screening weekend" sounds oddly like, medical.

Not really, but I'm pretty confident there are three main things that we or anyone needs to do in this context: #1: Prove in person that we're not wackos in some way that perhaps our application didn't convey. #2: Have at least a general knowledge of who in the department works on what to show that we give a shit. #3: Be able to talk coherently (and ideally, enthusiastically) about our research interests in linguistics. #1 should be a given, and #2-3 should be possible already since we've prepared for that in getting the applications written up in the first place. It sounds like the open house is for "shortlisted" people which as far as I know means that, if we can come off well in person, our chances for admission are pretty good.

Thanks, syntax! I'm a little bit surprised, because I felt like my application for Yale was relatively weak. I think that goes to show how things are somewhat random and luck-based, unfortunately. But for that same reason, we shouldn't take any victory or failure too personally.

Looks like Yale is getting going on admissions, apparently I'm shortlisted and invited to their open house, yay/ack!

I also applied to Berkeley, and my writing sample and statement fit together pretty clearly, and I did not get this email.

For the sake of easing my neurotic heart I'll believe you. It did go through, yes, and I noticed that as well: I could have paid the fee forever ago and uploaded my documents later on, but that wasn't evident beforehand. Uagh! I'm confident in my application aside from this hiccup, so I'm just hoping the technicality of being officially late won't disqualify me from anything, or get me tossed out prematurely.