Tairy

My application for MIT is 15 minutes late since I the fee payment server was having errors. I know it's my fault for doing it at the last hour, but I've done every other application that way since I try to make use of all the time I have, and this is the only case where something went wrong. There's no official lateness policy, but I'm sure this won't help. Am I doomed?

Hi, belated thanks for your feedback. I've felt moderately confident, provided that I manage to get an acceptable GRE score, but I've noticed something else. I've been browsing the websites of a lot of graduate students of schools I've been considering (which aren't all necessarily even tippy-top places), and the results are fairly intimidating. It seems in general, half or more grad students have some form of website with their CV on it. Of that set, it seems that >80% were perfect-grades honors people before starting their PhD. Those that weren't, often were double majors, or have an MA. I am not one of these people. My performance -in linguistics- is basically spotless, but the first half of my record, primarily consisting of random required courses, is nothing amazing. In addition to that, I do have one F on my transcript, from a silly gen-ed course that I was totally unprepared for. I re-took it later and got an A, but I wonder whether or not this is a serious issue. Should I address this in my statements? While I feel that it is clear from my record that I am currently performing well and not a dumbass, the competition seems stiff enough that I have no confidence that I can compete. It could of course be that there are more non-perfect individuals among the fairly substantial set of students that don't have CVs posted online. But, I don't know either way. Regardless, I'm pretty disheartened looking at the competition.

Pardon me if this is frowned upon, but I'm just sort of scraping around at this point. While I realize there is essential information such as writing sample quality and GRE scores that I can't give / don't have yet, I'm curious about your opinion if there is any grad school possibility with the following background: Pros (or at least not cons): Linguistics BA, from an average American university. Large background of linguistic coursework, with perfect grades. Experience as an undergraduate researcher (not culminating in anything but a poster presentation, however). A year of fieldwork experience, though in a class setting. One talk at a local undergraduate conference. President of my university's linguistics student group. Specific research goals in mind, pertaining to my experience and language background, which I am capable of articulating. (Don't know if it is at all relevant, but a TESL certification as well.) Con: 3.6 Cumulative due to mediocre early years. I am of course asking real-life people about these things, but more opinions never hurts. I have only recently seriously considered the possibility of further schooling and am just getting a sense of the territory. (Which seems competitive, but I'd take what I can get, if there is anything I might get.) I understand the impoverished and impersonal nature of this information, but would be happy for any comments or advice.