Garyon

Hi, I am guessing you are marking last year's notification dates? How/where did you find them?

Ahah I had a similar one! I took a job as windows cleaner at my top-choice!

Thank you all! As always, your advice is gold. I feel very lucky and grateful to have found this forum and you are all very kind and helpful!

Ten?! Wow! The positive side is that in such a way you should be able to personally meet lots of super interesting people in your field! But I was wondering, what are interviews about? How do they work? What kind of questions do they ask? Should I study for them? Clearly I did study the work of my POIs at each Univerisity, and researched the work of their labs and of the people they collaborate with but...should I be ready to asnwer questions about that? Sorry If I ask silly questions but here in Italy Ph.D admissions don't work this way. We usually have titles' evaluation, then a written exam followed by an oral exam mostly focused on evaluating the candidate research proposal and how strong his/her former academic background is.

Ahaha that's great! I was hoping my work would keep my mind distracted but the problem is I work with my computer and I need to check my mail for work reasons so.. no help at all. (like, this morning I got an email having as object "Admission..." I totally freaked out - yeah, I know it is too soon but for a moment! It turns out it was just a student asking me how to do his Bachelor Thesis into my Prof.'s Lab. Sigh Glad to hear we are all in the same boat!

Hi! I am pretty interested in language acquisition and language pathologies too, even if mostly as a way to acquire insights on more theoretical-oriented issues (eg. new syntactic properties, language processing and complexity etc). As wuglife said, Maryland and Umass@Amherst have great experimetal labs that you should definitely check out. At UMD in particular, there is close collaboration within the Language Science community and especially with the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science. I find also prof. Feldman's work there especially intriguing (but it is a bit more computational oriented, so I'm not sure it is what you are looking for). Also, take a look at the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science at Upenn.

thanks again! you were very helpful. I know it is too soon to worry about details like this, but I use these kind of distractions to keep my mind off the "waiting".

Thank you funchaku! But what about international students? Would they cover travel expenses for us too? Also, I think that being able to stay at a current student place would be a terrific opportunity!

So everyone, since most of applications where due today (well, I guess) and we are supposed to be a bit more relaxed (sure!) I was wondering...do any of you know how common interviews are in our field (i mean pre-admission interviews of course)? Should we expect one from every program we applied to? does being asked for one mean you are on a shortlist? Is it just random? How do they work?

oh, just checked my receipt. you are right! good job. (i fell kinda stupid )

So guys, before I switch my internet off. Since in Italy is almost 2015, I wish you all prospective Grad Students a Happy new Year. let's hope it will be full of exciting news!

My ApplyYourself/Hobsons ID number was sent to me via mail a few days after I submitted my application. I had forgotten to submit the supplementary form, so I wasn't worried about the ID untill a week after the submission! (I know, I am a mess ) Anyway, I wrote to the graduate school (gradschool@umd.edu) attaching the form to the email and they were kind enough to add it to my application. I really don't know how you could know that number (and fill the form) before the submission. I feel that their application is a bit confusing. For example, on the linguistics page the application instruction speak of an ASF invitation, but on the Graduate school application instruction there in no mention of it! so i wrote them and asked and they told me they changed the system this year, so there are still procedures to fix. Luckily they seem very kind and quick to respond ( I got an answer to my mail this morning, while I thought they were all on vacation till Jan. 2nd)

Thanks!!

Ahaha, Chiki I finished mine early (Delaware is due Feb 1st!!!) just because I had no more Doctor Who episodes to watch ( and because I couldn't stand to re-read my SOPs anymore, of course).

Hi! Just today I submitted my last application! yeah! And it seems that all my rec. letters have arrived too! I haven't contacted any POI directly. I named the one-two whom i was most interested in working with quite clearly in the SOP. So one of yours contacted you already? That's cool! How did it go? Would it be too rude for me to ask you from which University he/she was (not the name of the prof. of course). Also, I know it is kinda early, but any of you have any idea of how long will it be for us to start hearing something back from them (like, interviews and so on)? I know I should be ashamed! I just finished submitting my applications and I am already anxious!

So, the deadlines for most of my applications are not passed yet, and I am already freaking out ... I don't know how I'll keep my sanity till march!

Hi, in Italian Public Universities - which offer the majority of the PhD programs here - there are some scholarships reserved to foreign students (in fact, as a foreigner I believe you could apply only to those). Those are usually 2/3 for each program (but it really depends on the department) and the applications are usually due between march and September. In italy, a PhD comes with a stipend of 1200 Euro per month. Tuition fees range from € 850 to € 1,000/year. There are some differences for Private Institutions of course, or for PhD programs specifically designed as international oriented (e.g. working lanhguage being english instead of italian). If you need more detailed information, feel free to PM me. Anyway, I really suggest you contact a POI before applying to a PhD here.

Yes I submitted the main application and received the confirmation email. The ASF is described as you say, I am just a bit concerned because I already submitted all my documentation together with the main application. I guess I'll just have to chill out and wait for an answer from the department.

umm I've been thinking about that too. I mentioned between 3 and 5 (I've kept to those whose research or methodologies were closer to my main interests), plus the labs I woulb be interested in joining. For MIT I listed 5 I think, for 3. Don't know if it was the right strategy though. I also have a question for you guys. Is there anyone who has applied to UMaryland? Has any of you received the ASF? The application instructions on the Linguistics Program webpage said to expect an invitation to access an Application Secondary Form, to be used to submitted additional documentation (such as SOP, Writing Sample, etc). However the Online Application of the Graduate School asked me to upload all these documents directly into the main application and there was no mention of the ASF. Clearly, I've written to the department but I've got no aswer back yet and since it's been a week i'm starting to get nervous.

Alichka congrats!!! I still have two to go(MIT and Delaware), but hope to find the time and close them up before Christmas, I really can stand Application Webpages, forms etc anymore.

I'm there with you! Actually, I submitted some of mine applications early ( Cuny and NYU for instance) just to stop me from reading the SOPs all over again! Luckily, we are reaching the end of this. Then, there will be the Wait ...

best of luck to you too!!

So, I submitted my first bunch ( 4 out of 10)! Now back on working on the other 6!!

Hi, I am applying to Umass in the Linguistics Program. It was my understanding that requests to LOR would be sent only after you submit the application ( and I found that strange enough). Are you already past this step?

Ahaha, that's probably right! =) Thank you both guys! Now that the deadlines are approaching I'm starting to freak out about every irrelevant detail. Your answers are always soothing!