rainbowpink

Oh, ok. I think aiming for a well-rounded foundation in linguistics would be good then. Honestly, from what you've said so far I'm sure either place would be good for you (not that I know the departments), and much of the experience also depends on you. This doesn't really have anything to do with choosing a program, but I studied other things in my undergrad and jumped to linguistics for my MA as well, and I just want to say that it goes by so quickly and there isn't a ton of time to figure things out, so you need to be proactive. If you want a taste of research, see if you could get involved with a project right when you start, so that might be something you want to ask each program about. Also, since you're not sure if you want to go on to do a PhD yet and could potentially find a job doing something else, you could also check how the programs prepare people for that.

So I asked a school to remove me off their waiting list a while ago, since I've already made my decision to accept an offer. Today I got an email from the school linking me to the website, which says I have not been admitted. I was like... no, actually I rejected you first. But it was all super impersonal and from the graduate admissions people rather than the department, so it might have just been some official thing.

What are your research interests in linguistics and academic background?

A few years ago when I was applied for my MA I received a normal rejection letter from Michigan State even though I only started the application and never even submitted it or sent any supplementary material. Like, yeah, I'd be freaking surprised if I got in with only my name and address.

I emailed them back the following day and haven't gotten any responses either.

Thank you so much for all the input. I'll wait and try to focus on other things for now

I don't know if this is the best place for my question, since this is also related to visiting, but since I've already been accepted I thought this might be the more appropriate place. So I've been accepted to a Ph.D program at a school where I pretty much already decided I want to attend, as in... part of me already planned my life around going there. It's perfect in many ways, such as reputation/ranking (of program and entire university), research, funding, location; I'll also already be there for a summer program, so the moving logistics will be much easier if I just go there for my Ph.D as well (and it's also not too far away from where I'm currently at). The thing is that the campus visit isn't until April 2-3, so I was wondering if it'd be weird to accept before I visit. Like isn't the part of point of these visits for these programs to try to make you choose their program over your other offers? I'm not even worried about stuff like not clicking with other students right away or anything like that, and my current professors have already told me that my people I'm interested in working with are great. The question is more if it'd be weird to them (and other prospective students) if I decide to accept before visiting. Obviously the department will be happy because it's a really competitive program and they did choose to accept me, so let me know if I'm just worrying for no reason, haha... I'm just being a bit impatient because I want to be able to actually figure out some of the logistics in terms of moving, since I'll also be traveling to visit family and then move out of my current place to move to the school and whatnot. It's hard to plan anything (or talk to people about it) when it's not official...

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The thing I love about linguistics is that people come to it from a wide variety of backgrounds, and graduate programs recognize that. I think it's actually on some program's site, but I saw that several years ago rather than during this application cycle, so I forgot where I saw this now. In my undergrad I studied neuroscience and philosophy, but I didn't like either field enough to want to go into depth about any topics in those. I was into something in-between, like history and philosophy of science, which I tried to apply for PhD programs in but failed (got into an unfunded MA). I realized that was a rather obscure field anyway. I had some interests in languages but only learned what linguistics was before my senior year (through a summer language program where I met linguistics people), so I didn't want to change fields at that point. I knew I was always into languages though. I just went into undergrad feeling pressured to go into the "hard sciences", but then that also changed when I fell in love with philosophy and wanted to do that as well. I graduated without any clear plans, so I decided to jump into linguistics. I took one linguistics class while applying for MA programs. I had no idea what my chances were, really, but I felt that my academic background was relevant enough, plus I had research experience in a variety of settings, basically stuff from neurobiology to psychology to philosophy. Got into 5 schools (four of which have both MA and PhD programs), and 2 even offered me full funding + TAship for linguistics classes... like, you know, even though I've only taken intro to linguistics at that point. I think I learned a lot through having to lead discussions too. I never told any of my students about how much background in linguistics I had, lol.

I didn't do my undergrad in linguistics either, so right now I'm doing my MA in linguistics (and planning to go on to PhD, obviously). There are things I wish I knew earlier in terms of applying to PhD programs, but one and a half years of studying linguistics was not a very long time for me to figure out my research interests and whatnot, so I'm actually extremely happy and thankful about how things turned out. I owe so much to my professors for their support and guidance. I think choosing schools to apply to was fun, and of course getting accepted and visiting are both great. It's just the stuff in the middle that's less fun, as you probably know from your own experience.

Yeah, at this point it doesn't affect me anymore, although I only have the schools I'm on the waiting list at to hear back from about a final decision (sometime in April). I'm not really counting on those, especially since it's probably going to be too late by the time I hear back. In hindsight, this has been fun. There were parts of the process I wouldn't want to experience again though.

So I did not get accepted to Michigan, but they said it was pretty much a matter of research interests at that point (among the short-listed candidates). I'm not super attached to my research interests and was ready to explore some new things, but I can definitely see how I was not the best fit, especially compared to some of the other candidates I met. For example, I'm a phonetics/phonology person but not into articulatory phonetics/phonology at all, and that's a big thing they do there. During one of my meetings, I slipped out the fact that I like experimental phonology a lot and how phonetics can inform phonology, but for me there's really a point where things get too "phoneticky". I'm not hurt by it because I am leaning towards going to UChicago anyway and I got nice emails from the professors, and I met the department so I know how awesome they are, and I'm looking forward to meeting Michigan people again in conferences and whatnot. In case people are interested in numbers: They've received 144 applications, and 15 applicants were short-listed. I don't know how many actually got accepted.

Among other things, I'd say location might be significant because the two places are quite different. The weather is pretty much polar opposite, so if you don't want to deal with extremely harsh winters then Minnesota isn't ideal, but if you can appreciate having four seasons then Minnesota is a great place. I lived in the Twin Cities for many years (and went to the U of M for my undergrad), and I love the area a lot. There's a lot of good food around campus, and there's decent public transportation to different areas with even more to do.

Congratulations to you too!! I'm excited because I wasn't even studying linguistics when the last one was held (or knew that the institute was a thing, for that matter).

I got a fellowship <3

It's kind of nice to see how someone can be accepted to one school and not another, while another person can get the opposite results with the same two schools. When you see a somewhat random mix of acceptances and rejections from schools that are overall great it reaffirms the whole idea about how so many different factors determine whether you'd get accepted or not.

I'm in my MA program now, but there are also PhD students in my program. People tell me I'm really diligent. To be honest, I don't feel like I'm super disciplined or anything. I wake up thinking about my school work and read about stuff for class or whatever that's relevant for my field in bed minutes before going to sleep because I'm just obsessed with what I study. Sometimes I end up losing sleep over some exciting research idea I have late at night. Last semester I had a really intense schedule because I was taking a lot of classes, teaching my own course, and applying to PhD programs. It was really weird how it should have been extremely stressful, but for the most part it was really fun for me. I do like socializing with people, but I find that I tend to like socializing with other people in my field or similar fields more than just other random people (on a regular basis, that is) because we end up having fun, nerdy conversations about stuff we're studying. I don't care for stuff like sports, what the latest movies are, personal dramas, etc.

Rejected from UIUC. It's okay because it doesn't rank high on my list, but I had this "schools in the Midwest and Canada seem to like me" thing going on, and now it's ruined.

Would you mind elaborating more on how your approaches/viewpoints differ? I'm just curious because I know I should take the same sort of things into consideration when I make my decision. On the bright side, it would be way too difficult to decide if every single place is a great fit, right?

A Canadian PhD is pretty much like an American PhD (and they're both generally different from PhDs from elsewhere, yes). I don't think you need to worry about that part at all. From what you've described, I'd say go for McGill, but if you can talk to the people more or maybe visit these departments I think that would be good. I've never been to Montreal, but I've only heard good things about it, so I'd say location is also a plus for McGill.

I'm surprised how different schools have managed to become my top school, and the process is not even close to being over yet, since I have one visit at the beginning of April. Basically, I'd imagine myself being at those places and gearing my research more towards what they do there, since I'm still finishing up my MA and I have research projects to do for my various classes. I've only visited one place so far, and I totally agree with people that said visiting makes a huge difference because I'm now completely in love with the place.

I heard it can make a difference if you really had a conflict with someone while you're visiting and/or the students don't think they can work with you. On the other hand, I doubt random positive impressions count, although you might personally like the program more if you get along especially well with their grad students. But it wouldn't influence the decision on their part.

I met individually with 7 faculty members at Michigan, and a few more came to talk to me during other events because I didn't have individual meetings with them. I think they try to talk to you as much as possible because at this stage students aren't necessarily set on what they want to do in their PhD program, so departments want to expose you to everything they have available. Also, if they pay you to go there and all the events are really centered around you (and other prospective students), it would make sense for the department to talk to you as much as possible if they can arrange to do so, given people's schedule and whatnot. It was a lot of fun, by the way. At first I was really intimidated, but I quickly felt really spoiled by how nice people are and how much they've arranged for us.

It means they applied for the PhD program but the department admitted them to the MA instead. I'm guessing it's either a funding issue (since MA programs aren't funded in most places) or they don't think you have enough prerequisites for the Ph.D program but seem overall promising enough. I'm heading to Ann Arbor this afternoon for my first campus visit!! Packed my best winter gear for the extreme cold...

When I started my MA in linguistics, I honestly thought I found a lot of the classes to be extremely easy because the content was actually easy. Also, I got a TA position for a linguistics class despite having only taken one linguistics class before starting my program, so I actually had to teach some of these things to undergrads, and it was actually extremely easy to do so. I must have sounded like a jerk to my classmates last year. When I got my acceptance email from University of Chicago (with extremely good funding) last weekend, I seriously read it over and over to make sure it's really saying what I think it's saying and that it's actually my name there. I actually began working harder because I seriously was worried about people finding out I'm not as good as I'm supposed to be or something. Then I found out there the Imposter Syndrome is really a thing...