rainbowpink

I don't start until the end of September. I seriously can't wait. I already moved a while back and am now at my parents' place for a bit. This past month has been mostly Netflix and video games.

Hi, I was one of the two UChicago posts. They have sent all the official admission offers and all the invitations to the visit in march/april as well. They have also sent us a list of all the people who were accepted (10).

Congrats to those who got in ! Chicago is a very competitive, good and supportive department! 

Yes, but I have not heard back from Rutgers yet! I got accepted by Stony Brook! This is the first Ph.D. acceptance in my life, after getting rejected by 12 schools last year! 
Seriously, if you got a dream and you work for it, eventually you will get it!
 

There is no Applied Linguistics at UChicago, so I'm not sure what that is about... maybe the person that posted that can clarify.
However, as a current student in the linguistics program I can tell you that decisions have been made. Following last year's timeline, I'd say those accepted should hear back (via email) by maybe next Sunday night.

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My husband, originally a math major, also "hated stats" the first time he took statistics and probability. He decided to give it another go and changed his major to stats after that. The major reason, according to him, is he loved the varied applications of statistics. He wasn't a huge fan of the sort of abstract nature of his math major before that; he really wanted to do more applied, practical work, and stats was the way for him.
However, there are many other areas of math that can be applied besides statistics. I think statistics is probably important for most applied mathematicians to know in some sense, but there are applied mathematicians that don't use much if any statistics on a regular basis.
Also, let's walk it back a bit. If you don't know what you want to do, why are you hoping to get a PhD in math? Math is a pretty abstract/theoretical field - there are more applied portions of it, of course, but the kind of math people study in graduate school generally isn't. Even in applied fields, a PhD is often not the degree you want if you really want to "do" something. My PhD is in public health - which sounds very applied, until I realized into the program that it mostly encourages doing research, and not the on-the-ground kind of public health work people think of when they think of public health. A PhD is a research degree; if you don't want a career as a researcher (or aren't sure that you do), then you shouldn't get a PhD in math. Most of what you want to do can probably be achieved with a BA or MA in math, applied math, statistics, or some related field.
Here are some applied areas you can enter:
Epidemiology (math + public health)
Biostatistics (statistics + health/medicine)
Bioinformatics (statistics/math + health/medicine/biomedical science + computer science)
Meteorology/atmospheric science (math + atmospheric science)
Quantitative psychology (math/statistics + psychology)
Mathematician position in the federal government (do a search for "mathematician" on USAJOBS)
Medical physics (more physics than math, but still)
Check out this website on careers in math.
Also, "making the world a better place" is a broadly interpreted statement and a lot of traditional jobs (including in big corporations in finance and accounting) involve work that makes the world a better place or at least some necessary function for humanity. For example, some finance jobs may involve helping to improve the economies of developing nations, or developing a microfinance program for low-income laborers, or providing support and financing to nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits, NGOs, governments, hospitals and clinics need people in their finance and accounting departments just like large corporations do. And pharmaceutical companies (where many biostatisticians work) create drugs that help millions; there are some non-profit pharmaceutical companies, and even many of the for-profit ones do pro bono work.
On the flip side, make sure that you avoid romanticizing nonprofit or helping professions kind of work, because a lot of it is very different from what you might expect. For example, in medicine, a lot of healthcare provision and research organizations these days are very large corporations, and their primary goal might be to make money. A lot of academic and nonprofit medical research is directed by the winds of NIH funding, which is competitive and makes the atmosphere different from what you might otherwise expect. Some non-profits are poorly run and their employees not well compensated for their work (and I don't mean "I can't buy a yacht" well-compensated; I mean "I'm struggling to pay my rent this month").

Following up on an idea from another recent thread, I am curious to know more about everyone's "30-second" pitch. What is it that you do, condensed down to 2-3 sentences, delivered in ~30 seconds? This would be what you might tell a Dean at a job interview or your friends with non-academic jobs at a party. I'm sure there is a lot of interesting research being done by the members of this board! Mine: 
 
I study how our language faculty is organized, and more specifically how the structure of sentences we say maps onto their meaning. I work under the very general assumption that some characteristics of Language are shared across all languages while some other aspects need to be acquired when we are children, and I am interested in those parts that are shared: What is the underlying system that allows children to acquire their native language so quickly and efficiently, in a way that adults studying a language later in life very rarely do? 

I would recommend applying to MA programs as well. I've encountered people that have a strong undergrad background in linguistics but still go for an MA before a PhD to have even more research experience. If you are serious about studying linguistics at the PhD level then you'd want to have a stronger shot at the best programs out there (like the ones you've mentioned). Also, since your interests don't seem to be super well-defined yet, it would not be good if you end up realizing that you like certain things but the department you end up going to isn't the best place for you. There are definitely many good MA programs out there.
 
I think it's too easy for people to feel that they are familiar with linguistics from having had experiences with language from another field and whatnot (e.g., teaching experience) -- I've been in the same boat, coming from an undergrad background in related fields. After a year in a linguistics MA program I realized that there was so much of the basics about linguistics I didn't know before I started studying linguistics properly. Also, when it comes to PhD applications, stuff like life experiences and general comments don't matter very much. I was interested in language all my life because I grew up bilingual, among other things, but I probably spent like a sentence discussing it in my statement of purpose because my adviser told me to cut out that sort of general comments. The rest was about my research experience and interests. I didn't even discuss how my undergrad majors contributed to my experience, since that wasn't concretely reflected in my research projects. Basically almost everything I talked about was research-related stuff I did in my MA. Anything I mentioned having interest in was tied to some project I did (some were less developed than others), so they felt a bit more concrete than just passing interests.

I'm so excited to start in the fall. I'm definitely enjoying the free time right now, although I also have some research work to keep me feeling productive.
 
The whole application feels so far away now, but I can still remember I was feeling throughout those months. I hope I'll be able to be helpful to those applying this fall.

I'm so excited to start in the fall. I'm definitely enjoying the free time right now, although I also have some research work to keep me feeling productive.
 
The whole application feels so far away now, but I can still remember I was feeling throughout those months. I hope I'll be able to be helpful to those applying this fall.

Hi guys,
 
it's been a while but now that we are approaching the Beginning (I just received my TA assignment for next Fall! ) I just wanted to Thank you all for the support and company you all provided during the crazy months known as "application season".
 
Seriously, my mental health owes you big time!

There are different opinions on this one. I certainly submit a version of the same abstract to multiple conferences with close deadlines, because you just can't know what will be successful and what won't, and there is some element of luck involved.
 
The most conservative opinion I've heard is you can present once and you're done, but that tends to be from older faculty and I don't think it's too common. I think the most common opinion, especially from younger people, is that it's ok to submit your abstract to several conferences around the same time as long as you don't have the results yet (so, basically, the scenario you're describing). If the conferences are not back-to-back, usually you can find ways of making the talks somewhat different. I do find it in poor taste when people go around giving the same talk multiple times over a long period of time (think over a year, so circling back to conferences you've already been at with a version of the same talk). It just makes them seem unproductive. It's never good when large portions of the audience think "oh, I've heard this talk already."
 
An exception where people tend to think it's ok to submit the same abstract even after you've already been accepted to another conference is if it'll be very different audiences (e.g. specialized workshop vs large general interest conference, West Coast vs East Coast, Europe vs large US conference, or conference without and then conference with a proceedings series), and you can give the same talk you've given before at the LSA, there it's accepted and even expected, especially if you're on the job market.

I didn't feel anything about officially accepting an offer because I already knew for a while I was going to accept it. 
 
Declining offers was not fun though, and nowadays when I see those school's names I still feel kind of sad, even though I know the offer I accept is the best for me by far in so many ways. I also asked to be removed from a waiting list at a school that was initially my top choice, so there's this sense of never getting to know how things could have turned out...
 
I have so much to do, like my MA thesis and three other research projects, but it also makes me sad to think of moving away from my department here. I want to go to all the department events rather than bury my head in work.
 
I'm super excited to start my PhD though.

After 4 rejections and a countless number of sleepless nights with my name on a waitlist, now at the dawn of the week of April 15th,
 
I must have been on the edge because I was still accessible to admissions operations – and I'm accepted to and will be attending UCLA.

That is awesome!!! Congratulations!!

I got a fellowship <3

Just remember that your writing skills will be shown more clearly in your SOP and writing sample, and if you did quantitative research your writing sample might even reflect your ability to do statistics (which is the math that's actually relevant). So there are other more important components of your application that will demonstrate these skills.
 
A low GRE score might look questionable because it suggests that for whatever reason you couldn't sit down for a few hours and do this thing properly... like you can't think under pressure or limited time or something that doesn't reflect well on you as a student.
 
As long as your score is decent enough, I doubt GRE scores really make a difference (as others have already said).
 
By the way, UMichigan also doesn't require the GRE.

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.

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.

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.

Take my advice with a grain of salt, but I'd say just wait out the next three weeks or so. If you have other options, keep them open too. If you have no other option then I assume it wouldn't be the worst thing to accept admission, but I would personally wait until visitation weekend. Why? You might have a different feel of the school. A professor might not seem like the right choice. Another's research is different than what you've seen, as that is his past work, perhaps. A lot of things can come up that might change your mind or leave you wondering if its the right place.
 
I'd say hold on for a few weeks!

Seems like you've already got your heart set on going there. I say go ahead and commit to the program before your visit. After all, visit days are for more than just helping you decide who's program to choose.

I'm gonna say wait until after the visit. Recruitment days are a great opportunity to get to see and know the school, and you'd be committing to something for the next 5-6 years. Three more weeks won't hurt. 

Well, I'd personally want to meet or at least speak to a PI on the phone before accepting. They might not be a good personality match for you, even if they are good people. Also, university webpages can be out of date - one school looked perfect for me, and when I visited I learned much of what appealed to me is not actually there anymore, so now I will likely not attend. If you have other options, I'd wait it out and decide after visiting. You can still look into the logistics and planning, but there could be a nasty surprise when you visit.