Hi guys, looks like people are getting ready . I have added some programs to my choices (many thanks to fuzzylogician and Garyon!) and I would say that my main areas of interest is semantics, theoretical pragmatics and the overlapping field in philosophy of language (syntax is of relatively less interest to me ). So I think for now my choices would be: MIT, UMass, UCSC, NYU, U Chicago and McGill (pls feel free to comment if there are more). As for the chances of getting in, this is something I feel uncertain about because of my gpa (around 3.65) and lack of related research experiences (only one and that is psycholinguistics), although I feel these programs really suit what I want and what I need (teaching training etc.). What do you guys think matters the most for an application?