Cats&Coffee

Glad I'm not the only one! I talked to a faculty member that I know and he basically brought up all the same things I was already thinking about both programs, which confirmed my ideas but was decidedly unhelpful towards my decision! I'm left in exactly the same point of indecision. Are you MA or PhD?

That is very kind of you to say! Good luck on ISU!!!

If you have specific questions about writing the SoP, I'm sure people will be happy to reply, but I think it is a lot to ask of strangers to just post their SoPs here. These are personal and also required a huge amount of work. Hope you can understand what I mean. Happy to answer questions, though!

Hi and welcome to the club haha! Congrats on your acceptances and on making a decision!!

Thanks for that! Yeah, I know Biber is just about to retire. If I went to NAU, I would want Taguchi as my advisor (pragmatics), but would be happy also to work with Biber and Reppen before they both retire soon. They are legends and it feels like I'm wasting an opportunity to take classes with them if I don't go. But at the same time, CL is not my primary area of interest and UA has more options for socio and qualitative or mixed methods, which is a direction I might want to go in. Staples is my POI at UA. I've had an online meeting with her recently and I think she's great. UA seems to offer all of my potential areas of interest: pragmatics, CL, and socio, plus people with expertise in different methodologies: quant and qual. So I guess I'm leaning towards UA for those reasons. But I have a sense that NAU is generally considered a stronger program. Am I wrong about that? And maybe the faculty are better known at NAU? I already turned down Hawai'i and GSU, and those are really strong programs too. But the funding wasn't as good as NAU and UA. I'm still second-guessing myself about turning those down! I was nominated for a fellowship at GSU and would have definitely gone there, but I didn't get it. The TAship funding is pretty low. ? I guess the problem is that all the programs are really good, so whatever I choose, I'm turning down working with amazing people everywhere else. I know I'm super lucky to have this choice to make. But it's haaard!!! I'm sorry you didn't get the offer from NAU. Did you definitely decide to go to UA now? Maybe we will be there together!

Hi! I'm a bit late now and I assume you've heard back. But wanted to say there's a Fall 2020 Applied linguistics and teaching thread that has some SLA programs on it. Do you know where you're going yet? I'm deciding between NAU app ling and Univ of Arizona SLAT.

For US programs it's usually a statement of purpose that outlines research interests and faculty you might want to work with in the program, but not a formal research proposal. I guess it might be the same for Canada? The program should have instructions on its website with a prompt for the SoP. You could always reach out to the program or the graduate school more generally to ask what the specific requirements are if it's not clear. At all the PhD programs I applied to, I mentioned faculty whose research I felt aligned with my interests and in most cases I spoke with those faculty via Skype. But most of those programs don't ask applicants to formally choose an advisor until later, after a year or more in the program. Not sure if UBC is different, though. With your research interests, you might also want to look at U of Arizona SLAT program. I think Hayriye Kayi-Aydar might interest you for language teacher identity and there's lots of curriculum development work happening there too. Good luck!

Hey, everybody! Is anyone else going crazy trying to decide? OMG I'm really stuck. Narrowed down to NAU and U of Arizona SLAT. At least I know I'll be moving to Arizona! Officially turned down two awesome programs today and that was hard. I created a spreadsheet to compare all the schools, but it's to a point now where I just keep looking at it and not getting anywhere in my mind. Anybody know students or faculty in either program personally? Am I the only one obsessing like this???

Congrats! I have some interest in corpus methods too, but not sure if I will go that way with my research. At least you narrowed down to two. I am so confused I really can't figure out which program is the best fit. I'm chatting with some students from SLAT this week and also with POI to try to get more clarity. But I'm starting to think GSU might be the one. I'll add you on WeChat! (By the way, I live in China, but I'm not Chinese. Just so you're not surprised by my bad Chinese 哈哈哈).

Congrats to you too! Sounds like the right program for you. ?

Hi everybody! Just wanted to join the applied linguistics/SLA conversation. :-) I'm in the process of deciding where to go. Here is my situation: University of Hawaii-Manoa SLS accepted Georgia State App Ling accepted University of Arizona SLAT accepted Northern Arizona App Ling accepted Michigan State SLS waitlisted Georgetown App Ling rejected (was my first choice...sigh) U Penn Educational Linguistics rejected Have you all heard more yet? What areas of applied linguistics are you interested in? I'm interested in pragmatics in World Englishes snd sociolinguistics of multilingualism.

I just found myself rambling a lot and not able to focus my thoughts. Actually, the last few questions went much better, but in response to the first few, which were not particularly difficult or unexpected, I just couldn't seem to finish a thought. I was particularly concerned because I didn't feel that I had explained my research interests very clearly. I was thinking they would ask more specific questions about my research and that I would be able to build on what I had written in my SoP. But instead, they just asked a very broad, "tell us about your research interests." And suddenly I didn't know where to start! None of the interviewers were in my particularly area (I had spoken with POI previously in a Skype call I had requested with her) so I also wasn't sure how much background to include or if I should refer to specific theories/scholars, etc. So I kind of fumbled around. At one point I just said, "I'm not doing a very good job of explaining this right now. Let me take a step a back and come from a different angle." Or something like that. It's possible that it wasn't as bad as I thought, but it truly felt terrible. And the more I rambled, the more nervous I got. I'm not even sure what I said for a lot of it! For the next one I'm recording myself practicing answering very broad and very specific potential questions. I won't do it too many times because I don't want to sound rehearsed, but I clearly need better prep. What happened in your case?

Yes, I do. I was so upset after my Skype interview with one of the top programs in my field (my second choice/maybe a tie for first depending on the day you ask). I started crying uncontrollably right after it finished. Couldn't sleep, was going crazy, posted about it on social media just to get it out because I was so distraught. Tons of people were comforting me, etc. A week later I got an offer from them including a fully funded assistantship and a nomination from the department for an additional fellowship for top applicants. So, really, what do we know? BUT I am super duper extra preparing for my upcoming interview next week because my nerves cannot possibly handle a repeat of that experience! Anyhow, I really wish you the best.