fuzzylogician

ALSO, "page x out of y" so they know there's something missing to begin with!

You listened to a 20 minute interview with a successful professor who is using his spare time to give advice to early-career people such as yourself, and that's all you got out of it? That really takes some special kind of skill.

Some very good advice offered by Professor Kai von Fintel (MIT). Relevant if you are applying to grad school, are in grad school, or are about to go on the job market (especially if you're in semantics, but not only). http://www.howtobecomeaprofessor.com/interviews/how-to-become-a-professor-in-linguistics/

If you're already in a PhD program I assume that means you've already officially finished your BA a while ago. Once it's done, there is nothing you can do to change anything about it, including your grades. If you want higher grades in a BA degree, you'll have to do a second one, but I can't believe you can do a BA in the same topic and at the same institution as you PhD. I wouldn't advise it even if you could, it'd look very odd on your CV and your reason for doing it won't help either. Just let bygones be bygones. You're doing a PhD, your BA grades hardly matter anymore.

This depends. In Europe, many positions will require you to submit transcripts (in fact, they ask you to resubmit them every time you are up for a promotion; I've been told they need a new copy of your high school diploma, BA, MA, and PhD every time). In the US, it's normally not needed. Post doc applications don't normally require you to discuss every institution you've been enrolled in but they do want a CV and you need to craft the best one you can. Now the question is whether these studies help, hurt, or do nothing for you. The question is what the degree was in, how it relates to what you are doing now and what kind of hole it leaves in your CV if you leave it out. Having completed coursework for a second MA beside your main interest just doesn't seem that bad to me. The shift in interests is something you can address in one line in your SOP (or research statement, for jobs) and if put in the correct light, it should not harm you in any way. In any event, for me it's a no-brainer - my studies were in my current field, and they occurred right between my BA and my PhD. I didn't just disappear for a year and I have recommenders and strong supporters from that time that I want to show off. If, on the other hand, we are talking about something from a long ago that's not relevant and will not raise questions if omitted, then the considerations are very different

I took 4 courses one semester. Ended up taking 4 incompletes and finished the requirements over the next 2 semesters. It was ok during the semester but there were just too many requirements at the end of the semester for me to handle. I needed all those classes for my degree and they were not going to be offered again for another two years, but if it wasn't necessary I would not recommend that kind of workload to anyone.

Because you spent a year or two of your life doing it?

If it's a form email, that's easy to detect and those will generally get less responses than individualized emails. You don't need to write a different email to each professor, but some tweaks will help. It's also a good idea not to write to several professors at the same department and tell them all that they are your first choice, but other than that there is nothing wrong with emailing multiple professors at the same department. If you go there, you'll want to have more than one person who you can work with and at some point you'll need to form a committee of at least three professors so it's good to know that there are enough people with related interests there.

Emailing the professor sounds like a good idea. Your best bet is to apply to the most fitting department of the three and have collaborations with the other profs. I'm assuming that your research interests are interdisciplinary but still might be a better fit for one department than the others, if only because there are more professors/other resources there that you need. What you'll want to do is have a collaboration with professors across the three departments so you need to ask whether that's possible and whether it's normally done (if not, you'll likely encounter all kinds of technical difficulties down the line simply because you'll be doing something unusual). I'd start with asking the prof who you've been in contact with but down the line you'll need to get everyone's consent to this arrangement, including all the profs and the admins in your home department.

I am in a similar situation - I was accepted into my current PhD program during the first year of my Masters and I moved after completing all the coursework requirements but not the thesis (basically, I tried to complete a 2-year program in one year and failed, but was assured by my program that they didn't care about it back when I applied). I list that experience under "Education" as "Year X-Y, Uni X, Dept Y, MA Student in Linguistics," where it's clear from the structure of my CV that it's similar to a year I spent as an exchange student and in contrast to a completed BA (and hopefully in the future, a completed PhD). I'd advise against leaving this line out of your CV entirely, because people will notice and wonder about the hole that you'd be creating. Better address their concerns than leave them imagining something worse than what actually happened.

If they're going to suspect you're lying, why would having a name stop them? They can be suspicious because you didn't submit a letter of recommendation from this person, or they could even suspect that you forged a letter. I'd stick to mentioning what's relevant; they can contact the hospital and the person if they want to know more details, but I doubt anyone will go that far.

Do the names matter? You could say the names if they do -- my guess is the hospital name might help the readers situate your story, the person's name maybe less so. Are we talking about just one meeting or someone who you have had a relationship with and who will write you a letter? That makes a difference too.

These two degrees sound very different from each other. What are your career goals once you're done with your education? How much will each of these degrees cost? What kind of work could you do with them; how likely are you to get a job and how long will it take you to repay your debt? I would advise against going into debt to get a degree you don't even know you want/need, and judging from your question you're really not at all sure what you want to do right now.

I applied to 8 schools and in hindsight there were a couple I shouldn't have applied to and a couple that I should have but didn't. I ended up doing very well in the application process but that's not something you can know in advance and the 8 schools I chose seemed like excellent to good enough choices at the time. There is no such thing as a "safety school" in grad school applications, one person's dream school is another's fallback and what decides admissions is too subjective to be able to define clear "safe" schools. Only apply to schools that you'd go to if they were your only option; if you don't see yourself attending a certain school, for whatever reason (and don't let people tell you that non-academic reasons shouldn't affect your decision), save your money and time and don't apply there.

Thank you for coming back and giving us this update. It's great to hear! Congratulations!!

It doesn't need to be part of your SOP. If there is something specific that you learned in the class that is relevant to your research interests, you should mention that. More generally, you should include a list of relevant coursework that adcom members can easily cross-reference with your transcript and explains exactly what you did in each class. E.g., include the course name and number as they appear on the transcript, the full (meaningful) name, the instructor, your grade, and where relevant the main topics and texts/textbook covered in class. You should only do that for relevant courses and not for your entire transcript. This document can be a supplement or attached to your CV if you can't upload additional documents.

Pressure and insecurity about the future are not good reasons to apply to graduate school. The main thing I gather from reading your post is that you're really not sure of yourself but grad school just seems like the "logical next step." I think you need to get yourself out of this mode and do some soul searching. A good approach is to try and reverse-engineer this problem: what kind of job/career would you like to have in the future? (are you sure? have you talked to people who have similar positions, read about the position, know that you understand what it's really like?) what kind of qualifications do you need to have in order to obtain such a job? does it require a Masters or PhD, and if so, in what field? That is, think of a graduate degree is a means to an end, not a goal in and of itself. Figure out your goals and then how to obtain them. Don't apply to grad school out of inertia -- it's hard enough even when you're very passionate about what you do, and even more if you're not that excited about it to begin with.

That's basically what you want to say, but with more details. Name the professors whose interests overlap with yours and explain how. Outline how they might support your research. If there are courses, facilities or collaborations that this program offers, say what they are and why they will help you. Basically, show that you've done your homework about each program, be precise about why each of them would be a good place for you to do a PhD in the area that you're interested in.

I can think of good scholars who've graduated from Seoul National University in pretty much all the major sub-fields of linguistics. That's good news, because you should really choose your area of specialization (and more generally, your field: whether (theoretical) linguistics, as opposed to applied degrees such as TESOL or translation, are more suited for your needs) based on your interests and your future goals - that is, what kind of career you'd like to have one you've obtained the PhD. Even if the goal is just to take advantage of an opportunity and not to become a career linguist (a fine choice, either way), you want to choose a subfield that you're interested in and not just one that's considered strong at your university, because you'll be spending a good 4-5 years working in this subfield. A PhD is hard enough even when you're very excited about your research, and even more so if you're not terribly excited to begin with.

I'd suggest some reverse engineering. Do the jobs you want to have require a PhD? If so, you probably need to get one, or find other types of jobs that you already have the necessary qualifications to obtain. if you need to get a PhD to obtain your work goals, I think you should be more worried about what happens during the five or so years it takes to get the PhD and less about the application process - do you think you're not only ready to begin, but also able to finish such a program? That is a much more serious concern than the GRE; I understand it may be difficult for you, but it's nothing compared to the actual 5 years of the PhD grunt work. Work experience will definitely count for the application, and there are ways to study for the GRE to maximize your score even if you're not a good test-taker. I don't think this test should be what discourages you from going after the future that you want.

No one at the school is obligated to help you financially or physically. If you go to a dean, you're also going over several people's heads. If you ask a secretary she may forward the request to the graduate students but as the others have said, it's a weird way to ask your friends for help. You know them already and you should approach them yourself instead of having someone do it for you. Simply approach some of the students in your department and ask for help, or post on the social media site of your choice.

One of the main advantages of doing an MA is being able to create a strong writing sample (your thesis). Do you have other options that would be good enough? Another advantage to the thesis option is that it helps develop your research interests and gives you some experience doing the kind of research that you'll be doing for your phd. Do you have sufficient experience aside from the thesis? The thesis will also allow you to work closely with a professor and hopefully get a strong LOR that will talk about your research abilities. Do you have such LORs already? Depending on where you stand now, you stand to gain different advantages for your applications.

Whoa there. If you choose not to create yourself this extra resource that might help with your admissions, that's no one's fault but your own and it's only unfair because you make it so. Of course you should still fit all the required materials into the application itself according to the guidelines and that's indeed an important skill. Unless a website is explicitly requested as part of the application (which is probably rare to non-existent in most apps these days) you should assume that your website will not be looked at and you should have everything you want the adcom to see be part of the official app. You should also probably not submit a link to a school that explicitly says no links, just like you should not submit a CV to a school that explicitly says no CVs. But all things being equal I'd recommend submitting a CV even if one is not required and creating yourself a website to showcase all the stuff you hope someone will take the time to read if they google your name. If you choose not to do that, you are handicapping yourself in the name of a rule you created yourself and you can't blame others for not playing fair.

Say more. What kinds of questions interest you -- think back to articles you've read and enjoyed. How would you apply your research to Arabic, do you have access to speakers? Why compare English and Arabic, what aspects do you find interesting?

It doesn't help that you post the same question over and over in semi-related threads. Start a new topic for your question. For us to help you, you have to help us. You need to frame your interests better than you do because right now it's do vague I wouldn't know how to begin to help you. Coming up with good research questions is an essential part of doing research and we could help you, but we won't just do it for you.