fuzzylogician

If the application only asks for one essay, in my experience it's always the research-oriented essay regardless of how it's called. To be sure, it's usually called a Statement of Purpose or Letter or Intent, but I've heard of apps that only ask for a Personal Statement. I think it's highly unlikely that any research program you're applying to will only want to know about your personal background but not about your professional skills and interests. If you think you may be in that situation and the prompts aren't clear, you should contact the program directly and ask. For apps that ask for two essays, the personal statement is usually the place to expand on areas that don't go into the research statement. That is, if the SOP talks about your research interests, future goals and fit, the PS could go into more details about your background, how you got into the field, or even more general details about you as a person and your development from child to adult with a particular set of skills and interests - depending on the prompt.

I think the problem is less with how much time you want to spend watching TV and more with not being flexible about when you want to watch TV. Some weeks you'll have more free time and some weeks you'll be busier. In some cases you'll have pressing deadlines and you'll simply need to work and put other activities aside for a while. If you can tape your games and watch them later, you'll do fine. Same for if you can have a game in the background while you work (especially if the game is taped and you can rewind for exciting events you happened to miss). We can learn to make time for the things that are important to us, whatever they are, if we can keep an open mind about how.

No, using the same sources as another student is not plagiarism.

Fair enough, but (1) I believe the OP is in a writing-heavy field and might be expected to be able to submit a serious paper, an (2) more generally, it's better to work hard on something that will be given less attention than submit a weak writing sample that adcoms will read as a major part of the app. If you're short on time and need to decide what to invest less time in, ask your question that way. But don't have a mindset that assumes something is unimportant. Even in the Life/Exact Sciences, I assume that there are standards for what is expected of graduating undergrads. It may be different from what is expected from Social Sciences or Humanities students (though don't think they're given any more guidance on writing than other students - we're all expected to "learn on the go"). But whatever these standards are, it's important to submit a sample to meets at least these minimum requirements - some basic formatting, some standard essay structure, and also contents that are appropriate. Again, it doesn't need to be extraordinarily brilliant and already published, and not everyone is a natural writer. But if you're going to do Science, you're going to have to learn to communicate it to your community and that includes understanding the standards for communication in your field.

The writing sample is one of the more important components of the application, certainly more than the GRE and GPA scores. Those might keep you out if you don't meet minimum standards, but it's the SOP, LORs and WS that will get you in. My writing sample was read by adcom members. Some even gave me specific comments when I visited their campus. It's the most direct way to gage the quality of a student's work. You don't need to have a journal paper to show potential, its enough that you argue a sustained and well defended position, even if the scope of the argument is quite limited, and that you show strong language skills. I'd recommend you assume your WS *is* going to be looked at and change your attitude towards this requirement, or else you might be doing yourself a disservice.,

Giving such definitive answers when you know nothing about the OP's circumstances is dangerous and almost certainly wrong. Where did these numbers come from?

Depends. (As always.) Some apps have length or page requirements -- common requirements I've noticed are 500 words or 2 pages. If no guidelines are given, I would recommend trying to have ~800 word SOP, though the range can vary widely between fields and also depending on your life experience. If there are common formatting guidelines in your field, use them. For example, you could use the formatting from prominent journals or proceedings. If not, go for at least 1.5 line spacing and either indentation or an extra line between paragraphs.Personally I wrote a 850 word SOP when there no limits but ended up preferring my 500-word version - it was tighter and conveyed all the same information. I ended up using it as a basis for my favorite app, which was 650 words long.

I can't remember a reply to this post and also can't seem to find such a response. But hey, you're welcome! I'll try and give general feedback at the paragraph level. There's some polishing to do in terms of style and grammar, but I think you're not quite there yet. This ENTIRE paragraph is irrelevant and should not appear in your SOP. It doesn't teach the adcom anything (professional) about you as an applicant - your interests, your fit, your future plans. Spending a whole paragraph - 25% of your text - surveying your social skills and personal development in college is completely beside the point of a Statement of Purpose (maybe less so for a Personal Statement which is sometimes required in addition to the SOP). OK, this paragraph could be worked into a good opening paragraph. It highlights your interests and relevant background, which are both crucial aspects of a successful SOP. Here you could work ONE sentence from the first paragraph into the text. BRIEFLY explain that your personal development but don't make it the main point of the paragraph. This paragraph is key - it details your current and future interests. I'm no expert, but your description seems vague and too general. Could you work out a few more details? Explain how you'll apply gaming/interactive environments to whatever CS system you're developing (or whatever it is you're doing, my ignorance is showing here). It seems to me that you've mentioned one very vague tool that could be harnessed in some way, but you didn't explain how or what for. No offense, but your goal seems grandiose even for an established professor's research program, let alone for a MA student. Wanting to "create a great game to shape the world" is certainly not something you could hope to achieve in a two-year program. Therefore, your explanation of fit seems out of context. Scale it down to something more manageable for the program you're applying to. Keep it realistic. And then explain fit better - saying that X's group has a lot of research in area Y does not explain how it's relevant for your plans. Be specific, explain how the work is related to your proposed project.

You're welcome. It's 8 for me, in case you're wondering. That's the number of schools that met the criteria: (1) Has at least two researchers that could be potential advisors, preferably 3 or more. (2) Fully funds its students. (3) Is located in a place I am willing to live in. Took some serious research to find these, as information isn't always easily accessible. Being able to conduct effective searches is key.

Here's a good place to start:

Take a deep breath. Relax. Things are not so bad. People move across the country - and from other countries - all the time and successfully find a place to live. Things could indeed be better, but they could be much worse. It sounds like you have a credit history, you don't have visa requirements that bar you from moving whenever you want to start searching for an apartment, you speak and understand the language perfectly, and most importantly - you still have lots of time to find a good place. Things to do now: (1) Find out when you can expect to hear back about campus housing. (2) Contact current grad students in your program for housing advice. Ask about safe neighborhoods, how much you can expect to pay for [room with specs of your choice], transportation in said neighborhoods. Find out where current grads live now - it's a good bet that those are safe reasonable places. (3) Find out how long in advance you should start looking for an apartment or roommates. Try asking around, maybe someone in your program is looking for a roommate or knows someone who is. (4) Look for housing resources your university may provide: a website, a housing listing service, maybe real estate agents that are recommended, etc. Things to plan for: (1) Based on advice you got from questions above, consider moving early and staying at a cheap hotel/hostel for a week or so while you look for a place.(one thing to find out is how long it usually takes to find a place) (2) Start looking on Craigslist (or other sites) to get a feel for what's out there. (3) Use googlemaps, get familiar with potential neighborhoods to save time later. (4) Find out if using a real estate agent is common. Consider using one. Start contacting agents not more than a few days before you plan to arrive, unless you have friends who can go on viewings at short notice who are already living near your new school.

Look, you can only have so many demands on a program and still hope to find a significant number of good matches. Theoretical linguistics is a small field. In any field, MAs are rare and normally unfunded. You only want to live in certain places (which is understandable) and for some reason you refuse to accept what a number of posters here have told you - the language proficiency requirement is not a good reason to dismiss a school. I wish you luck in your search, but with an attitude like the one you've demonstrated in this thread you're going to have a hard time. Things don't always turn out exactly as you want them to, you know.

Are we talking about a short CV or a document that lists all your work? And are we talking about published work, or some other kind of CV entry? Published work is published work, you don't get to take it back because you were young when you wrote it (rather you get to write a new article showing how the other one was wrong ). If you're aiming for a short, strong CV, you may choose to omit older entries - that is definitely done. For example, many people start out by listing inner-departmental presentations just to show that they are active and have diverse interests, and take those out later when they have presented the work in a peer-reviewed conference or have published it in a journal. You also see CVs with "selected publications", for those who have enough so they can choose. I think these people still have a full CV which lists everything they've done - I think such a document is required for various applications (tenure, grants and such like) but I could be wrong here. As for semi-relevant RA positions and the like, I also think it's fine to start weeding them out as you have more relevant positions in order to keep your CV manageable. I would still advise you to keep a document that lists everything - you never know when you might need it. Since you're not actually applying for a position or grant, you can have a short CV on your website. Whatever you think represents you the best. When it's time to apply for jobs, you should consult your advisor to learn what is common in your field and do that. It may or may not be a full CV. I've finished three years in a PhD program and I have a Masters, in case that helps.

6-8 weeks in advance is more than enough notice, and is when most professors will start thinking about writing graduate school LORs. In the meanwhile, you can - and should - consult with your letter writers about potential schools to apply to. This can happen very soon, if not now. When you approach your potential writers, you can let them know you'd like to ask them for a letter later on, once you've decided where to apply, and that you'll keep them updated. There's plenty of advice on this forum on how to approach letter writers and what information to provide them, which I'd advise you to look up and follow. *edited for excessive typos, even by my standards*

There is more to do in graduate school than can reasonably be done by a mere mortal (read: me. Probably you too). The advice you got is a very good one and you should give it some serious thought. Once you start school, you are going to have many simultaneous demands on your time: reading and writing for several courses; teaching requirements; research requirements; possibly, some service requirements (e.g. small organizational duties within your department). At some point - as soon as possible- you have to learn to prioritize. You can't possibly do all of the required reading for all your courses, for example. It's also sometimes a strategic choice to submit final papers that are "good enough", not "publishable as is". I have friends who don't want their professors to see anything less than perfect work and guess what - they have taken a number of incompletes and are behind on their requirements. I have chosen to submit papers that will earn me my desired grade but nothing more. If it's good/interesting work, I can follow up on it after the deadlines, but there is no need to get myself all worked up to meet some made-up deadline. Same goes for teaching duties. You can invest as much as you possibly can and still be lacking in terms of additional study aids/office hours/advice you could give your students. You need to learn not to let any one aspect of your work take over all your work time. For that matter, you also need to learn not to let your work take over your life. It's important to learn to schedule time in your calendar for off-work activities(!), or else other duties will just take over that free time. It's also important to take time off to rest - and schedule it too, if you must. Just block off time for reading, writing, teaching, hobbies, rest, anything else you want. You may have noticed that this sounds like a heavy load -- it is. This is where prioritizing and doing less-than-perfect work in some areas becomes crucial. I'm not advocating for doing average work in all aspects and all the time, but rather learning where it's important to show your strong suits and where you can get by with doing less. Courses are often a place where ok-but-not-perfect work is really all you need.

For now I still have all of my (relevant) undergraduate experience on my CV. Like it or not, it's work I did that is associated with my name. I stand behind it and I'm proud of it. At this point I only have very few items on my CV from outside my field - ones which I am particularly proud of - but mostly I've dropped those items. It seems to me that it's worth keeping all of my linguistics work and seeming prolific when applying for my first job; in any event, nowadays it's easy to google one's name and find all their work without much trouble so I've decided to keep it all on my CV (as well as my website). *A good lesson to take from this question is that anything you publish under your name is there forever to be found, so don't put your name on work you're not proud of!

Generally, linguistics is a field that does encourage writing samples from other (related) fields, if they are the applicant's best work. However, JoeyBoy, in your case I'm not sure it makes sense to submit a philosophy paper. You majored in linguistics, so you must have written at least one or two papers in that field. You should choose one and do your best to improve it based on the comments you got on it and on whatever critique you can get from mentors now. It's even better to submit a phonology paper while proposing to study semantics (or vice versa) because there will be professors on the adcom who will be able to judge the quality of that paper. If you submit a philosophy paper, the adcom will wonder why you don't have linguistics work you think is good enough, and are forced to go outside the field for a writing sample. As mentioned by Prof. Susan, a philosophy paper is also likely not to be fully appreciated by the adcom, even if it is currently better than all your other papers, because they are not experts in that field. Bottom line, a paper closer to your field is better.

Are you sure you can pull it off? Are you sure *all* your readers will get your joke? There's a danger in writing something that could be misunderstood and label you something you don't want - be it naive, bigoted, awkward, clown, not serious, etc. I understand your desire to distinguish yourself, but the way to do that is through the serious part of the app, not through the fluff that surrounds it. If you're successful and stay in academia, you'll write plenty of formulaic essays that must adhere to all kinds of guidelines (length, content, formatting). The way you get your abstract, grant proposal or article positively reviewed is by making them stand out *professionally*. Your SOP should not be an exception. Its readers are used to judging work on content, not entertainment value. You will be chosen because adcoms consider you a strong candidate who will fit into the department and has good prospects of developing a successful career, not because of your jokes. You also want to be remembered because of your captivating SOP, not because it was funny. That's my $.02.

You can get a pretty good idea of what's out there by just searching on google. You should be able to find abstracts, conference proceedings and researchers' websites, if not full articles. How many full articles you find may depend on your field and how accessible it is. In my field, there are several open-source journals and free online proceedings, and there are open-source archives where people can upload drafts or full versions of whatever papers they want. The trick is to know what's out there. Additionally, many researchers publish their work on their website, and at the very least you can find people's interests and list of their publications. If all else fails, once you've narrowed down a list of possible advisors, email them and ask for a paper of theirs (mention one or two that seem potentially relevant, of course). Usually everyone will be happy to send you a copy of their work even if it appears in a copyrighted journal.

There are several excellent theoretical linguistics programs. They will not let you fully ignore the other subfields, but they will certainly allow you to focus on Phonology and Syntax. You should read more about these subfields so you have a better idea of what studying them in grad school would be like; you don't sound like you quite know what you'd be interested in yet so it's hard to suggest specific schools.

I don't know about USC but at Harvard there are collaborations with Psychology, and there is also Ken Wexler at MIT who you could mention as a source in the community. But you should also make sure to explain how you will fit in linguistics, else they will just figure you should be applying directly to Psychology to work with whoever it is there that interests you instead of to linguistics.

It's a pretty common arrangement. Sometimes you can get additional summer funding, ask students in your program. Likely, you will need to save some money from each month's stipend to cover the summer months.

It's probably redundant but I think it's still worth repeating: You never know what could have been, and it's useless to waste time worrying about it. It's always a good idea to invest time in making an informed decision - gathering information, consulting with knowledgeable others, weighing options. It sounds like you did all that, and your decision is the best one you could make based on the information you had at the time. Once the decision is made, it's best to stop worrying about it. If you're still rethinking and reevaluating, you are not done deciding. Once you're done, life goes on in one course and you will never know what would have happened in the other. This is particularly important to remember when things get hard in your new school (as they inevitably will, at some point). Things would not have been perfect in the other school either: eventually there would be a difficult class or an instructor you don't get along with, or a bad roommate/officemate/landlord/[other], or an unfortunate class/subject to teach, or an unsuccessful project, or a family/life event. Such is academia and such is life. It's natural, but it's best to be rational about your emotions here. You made a good choice and you can make it work for you!

That's how it was with my program. I accepted the offer in April and pretty much didn't hear from them again until August. Our department slows down a lot over the summer - students and professors travel or are otherwise away from their offices - and there is nothing really going on for new students until a week or two before the new semester, when orientation activities begin. If you have questions or concerns I'm sure you can just email someone and ask (a professor who you were in touch with, students you met there). You may want to make sure you were able to successfully set up a university email account and your department knows what it is, or that they have some other way of contacting you if needed, but otherwise I don't think there is anything to worry about.

Like others have already said, I don't know of any "easy" programs. There are the US news rankings that you could look at for some idea of what's out there; really, linguistics is a pretty small field. If you are serious about the degree, however, you should be looking for researchers who could be potential advisors, and none of us can do that for you. Maybe an MA won't help you since you already have one but there are programs that allow you go earn a MA on your way to obtaining a PhD and that's not a bad option. That way, if things are too difficult or otherwise don't work out, you still get a US graduate degree.