fuzzylogician

I understand that you put a lot of effort into your application, but you already have the result you wanted. So, congratulations. It's time that you put the application phase behind you and start planning your future at your chosen school. Save yourself the application fee to a school you're never going to go to, save the adcom the time of considering your app, and allow another student to accept an offer, who is likelier to accept it. I don't see any gain in it for you except for an ego boost if you get in, but you could be harming fellow applicants in the process.

The validity of the passport and the validity of the visa are two separate things. Your visa will remain valid until its expiration date -- normally the duration of your program -- regardless of the expiration date of the passport it's in. After your passport expires and you get a new one (and make sure whoever issues it gives you back your old passport!), you'll simply have to carry both the old passport which contains the visa, and the new passport which is valid. It's absolutely no problem.

I am going to say it depends on a combination of data points - do you get along with your parents? would you have a car and are you comfortable driving home in the night? how good are you at making friends and interacting socially? I actually don't think that a 40-minute commute is that crazy, mine is 30 minutes each way (and I live in the same city as where I go to school), and it's no problem going out with classmates or staying late to work on an assignment. If you have a car then you are free to come and go as you please. Really the biggest question is if you feel that you can live at home or do you need that extra freedom that comes from living alone? At the same time - how hard is it to find an apartment in the city? how much money would you be saving by living at home? one thing I've learned about housing markets around universities is that the prices are significantly lower off season. If you decide to stay at home at least for a while and look for a place a month or two after the semester starts, you could save a large amount on your rent.

We are talking about sucking it up and going to an interview, yes? not committing to accepting the offer. One should gather all the available information before deciding to decline a good offer, especially a funded one. More generally, opinions often change, both for better and worse, following campus visits. Your grandmother's advice is indeed very wise, and if it feels funky during the interview there's no reason to assume that things will improve later on. If that dismissive tone from the telephone conversation was not simply awkwardness, but true insensitivity, then that is not a person one would like to have as an advisor. I know I certainly wrote off schools because of excessive weirdness on the part of potential advisors. I think that an interview is still a legitimate part of "the way it starts out," though, and I really think the OP owes it to themselves to go out and see how they likes the university in person. They may find out that it's a nice place after all, and they may find that other places that they prefer now are not as great as they look on paper. Information is key to informed decisions.

It takes a few weeks. Reviewing apps is not the only thing the professors on the adcom are doing, not to mention that it takes some time between when the app reaches the graduate school and when it has been processed and transferred to the relevant department. As joro says, some places start by immediately admitting their top applicants and rejecting the very worse-fitting applicants, and slowly work their way towards the middle-of-the-pile applicants. Other departments send out all of the acceptance notifications at once. As long as it's not the case that the department has started informing admitted applicants and you are still in the dark, you are in the running and have a fair shot. I know it's easier said than done but all you can do right now and be patient and keep your hopes up. Good luck!

Yes, people get accepted to schools without interviews. It's the norm in my field. Being international could cause a school to opt for a phone interview rather than an in-person one, but it's unlikely to cause a school not to interview you at all (if it's a school that does interviews to begin with).

Yeah, it happened to me too. After about a year of craziness - studying and taking the GRE and TOEFL, chasing LOR writers, continually revising my SOP and writing sample ... then the awful waiting period during which I used to refresh my email every other minute (never mind that it was the middle of the night in the US and there was no reason to expect any contact), followed by interviews, email exchanges with professors and campus visits --- came the very anticlimactic moment of accepting an offer and declining the rest. It's like.. OK, so now what? It turns out that there's nothing to do after acceptance, except to wait for the time to pass. I had virtually no contact with my department between April and August, practically until orientation started.. It's a big change from constantly waiting for news, and no less frustrating than waiting for a new email to reach my inbox ::sighs::. I think it's very reasonable to choose based on factors that are not purely academic. Funding is a big issue, as is location (for some people, at least -- including me). If you can get a good education without going into debt, I think that's a good choice, even at the cost of going to a less prestigious school. And yes, I think it's entirely OK to ask the department what are your chances of getting funding and when you will know. Good luck!

It varies from program to program and, as suggested above, you can find out what your programs did in previous years by looking at the results page. I'd venture a guess that in most cases there is some (email or phone) contact prior to getting the official letter in the mail, but that's not always the case. I guess that in general, the bigger the program, the less chances of personalized contact.

I think you should at the very least contact the program and ask when they expect decisions to be made, and explain that you need to make a decision soon. I also think you have more to gain than to lose by letting the program know that you have another option, which you will take unless the program offers you funding. You should word the email so it's clear that this program is your preferred choice, but that you can't go if you're not funded.

I'd go with school #2. Location is very important(!), as are academic resources and funding. You can't really know how you'll get along with the professor and students who work on your dream project; or if the professor won't move to another school within the next 5 years and leave you behind. You also don't know if your own interests won't shift. It's better to have backup options available, like several potential advisors, more diverse work being done, etc.

Try not to read too much into this. It means that they lost some of your paperwork and need it now to review your app.

Hm. I'm not sure what Arabic linguistics means really.. if you want to do studies on Arabic speakers, I don't think the US is necessarily the best place to have access to such speakers. However, most programs have funding available for field work so it is possible to do that; do inquire about that before you apply to programs, though. More generally, if you are interested in theoretical linguistics, then any good US program will allow you to concentrate on any language or language family that you choose. I'm not sure anyone here can give you too much insight; I certainly can't recommend anything except to go through the LSA list of linguistics programs and see what fits. I suggest you cross-post in the languages subforum, maybe someone there can help. Also, the availability of dorms should not be how you decide where to apply. I'm sure that they have apartments you can rent near Georgetown.

More precisely, if you don't waive your rights you only get to see the LOR after you've been accepted AND enrolled at a school. So if you're rejected that's not how you'll find out if it was because of a bad LOR.

How much debt will you have to go into? How much do you expect to earn once you graduate from Harvard? How about what you would earn after graduating from Tufts or Davis, and how much debt will you have then? How important is your dream, compared to those numbers? Only you know.

I'm sure it depends on the school. However, since it's only a week and it's not like people with families are very likely to up and go someplace in the middle of the year, I'd guess that at least some adcom members will be in their offices at least some of the time. Now, if they have committee meetings scheduled for that week--who knows?

I say suck it up and go anyway. You are very justifiably upset right not, but you don't want that to cause you to make a decision that you will later regret. If it's not a large expense for you, go on the interview, do your best, and postpone the decision til later, when you have more information and the initial annoyance has worn off. Keep as many options as possible open; only decide after you've received all the acceptance and funding decisions. Then if you still don't like the research done at that department or the professors, you can always decline.

First of all, as others have said, this is probably just a gut reaction to the frustration of being rejected. Nothing to take too seriously. More generally, there are always going to be people who are dismissive of what you study, be it a MA or a PhD. I just recently had a discussion with someone who knew better because they had "a real-life job," as opposed to my sheltered grad school existence. You really should learn to just ignore them. The goals you are pursuing are your own and it simply doesn't matter what some internet strangers think about them.

I assume you're American? I don't have too much insight into getting experience in the States, other than that you can write a thesis, do independent study or volunteer/get payed to be someone's research assistant. I don't know how viable any of these options are for you, but from what I hear the American system is much more open to undergraduates doing all of that than the European system, where they don't even look at you before you start (preferably finish) your Master's degree. For people outside the States, the way to go is usually to do a Masters, where it's much easier to do a big project, get one-on-one time with a professor and get an RAship/TAship. That's what I did. I understand that there are fewer MA programs in the States compared to Europe, though, and I don't know what their quality is. Maybe other people can give you better advice.

If they let you defer that means you're in and you don't have to reapply next year. You should ask the department about the technicalities. I would guess that you sign a form saying that you're deferring admissions which is different than just accepting the offer but does enforce some kind of acceptance-like obligation between you and the school.

I don't know anything about your specific program but I always find it hard to believe generalizations such as that MIT "is full of nerds and that people are weird." I'm sure that there are weird people at MIT, as there must be at other places, but I find it hard to believe that they are the only people there. Talk to the people and visit, and see for yourself. Also, based on the comments above, your decision will likely depend quite a bit on your post-graduation goals, so that's another thing to look out for and ask about when you visit.

As always, it depends on the school. Since it's been a month, I think you should just contact the professor who sent you the acceptance email and ask when the funding decisions and official notifications will be sent out. If they don't know, maybe they can find out for you. They should have a vested interest in helping you, now that you have been admitted, because they want you to choose their offer over your other options.

Everything psycholinguist said. I surfed to every page on this list and looked to see if the research being done at each department appealed to me. Fit is the most important factor in admissions. You could be accepted to top schools and rejected from lower-ranked ones, if your interests match better with professors there. Ranking shouldn't be what decides where you apply. Spend as much time as possible revising your writing sample and SOP. Linguistics departments are small enough that every application is given at least some consideration. I don't think there are cutoffs the way there are in larger departments where your app can be thrown out without anyone ever seeing it. Your essays are going to be what convinces the department to accept you. Research experience: get it if you can. It will be very hard to be accepted straight out of undergrad with no experience. Show an understanding of the state of the field and how it's reflected in the department you're applying to. Talk about interests or projects that you would like to explore, that are reasonable in scope and converse with what is already out there. What you choose to write about in your statement should mesh well with the department you're applying to. If you're applying to a theory-heavy department, show an understanding of that and spend less time talking about how you would like to run experiments (if there is no to guide in that); if it's a OT-is-god department and you are applying to phonology, make sure that they know OT is your god as well [an aside: first question in our intro to syntax class last semester: 'raise your hand if you have not yet accepted UG as your personal savior' ::laughs::]. Be focused: choose a couple of things that interest you and expand on them. Choose depth over breadth if you have to cut things out of your statement for length reasons. Make sure other projects or interests are mentioned in your CV and by your recommenders. LoRs and LoR writers. They are oh so important. Make connections with reliable writers to secure the best recommendations you can. If all else fails, find a way to mention that you are a pastry-chef. Or just a great cook. That will go a long way to getting you admitted to some schools

I'm so sorry to hear that! It's frustrating to be thrown out because of a technicality, that's so unfair.

I know exactly where you are coming from. Try shy, introverted, can't handle groups of people, and very conscious of your accent.. I guess all I can tell you is, don't let it stop you. You've already been accepted so you don't need to worry about making a bad impression, and you definitely should go and see how you feel about being at the school, how you like the city, etc. If the people make you feel very uncomfortable, then that is something you may want to consider when making a decision. Don't worry about a professor calling on you in class--why would they expect someone who is just sitting in on one class in the middle of the semester to be able to contribute to the discussion? Of course they'd welcome it if you did, but I doubt anyone expects it. As for handling awkwardness, I find it's easiest to simply acknowledge that it's there and not try to fight it. Sometimes you click with people (they can be awkward like you or very extroverted) and that is a good indication of someone you will enjoy working with. Sometimes the conversation is just awful, but that also tells you something important. I wrote off my top choice because of a disconnect with two of the three professors in my field there. They do great work and their students like them, but I couldn't imagine going through 5 years of strained silences and awkward smiles.. Just know that there are a lot of people just like you in academia. Try to look at this trip as an exercise in personal growth. Anywhere you go, making connections is important, so eventually there is no avoiding it. You'll soon be expected to stand in front of a class and lecture, so you have to start handling these situations sometime. Why not start now, when you've been accepted and it's safe to make mistakes?