fuzzylogician

If you're really concerned, my best advice is to get an emergency fourth letter from whoever will agree to write you one, and have that person email the letter directly to the program, if they won't allow you to update the online application. That way, at least you have the minimum required number of letters, even if one is missing. You might also give your recommender the benefit of the doubt. With a full week left to go, there are many(!) professors who haven't started working on their LORs yet. That tends to be something a lot of people do very last minute, even after the official deadline because there is often a grace period for letters beyond what's allowed for the rest of the application. This could very well work out for you if you do nothing other than sit and wait.

With a GPA and GRE like yours, no one is going to care about one A-. Don't waste your time retaking the class for what will be no more than a slight and ultimately insignificant improvement. Instead invest your time in activities that matter, such as lab work, independent study, more advanced courses or seminars, etc. Or just give yourself a break, grad school will be hard enough work, you also need to learn to relax and pace yourself.

If you're interested in being in this lab, reply enthusiastically and say you'd be happy to Skype with the prof. Don't read too much into the email, it's probably just a form email he sent everyone who he is interviewing.

FWIW I was also an international student. People still knew my letter writers (at least two of them, I think), or at least the letters were good enough to get me where I wanted to go. (There is no "resolved" function I am aware of for questions, but if you're happy we could just stop replying and the thread will naturally get pushed down.)

I'm not entirely sure how your math adds up, but either way I don't think it's that big a deal. You might email the schools and ask to replace your old CV with the new one because you noticed a small mistake, but I don't think you need to worry if any school won't agree to replace the CV. It's just a small error.

I've had several people tell me that one of my letters for job applications brought tears to their eyes when they read it. I assume it's strong (to say the least). When I was applying to grad school, my letters were something people often commented on in interviews, so again, I know this means they were good. For the record, I've never seen any of my letters for grad school or for postdocs/jobs. Nonetheless, I know they are strong because they come from people who I am certain support me and believe that I am a strong candidate for whatever I'm applying for. My letter writers are people who have known me for many years, who have advised me on multiple projects, who can attest to my teaching abilities, research abilities, my personality, etc. They can give specific details and anecdotes to support whatever comment they make about me. They know the contents of my papers and my ideas, and can discuss in detail why they matter. They are people who care about me and have my back. That's how I know I have strong letters. (Therefore, when I was only applying to grad school and before I had interviews, I *hoped* but didn't quite *know* that I had strong letters, based on my relationships with my recommenders. It's always just a guess, unless a writer shows you the letter or a reader tells you about it.) You'll notice that at no point did I discuss how prominent my letter writers are. They are, but that's not what's going to get me the grant/fellowship/job/etc. It's the content that matters. The reputation of the letter writer and their relationship with the institution you're applying for would only be something I would consider if you had several otherwise equal options to choose from. Otherwise, I would go with the more detailed letter from the person who knows you best.

This sounds like a good plan. You don't need to worry too much about proving anything. They are interviewing you; that means they already consider you a strong candidate and a good fit. Just be yourself and be ready to talk about your research and background, and why Awesome U and Awesome Prof are a good fit.

Lots of students (most students!) finish their Masters without publishing anything. You have to have realistic expectations. Frankly nothing you've described your advisor doing so far sounds outside the ordinary to me. She wants you to come up with a research question first, then you can work together to shape it into a feasible project that has the right kind of scope for a Masters project. It sounds like you haven't done that yet and instead you keep coming back to her with nothing to show, and she keeps sending you out to do the work. Do the work.

Your interests are your interests and your background is your background. That won't change from statement to statement. If you have diverse interests you might consider picking some subset that is more appropriate for a particular school, and that might require some tailoring for each school. Other than that, what most people do is have a "fit" paragraph(s) that changes by school and otherwise most of the rest of the statement remains the same. The fit paragraph is where you explain why you are applying to Awesome U specifically to study what you want to study; often that would include naming the actual professors you want to work with. That's not name-dropping, though. You should carefully think about who you mention and only discuss those professors whose interests overlap with yours and would support your research, and explain why that is. You might also mention facilities or resources, particular courses, possible collaborations with other departments or universities nearby, or anything else that draws you to that particular school.

In addition to using these online comparison sites, I found it helpful to simply talk to some current students at each program I was considering about how far their stipend takes them. Ask about where people live (if everyone lives far away from campus because it's too expensive to live nearby, that may be a concern), if people can afford to live without roommates (though many may choose to have roommates anyway, but it's still worth knowing how many and if anyone does live alone), if students ever need to take out loans or run out of money, if people work second jobs, if they generally feel comfortable with what they make. You can learn a lot by just asking if people feel like they make enough. Remember to ask more than one person; it's amazing how the same amount may be more than enough for some and not nearly enough for others. You want to get more than one opinion.

It's your job to find a topic. Finding interesting research topics is one of the most difficult parts of being an academic; no one will do that for you. Your advisor can help you talk through why you think something is interesting or what direction is worth pursuing once you have a topic, or suggest readings and potential things to try. She can help you tackle difficult aspects of your readings, help you out when you get stuck, ask you difficult questions about why you made X assumption or what about Y prediction, make sure the project remains a reasonable size so you don't bite off more than you can chew, and help you with your writing and presentation skills. It's your job to get started on this process, and identify the research question (or at least, area and vague problem) you want to pursue. You don't need to immediately have all the answers, but at the very least you need to be able to articulate something about what vaguely you want to work on, and why it's important and interesting. Bonus points if you have already identified the relevant literature and know where the holes are.

They're typos, and inconsequential ones at that. They won't hurt your application, though if you really worry, as suggested above, you can try replacing your statement with a corrected one. I wouldn't worry, though. I don't think this is worth bothering multiple people about.

None of those are places I would recommend for syntax. So I suppose it depends on what your interests are.

Linguistics majors aren't all that common, so coming from an institution that didn't have one and having to fashion yourself a create-your-own degree won't be that unusual. There are certainly ways of spinning that as a positive in your SOP and having that reflect well on your in letters. The real question is: how do you know you want to study "theoretical/generative linguistics, syntax, psycholinguistics and rhetoric"? Here is why I ask: the latter is quite distinct from the former and is not something most programs would be equipped to support*. Of the former three, one is the main field and two are subfields, so that reads a little bit confused, too. Those, I think, are the kinds of questions that might make an adcom worry, and should also make you worry: do you really actually know that this is what you want to do, and are you ready? But of course I'm reading all that off one post, so it's entirely possible that you have no problem articulating your interests to an adcom's satisfaction! As for the writing sample, it's a bit hard to know without seeing the actual papers or at least knowing a bit more about the topics and content, but in most cases I wouldn't recommend writing a new paper from scratch without the proper support. Again, it's not all that uncommon for students to submit writing samples from related fields. The main question will be if someone on the adcom could reasonably read it and evaluate your research skills based on it. If so, such a (reworked) paper would be fine. * some linguistics programs sit within English departments so I imagine that might be an option, but the kinds of questions and research in theoretical linguistics and in rhetoric are still quite distinct.

I think it's fine, I'd just make it sound less definitive, because let's face it, you don't actually know what will happen five+ years from now. So you might just say something along the lines of what you said -- you hope to pursue a career in academia in [subfield], perhaps retuning to Australia, where [subfield] is underrepresented, to start a new lab and pursue [research]. It's also silly to think that you're competing with anyone. Whoever trains you should be someone who wants you to succeed after you graduate, including getting published, getting grants, etc. If anything, being in another country means you'll be tapping different funding sources and competing less, but again I don't think that's a useful way to think about it in the first place. Tell them what you want, but keep all doors open at this point because you just don't know how things will eventually turn out. Edit: but think of this as an academic document. I couldn't help but cringe a little by reading words like "cutting edge" and "trail blazing". Be professional; you don't need to flatter the institution you're applying to. Your submitting an application there is recognition enough that you think they're good.

Suppose someone has had this experience and could tell you how this worked at their school. How would this possibly help you, since you in all likelihood will attend a different school in a different field? The best anyone can tell you when you ask such general questions is that it depends, and likely this or that might happen. If it were me, I would stop worrying about what-ifs because there are no guarantees anyone can give you now, and I'd ask explicit questions of actual people when you have some concrete offers. Again, guessing here, even if courses aren't listed in your transcript as you need them (which I would bet they might not be), it shouldn't be hard to get a letter from your DGS/program administrator/registrar stating that courses X, Y and Z counted toward your degree, while courses A and B did not. You'd then take that to your (as of yet non-existent) PhD institution, and they will decide what to do with that information.

My $.02: thank him. Keep it brief, it doesn't have to be effusive, but say something. He is a prominent researcher and you are only getting started. You have a lot to lose by seeming to be (or actually being!) on his bad side. He has nothing to lose either way. Whatever he did or did not do so far, make the best of the situation. That includes having the name of a prominent researcher on your thesis as your advisor, and at least giving the appearance that he supports your work. Don't throw away this main benefit that he can still give you because you're upset with him, even if you have every right to be upset.

I don't think there is a "general rule" that applies to all universities in all cases. My best guess is that if you have more credits than necessary, you may be able to choose which credits *among the relevant ones* to use towards the degree, assuming that there may also be some additional requirements beyond just ABC total credits, like X credits in foundational courses, Y credits in seminars, etc. (But no promises). I think you might also want to examine your assumption that another program will agree to accept transfer credits. This may be true or may not (e.g. in my PhD program, it was not, but I know other programs where that might be possible), and it may additionally depend on the nature of the courses. For example, some programs may require that you take the intro courses, or the methods courses, or the professionalization seminar, there, regardless of whether you've taken something similar elsewhere.

I'm sorry for your loss and for everything that you've had to struggle with. But I think you may be over-thinking this one. I don't think there is cause for concern, certainly not at the level that you are experiencing. Realistically, if your GPA is at 3.96 right now I don't think you need to worry at all when submitting your current transcripts. No one is even going to look twice at that one B. If your grades do dip a bit more because of all these difficult circumstances, you could submit a note together with your final transcript explaining (briefly) what happened. I hope that you get support from your school, be it in the form of help from an advisor and/or counseling from mental health services or other relevant support group. You might very well be able to get some help with your studies, and certainly someone should be able to testify to your abilities and the external difficulties that are affecting you now but aren't representative of you and your abilities. Which is to say, whatever ends up happening, it should not affect your admissions chances, reverse decisions, or affect funding offers. People understand that life happens, and you obviously have a trajectory of doing very well. People will understand and respect that.

I would propose to submit the text as is without any special formatting, at least nothing that isn't subtle. Attach a (short!) cover note stating which pages/sections the adcom should concentrate on. I wouldn't do anything that looks odd or would make it more difficult for them to read the whole thing, like highlighting that extends for the full 2000 words or graying out the other parts of the text. That said, if there is some simple and unobtrusive way to indicate where the highlighted text begins and ends, you might also add that; I'm imagining something a small note along the margins, or maybe some heading.

If you can swing it, you could submit an application and see what happens. Unless this program has rolling admissions, it doesn't matter when you submit as long as it's before the deadline. I wouldn't contact professors at this point, though. It's hard to imagine it could make a good impression. If you do this, you had better decide soon. You should also give your LOR writers a heads up.

I would suggest looking at the school's academic calendar to see when they officially returned from the break. At my school, for example, this will have only been the middle of last week. With that in mind, they will certainly need at least a few days to go over all the applications and make a decision, probably more than that. Assuming maybe a two-week period at a minimum for them to make decisions and get them approved by the powers that be, you might at that point begin to expect to see some results. (You might also check the results survey to see if there are entries for previous years that might give you some indication of their timeline). This would mean that it's probably a bit early to expect results just yet. I'd probably give it at least another week or two, then email to ask about the timeline and when you might expect a result, if you can't just keep waiting. That said, unless you have some other offer that is time-sensitive, I don't think you'll get much out of emailing. I assume that no one will give you a precise date but instead you'll get a vague statement like the one you had before, and I'm not sure that will help your anxiety.

Just a reminder for anyone who is considering attending the LSA institute at the University of Kentucky but might be too stressed out by grad school applications to pay attention to anything else: the deadline for applying for fellowships is February 1. If you've never been, it's worth trying to go at least once while you're a student. http://www.linguisticsociety.org/news/2016/12/01/2017-linguistic-institute-fellowship-applications-are-open

There isn't just one correct way to do things, and at the end of the day you should only list things that you are comfortable having on your CV. It sounds to me like you got some very good advice, and I'm sorry if some if it was conveyed in a way you found offensive. Keeping a high GPA while working to support yourself is more telling about your character and abilities as a student than if you'd kept your high grades without also working, so I understand that advice. That said, it might also simply be something that you mention briefly in your SOP or some "do you have anything else to tell us" section of the application, if you are so inclined, and there is no harm in leaving this out if you don't want it on there. You can also choose to only mention some jobs but not others -- you are not obligated to mention them all. Same goes for the volunteer bit (which is fine to have, I think), and the travel bit, and that one I would be much more inclined to not mention at all because it's less obvious what it would teach the adcom that is relevant to their decision. An "interests" section is an odd one to have on an academic CV, in my opinion. Overall your goal with the CV is to present yourself the best way you can, but it's also perfectly fine if your CV is quite short for an undergrad who is just applying for a Masters now. "Padding" won't do you much good, so instead the question to ask yourself about each potential entry is whether it presents an aspect of yourself that you want the adcom to know, and whether it supports you application or might help the adcom reach a positive decision in your case. That decision is up to you, so just do whatever feel right. If something doesn't help or you just don't want it there, then keep it out.

Sounds like you basically have the right approach. I'm not sure what more an example essay will give you at this point. You can take one of two approaches, either cut out unessential details and keep everything, or choose one entire point to cut out (one example, one research experience, one interest, etc.). I often find the latter approach better for maintaining the integrity of the essay, but of course it's very difficult to do with an essay that short. I imagine at that length they really only want to see a discussion of your interests and fit, and a very brief discussion of your background and preparation, but of course if there is a more detailed prompt that asks for specific information, you should provide it all.