fuzzylogician

I think you're fully aware of the costs, and only you can weigh them against the benefits of being with your partner. I know people who have done this and been successful. The key for them seemed to be finding a supportive environment where they went and still having the support network back home. So for those who went to a location where there was a local department they could be a part of, they did that (usually unofficially). Sometimes they were even offered a desk in some common space, but even if not, they would come to talks and occasionally meet with someone. I think this is very important for staying connected with field and for having a routine for getting work done and not getting lost. If there is no one around, this becomes more difficult, but it's also where having supportive advisors comes in. If you are away, you need to have a system in place for staying in touch with your advisor(s). Some kind of understanding regarding e.g. timeline for reading drafts, Skype meetings (regular or on a case by case basis, as necessary and as works for you), how you will communicate and what to expect in terms of responsiveness (some people suck with email, for example, and if you're away you can't just hunt them down in their office so you need to figure this out before you leave. Maybe it's better to text them). At some point in your last year you just have to go in your cave and write like crazy, then finally emerge with a somewhat final product. This can be done on-site or remotely, if you ask me. It's harder to be away for the job market part of the year, but you can get started earlier than most, so you're able to have meetings in person as necessary, and I'm sure your advisors will agree to read your materials remotely. As for the job, unless you agree to a binding contract you absolutely can't break, I'd take it. You never know how things might turn out, and it'd be a shame to give up on what could be a good job for an entire year just because you are now planning to be away for the next. Maybe your partner will magically be able to join you, or you'll change your mind about going away. Is there no way that they can just train a replacement for you when you leave? (of course, you'll give them enough notice.)

The statement of purpose and the personal statement are most likely the same thing. If an application is only asking for one of these documents, then regardless of its name, this document will be about your academic interests, how your background will allow you to pursue them in graduate school, and your thoughts on why this particular schools is the right one for you ("fit"). If there are explicit questions that the prompt for the document asks you to address, of course you should do that, too. We usually call this document the Statement of Purpose (SOP) on this site, but some schools give it other names, like the Personal Statement (PS). Occasionally schools ask for an additional essay beyond the SOP. This may be a "personal history statement" (or similar names) that focuses more on your past and how you've develop to be the person you are today, and/or a diversity statement. Those will have more of a focus on you and less on your research (unlike the primary essay---the SOP). The main difference between a SOP for a PhD and for a MA will be in the level of detail that you give. You can generally be vaguer about your plans when you're applying for an MA; for a PhD, schools will usually want to see that you've really thought the decision through and that you understand what you're getting into, and also that you are able to formulate some kind of research question or coherent set of interests. Additionally, in some fields you might have non-academic career goals that guide your interest in the MA program, and that will change how you talk about your interests and plans for what you'll do while in school and after. That said, programs will likely still want you to be able to articulate why you want to study there and not at other places, and that requires you to describe your interests, broader goals, and background, just like you would for a PhD program. See more in the FAQ.

The best way to get started is to inherit some code that compiles from friends or colleagues. There is a steep learning curve in the beginning, but you can get started with mostly text-based documents pretty easily, and worry about more advanced features as you go. There are a lot of resources online, so you can google pretty much any warning or error you encounter and someone has already explained how to deal with it. There seem to be philosophy-specific advice pages, if you google for something like "latex for philosophers" but it's also useful to see what setups others in your more immediate community are using. In linguistics, for example, there are several different packages for drawing trees and typesetting linguistic examples, and those initial choices pretty much dictate a lot of what you do later on. You can always change your setup, but in my experience people usually stick with whatever they had set up first, because learning the quirks of a new package takes time. So you want to make informed choices (albeit by the experience of others) as much as possible. I'd only recommend switching to LaTeX if there is a community around you that also uses it, otherwise you could easily get stuck, and collaborating and such would be made complicated (though obviously not impossible). Also be aware that some journals will not accept LaTeX submissions or will make your life more difficult because of it (while in linguistics, at least, there are also journals that only accept LaTeX submissions). That said, I personally wouldn't go back, now that I've switched. I use TeXPad on a Mac and like it a lot, but it's a paid software so you might want to play around with free software and be sure you're really committing to LaTeX before paying for it. I think you might be able to use it for free for a bit before you have to pay.

I find it hard to believe that all 3 pages of references are equally important. For a 3-page summary you could add a half page of "selected references" that are just the important ones: the theory you're basing your ideas on, the ones that published the data, maybe 1-2 others, that should be enough. If you end up with 3 pages of references for 3 pages of text, something is probably wrong. I also don't think it's necessary to write something new as opposed to the summary that they asked for. The purpose of the summary is for you to show that you can actually take your longer paper and distill from it just the important parts: what are the questions that you are asking? What are your findings? Why does it matter? What are the next steps? A 3-page summary means that you'll write roughly 2-3 paragraphs on each question, which isn't a lot at all. This is an important skill, and I would say one you could display even better if you summarize your submitted work, as opposed to a proposed plan you haven't yet carried out. But, both are viable options. Re: deadlines and the holidays, the fact that it's the holidays did not exactly come out of no where. Yes, you now have a problem, but it's due to your poor planning, and I'm not sure what else could be done about it. As they say, poor planning on your part should not constitute an emergency on mine. They may not answer until after the new year, and you'll just do something that seems reasonable. If you add one page for references, that is probably okay (though I can't guarantee that). If you add 3 pages, that would look odd.

I think you have to contact the program and ask. Generally, some programs have strict cutoffs, but many others will make exceptions for otherwise suitable candidates. However, some schools have university-wide minimum requirements that all admitted graduate students must meet. These are dictated by the university, and are independent of what the program might want. If you are below the cutoffs, the program may be able to argue for an exception on your behalf. If that is the case, it is possible that the fact that both your GRE and your GPA might be below the cutoffs (where i am obviously guessing at a possible cutoff and have no concrete knowledge of one) will cause the program trouble and might make you ineligible for an exception, whereas if there was only one thing wrong then it would be easier. Mind you, this is a complete guess, none of us can know. It's also entirely possible that you'll be just fine. Only the program has the kind of knowledge that is required here, and all we can do is guess.

When in doubt, stick to the strictest interpretation of the rules -- here, double space, and 3 pages = 3 pages including everything, not 3 pages + a separate page for references. If this doesn't suit you, you could email them to ask more specifically what they mean. Maybe it's fine if it's single space or if you add a separate page for references*, but an official answer permitting you to do that has to come from them and is meaningless if it comes from us. * specifically regarding references, this seems unnecessary. Usually the summary would basically be an abstract of your submitted writing sample. I'm sure your writing sample already has a reference list, which would indicate all the works you might mention in the summary (plus others). They'll just look at the references of your writing sample, if there is any citation in the summary that they want to look up.

Dear all, as a holiday gift to each other and to the moderating staff, please stop replying in this thread. To those who have generated reports regarding this thread, please stop. We have seen your reports and we are keeping track of this thread. Creating more reports only generates more work for us and is unnecessary. As a general rule, disagreeing with someone's opinions is not reason enough to report them. If this problem gets to the point where we have to issue warnings and bans, your behavior will be looked at just as much as the behavior of those you report, and I am not sure that you will like the result. So everyone, please calm down and enjoy the holiday break.

Since the deadline is two weeks away, I don't think you have a reason to be concerned yet. Your previous reminders sound well timed, but you have to realize that it's entirely legitimate for your professor to prioritize tasks with earlier deadlines over your letter, which still has a lot of time before it needs to be done, so the fact that he hasn't done it yet doesn't mean that there is any problem. Since the holidays are right around the corner, I don't think it's helpful to email just now. I would try again around the 28-29th, so you can say the deadline is a week away, and you'll follow up again right before the deadline if you don't hear from him earlier than that. Also keep in mind that letters can often be submitted a little later than the official deadline, and letter writers know this and may plan accordingly, despite the anxiety that this causes some students. But as of right now, the deadline is still a long time away, and there is no indication that there is anything to worry about.

We can't be more specific here. You didn't tell us what field you are in and what prereq you are missing. Even then, it would depend on the particular school, which you may (legitimately) not want to share with us. Either way, we can speculate but we can't make you any promises. If you can take care of this missing prereq in the spring semester, that would be best. You don't need the class to be finished, you just need to say somewhere in your application that you're taking it now so you will have all the necessary prereqs before starting the graduate program. It's possible that you'll get a conditional acceptance and be required to prove that you've graduated and that you passed this class, but that should presumably not be a problem. Again, if this is your top choice, you have nothing to lose by trying.

It's possible that you'll get rejected because you are missing a pre-req (or for another reason). It's possible that you won't. Obviously, we can't know. If your application is good, being rejected won't be held against you if you apply again next year, so if this is your top choice, you have nothing to lose. The easiest way to know is to email and ask the question, but I guess you're not going to do that. You could also call and ask without identifying yourself, since this is a general question that doesn't have to be linked to your name.

I don't know any of those schools, but are you sure you can't reschedule one (or more) of your interviews, if they are on overlapping dates? It seems unlikely that a school will give up on good candidates just because they already have another interview scheduled at the same time as their interview.

Unless it's clear that you'll have your other decisions within a couple of weeks, for a program that doesn't offer funding and doesn't require a deposit, I think I would just accept the offer and then retract if I get something better later. It doesn't sound like there is much to lose from doing that.

Depending on where you are, if there is a linguistics program at a school near you then one thing you can do is start showing up for talks and reading groups. Obviously, no one is required to meet with you and advise you on a project if your are not a student, but usually they won't mind if someone comes to public events such as colloquia and other talks. They probably will mind if you sit in on classes, but if you demonstrate that you are serious, you might be able to find a professor who would agree to occasionally meet with you. It's a bit hard to know. You then might be able to develop a sort of independent project where you can occasionally talk to someone about it, but a lot of the time you'll be reading on your own. If you establish a relationship with the school, there might be an option of presenting work in progress in some reading group and getting feedback that way. Doing an MA might be another, more official option, but you'd want to make sure it actually gives you the opportunity to do independent research. Another option is to find a position as a research assistant or lab manager in a relevant lab, if that's something that exists near you. There are a few (though not many) of these positions out there, and they could be a good way to get your foot in the door.

Everyone who is admitted to MIT is funded. The policy is that everyone gets the same amount, so there can't be any competitiveness around that issue. However, MIT doesn't offer a degree in SLA/applied linguistics, so OP, I think you need to do a better search to find schools that can meet your needs.

Oh, yes, good point. Mine were all post-acceptance, so there wasn't any pressure to perform.

Well, I was visiting a school in New York so it was toward the end of my trip, and I really felt like I needed a day off. This school that I chose not to visit was in New Jersey. It was good, but not the best fit for me. By that point I had already decided what my top two choices were, and they were not that school. I wrote the faculty member who had been in touch with me to let her know I was going to cancel my visit. Turned out she lived in NYC, and she invited me to visit her at her apartment. I went, we had some tea and a nice chat, and she took me out to dinner. I, being me, wasn't thinking much and ended up talked very enthusiastically about one of the other schools. She said my enthusiasm made it clear that I should go there, and had nice things to say about it. She was very gracious, which I appreciated a lot. I've interacted with other faculty from there since, and I've never felt awkward. I don't think spending their time and money when I already knew I wasn't going there would have been appreciated.

I did four in a row in about two weeks, with 1-2 days off here and there. I was supposed to go on a 5th visit as well, but I decided not to go because it was too much and I already knew what my top two choices were. I came from overseas so I was only going to go once. I flew out to the West Coast, then worked my way back east, then back home. I can't say it was the most enjoyable, but it's doable. It's definitely not ideal, so if you can move one of them, you should try. If not, maybe you can have fewer things scheduled on the 30th and 31st, so you can catch your breath there in the middle.

My first year on the job market, I got an interview at a very nice SLAC. Through preparing for that interview, learning more about the school, its mission, and talking to faculty and students there, I realized that my ideal job would combine not only teaching and research (I already knew that) but more specifically advising at the graduate level. I do enjoy teaching -- both the large intro courses where you can get the occasional student hooked, and the more advanced ones where you can talk to enthusiastic young students who have the best questions and the most unconventional ideas -- and I think I'm not bad, but I am also not the best. I try to improve and I care, and do I think that goes a long way. But teaching isn't really the thing I want to do, and having a low teaching load would suit me just fine. I also want to have a serious research program going. I have more projects than time, and that's exactly how I like it. I enjoy collaborating with faculty and with students, I think that's one of the best aspects of my job. Most importantly, advising is very important to me. I believe that whatever impact I'll have on my field, however brilliant of an idea I might have one day, the most influence will come through my students. I see around me too many students who are given bad advice or are left to themselves to get lost and confused, where just someone reaching out and caring would make all the difference. I want to be that person. That's true both for undergrads and for grad students. I'm being kind of selfish here, but I realized that I don't just want to attract some bright students, get them all trained up and excited about linguistics, and then send them off to do their next big thing somewhere else. I want brilliant students to come work with me. I do realize that graduate students need training too, and maybe I'll end up feeling the exact same way when students leave for a postdoc/job just as they finish their PhD and come into their own, but I want to be a part of that process. I had wonderful mentors myself who made all the difference, and if I can have that kind of influence on even just one person, I will be happy. This combination of the things I want is found mostly at R1s, so that's where I've concentrated my search.

The main differences are along two (related) lines. First, a PhD student in Europe is often thought of as an employee. You work for a certain professor on a certain project of their choosing. At least in my field, that's not how things are done in North America. Here you have the option of choosing your research topic. Another difference is that there is no coursework phase, you are deemed sufficiently trained to carry out your project from day 1. People tend to be much more on top of their work hours, so you can expect your advisor to be gone, not doing any work, and not responding to any emails, over the weekends and in the evenings. Because the PhD is like a job, I think people are sometimes not as friendly with one another. You don't want to hang out with your boss and co-workers at parties, necessarily. Second, people seem more lonely in Europe. There aren't very many courses you can take, and often there are very few talks, reading groups, and events. People don't often talk to one another about their research outside of their research group meeting, you just have your project and you do it, people seem not as comfortable asking for help or admitting they have a problem. (These impressions are a combination of my opinion from being there and of my friends who have done/are doing their PhD in Germany, but of course it's a small sample size so take this with a grain of salt). There are nice things about the work-life balance and finishing faster. The salary can be better, and the health system is much better in Germany, in my opinion. For me, the main draw of the North American model was the coursework phase. I already had a Masters, but I felt like I wanted to learn more before I commit to one project (as in the European model) and am deemed knowledgeable enough. I chose a program where it was customary to work with multiple profs and where there were always talks and events going on, and I enjoyed that a lot. So, for me, I think that was the right decision. But if you feel grounded enough in your field and are happy to create your own circle of friends outside academia, I think Germany has a lot going for it.

The professor who knows you better is the one that will write a better LOR. That matters more than that he studies the exact same topic as you. If you can't get your prof to reply, I'd go with the prof who likes you and you got a higher grade with, as opposed to the other one.

I think you want to discuss ideas that you are interested in pursuing in general, but not think of it (or present it) as ideas for your dissertation. Research interests change with time, and you grow and mature as a researcher. You may end up asking similar questions to what you have now in your dissertation, but you don't want to appear like you've already picked a topic and questions because that makes you close-minded and not open to learning what the program has to teach you. So, I would say discuss 2 or 3 (I would go for 2, definitely not more than 3) of your current interests in depth: why are they important? what do you want to know? any thoughts about how to get started. As for working with faculty, again, be careful with how you think about it and how you talk about it. The goal of a PhD program is to generate independent researchers, not clones of the advisors. So while it's totally fine to say "I want to work with Prof X, whose work on A is highly relevant to my work" and to expect to both learn from them and perhaps collaborate on papers with them (if this is a program where professors co-author papers with students), I would not say you want to go to a school to co-author papers with any professor. If you go to a school where that's the culture, it'll happen just by you working with the prof. And if not, then saying that both makes you sound out of touch, and makes you probably not as good fit because they won't be able to give you what you want. (And in fact the school may not be as good a fit, if that is what you want, so think about that too.)

No, it's not disqualifying. It's a spelling convention, nothing more. You'll be fine.

I mean, can you imagine an adcom member reading your otherwise awesome SOP, reaching that line, and exclaiming "s/he thanked us?! REJECT!"? That's not reasonable, no matter who you are. There is a lot of freedom in how SOPs look and what they contain. There isn't just one format that works for everyone. It's easy to dwell on these details and I understand why you worry, but this right here is not something that will hurt you in any way.

You will be fine if you have that line. You will be fine if you don't. I personally would not include it, but it is not a deal breaker. This is really not something you need to worry about.

I am in a different field than yours, so I don't know the answer to this one. In my field, it's not necessary to contact anyone and you're admitted to the department as a whole and not to any particular lab. It is important that there are people who you could work with, to establish fit, but at least at most schools you don't have to commit to working with anyone in particular before you arrive. Some people do email professors (I didn't), but again in that case I don't think that doing so a day before the deadline would leave a good impression. Your situation sounds somewhat different, but I don't know if it means that there have to be people who will commit to "yes, we'll take Extra Espresso for a rotation" for your to be admitted, and if so, if you actually need to reach out to them for that or if establishing fit through the SOP is enough. Normally I would say that you should ask your professors, but since the deadline is so near, maybe you want to try and search here to see if anyone has posted about this, or ask in the dedicated forums where it's more likely that people with knowledge of your particular programs might read. If you find out you do have to contact professors, then even though it's very last minute, you should probably do it anyway, because not doing so would also mean bad things for your application. So see if you can't find out today, or ask a professor tomorrow morning, and have a draft of an email ready to go in case you find out that you do need to email.