anyli_t

I'm a first year grad student in linguistics who received a fellowship. I thought I would share my stats, since I don't have an entirely rounded-out package, to give hope to anyone who might be concerned about gaps in their application for next year. My stats were solid (~3.8 undergrad GPA, 1480 GRE), but I have no publications and the only conference presentation I gave outside of college-internal student symposiums was at a small workshop. I'm also short on volunteer experience - I did a few small things in college, but not a lot in the vein of science/education aside for a bit of tutoring. I did have 3+ years of research experience, however. My ratings sheets were: VG/E G/F E/E Given reviewer 2, I was surprised that I ended up with an award. His/her comments were not terribly critical, however, so he/she simply may have been one of those people that hands out high marks very stingily. The contrast between reviewer 2 and 3 is a good example of the arbitrariness of the rating systems, if nothing else. Overall, I don't think I was a superstar candidate - certainly not from past experience with pubs/talks/volunteering - so what may have done it for my application was a fairly sexy topic (sound perception + an unusual neuroimaging technique) and solid writing. I'm sharing all this mainly to point out that you don't need tons of publications (or any, it would seem), and to note that it's even possible to withstand a lukewarm reviewer with some luck. I hope that gives some encouragement for next year's applicants!

Congrats - I'm sure you'll love it there! Congrats - and see you there! (I didn't know anybody else in our cohort was lurking around here...)

It's been a while since anybody posted here - anyone else headed to Berkeley in the fall? I'll be in the Linguistics department.

They definitely had some small cohorts - those 1-person years were during transitional faculty times, I believe - but I got the impression during the visit that they were aiming for a cohort of 5 or more this year. There were 10 accepted students at the visit, so I think the goal in general is to try to grow the program a bit. I would've loved to attend there as well; the circumstances didn't work out for me, but I certainly expect at least a few people to accept their offer, as everyone seemed to love it! It really is a great program.

Congrats to you both!

Thanks for the kind words. How is your decision coming along?

Thought I'd chime in - I've (finally!) decided to go to Berkeley.

I'm going to put forth the opinion that she was the one who messed up, not you. I can't imagine what a prospective student would say that would make an advisor call them stupid, but in my book, that's way out of line. Sounds like somebody with an abrasive personality, rather than anything you did. That having been said, she did you a favor by letting you know straight up what type of person she is, and what type of advisor she would be. That's definitely not somebody I would want to work with, and as rude as she was, it's better that you found that out now than a year into your program. No doubt that encounter must've been a little disconcerting, but don't let it get to you. As long as you're asking respectful and informed questions (i.e. not something that would make somebody get defensive, and not 100 questions that could be answered on the website) you're perfectly entitled to ask whatever you want. If you want to be on the safe side, save potentially concerning questions (How supportive are faculty? is a big one, for example) for your chats with grad students. But overall, I wouldn't worry too much. I've met with a fair amount of faculty and asked everything from details about program structure to socialness of the department to rather abrupt financial questions, and never gotten such a reaction. So in short, I think it's her, not you!

Have you asked University X about deferring for a year, to see if they'd be in a position to offer you some funding this time next year?

Good luck! It sounds like you've got a good chance - I hope they come through for you. Excellent question...I'm not quite yet...

Hey! I doubt this is of much help, as I don't have specifics. But I was waitlisted, then about to be accepted (they said there were nearly sure they'd find funding for me), but I withdrew from my spot. So maybe that's one of the two you need? I wish I knew more, but they didn't tell me a whole lot. But good luck! There's some really cool work being done in that department.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. Many programs (and I think NWU linguistics is one such program, if I remember correctly) give everybody the exact same package, so as to avoid competition between students for money. I'd imagine those schools resist chances to bargain up, so as to keep all the students on a level playing ground. (This is speculation, but it makes sense to my mind.) In addition, some places really just *don't* have more money available. Anyway, what that means is that they definitely do want you, because they accepted you! It might be a tough fit monetarily, but don't think of your finances as tied to your worth in the department in a program like that.

Overall, I really enjoyed visiting the department. The strongest points in my mind were: - A fantastic funding package (with summers and 2 years of fellowship included) that means you never really have to worry about money. The grad students were pretty enthusiastic about this. Funding for conferences semeed plentiful as well, and it sounds like grad students attend them quite easily. - A really friendly and well-connected department. Interacting with the professors in both a formal (interview/tour) setting and a social setting was equally comfortable, and the interest that everyone had in one another seemed really genuine. All in all, the department seemed like a legitimately happy place to be, and I think most of us visiting were impressed with how welcoming and supportive it seemed. - Lots of interdisciplinary work and collaboration (we had the opportunity to meet faculty in related departments during the visit), which in my mind is quite important. - The projects students were working on seemed to be what they were truly interested in, rather than simply the agenda of their advisors. - As you mention, no qualifying exams. Probably not a reason to pick a department on its own, but it sure is nice... I didn't get to interact too much with Janet Pierrehumbert myself, but people that did work with her seemed to be having positive experiences. In fact, even when asked, nobody seemed to be having any really negative experiences overall. Naturally this can be attributed to some recruitment bias, but overall the students seemed sincere in their enthusiasm for the department.

I was visiting there this past weekend, along with 9 other prospectives (though it sounds like not everybody accepted was there?) I got the impression that the department was shooting for an incoming class of 5, as that's what a few of the cohorts were according to some of the grad students I met. (Two years - the current 2nd and 3rd year class there - only had one student matriculate each year, actually, so maybe they're trying to boost the number a little bit?) Their website also says that they usually have an entering class of 4-6 students. Anyway, that's vague and not terribly well-informed, but it's my best guess.

I don't think they've made any final decisions (rejections/acceptances) yet - at least none that I've heard of. They have invited some folks to an interview weekend at the beginning of March, so I wouldn't expect any more news before then. But I don't think anybody's officially in or out yet. Congrats on Northwestern, and good luck with the rest of your apps!

My (soon-to-be completed) BA degree is technically from a cognitive science/linguistics interdepartmental program, so it throws my linguistics concentration in with some psychology and philosophy courses and other fields with related topical courses. I'm missing a lot of core background (never taken formal syntax, semantics, etc.) although it never occurred to me that this would be a problem (most grad programs, I assume, train you up in all of that your first year anyway, since many people come from non-linguistics BAs.) I'm guessing what's helped my applications most is 2 years of pretty solid research experience, because a narrowly targeted vision is not what I'm bringing to my interviews! ("Psycholinguistics" is about as broad as I get...maybe a focus on bilingualism, but that's hardly limiting.) But then, I've heard they take all kinds of backgrounds for linguistics degrees, so who knows what the tipping point is one way or another?

Having chatted with the UCSD Ling people, perhaps I can ease your mind about that interview a little bit. From what I found out, their first year of courses is very rigidly structured to give you all the theoretical background. Even people who have some syntax/semantics/phonetics/etc. experience are required to take them (technically you can place out, but it seems that nobody has). So as long as you can demonstrate that you've got a good understanding of what linguistics entails and that it's really what you want to do, I don't think a lack of theory classes will be too detrimental, as it looks like they bring everybody up to speed that first year. I've got a somewhat similar background - I've got a linguistics concentration within a broader interdepartmental major, and we're missing a lot of theory classes - and it didn't seem to be an issue. Hope that helps some!

I'm officially here for the CogSci visit, but since I won't be able to make the Linguistics open house, I'm meeting with some of their folks as well. I'm not sure how representative my experience will be, since I'm guessing Linguistics will have a whole event planned, while I've just got a few interviews squeezed into the morning. But if you've got anything in particular you'd like to know, I'd be happy to share after I meet with them tomorrow.

It's not the best metaphor by any means, but I used to explain it to people by equating language learning vs. linguistics to music performance vs. music theory - one is the act of doing the thing, and the other is studying the mechanisms behind it. Now I've gotten lazy, and a simple "I study how language works" usually works for the uninterested. Those that are interested, I'm happy to share more with!

Thanks for getting this started - it's nice to have a place of our own. I'm a psycholinguistics/language and cognition person myself, though I've been a slave to Praat on account of an undergrad advisor who's a phonetician, and I'm warming to the idea of continuing with phonetics as one avenue of research. (I'm currently writing from San Diego on my first interview visit - so much warmer than my native East Coast! Also quite nice to meet up with other like-minded people in person.)

De-lurking to say: perhaps we linguists should just request a subconference of our own? Seems like there's enough of us that would benefit from it.