pangur-ban

I hope you get into McGill then too! From what I know, it's a pretty awesome school. I was at the 2009 LSA summer institute, and the couple of McGill students I met were very impressive. Plus their linguistics department makes lots of clever T-shirts. And no generative grammar at Rice? What do they... do, then? *runs off to look at website*

That's what happened to me. I applied to 3 schools last year and didn't get in. Fortunately, there's plenty you can do in a year to improve, and the application process makes so much more sense once you've done it once. Though, the across the board rejections didn't do much for my self-esteem, alas. And I was lucky in that my local state university had rolling admissions, and I got in to do an MA there, and could stay for the PhD if I choose. I'm applying to 7 schools this year. But you seem well-qualified, so you may do well in this round.

29, but I was 26 when I started my first MA. I sometimes wish I could've figured out what I wanted re: grad school earlier, but I wouldn't give up all the stuff I did in my "time off".

I kept thinking something along those lines when people mentioned adult work and I hoped there would be someone who could make that comment. I'm a grad student currently, and I work as a cook. It's potentially my fall-back career.

It is! That was a huge part of the appeal when I first started using the internet, back in the day. I was pretty annoyed that the first thing people would ask in a chatroom (even one with a specified topic) was "a/s/l?", which totally destroyed that freedom from identity (except that it was easy to lie). I'm glad most of the internet has moved past that, or I've found better places to hang out online, or something.

Hah! I thought you were a guy too, actually, but thinking back, last year there was someone with a name similar to yours (Phonologist, perhaps?) who mentioned being bearded, and I think I must've carried that over to you as well, somehow. I think I often assign incorrect genders to people online without even noticing it. [edit:] Also, I must ask, was it my manly, manly user picture that did it?

I mentioned it in my UC diversity statement too. It's pretty unrelated to my research, but I tried to play it as something that will help me be more understanding of future students, and so on. I'm not sure about it, but I thought the essay overall turned out well enough. Still, other than being female, that's the only "underrepresented group" I'm a member of. (And don't women students outnumber men in universities now, or is that only for undergrads?)

Hi! Yay phonetics and phonology! (Well, more yay phonology. )

I'm going to end up with three by the time I'm finished. I have a BA in a foreign language, an MA in an unrelated foreign language, and am working on an MA in linguistics. I'm applying to linguistics PhD programs, most of which give you an MA along the way. I have a friend who has two terminal MAs in medieval (English) literature and medieval (non-English) literature and is planning on doing a PhD in something related to the two. So, I suppose some people end up with three MAs, but they're (we're) very indecisive people.

I had the same problem logging into the online score report page. I was hoping someone here would have an answer, but I suppose I'll just use a phone too. It's just inconvenient because I'm sending scores to several schools and pushing buttons on a phone for as long as it will take doesn't seem like a good time. I will say to the OP though that I used the phone to send a score report last year too, and they didn't send a confirmation email or anything, but the report did get through, and they sent me another copy of it via post as well.

And now I've killed the linguistics forum by not responding... Oops. It was really fun. I hope to go next time as well, but apparently fellowships are harder to get if you've been before, and who knows if I'll have money in two years. Though it'll be in Colorado or someplace, so it should be cheaper than the bay area, at least. And less distracting. >_> I know, right? Several of my LSA buddies made me join Twitter, so now I read every pervy sentence they come across in their linguistics readings.

Hmmm? I thought it was about what diversity we bring to the school, so like "As a lesbian, I will provide someone for campus's other three lesbians to date" rather than "I've helped lesbians" which I haven't done (at least not in any sort of way one could put in an official statement). But if helping counts, I've done various stuff with ESL, so that might be a nice approach for me.

Does sexual orientation 'count' as diversity in general, do you think? I have to write the diversity statements for a couple of UC schools, and at a visit, a professor advised me to write about anything at all that might count, as it is a good way to get funding. I'm middle class, American, white, with college-educated parents, etc. so I'm not sure what to write otherwise. The professor's words were that "any group that was traditionally less likely to go to college" was game, so it doesn't seem like sexual orientation would qualify by that standard. Also, my research is completely unrelated to gender/LGBT studies, so it really has no bearing on anything there.

Oh dear god, they've changed the layout. My first thought upon seeing it was that the site had been hacked. Looks snazzy though. I didn't realize you'd been at Cornell, psycholinguist! I will definitely keep you in mind for any questions I may have. I hung out with a handful of Cornell grad students at the LSA institute, so I heard all sorts of things about the program from them, but I'm sure more questions will come up. Santa Cruz does seem very syntax and semantics heavy, but I think I can deal with it since they have such awesome phonologists. Plus, there's a chance it'd have more Irish syntax than most programs, and I do enjoy that. And Japanese syntax, and any language that isn't English, really... Plus, if I continue to be interested in clitics, as I am now, it gets to be a phonology/morphology/syntax interface problem, so it would be good to have a strong background across the board. I suppose an answer to the Concordia question would be to email Hale and ask him. I'd feel better about that if my final paper for his class hadn't been so boring and pointless. Fuzzylogician: We are fantastically nice human beings. Surprising there aren't more of us here yet. There was a good group last year, but maybe it's just still early.

Hmm, cool. I've been poking around McGill and Toronto a bit as well, and I may have to look up some papers by those people, if I need a break from reading papers by other people. My main concern with Concordia is that the rest of the department doesn't look that exciting (?) and I'm not sure I can justify applying just because I like Mark Hale. I took his course at the LSA over the summer though, and he changed the way I look at historical linguistics. Cornell is totally one of my top choices for those very reasons. I'm very interested in Santa Cruz and Berkeley as well.

Ooh, your research interests sound really awesome. Who is working on that kind of thing now? I think I'm going to stay in the US, for similar reasons to yours for staying in Canada, though I do get tempted by Cambridge, and to a lesser degree, by Concordia (all for Mark Hale). Heh, I've never been a TA, so I don't think I would've known about the textbook thing. It makes sense though -- I'd be pretty annoyed if I had to buy a book for a course I was TAing. It sounds like you're having a good time then.

Language change, eh? I wonder if we're applying to any of the same places then. I'm realizing I want to do a mix of historical and theoretical linguistics, so I'm adjusting my list appropriately. I'm also less interested in traditional Indo-European linguistics, and am trying to work Japanese back into things. Wisconsin is good. It's just beginning to get cold, so it's prime apple season. School is going well too. I'm trying to do a 2-year MA in one year, so it may get crazy, but it seems achievable, overall. I'm learning a lot of the basics that I would know if I'd majored in linguistics in undergrad, so that is very worthwhile, as much as I might prefer to be focusing on my own research interests already. Plus there is this research methods course here that is basically a "start your thesis" course and it covers all sorts of things like how to submit to conferences, how to present, and so on, that I'd rather learn about here than by messing up horribly at my first attempt. You're at Waterloo, was it? How's that going?

fuzzylogician: I'm glad to hear it's going well! I was just in Cambridge over the weekend for a Celtic conference at Harvard and I thought of you (which is funny, as we are only barely acquainted even as people on forums go, but all your posts and your being at MIT help you stick in the memory, I'm sure. ) It is hard to do problem sets again. I was at the LSA summer institute and had to do some. They seem so easy and annoying that I don't take them very seriously, and then I'm upset if I don't get perfect marks. *sigh* My sister lives in Boston and she says the winters are disgustingly mushy, rather than the snowy ones we're used to here in Wisconsin. Definitely spring for a good pair of waterproof, highish boots, even if you get a cheaper coat and clothes. (Or, better yet: stock up on layers of longsleeved shirts, sweaters, and maybe long-underwear, which you can use in spring and autumn too, then just get a plain wool coat or something for the worst part of winter.) psycholinguist: Yeah! I'm going into this much better prepared this time, on every level (at least, the ones I can help...) so I'm hoping for better results. I'm in the middle of contacting programs and narrowing down my list now.

I am going in for a second round. How are you finding MIT and living in the Boston area, fuzzylogician?

I'd suggest looking for a place on the near east-side, by Williamson St., Jenifer St., Atwood Ave., etc. It's quieter and has lots of great restaurants and stores, and it's far enough away from where all the undergrads live (which is near campus and on the very near west-side) but is still close enough to campus that it's an easy bike ride in the nice months, and a short bus ride in the winter. Or there are lots of grad students (mostly foreign) who live in the apartment complexes by Hilldale mall and the DMV.

Looks like I'll be doing a (2nd ) MA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then reapplying places next year.

I think I may've found the best answer to this question. I'm at a conference at the University of Arizona, and on their department T-shirts is a cartoon that goes like this: Person A: So, what's your major? Person B: Botany, what's yours? A: Linguistics. B: So, how many languages do you know? A: *@! A: How many plants do you know?

I think I'm more of a dysfunctional linguist.

Better keep all this "avoiding the opposite sex" stuff quiet, lest the religious right decide to spread word that grad school makes you gay. :wink:

I think the main difference is that you won't get any credit for the courses if you're there as an affiliate, but your fees go to fund fellowships for other students. I don't think there'd be anything wrong with going as an affiliate. I was wondering if anyone else knew for certain they were going and had any ideas about housing?