pangur-ban

The German I was thinking of would be (and this is quite possibly wrong; my German sucks) Sie ist so gro

This sounds okay to me in a negative sentence: 'She's not so tall as her mother' seems fine, but I wouldn't say 'she is so tall as her mother'. Also, I wonder if a German influence would create this.

I am at Wisconsin now, though not as a degree-seeking student, so if you want to know anything about the city/dept. (not that I know tons about the dept., especially not your area), feel free to ask.

You were expecting this perhaps?

Of course you would be; he's got those katana.

I saw some of your SOPs (drafts?) on LiveJournal, fuzzylogician, and they did look really good.

Oh, awesome, thanks. I was originally planning on applying there, since it looked like you could do a PhD in linguistics working with their Celtic Studies program, but I was advised not to bother with them. (??) It's definitely going on my list for next year though.

I looked at UCLA's program, but the advisor said I didn't have enough Latin and Greek to apply (they require at least one year of each to start it). A friend of mine applied to Classics PhD programs and got offered a spot in a post-bac instead. The UCLA one seems pretty competitive though, since they only have 12 spots a year. For the SOP, my initial thoughts would be to spend a bit of time on your post-BA pursuits, but only if you can use them to explain why you want to go back to Classics. I'd mostly talk about my future research goals, past academic experience, what I hoped to get out of the program, etc.

I got two of the verbal sections, and this after I'd half-convinced myself the math one was a testing section, since it was so much harder than anything in the Kaplan book I'd bought...

I assume I'll be applying again next year too. I didn't have enough time to prepare very well this year, but my professors and the professors I talked to at the universities where I applied all seemed to think I ought to give it a shot, so I did. But I think my background is more 'interesting' than 'strong.'

Aw, this forum has rekindled my childhood desire for a twin!

Hm, am I a youthful (25-)27 or a mature 27(-30)?

Hear, hear. Also, I have neither a beard nor the ability to grow one.

I'm applying for a scholarship, and in the unlikely chance that I get one, I'll go, and if not, I might go to one part. I'd be taking all the historical/I-E linguistics courses...

Yeah, my MA is from Wales, and I'd love to go abroad again, but it's that much harder to get funding as a non-EU citizen, plus it's harder to get a (teaching) job after a European PhD (in general) because they don't offer you any TA experience, except in exceptional cases. (Though there's nothing wrong with doing lots of post-doc positions...) But I am pretty interested in Cambridge for IE linguistics, or if I want to stick with Celtic languages, which is what my MA is, either Trinity College Dublin or University College Dublin are good choices in Ireland, and there's Pierre-Yves Lambert doing Celtic things in France (I think he's at La Sorbonne) though while my French is reasonably fluent, I worry that it's not write-a-dissertation fluent. And I think the French tend towards requiring even longer dissertations than the UK/US do. Plus Europe has different ideas about linguistic theory -- my French linguist friend says his department hates Chomsky with a fiery passion. (I did consider including the above universities on this round of applications, but decided I'd get a better education in the US, and hoped the election outcomes would mean the US would be a tolerable place for the next 5 years. But the advice I got from a professor was "get a PhD in the country where you want to work." Though honestly, I don't care, as long as I'm doing linguistics...)

I want to do Indo-European historical linguistics, so I applied to the three schools in the country that offer it: Harvard, Cornell, and UCLA's I-E Studies program. I think my chances aren't looking so good this year, alas.

I second that book for syntax. I also didn't major in linguistics, so I've been auditing syntax and phonology at the university in my hometown to get some knowledge of theory. If I don't get accepted anywhere, plan B is to take upper-level courses for credit and reapply. I decided my senior year of undergrad that I wanted to do linguistics, but thought it wasn't worth sticking around another semester/year to finish the minor or double-major. I have studied a bunch of languages though, and I'm hoping that wins me some points. (I know the structure and phonology of various languages, but only sort of know how to describe and analyze them.) Plus none of my programs requires a background in linguistics -- it just makes it a lot easier to get in.

Yeah, though my sister said she was in a conversation with a co-worker who asked (another co-worker), "So, are you one of those linguists who knows 15 languages, or one who just knows English?" which I thought was a nice variation on that theme.

Yeah, I never saw a linguistics category down there either. (But one would be nice.) And one person reported getting an interview with one of my (three! What was I thinking?) programs, but I haven't heard anything from any of them. And there seems to be no record on the board of anyone applying to UCLA's Indo-European Studies program, so there's a lack of data for me to worry about there.