psycholinguist

I spent the month of August in Ithaca once. It's quieter there during the summer, but not silent; there are plenty of students around who are taking classes and/or working locally. The weather is very hot and usually humid; it's sometimes unpleasant, but also affords lots of opportunities to check out the many state parks nearby. Great hiking. You know, though, as elusive and maddening as a 'warm fuzzy feeling' can be, it might be an indication that you personally would simply be happier at UCLA. If a place just doesn't feel right, then it just doesn't feel right...and there's no guarantee that this would change.

w00t! Good luck!

I don't think you could go wrong here! Both programs sound like great bets. For the record: I did my BA at Cornell, and had concerns similar to yours about Ithaca. What I found was this: • I was also coming from a much larger city, but the size of Ithaca didn't bother me much. You're busy all the time at Cornell; there's plenty to do on campus; and it's a delightful little town for such a small place. The winters are definitely long and cold, but they're manageable with warm clothing (buildings are always well-heated), and Ithaca is stunningly pretty year-round. And, yes, the air-quality is fantastic. • Yes, the isolation does drive you crazy at times, especially if you don't have a car. But it's not terrible. You can rent one (though I think there might be a minimum-age of 25 or something) and there are a lot of exciting cities within a few hours: New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, etc. Best of luck!

Yes and yes. Now, I didn't transfer in the strictest sense of the word, and nothing carried over. I had financial support for the one semester I did at last year's safety-school, but they gave it to me one month at a time, so I simply stopped being paid at the end of December. I had completed a one-semester TA-position, and because I was leaving, I didn't sign up for one in the second semester. So I was supported through my time there, and when I left, I went and got a job while waiting to be admitted into a new program. Which made its own financial decisions about me when it accepted me.

No problem! (Apologies - didn't realise that you'd already been to visit them! Glad you had, though.) I also agree entirely with waldorf1975. Anyway, this is really your call. If you didn't feel at home there for whatever reason(s), then that's a good indication that you wouldn't regret turning them down and reapplying to aim for a place you can get excited about in more ways. Trying it out would be totally okay, and admirably open-minded; if it didn't work out, though, you'd probably need to find a good way of explaining in your SOP next year why you spent only a single semester at the school in question. If the reason has more to do with location than anything else, it may not convince anyone. So you'd have to think of something more plausible. But that could be done too: your changing interests, for example.

I'm with johndiligent here. I was in this position last year; I freaked out and accepted my only offer because a) I thought I was being elitist when I wasn't all that enthusiastic about my safety-school, and I figured any grad-school was better than no grad-school. Wrong! Within the first week of being there I knew I liked the people in the department, but I wasn't in the right place for myself. No one was doing the sorts of research I wanted to do, meaning that I was dreading having to be assigned to something I had no interest in whatsoever. I knew I liked being a grad-student, fundamentally, and I wasn't miserable, but I felt sick at the thought of having to go back after the winter holidays. So I actually ended up leaving the program and getting a quiet little IT-job in another city. Have reapplied this year and done much better. What I would encourage you to do (if possible) is visit the department that has accepted you. If you like the look of it and you're encouraged by their approach to your emergent research-ideas, then go for it. If not, then try next year; that's what I ought to have done rather than simply settle for something that I already knew wasn't going to be a great experience. Grad-school is intense; you want to be excited about it! Best of luck!

Thank you so much! I found out this week that I got in off the waitlist. Thrilled! * still jumping up and down *

Heh! Niftiness. My name is a bit misleading (or, more accurately, very out-of-date); I'm mostly aiming to study language-change. Very interested in recent syntactic/semantic shifts in English (and French, to some degree). Also into phonology and dialectology. And a bunch of disparate other things. w00t. Going to school in Canada again is going to be interesting. I grew up on this side of the border, but did my BA in the States.

Thanks!

* laughs * That'd be a good start! And then people who ask us how many languages we speak. So glad! Congrats on the decision! Thank you so much! I'm so excited that I haven't stopped jumping up and down yet. * jumps up and down *

Ooh, cool! I minored in cog-sci as an undergrad, and that was a heck of a lot of fun. I did find that I didn't really want to do research in it, but I'm certainly intending to stay interested in it for a long time. * grins * I like philosophy as well (though I only ever managed to squeeze in one course in it during my undergrad years). What sorts of areas are you interested in? (And would philosophy of mind be amongst them, by any chance? * grins *)

I know, eh? Armed (and dangerous) with extra experience. We should form a successful-linguistics-applicant ninja-squad. How's your decision-making going (uh, provided that there was any decision-making to be done, that is)? Off to join fuzzylogician and company? * grins *

On weekdays during workday-hours, the buses along Route 10 are very frequent and convenient. The 30 comes around every 15 to 30 minutes as well, including on the weekends. http://www.tcatbus.com/ Just wanted to congratulate everyone off to Cornell; I did my BA there and had absolutely the most amazing time. Enjoy!

I'll be going as well! It's my top choice and I got in off the waitlist; I'm absolutely thrilled. I've never lived in Toronto either, but like tarski, I'm not too concerned since I've been there about a dozen times. So excited!

My top choice, the University of Toronto, just accepted me off the waitlist! * jumping around excitedly * Thank you all so much for your support this year and last!

No idea. Contact me in 2017 and we'll see. * grins * jferreir was absolutely right; I went off to the safety-school figuring it would be fine, and it wasn't. First of all, to my amazement I discovered right away that I was in the wrong field. I loved minoring in cognitive-science as an undergrad, but I discovered now that I wasn't hugely interested in doing research in psychology. Linguistics is my passion, and I know I love research having to do with that. Second, even if I were going to do an MA in psychology, last year's safety-school was not a good place for me to do so. No one there was doing anything close to my interests: no psycholinguistics, no music-cognition, no mental imagery. I worked to catch up with the psychologists in statistics, and that was actually fine due to a fantastic professor, but there was no getting around the fact that I was barely the slightest bit interested in the research coming out of my advisor's lab. I liked TAing, and I liked being a graduate student, but I was in both the wrong school and the wrong field. All of the people in the department were great, but the mistake I'd made was assuming that any grad-school was better than no grad-school at all. Disillusioned and feeling sick at the thought of doing a second semester there, I apologised to my advisor and a bunch of professors, then filled out the paperwork, gave up my apartment, and left the program. I got an IT-job in another city and moved in January. It's not particularly stimulating work, but it's been much better than trying to force myself through a degree in psychology at the safety-school. I'm trying not to beat myself up about the false-start; at the very least, my ill-fated semester as a psychology-student cleared up my crazy longstanding ambivalence about which field to go into. I can't wait to return to linguistics. So, am now hanging around the board again while I attempt to do so. This year I had a much better SOP, given that I now actually know which field I want to be in. I met with the supervisor I want at my top choice a few times, and we discussed applying. I'm waitlisted at the moment, and so obviously it could go either way. If I don't get in, I'm going to do a year of volunteer research at the department, take a few extra courses to boost my application, and then reapply for a third year. Thanks for your curiosity! I'm mildly embarrassed about how dramatically things have changed, but hey, that's how it goes sometimes.

* high-five * (Vulcan-hand-salute-high-five available upon request.) Yay! So glad everything worked out so well! And congrats!

('Nerdy' being, of course, a compliment. Quite a serious one, in fact. * grins *)

* laughs * Thanks! I love that this place is nerdy enough for people to enjoy little things like that!

w00t! Congrats!

It wouldn't hurt, would it, to email Harvard and say 'Okay, I'm head-over-heels in love with your program, but as it stands I wouldn't be able to make it work financially; is there anything else you might be able to do to help me out?'? (Exotic punctuation scenarios for the win.)

I'd say that the first thing you need to do is contact someone at school #2 and find out whether an internal transfer between neuroscience and clinical psychology would be permitted. At many schools, both fall under the aegis of a psychology department, and people recognise that students' interests can change over time. Switching programs may be no more difficult than changing advisors. #1 sounds okay, but not hugely promising. If switching programs at #2 turns out not to be an option, I would simply take a year off (or maybe give the neuroscience thing a try to see how it goes?) and reapply to clinical programs next year. Best of luck!

I apologise for the tone of my paragraph about Ryerson. In trying to think of a gentle/euphemistic way of expressing that the undergrads I knew of there were mostly not the sorts of people I would be interested in spending time with, I ended up going with something that made me sound like a total elitist jerk. Not at all my intention! Thanks to the person who tipped me off about that. I'm sorry!

I once had several different professors from a department I'd applied to express interest in me, and was invited to the visiting-weekend. I met with three of them, and really hit it off with one of them; we talked excitedly about his research, I understood everything he told me and even had a few suggestions of my own. I got along well with the current grad-students of his as well. He ended up printing off a number of brand-new papers from his lab for me to read, and I ended the day absolutely thrilled. I was a bit worried about the fact that I had a BA in a different field, but this guy was working on interdisciplinary research halfway between my background and his department, so that wasn't an issue. Furthermore, the other person with a BA in my field invited to the same event was accepted, which reassured me. Then I was rejected because they said they felt I wasn't ready for their program.

I would caution anyone in this position against defaulting to feeling as if the safety-school is the only option for next year. Last year I had only two acceptances and I couldn't afford one of the schools, so I went with the other, figuring, well, how bad could it be? Answer: pretty bad. Because I hadn't visited the department, I hadn't realised that it was going to be a very poor match for my interests: no one was doing psycholinguistics, or music-cognition, or mental-imagery, leaving me to be assigned to research that I was dreading having to work on. Furthermore, I discovered right away that psychology was the wrong field for me in the first place, and that I really needed to be in linguistics. Overall, I ended up so disillusioned that I felt sick at the prospect of having to go back for a second semester, so I left the program. I am happier with the menial IT-job I've had since January than I was at last year's safety-school. I'm not saying that everyone should necessarily turn down safety-programs, but if you aren't excited about it, it may well be worthwhile to decline, take some time to strengthen your application, and apply again next year. If you're not sure? Visit whenever possible! Go and meet relevant people and ask questions. Then, if it sounds good, go for it! If not, don't assume that just because you were accepted it'll work out. Also, yeah, it's true that Ryerson doesn't have a great reputation. They're hoping to change this, of course, but it's a vicious cycle: low reputation means that most of the students they get aren't exactly academic superstars, and because most of the students aren't exactly academic superstars, the perception of the institution remains negative-ish. I personally don't want to go anywhere near Ryerson; of the four or five people I've ever met who went there as undergrads, I got along with only one. The others...well, let's just say that I had a hard time respecting them. However, it's a school, and it has a Ph.D. program, and you got in, and that's nothing to laugh at.