Nice to finally find some linguists milling about - should we not be envious of the philosophy grads, with their ever-current who_got_in obsessions?
At any rate, I'm one of those who got into linguistics a bit late, but nevertheless I have at long last settled on a bevy of sub-fields, namely, syntax, semantics, and the interface thereof; phonology and cross-linguistic variation; optimality theory in various applications; and language acquisition, mostly first-.
Due to some very constraining personal circumstances, I could only apply to DC-area schools, so I am giving it a go at UMD-College Park (Linguistics); Georgetown (Spanish Linguistics); and Hopkins (CogSci). I dashed off the UMD app too hastily, and unsurprisingly I did not receive an interview invitation (congratulations, anyli!), but there is good word from Georgetown, and I am wringing my hands as I await the JHU interview.
Any insight into how these interviews are conducted, or perhaps, into what their purpose really is? Or maybe we can figure out how many people will be at the Hopkins interview - it seems that in such a diverse department, those invited will scarcely overlap in research interests. But that may just be my impression.