ladyling

MA programs usually admit later in the cycle. Worry if you don't hear by April 1, but not before.

Most folks don't have publications. I know one person in my cohort did, but that's hardly the norm. Conference presentations are more common, but a lot of folks come straight from undergrad so it's still not expected. If you have the chance and you have good work to present/publish, do it, but don't publish/present just to get the line on your CV. The work you make public stays with you for your whole career, so make sure you're proud of it

Just sent you a PM. Always glad to raise spirits

If the program you're talking about is Edinburgh, then absolutely. That's an excellent program.

I work primarily on Kyrgyz and related Turkic languages. Give me a good suffix and some vowel harmony and I'm set.

Last weekend was the Jefferson Fellows selection weekend--it's an outside fellowship foundation that provides fellowships solely for UVA students. Each department gets to nominate a single candidate. That's probably what you heard about. As far as I'm aware the *department* didn't bring people out last week.

When my husband (then my fiance) and I were applying to programs together (his for PhD, mine for MA), he knew before I did, and had to accept very early because of his fellowship. I called the department and asked for an early review, and they accepted me immediately. I think his acceptance actually helped me out a lot. I've never heard of schools discouraging unmarried/civil union...ized partners before, and everyone I've spoken to who had a situation similar to mine had positive results, so I'd guess it's the opposite. I wouldn't give them too much information, though--just have your partner contact their departments and say that the two of you are trying to make decisions together but have your deadlines to contend with as a result.

Cunninglinguist - you should get in touch with someone at UMass sooner rather than later and just make sure there hasn't been any kind of mix-up with your application. I had a similar thing happen at one of my schools last year and it turned out the adcom never got my file from the administrative staff. That kind of stuff can impact funding decisions, so the sooner you sort it out, the better. Everybody else--just to reiterate what fuzzylogician said, I think it's really important to show that you know what you're getting into, and one great way to do that is to demonstrate that you've done your research about the program itself. It says a lot about your knowledge of the field if you can articulate well why you'd like to work with a particular member of the faculty.

Hey all! I went through this last year and just wanted to say good luck to everyone.