goldheartmountaintop

Sorry for derailing the thread for a sec, but this bothers me and I feel like it should be addressed. Most people do find grad school stressful, especially at first, including people who have already breezed through grad courses as undergrads. The expectations are just different, both from faculty and from yourself, and there's a lot of pressure in doing high quality research while juggling your other program requirements/your life. I would suggest waiting until you've been in grad school for awhile to adopt this kind of attitude (though even then it's still kind of ill-advised).
 
Back to the original thread:
 
I am in the same boat as others, coffee-wise! Inexplicably, drinking coffee (even one cup) gives me shoulder tension (?) and toothaches. Does anyone else experience this? But I can drink cups upon cups of black tea (which I do), with no problem, so it seems to be coffee-specific, rather than a caffeine thing.

Sorry for derailing the thread for a sec, but this bothers me and I feel like it should be addressed. Most people do find grad school stressful, especially at first, including people who have already breezed through grad courses as undergrads. The expectations are just different, both from faculty and from yourself, and there's a lot of pressure in doing high quality research while juggling your other program requirements/your life. I would suggest waiting until you've been in grad school for awhile to adopt this kind of attitude (though even then it's still kind of ill-advised).
 
Back to the original thread:
 
I am in the same boat as others, coffee-wise! Inexplicably, drinking coffee (even one cup) gives me shoulder tension (?) and toothaches. Does anyone else experience this? But I can drink cups upon cups of black tea (which I do), with no problem, so it seems to be coffee-specific, rather than a caffeine thing.

Sorry for derailing the thread for a sec, but this bothers me and I feel like it should be addressed. Most people do find grad school stressful, especially at first, including people who have already breezed through grad courses as undergrads. The expectations are just different, both from faculty and from yourself, and there's a lot of pressure in doing high quality research while juggling your other program requirements/your life. I would suggest waiting until you've been in grad school for awhile to adopt this kind of attitude (though even then it's still kind of ill-advised).
 
Back to the original thread:
 
I am in the same boat as others, coffee-wise! Inexplicably, drinking coffee (even one cup) gives me shoulder tension (?) and toothaches. Does anyone else experience this? But I can drink cups upon cups of black tea (which I do), with no problem, so it seems to be coffee-specific, rather than a caffeine thing.

Sorry for derailing the thread for a sec, but this bothers me and I feel like it should be addressed. Most people do find grad school stressful, especially at first, including people who have already breezed through grad courses as undergrads. The expectations are just different, both from faculty and from yourself, and there's a lot of pressure in doing high quality research while juggling your other program requirements/your life. I would suggest waiting until you've been in grad school for awhile to adopt this kind of attitude (though even then it's still kind of ill-advised).
 
Back to the original thread:
 
I am in the same boat as others, coffee-wise! Inexplicably, drinking coffee (even one cup) gives me shoulder tension (?) and toothaches. Does anyone else experience this? But I can drink cups upon cups of black tea (which I do), with no problem, so it seems to be coffee-specific, rather than a caffeine thing.

Sorry for derailing the thread for a sec, but this bothers me and I feel like it should be addressed. Most people do find grad school stressful, especially at first, including people who have already breezed through grad courses as undergrads. The expectations are just different, both from faculty and from yourself, and there's a lot of pressure in doing high quality research while juggling your other program requirements/your life. I would suggest waiting until you've been in grad school for awhile to adopt this kind of attitude (though even then it's still kind of ill-advised).
 
Back to the original thread:
 
I am in the same boat as others, coffee-wise! Inexplicably, drinking coffee (even one cup) gives me shoulder tension (?) and toothaches. Does anyone else experience this? But I can drink cups upon cups of black tea (which I do), with no problem, so it seems to be coffee-specific, rather than a caffeine thing.

Sorry for derailing the thread for a sec, but this bothers me and I feel like it should be addressed. Most people do find grad school stressful, especially at first, including people who have already breezed through grad courses as undergrads. The expectations are just different, both from faculty and from yourself, and there's a lot of pressure in doing high quality research while juggling your other program requirements/your life. I would suggest waiting until you've been in grad school for awhile to adopt this kind of attitude (though even then it's still kind of ill-advised).
 
Back to the original thread:
 
I am in the same boat as others, coffee-wise! Inexplicably, drinking coffee (even one cup) gives me shoulder tension (?) and toothaches. Does anyone else experience this? But I can drink cups upon cups of black tea (which I do), with no problem, so it seems to be coffee-specific, rather than a caffeine thing.

9 sounds like too many. It would mean you mentioned pretty much everyone who does either syntax or semantics, including people in phased retirement and people who spend half of the year abroad, regardless of their actual interests. No one can possibly work with that many people on a regular basis. Most students work with one or two professors (work = meet with on a regular, weekly or bi-weekly, basis, to discuss your major research project which is related to what they have expertise in), three is a lot. To want to work with 9 different people indicates that you are quite unfocused. 

Depending on the department, I mentioned one or two in my main area (theoretical semantics), one or two in my secondary area (theoretical syntax), and I sometimes mentioned experimental people (along the lines of 'it's nice to know there will be someone to guide me should I need to do some experimental research').
 
I agree with fuzzy that nine is way too many; it wouldn't show that you're a better fit, but rather that you don't understand what fit is about.

I want to echo Fuzzy and onzeheures30: 9 is too many. In my opinion, 6 is too many, but to each his own. Could ask why you are bothering to mention POIs in other departments? That simply raises the question as to why you aren't applying to, e.g., Philosophy, to begin with. 

Technically, no. The degree itself counts less than the experience, I think. On the other hand, having a Linguistics BA or even having Linguistics courses listed on your transcript might tell the committee that you have the requisite knowledge about, e.g., syntax. In the absence of these things, you'll just have to do some extra work explaining why you are nevertheless qualified.
 
There are some post-bacc positions in Linguistics that are quite competitive. The Baggett Fellowship at Maryland, for example, has excellent grad-school placement rates for Baggett alums, and consequently gets a lot of applicants. There are also a lot of language-related lab manager positions that open up in Psychology departments. Although there are more of these positions in comparison to Ling post-bacc positions, keep in mind that you will be competing with a larger number of candidates, since there tends to be a lot more Psych BAs than Ling BAs. 

"Statement of Purpose" should be good enough. I don't think its necessary to have a header, since your SOP is only 2 pages tops, but then again, I really don't think this will matter very much. 
 
Re: "thanking the committee," that sounds quite strange to me too. You want to end with a couple of sentences indicating why this particular school is a good fit (e.g., mention some of the people you would be interested in working with and why). But I don't think an SOP (at least for linguistics programs) needs to end with a salutation.  

Short answer: No. No serious program is going to evaluate the quality of your writing based on your GRE AW score. 
 
More nuanced answer: Certain schools use the GRE as a kind of filtering tool, such that they don't even look at candidates who do not have a certain score. UPenn, for example, has cut off points for the both verbal and quantitative section, but your scores on these are good enough to make the cut. I don't know of any school that has a specific cut off for the writing section.
 
Rant (take with grain of salt): The GRE is a joke, I really have no idea what exactly it measures. Thankfully a number of competitive schools share these feelings, and don't even look at GRE scores. The AW part of the GRE is the funniest part of the joke- it tells you next to nothing about someone's writing abilities, especially not academic writing. 
 
Your writing sample will inform the adcom as to whether or not you can describe a problem clearly, and argue well for your analysis. I wouldn't even think twice about retaking the GRE because of a 3.5 writing score.

Two things. First, it's not clear from what you describe as your interests why you want to do a PhD in a linguistics program, as opposed to Computer Science or even Cognitive Science. Some of the options you are considering are strong theoretical departments, and the adcom will certainly wonder about this question. If in fact linguistic theory is not so important to you, I'd expand my search to other fields. MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences, for instance, does a lot of modeling of language (even some "non-traditional models", as you put it). But this work, as far as I know, is not strongly grounded in linguistic theory, but perhaps you will find it worth considering? 
 
Second, location does matter. On the one hand, PhD programs are extremely competitive, and you end up not having as many choices as you may have hoped for. However, I think your intuition is right-on about considering "fit" in every sense, not just academically. Even things initially may appear trivial will matter. E.g., if you are a very social person, then it's probably not a good idea to choose to go to a department where your peers tend to stick to themselves. There were some great programs that I didn't even apply to because I knew I didn't want to live in a rural area for 5 years. Essentially what I am trying to say is, if you think having a dance community around is important to you, I'd take that criterion seriously. Graduate school can really take a toll on you and leave you feeling drained; I've found that having another (non-academic) passion can often be the saving grace.

I am a linguist at a theoretical linguistics program, and I don't know how to answer many of your questions--may I suggest the Languages forum for them instead? Here is the answer to the question I do feel comfortable answering: it is not a requirement for linguists to have a native proficiency in the language they are studying. For us, language is an object of scientific study, and we often rely on consultants for our data. That being said, a working knowledge of a language other than English can only help. I know people have said this in response to your questions in other forums, but let me reiterate that studying a foreign language has very different objectives than linguistics. 

You are asking about three completely different types of programs and it really makes me wonder what you mean when you say you've discovered that you are "very interested in linguistics." Your question sounds like "I've discovered that am interested in history. Should I apply to a Classics program, study military history in 17th century Europe, or concentrate on 11-13th century China?" These are all good choices for someone interested in those fields but there is no way we can tell you which one to choose -- it depends on your interests. If you don't know, I think it's pretty safe bet that you should not be applying to a PhD in any of these fields. You'd get vastly different education and have different job opportunities, and in any case unless there is a good reason to go down this route, most jobs you might want to do in the future would not require a PhD in any of these fields.

You seem to have put a lot of thought into this, and your list seems pretty comprehensive. The only other one I might (tentatively) add is Rutgers. In my opinion, you absolutely should apply to the top schools that fit your research interests. There are more qualified candidates than jobs in linguistics, and the school's reputation and placement rates matter. I also don't think  that terms like "safety school" makes that much sense for PhD applications. I was rejected from a school that is lower-ranked, simply because it was obvious my interests weren't that great of a match. 

Relax, travel, read non-academic books, get a tan, enjoy time off with family and friends. 
 
If you feel seriously behind or lacking in one (or more) of the key subfields you'll have first-year classes in, you could write the graduate student coordinator and ask if there is anything in particular that you should brush up on. Otherwise, I would advise against cramming or trying to learn things in advance. Things will happen fast once you start your program and honestly I think it'd be a waste of your time to try and prepare too much for that. You don't know which way your instructor will take things, and besides they accepted you with your background and therefore they must believe that it's sufficient for their program. 
 
If you have an assigned advisor and you haven't done this yet, I'd suggest you write, introduce yourself, and thank them for taking you on as their student. Ask if there is anything in particular they suggest you do over the summer. Follow their advice. If there is nothing in particular that they recommend, just say you'll be in touch later in the summer when you have plans for when you'll be there, and wish them a productive summer. Normally, grad schools won't expect you to be there or work/study as part of the program in the summer before you begin.  

The Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT has an opening for a full-time Lab Manager in Linguistics. Responsibilities include equipment and software maintenance as well as technical and programming support for the Experimental Syntax and Semantics Lab (ESSL; http://web.mit.edu/hackl/www/lab/) and the Phonetics and Phonology Lab, participant recruitment, database management, and proctoring for experimental research projects in syntax, semantics, and language acquisition, undergraduate and graduate student training in experimental tasks and techniques (statistical analysis, programming experimental scripts), and IRB support. 

Qualified applicants should have a BA/BS or MA/MS in a cognitive science-related discipline (psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, etc.) or computer science, a solid background in statistics and experience with Javascript/html, R, Matlab, and Python. 

Preferred start date is July 1, 2014, but this is negotiable. Salary and rank will be commensurate with experience. Submit cover letter, CV and names and contact information for three references at the application URL below. 

Application Deadline: (Open until filled)
 
Web Address for Applications: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/4033 
Contact Information:
Professor Martin Hackl 
Email: hacklmit.edu 
 
 
(link to ad here: http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-1884.html)

So the season's finally over... We've all had some good results, some bad ones (except our champion onzeheures!), and it's been a very daunting process (no less daunting than the one coming ahead: getting housing, moving -for some of us, abroad-, and actually starting our degrees!)
 
I wanted to thank you all for your support during this last Spring-Summer (or your Fall-Winter), and to wish you the very best of lucks in pursuing your graduate studies (no, I did not copy this last sentence from all the rejections letters, ).
 
Good luck! See you at conferences,

We're moving to Buffalo!

Going to UCLA. Glad to be done with this process!

Tell me something, why do you keep bringing up LittleDarlings in completely irrelevant contexts? Is there any good reason? Because the only ones I can think of involve words like "trolling," "bullying," or "stalking." It makes me uncomfortable, and I am sure that I am not the only one.

I was in the same boat two years ago - rejected from PhDs, accepted to two Masters. Since I didn't get any funding for the MA offers, I went ahead with the cheaper one (which also happened to be in the city I liked the most). Definitely not a prestigious university, but I really really enjoyed my program and I was very proactive about improving - got As in all my classes, got a research assistant gig at a lab that focused on the kind of research I wanted to do (in a different department), etc. Now I am finishing my MA and got accepted to five of the PhD programs I applied to, with full funding. 
 
It's hard to give you advice without knowing what your options are, but I guess my main advice is - wherever you go, just work really hard at it and it'll pay off. And if you can go to a place that won't cost you much money/put you in a lot of debt, that's always a plus.

I like this post by Robyn M. Orfitelli, written in response to the FIRST Act, which has been causing a lot of distress to many linguists recently (read more about that here). She gives some good answers to "what is linguistics?" and "why should you care?".

This was posted today on the Linguist List. The University of Maryland apparently has 4 open positions for people with BA/BS degrees to work as research assistants / lab manager. You have to be US or Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Looks like a good way to gain some research experience in preparation for applying to an advanced degree. 
 
Details here: http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-1445.html