solairne

My list went from 11 to 4..... I'm sort of panicked now that I might be looking at a year off...

If it is anything like with law school where the LSAC sends out your law applications to the respective schools... I'd say you're probably fine if the applications show up a few days late as long as you can furnish proof that you submitted it a while back, so it it clear it is their fault, not yours. I'd contact SOPHAS and the schools, however.

If it's good - everyone on my iChat buddy list - haha. I'll definitely call my partner and then my parents first, then let everybody else know. If it's bad - my partner, my parents, then avoid discussing it until I have to with friends.

If I get into my first choice, I'm going to buy a nice bottle of Riesling and then start freaking out about part two - getting everything in order to move.

I'm most interested in language acquisition, syntax in lang acquisition, and SLI. I'm extraordinarily interested in Lydia White's current work, as well as Heather Goad's and Jon Nissenbaum's. I've heard the same thing, too, about weaker candidates taking longer. I'm not sure how to feel about that... I consider myself a strong candidate, so if I don't hear anything back by end of February I will get a little worried... Good luck to you! Hopefully we'll both get in and can meet at orientation - haha. PS - glad we're not direct competition

Have you done anything to beef up your application? How do your interests mesh with the faculty at McGill and by whom do you want to be advised? When did you hear back last year? We have until end of February or so to wait, right?

Long distance or break up?

My partner"s PC is an HP. I already uninstalled everything. Thanks for the heads up, though! The 900 was because my 2006 macbook had a case problem that manifested itself a few years after I got it. It was sort of common with that gen of macbook, and I think Apple would have replaced it for free anyhow. It said charge was 900$ but waived b/c of Apple Care. I've also had my Ethernet adapter replaced, too.

That is true. And depressing.

My partner is an accountant and we live in the US. I'm definitely hoping that I get into McGill for my program, but that will present some problems for us. He doesn't speak any French, whereas I do, and he'll be looking for a job in Québec. We've looked stuff over online and there seems to be English only accounting jobs, but we'll also have to deal with visas and paying double taxes in Canada and the US. It's is good though, because Montréal has a very low cost of living, and the McGill stipend is wonderful. On a brighter note, same-sex marriage has been legal in Canada for some time now, and we will be able to get married, finally. That is true though for MIT and Amherst. I'm very much looking forward to that. He has all but 100% said he will move with me, but he has a very good job right now and it might come down to me moving there alone for a few months while he looks for work and keeps his current job. I hope that is not the case, though. And you're right, it will cause problems, as once I get my PhD, I'll probably have to move for post-doc work, and then move around until I find a tenure-track position. It is no small request to ask him to move around with me, but thankfully he is a sweet man and has a portable career field. We've been together for almost 4 years now.

... but we are officially in the month where people start hearing back about grad school from some places. ::panic::

Second note, I noticed somebody said battery life. The Macbook gets up to 7 hours of battery life and the Macbook Pro can get up to 8 hours. That is surfing the Internet, etc, not just on idle. On mine I get about 6.5 hours of wireless use, and about 5 hours of video use. If you play World of Warcraft, I run it on ultra and get about 3 hours of battery life. All in all, you should go to a Best Buy - assuming you're American - and play around with a few PCs, and you should go to an Apple store or maybe at Best Buy and play around with a few Macbooks and Macbook Pros. I can't emphasize enough the different in quality in the computers, though. You really get what you pay for.

I'm an Apple person. I got the black Macbook for undergraduate in 2006 and it lasted me flawlessly. I have a friend who works at Apple, so I recently upgraded to the new 15" Mac Book Pro, and I absolutely love it. Apples are definitely more expensive, however, they are a lot better quality. It totally depends on your budget, but you can get a good 5 to 6 years out of an Apple, so keep that in mind, too! I recently just bought my partner a new PC desktop so that he can play games better, etc, and I got similar specs as my laptop - 2.8ghz core 2 duo, 1gig gpu, 4gigs ram, etc - and my MBP just feels snappier, nicer, etc. The computer itself also feels better built and sturdier. It really is like buying a BMW or a Kia. If you can afford it, I'd say get a Macbook Pro. If you're wanting to spend less, you can get a new Macbook for $999 ($950 I believe, if you have an education discount) or you can get a PC from around $500 on up. Whichever you get, make sure that you buy their support plan, AppleCare or like HP extended warranty, as it will save you a lot of money down the line. I bought Applecare in 2006 for something like $120, and I ended up getting around $900 of maintenance for free. It's well worth it.

I sent a CV to each of my 4 schools, and none of the asked for one. It's a really good way to put a lot of extra information out there, without putting it in your SOP.

I only applied to 4 schools, all PhDs, and I'm starting to think that might have been a very poorly thought out idea. If I don't get into any of these 4 schools, I'm going to take a year off and write more research papers, attend the Linguistic Summer Institute over the summer, and reapply next year to the same schools AND several MA programs. I'm not gonna lie, I'll not only be crushed but pretty unjustifiably pissed off if that happens... but there is no point in speculating until the end of March comes. That said, it's hard not to. I just had 2 dreams last night about admissions.... Probably going crazy - haha

That's terrible! ... but I"m still sort of jealous about not receiving anything from my schools....

Houston is almost impossible to live in without a car. I go to UH-Main Campus as well and live in downtown and I need my car to get groceries, take dogs to the vet, etc. UH has decent enough bus service, but it is nothing compared to New England or European subway/bus lines. It's a great city, but you need a car if you want to eat or travel outside of your bubble.

Houston and San Antonio, TX Don't even apply to schools in these areas if you don't have a car or won't be able to purchase one.

I think you should come out and just say it as you did overhead. If they're interested in you, they're not going to have their feelings hurt and reject you after accepting you for saying that. Just tell them what you said above and all will play out smoothly. PS - What program are you in that you area already hearing in December? Spring admissions?

Also, does one generally need a car to get from work to home and get groceries or go to the movies, etc? I'm from Houston, TX where you pretty much have to have a car to live, but I've head Montréal has pretty good public transit.

You'd be better served if you posted exactly what you're dealing with. What your GPA is, what kind of school it was (competitive or lower rung), anything you've done in your field outside of academia, if you've had any awards, etc. You'd also probably benefit from some study abroad if you're interested in International Relations (that is what IR is, no?) A lot is dependent upon what you mean by 'bad GPA.' If you mean a 3.3 that would be a lot different than if you meant a 1.9. You know? I know people who have gone to graduate school with a GPA in the lower 2.0 range. You're generally never as bad off as you think you are. Also, for graduate school - at least for PhDs - a lot of times it's more important that your interests mesh with those of faculty and that you show research potential than your actual grades. You'd benefit from writing a few independent papers and doing some research perhaps.

Well I've found a few jobs for him on Monster.com that are fine with English only, but I mean about being hired. I've heard Canadians tend to favor hiring their own over Americans. Is that true? For Internet, I mean a bandwidth limit, like you can only download so much per mensem. I've found a few ADSL plans that offer unlimited, but does that exist for cable?

Psycho, didn't you apply last year to McGill? Are you reapplying?

Better off Ted is a pretty cute show that you can stream off Hulu.com in North America I'm also watching a few random movies, such as Body of Lies and re-watching the Mist. I watched Inglourious Basterds again a few days ago, such a good movie.

I speak French and English fluently so that is not a concern, but my partner only speaks English and will be looking for a job as an accountant. Is that doable? Is it possible to get internet without a limit on transfers?