San Diego

[nocturne]

Is anyone here planning on going to UC San Diego? I know a few of you have gotten in, and am curious about who is going...

[chillofrito]

Would you mind telling me a little about your background? GPA? GRE scores? Experience?

[Dinali]

If nothing works out this year I'll definitely be applying there next year. This winter has convinced me to apply in Mediterranean climates only

[psycholinguist]

Oh, wow! Congratulations!

I do have an acceptance; the tricky part for me would be securing funding since I'm an international student (well, at an American college: a Canadian on a student-visa). They're looking into possibly having me TA for the French department, though I don't know if my French is good enough for that. We'll see. I'm going to be visiting the campus on Monday and Tuesday of next week, meeting with Rachel Mayberry and Robert Kluender, amongst others. If I went there, I'm about 95% sure that I would go for the interdisciplinary program in cognitive-science.

It looks like a great program, though, and whatever happens to me (I do have other options), I'm thrilled for you!

[psycholinguist]

Would you mind telling me a little about your background? GPA? GRE scores? Experience?

I'm not the original poster, but as I also got in there:

GPA: 3.68

GRE scores: 730 Q, 630 V, 5.5 W

Background a mix of linguistics and cognitive-science. Two semesters of lab-work, one in language-acquisition and the other in cognition and perception. Writing an honours-thesis in linguistics.

[nocturne]

No master's, though I have taken some grad-level classes as an undergrad. Not a whole lot of lab experience.

[psycholinguist]

So I toured the department this week. Academically, it's fabulous. Easily my best fit. Fascinating people, both professors and grad-students. Lots of totally nifty research coming out of there. Boundaries between disciplines so porous that they almost don't exist (as an interdisciplinary-minded student such as me highly appreciates).

Again, however, the thing is that I don't think I personally can make it work financially; it's very difficult for them to fund international students due to being a part of the public University of California system (Americans become in-state residents of California after the first year, so their tuition drops considerably; this is not true of foreign students, and plus, most of the TAing and RAing available can't pay for the tuition and fees either). And I have a few more-minor personal reservations about it and the location as well. I think I'm starting to lean towards another program I visited though haven't received a final decision from. Turning down UCSD would be difficult, but I'm starting to suspect I may already have decided that for me, turning down the University of Toronto would be nearly unthinkable (I mean, assuming that they do accept me after all).

That said, I very much enjoyed the visit to San Diego. More than worthwhile to have gone on, even coming from a five-and-a-half-hour plane-ride away.

[psycholinguist]

Update: as more or less expected, they can't give me any money. As a result, I'll be turning them down. However, I'm not all that crushed; I was feeling so torn between two offers (one official, one unofficial) that I was actually hoping that external factors would decide it for me.

Lovely department. Glad that people I've talked to here are considering going there. Delighted for you, nocturne!