Reaching for the stars... but will settle for a planet

[far_to_go]

As I'm trying to narrow down my list, I find that my ambitions are a bit lofty: my current top picks are Yale, Berkeley, Chicago, and UT Austin. I'm afraid that none of these really fall into the "safety school" category (and even though I have excellent GREs and GPA, I am not so foolish as to think that I don't need some safety schools!) My interests are in sociocultural/linguistic; I'm particularly interested in anthropology of Deafness and in South Asia. Anyone have any good "safety" schools to suggest? Oh, and if they could possibly be on or near the East Coast, that would be great (my family's in Maryland!)

Feeling a bit overwhelmed, as I'm sure you all are too... best of luck to everyone!

[a fragrant plant]

i heard the uni of minnesota in twins city has a great program that focuses on linguistic anthro. have a look. good luck!

[vanishingpoint]

Hey far_to_go,

Have you looked at American University? I have the sense that they are a bit less selective than the other programs you mentioned. It's weird, they were ranked last in the NRC's 1995 rankings of anthro Ph.D. programs, but it seems like there's some genuinely interesting work coming out of the program. I wonder whether they were penalized by NRC because they have more of an applied/activist focus.

Anyway, the chair of the department, William Leap, is a linguistic anthropologist:

http://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/wlm.cfm

And it looks like they have at least one person working on South Asia:

http://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/sen.cfm

Hope this helps!