Realistic expectations with my background

[Frozeal]

I wanted to know what expectations should I have for applying to PhD. in Linguistics and which Universities would be realistics.

I am a chilean graduate student, enrolled in a Philosophy MA already working on the first manuscript of my thesis (Pragmatism in the philosophy of language: a naturalist proposal). I have a BA in Philosophy, which I  ended with maxima cum laude, 6.4 out of 7.0 (which is around 3.7 GPA) and a 4.0 on the grade seminar and thesis (Radical contextualism, or pragmatism, as an alternative to the tradition in the philosophy of language). Both at the University of Chile. Also, while I was an undergrad, I received a scholarship for academic collaboration in the department of ethics (it is a kind of monthly funding to which you apply each term), and was an asistant to a research grant of a professor. On the MA, I was a thesis assistant for my thesis advisor, and also worked as assistant professor in a national university for a course, and as an assistant in another (not professor, though). For the MA I got a national scholarship that payed me for the 75% of the tuition and give me a monthly salary to live, and also got another scholarship from a private foundation (Calbuco) that payed for the other 25%. Probably I will be graduating with a ~3.8 GPA on the MA.

I think I could get pretty convincing recommendation letters: my actual advisors are the director of the department of cognitive scences and the director of the department of linguistics. Also, In case 3 are needed, I have also received recommendations from a professor of mine who is right now the director of the department of philosophy.

I have only one publication in an indexed magazine, though it is only "latindex catalogue" and it is not even on my research area (it was on the philosophy of social science), a couple in non indexed journals (though, they are from universities) and a handful of presentation in local congress and the like.

I should be finishing the program by June of this year. The 24th of March is the deadline for applying to the Fulbright scholarchip here in Chile, though I am not counting really with it (since they only give around 40 per year), I will still give the GRE on the 7th of March (since the results should be ready by the end of the application period). On this first try, I expect to obtain somewhere around 150Q/155V/4W, I guess I could expect more if I study all the year so I could try it again by the end of the year (since applications on the USA are around December-January).

What is ideal on my mind is a program such as UCSD, UChicago, UMichigan, tough for what I have seen, it seems that my scores are not good enough. In fact, a friend of mine who has slightly higher credentials is being rejected. Thus, I wanted to know what you would recommend me and what would be realistic expectations for me. I am also trying to see my options on a PhD program in which I am very interested on Denmark, though I can not give myself the luxury of not applying to everything I can.

This is my Academia.edu https://uchile.academia.edu/AlfonsoPizarro though, everything is on Spanish and I think my CV did not updated correctly.

Thanks for the forum!

Edited February 12, 2016 by Frozeal

[fuzzylogician]

Hi Frozeal, I moved your post from where you had it before to the linguistics subforum, where it's more appropriate.

On paper your credentials sound good, both in terms of grades and in terms of prior research experience.* Your expected GRE scores sound on the low side for Q and AW so that might be something concrete to work on. The main thing that I am missing in your story is: why linguistics? Your BA and MA are in philosophy, and it sounds like that is where your teaching and other experiences are, too. So, it sounds like you'll be applying to PhD programs in linguistics with basically no background in linguistics at all; maybe that's wrong and you just didn't mention it. But if you really have only minimal exposure to the kinds of courses that you'll have to take as a graduate student (e.g. phonology, syntax, and in some schools, semantics), the adcoms will have questions about your commitment to the field. How could you know you want to do a PhD in linguistics, if you have no background in it? An important component of an application is the SOP, which is where you'd spell out the narrative of what has led you to decide on this course of study. I'd spend time making sure it's very clear and compelling, and if you can, make sure you have at least some basic courses in linguistics on your transcript, to show that you really know what you're getting yourself into. 

In terms of what schools you should apply for, I would strongly recommend choosing based on research fit and not based on prestige. You are much likelier to get accepted to a school where you can demonstrate that your research interests and methodology really fit well with the department and to be rejected from a school where it's not clear who you'd work with regardless of ranking. In grad school apps, it is not uncommon to be accepted to better ranked schools and rejected from lower ranked ones, because it's really not about rankings in the first place.

* The fact that you have a friend with similar/better grades who got rejected doesn't mean very much. Grades aren't terribly important in admissions decisions. The SOP, LORs, and writing samples, are all more important, as are prior research/teaching experience, presentations, publications, etc. 

[Frozeal]

16 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

Hi Frozeal, I moved your post from where you had it before to the linguistics subforum, where it's more appropriate.

On paper your credentials sound good, both in terms of grades and in terms of prior research experience.* Your expected GRE scores sound on the low side for Q and AW so that might be something concrete to work on. The main thing that I am missing in your story is: why linguistics? Your BA and MA are in philosophy, and it sounds like that is where your teaching and other experiences are, too. So, it sounds like you'll be applying to PhD programs in linguistics with basically no background in linguistics at all; maybe that's wrong and you just didn't mention it. But if you really have only minimal exposure to the kinds of courses that you'll have to take as a graduate student (e.g. phonology, syntax, and in some schools, semantics), the adcoms will have questions about your commitment to the field. How could you know you want to do a PhD in linguistics, if you have no background in it? An important component of an application is the SOP, which is where you'd spell out the narrative of what has led you to decide on this course of study. I'd spend time making sure it's very clear and compelling, and if you can, make sure you have at least some basic courses in linguistics on your transcript, to show that you really know what you're getting yourself into. 

In terms of what schools you should apply for, I would strongly recommend choosing based on research fit and not based on prestige. You are much likelier to get accepted to a school where you can demonstrate that your research interests and methodology really fit well with the department and to be rejected from a school where it's not clear who you'd work with regardless of ranking. In grad school apps, it is not uncommon to be accepted to better ranked schools and rejected from lower ranked ones, because it's really not about rankings in the first place.

* The fact that you have a friend with similar/better grades who got rejected doesn't mean very much. Grades aren't terribly important in admissions decisions. The SOP, LORs, and writing samples, are all more important, as are prior research/teaching experience, presentations, publications, etc. 

Thanks for your answer, Fuzzy. And sorry for the off-topic thread. I thought that as this was searching for answers, I thought that may be it was supposed to go on that other part of the site.

Yes, I hope that if I get the fulbright, they will pay for the secon GRE. If not, I guess I will have to study more and try it again. I am confident that I cuold get 160/160/4.5 if I study hard throughout the year. Analytical writing it is the harder thing to work for me... , I have always had trouble with my writing. In fact, my thesis advisor has told me that he thinks that I write better in English than in Spanish ):

The reason is that it is coherent with my work in the philosophy of language since my BA thesis. My bet is that someone who holds a naturalist stance should be able to give a positive answer to the problems in the philosophy of language. Until now, most of the answers given by philosophers such as Travis, Clapp and the like are more in a negative spirit. Sometimes, when this positions are conducive to research, they end up by recreating traditional methdological assumptions, such as computationalism, individualism etc. My bet is that pragmatism in the philosphy of language is coherent with some developments in theoretical linguistis (specifiaclly the problem of the semantics/pragmatics distinction), which requires an alternative cognitive architecture, i.e., interactionist and/or enactivist. Though, the connection is not neccesary (and there are many cases in which someone holds a radical position regarding semantics and context-sensitivity, but does not regarding cognitive architecture. e.g., Robyn Carston). In fact, some of my presentation in congresses have been of Language and Cognition, whose audience is mainly composed by psychologists, cognitive scientists and a handful of philosophers. And the universities I mentioned where having the fit in mind: UCSD because of the program, coursework and researchers there (such as Lera Boroditsky, Jim Hollan, etc.), U Chicago because of the possibility of a joint phd and the work that the researchers there are doing, and U Michigan because its philosphy department is strong in the philosophy of language, in the area I am interested, and also the linguistics department with people that work on semantics/pragmatics and theoretical linguistics.

Furthermore, I am simply bored of too much philosophical discussions without any empirical correlate and I really think that I can keep up to the date in the discussions by reviewing the relevant philosophy of language literature. But I would really like to be able to work in linguistics, to be able to evaluate and do concrete research proposals.

Also, I have had some courses in the area, in fact an important part of my MA has been done by being enrolled in cognitive sciences and linguistis courses (some of them are of both departments):

Language and Cognition: Compositionality and Context (7.0 out of 7.0) (GPA 4)

Cuture, mind and language: Tomasello's sociopragmatics (6.7 out of 7.0) (I think this is GPA 3.85)

Psycholinguistics seminar: pragmatics and interaction (6.5 out of 7.0) (I think this is GPA 3.75)

3 out of 7 courses.

Also, one of my thesis advisors (I have one extra, had to ask permission to the academic comitee) is a linguist, the director of the linguistics department.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Frozeal

[humidz]

I wouldn't make too much out of GRE scores. I got 162/157, but only 3.5 in my analytical writing, and I got into 3 out of 4 programs I applied to; not so much because of grades, but because my research/research interests (sample writing, SOP etc) aligned well with the three departments that I got into. You're able to make a convincing point about your interests, that's important. Linguistics is a small field, try finding opportunities to get in touch with people you might want to work with: Summer Schools, Conferences, or sending people emails with questions about their research (if they're interesting questions, most people will appreciate them).

What strikes me as problematic, at first sight, is the fact that you "want to be able to work in linguistics", as opposed to already being able to do so. You do, however, have an alternative skill set - if you do apply, you need to stress how that is useful for what you plan to do and how it relates to what the people you want to work with are doing. Don't stick to only the big-picture questions.

[Frozeal]

1 hour ago, humidz said:

I wouldn't make too much out of GRE scores. I got 162/157, but only 3.5 in my analytical writing, and I got into 3 out of 4 programs I applied to; not so much because of grades, but because my research/research interests (sample writing, SOP etc) aligned well with the three departments that I got into. You're able to make a convincing point about your interests, that's important. Linguistics is a small field, try finding opportunities to get in touch with people you might want to work with: Summer Schools, Conferences, or sending people emails with questions about their research (if they're interesting questions, most people will appreciate them).

What strikes me as problematic, at first sight, is the fact that you "want to be able to work in linguistics", as opposed to already being able to do so. You do, however, have an alternative skill set - if you do apply, you need to stress how that is useful for what you plan to do and how it relates to what the people you want to work with are doing. Don't stick to only the big-picture questions.

Thanks, Humidz.

Yes, know I realize it sounds incoherent. I should have said, I would like to be able to conduct empirical research and dedicate myself research in the area and not just in a tangential manner. (1) I the way I see philosophy of language, specifically the problem regarding semantics/pragmatics division and indexicals/deictics problems, it is not so different from work that has been done (and is being done) in linguistics (theoretical lingusitics and also psycholinguistics). (2) The relation between linguistics and philosophy of language and linguistis with linguistics, is different from and less clear than,for example, political philosophy and politics, philosophy of social science and social sciences, etc. Of course, these are points to be proven, though I feel confident that I can make a case for it (as I have been working a couple of years with different professors and, of course, my advisors).

Sadly, it is not possible for me to assist to those things, since I live in south america. Though, I have done that with at least one midly known linguist who has shown interest in my work. The thing is that still there is nothing sure and I am not in a position to speculate regarding possible fundings, so I must apply to everything I can. (Deadline for the fulbright scholarship here is the 24th of March and I do not know when I will know of other possibilities for certain).

Thanks for the observation. I think I should train more how I tell my story in English!

Best,

 

APR

[historicallinguist]

On February 12, 2016 at 4:05 AM, fuzzylogician said:

In grad school apps, it is not uncommon to be accepted to better ranked schools and rejected from lower ranked ones, because it's really not about rankings in the first place

 

This happened to me last year, and just happened to me again two weeks ago.

[sluiced]

22 hours ago, Frozeal said:

Sadly, it is not possible for me to assist to those things, since I live in south america.

Hi! Well, interesting things are happening in Buenos Aires. For instance, the First Buenos Aires Summer School in Linguistics (ELBA) starts today (we have courses on Syntax, Sign Languages, Semantics and Psycholinguistics). Last year, we organized an important conference on Generative Syntax, and we had some interesting courses on psycholinguistics, syntax, pragmatics, among others. Most of the times these things are for free, and we are always willing to host students from Latin America in our homes, so if you want to contact our group, you can send me a pm.

Edited February 15, 2016 by laura.st