So, I got all the rejections, what to do next...

[pulp]

Hey everyone. It's almost the end of the application season. I applied to 5 schools this year and got 4 rejections. I still haven't heard back from Georgetown, but I suppose it is a rejection too.  So, here's the question, what to do next...I'm definitely going to apply another year, what can I do to make myself more qualified? 

Here's some of my background:

• M.A in Applied Linguistics (graduating in May)  at Teachers College, GPA 3.6, GRE 159V 165Q 3W, B.A in cross cultural communication from a Chinese university
• Undergrad RA for SLA lab on metacognition and SLA reading, Graduate RA for East Asian Program on a qualitative study about Chinese-Korean learners interlanguage analysis, also TA for Chinese undergraduate level class
• 1 year of ESL teaching experience, intern experience at UNDP (at the HR department some language assessment work)
• no publication, 1 poster at a presentation, three recommendation letters, one from a syntax prof, one from sociolinguistic prof and one from neuroscience prof. I guess they are writing good things about me? I've taken 2 classes with them each and got nice grades...

I am interested in cognitive linguistics. Basically I'm not a huge UG person. I believe that language ability is generated from general cognitive development and I wanna build the relationship between cognitive ability and linguistic ability. I've taken several cognitive and neuroscience classes. I used eye-tracking method in my master thesis to investigate acquisition of empty category in "wanna" contraction. I applied to Brown, JHU, McGill, Berkeley, NYU and Georgetown. So far, I've got rejections from them all except for Georgetown. I thought I would get an interview at least, but, nope.  

I was wondering what can I do to make myself more qualified for the next year. I am applying to volunteer lab work at different language and cognitive labs in NYC. I am also going to the summer school at University of Quebec at Montreal in cognitive science. What else can I do?  Should I take GRE again? (My score is 3 years old...)Should I get a job?

I guess the gap between my background and my research interest is that my background is more SLA, but I want to go beyond SLA to purse cognitive linguistics. How can I feel in the gap? Or should I just apply to more SLA oriented programs next year to increase my chance of getting in? I really feel powerless and confused now. 

Thanks so much!

Edited February 22, 2016 by pulp

[anatri]

just curious, were you applying for another master or a PhD program?

[pulp]

a PhD program

[fuzzylogician]

As a first pass, I wonder if you applied to the linguistics programs at all the schools you mention. Because at least for the few that I am more closely familiar with (NYU, McGill, Brown, and to a lesser extent JHU and Berkeley; I don't know much about Georgetown -- and those are 6 schools, btw, not 5), those are not programs that would be fit to support research in cognitive linguistics. So I would wonder if the problem is your SOP and the fit with the programs you are applying to more generally, beyond any particular quirks of your GRE and other things, which we can also discuss. 

[Apogeee]

• M.A in Applied Linguistics (graduating in May)  at Teachers College, GPA 3.6, GRE 159V 165Q 3W, B.A in cross cultural communication from a Chinese university

I think you should work on the writing and verbal areas of your GRE, but especially the writing. PhD programs focus a lot on writing.

You could consider a year of TESL training at a good university with a Linguistics program, perhaps to get a teaching certificate, if possible. This would help your application to stand out. Also, ask your advisors what you can do to improve your application portfolio. Then take all of their advice.

Next time around, apply to 10 programs. Some of this is a pure numbers game.

Good luck.

[historicallinguist]

9 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

As a first pass, I wonder if you applied to the linguistics programs at all the schools you mention. Because at least for the few that I am more closely familiar with (NYU, McGill, Brown, and to a lesser extent JHU and Berkeley; I don't know much about Georgetown -- and those are 6 schools, btw, not 5), those are not programs that would be fit to support research in cognitive linguistics. So I would wonder if the problem is your SOP and the fit with the programs you are applying to more generally, beyond any particular quirks of your GRE and other things, which we can also discuss. 

I think JHU has quite a specific preference for UG degree. I looked at their site quite carefully before because I know Smolensky and Legendre are in JHU and doing OT stuffs. 

But after I saw the UG degree requirement, I know I am out of the game. So, I ended up not applying to JHU.

[historicallinguist]

7 hours ago, Agrippina said:

• M.A in Applied Linguistics (graduating in May)  at Teachers College, GPA 3.6, GRE 159V 165Q 3W, B.A in cross cultural communication from a Chinese university

I think you should work on the writing and verbal areas of your GRE, but especially the writing. PhD programs focus a lot on writing.

You could consider a year of TESL training at a good university with a Linguistics program, perhaps to get a teaching certificate, if possible. This would help your application to stand out. Also, ask your advisors what you can do to improve your application portfolio. Then take all of their advice.

Next time around, apply to 10 programs. Some of this is a pure numbers game.

Good luck.

I do not think GRE writing is particular a big deal. I am on the 90 something percentile for GRE writing, and still get whole bunches of rejections. SOP is way way more important than GRE writing.

[Sora]

3 hours ago, historicallinguist said:

I do not think GRE writing is particular a big deal. I am on the 90 something percentile for GRE writing, and still get whole bunches of rejections. SOP is way way more important than GRE writing.

I will second this. GRE is probably one of the least of your concerns so don't invest too much on it unless you don't have to compromise on other things. My friend form my MA cohort had far worse GRE scores (literally devastating) but she seems doing great this application season.

I would recommend taking some serious efforts this time researching on schools (it actually doesn't take that much time compared to preparing writing sample, etc.) and email some POIs if you're honestly unsure about the fit. Good luck!

[arjunagu]

I agree with @Sora and recommend you choose schools that are more suitable to you. I've been admitted to Brown and I would say that perhaps there is no professor who is interested in cognitive linguistics there. Nearly all linguists consider linguistics a sub discipline of cognitive science. But cognitive linguistics is something different. Many universities in the mid-west and southern states do have an orientation in cognitive linguistics, in addition to UCB.

Edited February 25, 2016 by arjunagu

[advil]

On 2/23/2016 at 2:55 AM, historicallinguist said:

I think JHU has quite a specific preference for UG degree. I looked at their site quite carefully before because I know Smolensky and Legendre are in JHU and doing OT stuffs. 

But after I saw the UG degree requirement, I know I am out of the game. So, I ended up not applying to JHU.

This is a bit belated, but as a linguist (faculty) at JHU I wanted to attempt to clear up any confusion about linguistics at JHU.  I'm not entirely sure what a "UG degree" is, but it is true that all of the linguistics research at JHU is strongly in the generative / formal linguistics camp, including Legendre's and Smolensky's research, and there is substantial interest in language variation and explanations for it.  Our students do not tend to closely resemble linguistics researchers that I would describe as "UG" people, though.  When evaluating a program for fit it is always helpful to look at the alumni page to get a sense for what students might do.  For more information on linguistics research, this page might be helpful.

JHU CogSci would not be an appropriate place to do cognitive linguistics (and cognitive linguistics has very little to do with cognitive science); I agree with fuzzylogician's assessment of the fit issue for the schools in the OP.  Edit: I would add to the OP, though, that's it's not obvious from your description of what you want to do that it would in fact be cognitive linguistics, which has very specific meaning and connotations.  So it might be worth assessing what you really mean "cognitive linguistics" or you really mean linguistics/language research in a cognitive science context -- the latter will open a lot more doors.

Edited May 29, 2016 by advil

[historicallinguist]

On May 29, 2016 at 11:42 AM, advil said:

This is a bit belated, but as a linguist (faculty) at JHU I wanted to attempt to clear up any confusion about linguistics at JHU.  I'm not entirely sure what a "UG degree" is, but it is true that all of the linguistics research at JHU is strongly in the generative / formal linguistics camp, including Legendre's and Smolensky's research, and there is substantial interest in language variation and explanations for it.  Our students do not tend to closely resemble linguistics researchers that I would describe as "UG" people, though.  When evaluating a program for fit it is always helpful to look at the alumni page to get a sense for what students might do.  For more information on linguistics research, this page might be helpful.

JHU CogSci would not be an appropriate place to do cognitive linguistics (and cognitive linguistics has very little to do with cognitive science); I agree with fuzzylogician's assessment of the fit issue for the schools in the OP.  Edit: I would add to the OP, though, that's it's not obvious from your description of what you want to do that it would in fact be cognitive linguistics, which has very specific meaning and connotations.  So it might be worth assessing what you really mean "cognitive linguistics" or you really mean linguistics/language research in a cognitive science context -- the latter will open a lot more doors.

Sorry for the confusion. I meant to say "undergraduate degree" when I said "UG degree" in the previous post. It looks like the program at JHU prefers candidates with previous degree(s) in disciplines such as psychology, computer science, linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science, or formal disciplines such as mathematics, physics, applied mathematics, to candidates with previous degree(s) in disciplines such as XXX foreign language, or communication. That is, it seems to me that candidates with BA degrees except the few ones that specifically mentioned by the program are not particularly welcomed to apply to the linguistics program at JHU, due to the formal and quantitative nature of the program. 

 

[advil]

23 hours ago, historicallinguist said:

Sorry for the confusion. I meant to say "undergraduate degree" when I said "UG degree" in the previous post. It looks like the program at JHU prefers candidates with previous degree(s) in disciplines such as psychology, computer science, linguistics, philosophy, cognitive science, or formal disciplines such as mathematics, physics, applied mathematics, to candidates with previous degree(s) in disciplines such as XXX foreign language, or communication. That is, it seems to me that candidates with BA degrees except the few ones that specifically mentioned by the program are not particularly welcomed to apply to the linguistics program at JHU, due to the formal and quantitative nature of the program. 

 

Ah, I misunderstood completely, sorry about that, I think I was primed by the use of "UG" in the original post.  We do look for undergraduate degrees in areas of cognitive science or in formal/quantitative fields, but language degrees and communication (in principle) can count for the former, and have.  We also accept post-bac experience in related areas as well, so an MA in applied linguistics would count for that (again in principle, but the way they described their masters work sounds definitely in the right direction), or other things like lab manager / RA experience.  I can't comment on particular applications (and I haven't tried to line this description up with one at all) but it's pretty clear to me that a pitfall the OP hit here is "cognitive linguistics" more than the undergraduate degree.

The reason I say "in principle" is that for backgrounds outside the obvious ones the details may matter a lot, and there definitely has to be some evidence of some kind that such applicants would really know what they're getting into, but feel free to ask a followup question if you want.