The anxious search continues...

[nathdep]

Hello (again) everyone!

Per the usual, I'm growing more and more anxious when it comes to applying for grad school. First off, I'm taking the GRE in less than a month and my verbal scores are no where near satisfactory. I usually only score in the 40th percentile after taking practice exams.

That being said, I'm very worried that this will affect my chances of getting into a school in the US. My current GPA is 3.66 (it could be higher if my community college credits are factored in) and I am doing a dual degree program pursuing a BA in French and a BA in Spanish and Global Studies with a minor in music. 

Unfortunately, my school does not have a linguistics program and I didn't realize how interested I was in linguistics until after I was too far in to transfer. That's why I decided to major in two different foreign languages. Because of all this, I decided to ask my professors for their advice in applying to schools. They know a bit of where to apply for linguistics but they don't know too much because their areas deal mostly with literature. I decided that my area of interest is going to be something to do with L2 acquisition in terms of the language learning process and development.

I posted in here earlier asking about different grad schools. I know that Oxford was mentioned but I decided that I didn't really want to travel abroad and it was too hard to get into/too expensive. I know that MIT is at the very top of the list with schools like Stanford and Harvard. What I'm looking for is a school that I can reasonably anticipate having a chance of being accepted and also is rather well known for their program. At this point, I'm a bit pessimistic if any school is going to accept me given my situation. 

Could you lend a hand?

Thanks!

Edited July 31, 2016 by nathdep

[fuzzylogician]

It's not really going to be possible for us to give you school suggestions based solely on your GPA and (estimated) GRE scores. For graduate school admissions, what really matter are your interests and how they fit with the schools you are applying to, as well as your ability to articulate that in your SOP. Also important: your LORs and writing sample. Your grades may make it more difficult for you to get past any school-side (official or unofficial) cutoffs, if they exist, so they may keep you out of a certain school, but the SOP, LORs, and writing sample are what's going to get you in. FWIW a 3.66 is above any cutoff anyone is going to have, and as for the GRE, the quantitative reasoning section is more important than the verbal section for most linguistics programs, especially for international applicants who also submit a TOEFL score. Some schools (including MIT and a few others) don't even ask for GRE scores these days. In addition, the fact that your degree is not in linguistics is not in itself a problem. Linguistics is a fairly small and inter-disciplinary field that accepts students with diverse backgrounds, precisely because a lot of schools don't have undergraduate linguistics programs.

The challenge will be to articulate how it is that you know that you want -- and are prepared for -- studying a degree in linguistics, and what your interests are. That is difficult for everyone, but even more so for someone with less of an extensive education in linguistics. If you can explain in detail what it is that you are interested in, how you know that this is what you want, and why the school you chose is a good place to support your interests, you will be well under way to a successful application. This means that the choice of schools should be motivated by your interests, not your grades, and therefore we can't just look at your GRE or GPA scores and say anything useful. If you can define a set of questions that interest you, a good first step might be trying to identify where the people who work on these problems teach and applying there; a second step is identifying where some of those people's former advisees are employed, and looking at those departments. You can also look through the LSA website to find schools more systematically. And if you have specific interests you can share with us, maybe some of us will have suggestions (though personally L2 acquisition is outside what I do, so I probably won't be able to help). 

[historicallinguist]

On July 31, 2016 at 3:22 PM, fuzzylogician said:

a few others

If I am not wrong, MCGILL AND UCONN DO NOT REQUIRE GRE.

[fuzzylogician]

1 hour ago, historicallinguist said:

If I am not wrong, MCGILL AND UCONN DO NOT REQUIRE GRE.

You know, if you use all caps it looks like you're yelling... 

[vonham]

On 8/3/2016 at 5:32 PM, fuzzylogician said:

You know, if you use all caps it looks like you're yelling... 

I mean, it is pretty exciting when a program doesn't require the GRE

[historicallinguist]

On August 3, 2016 at 7:32 PM, fuzzylogician said:

You know, if you use all caps it looks like you're yelling... 

OOPS. Totally did not realize that. But good to know.