Regarding the chances of my getting into MA or/and Ph.D in linguistics

[TaegyeongLee]

Hey there,

I'm planning to apply to grad schools for MA or/and Ph.d in linguistics - I want to major in neuro or/and psycholinguistics. And I'm wondering about the chances of my getting into such programs with my backgrounds I have. I have a BA in English education(got in South Korea and I'm an international student) and I had some linguistics classes during my undergraduate and got decent grades for linguistics related classes. My overall GPA is pretty decent, around 3.8 and have two published essays - students essays like creative writing I'd like to call, so would not likely show my research skills. Because of which, I'm considering about writing a linguistics related research paper on my own(but I have about 3 to four week to maximum for that, so in case I do not write one, I would submit one of my published student essays or one of my undergraduate papers, which might not be research based tho since I have not had research experiences). When it comes to TOEFL, My TOEFL score would be over the minimum scores for most of the schools I'm applying to and when it comes to some schools, I'm gonna get a waiver for it(I studied in the states for about an year, so some schools give me a waiver for it). When it comes to LORs, I have three professors who know about me quite well - one of them ph.d in Eng lit; another of them ph.d in linguistics; another of them ph.d in Eng Ed., I think I'm gonna get a pretty decent score on GRE quant; however, unsure about verbal - but I think the can be compensated in my writing sample and plus, I don't think the GRE score gonna be a huge factor to determine the admission.

Also, tho I want to major in is neuro or/and psycholinguistics, it seems not many MA programs particularly focus on either or both of them except some schools such as University of Delaware linguistics and cognitive science major. If I get into such major, it would be good; however, if not, I want to go to schools that do interdisciplinary research with other majors such as cognitive science and psychology and I'm thinking about double majoring either neuroscience or psychology.

Provided with my backgrounds above, due to a lack of publications, research experiences, and stuff, I might not stand out as a Ph.d candidate and thus, I'm more inclined to MA admissions, then supposing that I get a decent quality on GRE, SOP, LORs, but without linguistics related writing sample, what do you think about the chances of my getting into MA or/and Ph.d in linguistics?

 

Thanks for your reading and thanks for you answers in advance!