Jump to content

Applying for Fall 2018!


TheLeoLinguist

Recommended Posts

9 hours ago, semling said:

Well, I got an email, but it wasn’t the one I wanted. Rejected. :-(

But, hey, it’s their loss. Not only am I a kick-ass scholar, but I bake. See this Rosemary Pecorino Star Bread?

None for you, Yale.

F5C6D2E6-9855-4FE0-91E0-24B8825FC5E1.jpeg

What were they thinking? They should grant you an honorary PhD for the bread alone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, WatchfulWombat said:

What were they thinking? They should grant you an honorary PhD for the bread alone.

Maybe I should've mentioned it in my SOP ... ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, SoRim said:

has anyone heard from UPenn or Stanford at all? I haven't seen anything on the results, but I just want to make sure

I applied to those universities as well! For Stanford I did not receive an invitation, and they sent those out yesterday/today, so I'm basically rejected. Same for UPenn, I was interviewed like ten days ago, but they're starting to post acceptances and I did not receive any!

These two plus the rejection for Yale make three rejections in 24h! :unsure: Luckily I already got an acceptance, so I can deal will all of this more relaxed! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, thevphone said:

I applied to those universities as well! For Stanford I did not receive an invitation, and they sent those out yesterday/today, so I'm basically rejected. Same for UPenn, I was interviewed like ten days ago, but they're starting to post acceptances and I did not receive any!

These two plus the rejection for Yale make three rejections in 24h! :unsure: Luckily I already got an acceptance, so I can deal will all of this more relaxed! 

whelp guess I'm rejected from UPenn and Stanford too. Oh well, it's not meant to be! Good luck to everyone else!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is anyone else freaking out a lil bit that UCSD sent out a late open house invitation?

I thought I could write it off as rejection and be done with it. Now I'm back to refreshing my email like a crazy person :( 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 27-1-2018 at 8:52 PM, IA18 said:

Good luck to you (hope you get it this year) and I'll make sure to post here whenever I hear from UMich ;) 

I saw some posts on the results page about rejections via Wolverine access, so I logged in and sure enough, there it was! This makes my first rejection. :-) I'm keeping my fingers crossed it's better news for you!

I've received one offer so far, so I'm less nervous knowing that the PhD thing will happen. It would still be good to have a few options though.

Edited by WatchfulWombat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey all. I pop on here from time to time (right now because I'm one of the many people waiting for Fulbright finalist notifications), and I saw some people on the results page who got admitted to the joint Anthropology & Linguistics PhD at the University of Arizona. Congrats! I'm in that program right now. If you have questions or want to say hello, feel free to reach out. Hopefully we'll see you at the prospective student weekend!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 07/02/2018 at 8:47 AM, WatchfulWombat said:

I saw some posts on the results page about rejections via Wolverine access, so I logged in and sure enough, there it was! This makes my first rejection. :-) I'm keeping my fingers crossed it's better news for you!

I've received one offer so far, so I'm less nervous knowing that the PhD thing will happen. It would still be good to have a few options though.

I got two rejections and I only applied to 4 PhD programmes. Also, UCLA already sent out the 8 offers, so that's the 3rd rejection even though I haven't officially received. Amherst already started interviewing applicants (I didn't receive an invitation), so I'm guessing 4. I have an offer for a Masters and I'm waiting to hear back from 2 other Masters programmes.

I had the grades, great LoR and all, but that's not enough, especially because I don't have any experience/significant coursework in the subfield I applied to. That's a massive gap in my application. Doing a Masters will hopefully help me make up for the research gaps etc. I noticed a lot of people who got in already had at least one Masters by the time they applied. Also, I didn't do the GRE so I couldn't apply to a lot of programmes I wish I had. It's okay though, I'm 21. If anything, the rejections only made me realise how much I want to be a linguist haha I'll apply next year again and I'm definitely taking the GRE this time :lol: 

Hope you get it this year! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 31/01/2018 at 7:20 PM, linguistic said:

I haven't heard from UMass Amherst...

Me neither... Two people got interviews, one for phonology and one for, I'm guessing, syntax-semantics as that's the POI's field.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/8/2018 at 5:15 AM, IA18 said:

I got two rejections and I only applied to 4 PhD programmes. Also, UCLA already sent out the 8 offers, so that's the 3rd rejection even though I haven't officially received. Amherst already started interviewing applicants (I didn't receive an invitation), so I'm guessing 4. I have an offer for a Masters and I'm waiting to hear back from 2 other Masters programmes.

I had the grades, great LoR and all, but that's not enough, especially because I don't have any experience/significant coursework in the subfield I applied to. That's a massive gap in my application. Doing a Masters will hopefully help me make up for the research gaps etc. I noticed a lot of people who got in already had at least one Masters by the time they applied. Also, I didn't do the GRE so I couldn't apply to a lot of programmes I wish I had. It's okay though, I'm 21. If anything, the rejections only made me realise how much I want to be a linguist haha I'll apply next year again and I'm definitely taking the GRE this time :lol: 

Hope you get it this year! 

Research is the most important thing for linguistics PhD applications, obviously. I was in the same situation as you and I got rejected from everywhere (though I had a few waitlists and interested departments like UCLA, UPenn, Maryland, UMichigan, Brown) before I got my MA degree. Now I'm about to graduate with my MA degree with a publication and an extensive research background and I got accepted to my top choice university among a few others. However, I urge you to not state on your application that you are reapplying to these schools. Due to personal experience I suspect that admissions committees don't even bother to read applications from people who reapply (I got rejected from UCLA this year which I was waitlisted in 2 years ago when my application was much weaker; I specified that I was reapplying, UCSC as well despite having a very good fit). I also don't think the committees will even remember that you applied a couple years ago; the people at Harvard didn't remember when they interviewed me a couple weeks ago though I applied years ago. So don't give up.

Also, fit is extremely important. I got rejected from schools I applied to that I had a very bad fit with (I applied to UArizona solely for Chomsky despite having a very strong application, and got rejected) but accepted to ones I had a good fit with this year.

Edited by Jiren
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Jiren said:

Research is the most important thing for linguistics PhD applications, obviously. I was in the same situation as you and I got rejected from everywhere (though I had a few waitlists and interested departments like UCLA, UPenn, Maryland, UMichigan, Brown) before I got my MA degree. Now I'm about to graduate with my MA degree with a publication and an extensive research background and I got accepted to my top choice university among a few others. However, I urge you to not state on your application that you are reapplying to these schools. Due to personal experience I suspect that admissions committees don't even bother to read applications from people who reapply (I got rejected from UCLA this year which I was waitlisted in 2 years ago when my application was much weaker; I specified that I was reapplying, UCSC as well despite having a very good fit). I also don't think the committees will even remember that you applied a couple years ago; the people at Harvard didn't remember when they interviewed me a couple weeks ago though I applied years ago. So don't give up.

Also, fit is extremely important. I got rejected from schools I applied to that I had a very bad fit with (I applied to UArizona solely for Chomsky despite having a very strong application, and got rejected) but accepted to ones I had a good fit with this year.

Yeah, Looking back I don't think Berkeley was a good fit. No one has ever got accepted for my subfield according to the info I found online.

It's really frustrating though. They say they don't require experience beyond a BA level. I'm guessing that's so they get more applications (=money/good statistics)?  

I didn't know that. That's great advice!! Thank you so much! I'm glad everything worked out for you in the end :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, IA18 said:

Yeah, Looking back I don't think Berkeley was a good fit. No one has ever got accepted for my subfield according to the info I found online.

It's really frustrating though. They say they don't require experience beyond a BA level. I'm guessing that's so they get more applications (=money/good statistics)?  

I didn't know that. That's great advice!! Thank you so much! I'm glad everything worked out for you in the end :) 

My guess is that they just don't want to look bad. I think most people do get accepted with an MA and not straight out of college with a BA (judging from looking at some profiles of people who were admitted in other schools), but the people who do get accepted with a BA have been planning to do research in linguistics since their first or second year and have a lot of experience under their belt (for an undergrad). I majored in something else so I had no research background whatsoever in linguistics.

Anyway I still have a few schools to hear from and that'll help confirm my suspicion that schools don't read applications from people who reapply.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 08.02.2018 at 1:15 PM, IA18 said:

I got two rejections and I only applied to 4 PhD programmes. Also, UCLA already sent out the 8 offers, so that's the 3rd rejection even though I haven't officially received. Amherst already started interviewing applicants (I didn't receive an invitation), so I'm guessing 4. I have an offer for a Masters and I'm waiting to hear back from 2 other Masters programmes.

I had the grades, great LoR and all, but that's not enough, especially because I don't have any experience/significant coursework in the subfield I applied to. That's a massive gap in my application. Doing a Masters will hopefully help me make up for the research gaps etc. I noticed a lot of people who got in already had at least one Masters by the time they applied. Also, I didn't do the GRE so I couldn't apply to a lot of programmes I wish I had. It's okay though, I'm 21. If anything, the rejections only made me realise how much I want to be a linguist haha I'll apply next year again and I'm definitely taking the GRE this time :lol: 

Hope you get it this year! 

Hello! I am another UCLA applicant who did NOT get an admission notice on Feb 6. But I still didn't get a notification of waitlisting or rejection either. I find this a bit weird, because looking back at previous years' results, I see that waitlisting / rejection messages have traditionally been sent out only a couple of days after the acceptance messages, so I think we should have received them by now. :huh:

Did you get a waitlisting or rejection message in the meantime, by any chance?

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Dark Chocolate Mocha said:

Hello! I am another UCLA applicant who did NOT get an admission notice on Feb 6. But I still didn't get a notification of waitlisting or rejection either. I find this a bit weird, because looking back at previous years' results, I see that waitlisting / rejection messages have traditionally been sent out only a couple of days after the acceptance messages, so I think we should have received them by now. :huh:

Did you get a waitlisting or rejection message in the meantime, by any chance?

Thanks!

Hey! Nope, nothing. They might be waiting for people to accept/decline the offers. Still, there's so many of us, they could have sent some rejections by now... It is weird :blink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Question: If you are waitlisted, does the program notify you about your ranking on the waitlist? It seems that some waitlisted students from different fields have been informed that they are "high alternates" or "mid-rank alternates" on those lists, so they can guess how likely it is that they will be admitted.

I was just wondering how this works in linguistics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey Everyone!

My background and results so far. Hoping they will provide insights for those who are curious on the process.

Undergrad: Oakland University, BA Linguistics, Spanish and TESL
GPA: 3.92
Research: Honors Thesis (Fieldwork of Indigenous Language) and Individual Research Project of Polish Multiple Wh-Fronting
Specializations: (2017 round): Phonology, Fieldwork  (2018): Syntax, Fieldwork, Experimental Methods
Involvement: President of Linguistics Club, Resident Assistant for 3 years, ESL Teacher, spent 2 Summers Abroad in Bolivia working with indigenous populations

I applied to 6 schools last year, which were UCLA, UC-Berkeley, UCSC, Hawaii, UofM, and Arizona. My Polish research paper was not a part of my application last year.

Last Years Results (2017):
UCSC- Contacted Jan 1st for phone interview. Phone interview on Jan 6th.  Rejection on March 3rd.
UCLA-Rejected Feb 11th
UofM-Rejected Feb 7th
UC-Berkeley- Jan 20th
Hawaii- Offered non-funded MA on Jan 31st
Arizona- Personally contacted on March 1st by one of the faculty I wanted to work with (who encouraged me to get some more research experience and to apply again). Rejected formally on March 4th.

Due to finances, I couldn't accept Hawaii's MA offer, and chose to work with former faculty on research while working full-time. This year, I reapplied to four of the schools from last year and looked more into strong syntax/experimental schools. Over the summer in preparation of the next round of applications, I conducted a formal syntax study of speaker's acceptability ratings of polish wh-constructions and wrote a 30+ page paper on my findings and their implications for CP and wh question structure.

This Years Results (2018):
Schools: UofM, Hawaii, Arizona, UCSC, UMD, NYU, UChicago, U Kansas, U Indiana, UConn
UofM-Rejected Early Feb
UChicago- Rejected Feb 2
Hawaii-Offered same non-funded MA on Feb 21st

Still waiting back for the rest.
 

I do want to share this, as I think it's important to know about this process:
1) If a school (or all the schools you apply to) rejects you, it does not mean that you do not have potential to be an incredible linguist. You may not be the applicant they are looking for and have some room to grow, but it doesn't mean you'll never make it in our field.
2) That being said, if you're discouraged now, it's a long road. Make sure its a road you're willing to fight to travel down. Rejection is hard, but grad school applications won't be the only rejections you'll face in your career as a linguist. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Dark Chocolate Mocha said:

Question: If you are waitlisted, does the program notify you about your ranking on the waitlist? It seems that some waitlisted students from different fields have been informed that they are "high alternates" or "mid-rank alternates" on those lists, so they can guess how likely it is that they will be admitted.

I was just wondering how this works in linguistics.

I'm not aware of programs that do this, but I suppose it might happen. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use