Advice needed

[Wugie]

Hello fellow grads,

I am an international student trying to apply to MA programs in linguistics. 

Background: BA in English (as a second language) from a no-name university in a third world country; not so impressive GPA; GRE V159Q160; TOEFL 115; one writing sample in phonetics

I am mainly looking for schools in the US and the UK because almost all the European (and Canadian) schools I looked at require a BA in linguistics or at least a certain amount of credit points taken in linguistics and I have neither of those. I do intend to go for a PhD eventually, but given my background, I don't think I'm competitive enough just yet. I also don't have an exact research interest yet, so I'm hoping to get enough exposure to different subdisciplines during my MA to help me decide what I want to pursue. Right now I'm leaning towards phonetics/phonology and also wish to maybe get into some neuro stuff, although people have been telling me comp-ling is what will get me employed. 

So, I'm still zeroing in on programs. I would probably prefer schools that

1. are in the US (because universities in the States have a better reputation in my home country than universities in the UK and Australia/New Zealand and any Asian universities, and if I need to come back to my home country to look for a job if/when I failed to get into a PhD program, a US school will look better on my CV since HRs here don't care about things like publication or research or GPA other than the name of the school) 

2. are located in a city that has a good public transportation system (because I prefer not having to buy a car as an international student on a budget)

3. will give me a boost when I apply to PhD programs

4. will give me exposure to different subdisciplines, especially neuro, hopefully

Right now I'm thinking about Boston, Georgetown, the MAPH at UChicago, and Edinburgh. Among them, UChicago and Edinburgh both have good rankings but both are one-year programs and I'm worried about having to apply to PhD programs only 2-3 months in the MA program (no good recommendations, no grades, no good paper, etc), also the MAPH sounds a bit too intimidating tbh. Does anyone have experiences with any of the schools/programs above?

* Some Canadian schools have things like a qualifying year but if I don't get admitted after the qualifying year will it look bad if I apply elsewhere?

**A friend of mine suggested applying to universities in France although my French is barely conversational. But according to them, linguistics in France is "Anglified" and I will get by before I can speak/read French at a functional level. Please verify?

Thanks for reading!

Any suggestions/advice welcome!

[fuzzylogician]

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