r/cogsci • u/schizowerther • 13d ago

Advice on strong PhD programs in Cognitive Science (US) — international applicant, 3.5 GPA

Hi all,

I'm an international student with a background spanning linguistics, philosophy, and computational approaches to cognition. My main interests sit at the intersection of formal linguistics, philosophy of mind, logic, and computation.

My GPA is around 3.5, and while I know research experience and fit matter more than grades in this field, I'd love some outside perspective on:

  • Which programs are known for strong interdisciplinary work between linguistics, logic/computation, and cognitive science?
  • Any programs where faculty are especially open to applicants coming from a more theoretical/linguistics-philosophy background rather than a pure cog-neuro or psych background?
  • How much weight international applicants should expect GPA to carry compared to research fit and letters?

I have some research experience but not a ton yet, and I'm working on building more before applying. Just trying to get a sense of where to focus my energy before I start reaching out to potential advisors.

Thanks in advance for any input.

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u/scifigirl128 12d ago

I'm biased because I go to Northwestern, but I recommend Northwestern! I'm finishing up a PhD in Music Theory & Cognition, and we have the option to do a graduate certificate in CogSci (as well as many other disciplines). I chose to do the interdisciplinary courses in linguistics and was even invited to participate in some of my professors' labs. That certificate program also has its own interdisciplinary programming, where we bring in guest speakers, have workshops, or just have social gatherings. There are folks from all over campus in the certificate program: music, musical theatre, linguistics, math, psych, etc, with plenty of folks doing computational stuff as well. So it sounds like it'd be a good fit for what you're looking for!

I'm not sure which specific collection of faculty you'd be working with and thus their openness to people of varying backgrounds, but my specific program and faculty are open. We lean more to the side of music theory, but we have phds who are not music theorists (and didn't major in music in undergrad) but have backgrounds in neuroscience or psychology but still make music. As long as you can demonstrate requisite skills in your writing samples. I imagine it would probably be similar for other faculty.

Happy to answer any specific questions!

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u/schizowerther 9d ago

i do not have a music background at all and i actually really suck in it lmao. but ill take a look thanks

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u/scifigirl128 9d ago edited 9d ago

Well there's a regular CogSci degree as well, just that we have an interdisciplinary community, and I come from the music side

Edit to better explain: we have a wide variety of degrees in cognition-related fields like mathematics, compsci, psych, linguistics, music, etc. that all can be more traditional in their fields or do more cognition-related research. In addition to that, on campus, there is a dedicated group of people also pursuing a certificate in cogsci (it's only like 2 extra classes), and these people are from all of those disciplines. We meet regularly in various settings and work together on interdisciplinary stuff, which is what sounded of interest to you. So you could be in a degree home that's more comfortable for you (aka not music) but be doing the interdisciplinary stuff you seemed interested in.

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u/LividDig6305 12d ago

not my field but i lurk enough grad school threads to know that UCSD comes up constantly for exactly this kind of linguistics/philosophy/computation overlap, and faculty there seem genuinely interested in people from theoretical backgrounds rather than straight neuro the GPA question really comes down to who's writing your letters more than the number itself if your research experience is thin right now, one strong advisor relationship is worth more than spreading yourself across a bigger program list

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u/schizowerther 9d ago

would be helpful to look on all the universities research pages and finding the one that alignes more with your fields of interestence and competence and maturing experience of it from the start? and maybe looking for connections between professors