PS Personal statement. This should include a summary of your academic and personal background, with a special emphasis on aspects of it that might be relevant to graduate work in linguistics. Of course, any previous study of the subject should be mentioned. You should also indicate your reasons for wanting to pursue a graduate degree in linguistics. It is typically difficult to disentangle your background and personal intellectual history from your plans and goals, so the two statements may partly overlap. For applicants to the M.A. program, each of these statements should be 500–700 words. Fee Pay the $75 nonrefundable application fee (drawn on U.S. funds) using Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express or an electronic check. RL Recommendation letters. Ask three people who are well-acquainted with your qualifications for graduate study in linguistics to send letters of recommendation directly to the department. These may be submitted via the online application system. If you find yourself unable to submit the letters in that fashion, sending them by post or by email to the graduate secretary for linguistics is also suitable. Transcript MSU requires that all transcripts be mailed to the department to which you're applying in sealed, signed envelopes from the issuing institution. Any transcripts that are uploaded into the Grad Portal by you, the applicant, are considered unofficial. MSU requires that we have official transcripts sealed and signed by the issuing institution on file before you can be admitted to any of our graduate programs. Records not issued in English must be submitted with a word-for-word English translation. Translations may be issued by the student’s institution or may be prepared by an authorized translator in the student’s home country. If your home institution does not mail copies of transcripts or only provides you with one official transcript upon graduation, we ask that you have the institution make a copy of this document, stamp it as official, and have it mailed to us in a sealed envelope. You may mail the transcript to us yourself so long as it is sealed and signed by the proper personnel at the institution. Lastly, if your degree is from a Chinese university, MSU requires CDGDC verification.