Jump to content

socapp2017

Members
  • Posts

    10
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

681 profile views

socapp2017's Achievements

Decaf

Decaf (2/10)

3

Reputation

  1. It's possible, but it's also pretty risky. For one thing, you'll need to look for support (i.e., get a letter of rec) from a professor at your first PhD program if you want to maximize your chances of success to a better program. That's obviously not impossible but can be tricky to navigate - I mean, you are basically saying you want their help to go to a different PhD program. And it's also risky because if you don't get in...well now, you're stuck at a place where you tried to leave. And especially if word gets around that you tried to leave their program, that's also not great in many ways. As for credits, I wouldn't really worry about that, especially not at this point. And it's also something idiosyncratic depending on each program (e.g., Michigan might approve the credits from your theory course from Penn State, but Berkeley may say no), so I wouldn't really be too concerned about that.
  2. Bump. OP should do an update now that both Berkeley and NYU released their decisions.
  3. Generally, when someone on the internet responds to a question by telling you to google the answer, it's intended to be a snarky comment implying that you're an idiot who haven't covered your basics. Since that apparently is not offensive to you, here you go: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=negotiating+offers+graduate+school
  4. Lol, don't be ridiculous. You sound like a hater who got rejected to all PhD programs you applied to so far. To answer the question, it's definitely within the norm negotiate offers if you have multiple good offers. Schools are generally willing to increase their offer to persuade you to come to their program. Just email the other programs, be upfront about your other offer(s), and do what your friend did - i.e., say that you are definitely interested in coming to their program, but you are considering going to other programs because of their offer. There's no guarantee the school will increase your offer, but there's no real harm in asking. That said, you should consider a few other things before asking: -Cost of living varies a lot so you should keep that in mind. $15k a year at Wisconsin may sound dramatically lower than $30k from NYU, but it's not as big a difference as it sounds when you consider the living costs of NYC. -The "other offer(s)" you're using as leverage shouldn't be clearly several tiers below in terms of program prestige and quality. For example, if you got accepted to Princeton and CUNY, and you tried to get Princeton to increase their offer because you threaten to attend CUNY, that won't go over well. (The reverse would probably work, but you should not attend CUNY over Princeton.) -Remember that you can also talk to current PhD students at the program and ask if they have any input on this question. Or talk to your advisee at the school, if they emailed you. There may be summer funding, conference money, or research money at their program that you can try and obtain via negotiating. -Ultimately, remember that while some offers are more tempting than others, a difference of a several thousand dollars isn't worth choosing a program of lesser quality, fit, and placement record.
  5. It is really annoying, but you should be careful not to raise a big fuss and develop an unwanted reputation. At the end of the day, it's probably not worth the drama or the risk. Also, admin workers at many sociology departments tend to be incompetent (e.g., Columbia and their mistaken PhD acceptance emails). To some extent, it just comes with the territory.
  6. It's not a red flag. If you look at the post, you'll see it has 3 "goods" and 10 "no goods," so more far more people disagree than agree. If anything, it's more likely a green flag that this is an advisor you'd want. The reason why that person may have made that ridiculous statement is that a faculty member who only co-authors with graduate students may be seen by faculty as not being serious scholars. But even that notion is a big stretch. The point is, you shouldn't be treating every post on that forum as gospel. There is plenty of misleading nonsense - sometimes deliberately misleading nonsense - posted.
  7. Isn't Harvard one of the schools that interviews like 20-30 students before accepting like half of them? Were those interviews already conducted, or are they not doing interviews for whatever reason?
  8. You should only pursue a PhD program in sociology if your intention is to become an academic (e.g., sociology professor) in the future. Also, the median pay for Assistant (Sociology) Professors with tenure-track is around $60k the last time I checked. This will probably rise to around $80-100k+ once you get to a full professor, but that takes at least about 10 years after starting an AP position. Meanwhile, outside options for sociology PhDs are not great, with not a lot of demand unless you are trained in quantitative methods (in which case there is probably a decent amount of demand and pay). But it sounds like you want to do media-related work, so that doesn't seem to apply to you. So from what you posted, don't pursue a PhD in sociology. Do it only if you really want to become a sociology professor.
  9. This is going to be a x-post, but Posselt's recent book, Inside Graduate Admissions (2016) paints a very different picture. What accounts for the difference? Example quotes: "With a large pool of East and South Asian applicants who have high quantitative reasoning scores, many [admissions committee] participants came to set higher GRE score expectations of Chinese, Korean, and Indian applicants than of American and European applicants. 'If a kid from the PRC has not essentially...perfect scores on GRE exams...they're regarded as probably brain dead.'" "Others distrusted the signaling value of the GRE for Asian applicants because it does not capture the work that they worry Asian students will struggle with in graduate school: open-ended, creative scholarship." "The suspicion that cheating may be quietly prevalent throughout China was a major concern for some reviewers." "Their expectation that Chinese students would have high quantitative GRE scores and weak English skills also reflected the troubling tendency to think of students from China not as individuals, but a profile of group averages." "The composite stereotype that faculty held of Asian applicants was one of mathematically sophisticated test takers and status seekers with weak English skills, who are difficult to distinguish from one another."
×
×
  • 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