just wrote a long ass blog post that was deleted
in a nutshell:
if you have the option, goto princeton: no other program has demonstrated the ability to place ALL students in solid postions (both ROCKSTARS and not)
if you cant do princeton, harvard and berk set you up to do just as well as pton if you end up being a rockstar
otherwise, the usual suspects--wisc, mich, chicago, duke, etc.--give you equal "chance" to the lottery of placement
DO NOT GO TO SOC GRAD SCHOOL IF NOT TOP 20. if so, do it at your own risk (risk of unemployment, underemployment, making less than 50k in your thrties if lucky etc). clearly folks here CAN do ok, but be a social scientist for a second, how different are you?