gilbertrollins

You might be ok, not totally sure. You really want to be in at least the 80th percentile on both. Are you an international? The expectation then may be that you're sharp enough to get comfortable throughout the first year and actually absorb your theory courses. If you can, studying hard on the verbal and retaking is not a bad idea.

I have a friend taking a year off right now with a deferred offer, and he really misses academia. Your mileage may vary.

I got the impression from the one comparative-historical ish panel I went to at ASA that it is a very self-referential and aging field, from the ages of both the audience and the panel. I'm talking about the Big Theory stuff that compares entire national trajectories to one another. I don't know jack really about world systems theory, but there's a pretty strong consensus among a lot of people even in lefty political theory, sociology, etc. that it's main theoretical claim of core-periphery dependence has been destroyed by developing economy growth. I don't know what's gone on since, as such a situation usually results in people scrambling to amend the edges of a theory in order to salvage the theory while its bottom is falling out. Like others have said though, there is still great interest in the process of globalization and modern development.

Nuffield is the spot to be. It's the center of social sciences out there, and given the abomination of funding at Oxford and very old-school "you're on your own now, kid!" culture, I wouldn't think it'd be much worth it to go across the pond for anything else. Getting stuck at a low prestige program with no resources in some corner of Oxford sounds like a really bad idea.

The steady references to Hirschmann's work I hear among my peers gives me great hope for my own future. Also, to OP: if you're getting solid data from actual NK defectors, that's amazing. As I understand it these people are pretty scared to talk to anyone about their experiences. Congrats. I would keep going with the political soc recommendations, and start thinking about how the particulars of these people's experiences and their reports on cultural differences present variation that can illuminate macro-comparative stuff on communism and totalitarianism, something there is still a lot of interest in because of the people it's killing in places like NK, Cuba, and Venezuela, and because there's still no great consensus on how these states eventually give to occidental-trajectory development.

Prestige is a proxy for actual benefits. Peer effects are stronger at higher ranked programs -- i.e. you will be interacting with smarter people in courses and at lunch even if you're not working on the exact same things. Higher ranked programs usually have a greater variety of faculty and areas of interests, which means you can change, which most people do. First and second year coursework is usually more rigorous at higher ranked institutions, which will leave you in a better position to consider your interests relative to the broader sociological conversation. Methods training is stronger -- for quant people this means harder math but more sophisticated understanding; for qual people this means working with ethnographers and other analysts who shape methodological orientation of the whole discipline. I ended up picking a higher ranked program over a couple which were much stronger in a very specific set of interests I had and have right now, because my Big Hit idea is likely to be wrong and/or intractable empirically. I also had a senior faculty at one of the lower ranked programs whom I wanted to work with in said subfield just straight up tell me to go to the higher ranked school. I would apply to all of the schools you've considered, and work out the decision of where to attend on the back end. The marginal application isn't that expensive when you consider how much your graduate education will bear on the rest of your career trajectory -- it is the first 6 years of your career after all.

The deeply ironic thing about my responses in this thread is that I made a public spectacle of myself on this board once, complaining about people being dismissive of my research interests. Is there an established silo for pro-market economic sociology within sociology already? Barely. But with perseverance I've found that I might be able to carve a niche using methods from text analysis, talking with cultural sociologists, debating with historical comparative sociologists, and of course people in economic sociology proper. I got a similar reception on economics boards when I first started talking about doing verbal theory and culture in economics (anathema). The takeaway for me is that it's imperative upon the aspiring UG who wants to do unconventional research (God help us we need more!) to dig deep early and define her interests and potential methods in order to make a reasonable yet hazy decision on which programs to apply to and where the next few years will take them. Hence my calls for a definition of what astrosociology is, and for OP to expand, like faculty mentioned, on what specifically he hopes to ask and answer. If OP is thinking about the social implications of space travel via Star Trek, e.g. a unified Earth-based polity, nearly unlimited resource constraints via make anything you want from thin air voice commands, etc., then I think my original advice to speculate in science fiction novels is decent advice. There are simply no data to study these implications beyond conjecture (notably, conjecture can be prophetic -- see Star Trek's flip phones in the 1960's). If we're talking the nature of science and discovery generally, and how social structure bears on those processes, then you bet -- there is ample room for OP in STS, sociology of knowledge, and so forth. I think these UG boards are a godsend in their ability to provide nubile UG's a place (someone I still technically am!) to get a feel for where they stand relative to professional discourse and how that bears on their admissions chances. And I think above all the constructive criticism here serves a noble purpose in the stepping up of games and improvement of said admissions chances. So let's have less shock and horror every time someone posts about studying Occupy, space travel, or other conceived utopias, and more practical consideration of whether and where there is an audience for such work.

Economic sociology is a large subfield that mainline professors at a variety of institutions list in their mini-CV interests. Find me a similar sized group of faculty profiles that list "astrosociology" as a mini-CV interest. I didn't say anything about OP's background and don't care. My statements were conditioned on his statement of his interest and field of study: astrosociology. And I was trying to be helpful -- telling someone "that's not a good idea" when they're about to cross an interstate highway on foot doesn't demonstrate some kind of unfounded prejudgment and lack of respect and encouragement for that person's wishes. Good find. Still, she doesn't talk at all about astrosociology proper. It's no clearer even after 10+ posts in this thread what astrosociology even is, yet people continue to defend that it is a legitimate interest for which OP can potentially find an audience for. Has anyone here looked at the website? http://www.astrosociology.org

Right well if I came to the board and said I was interested in measuring cross-sectional variation of electricity utility pricing and its affects on weekly grocery expenditure -- someone may well see "economy" in what I was writing and recommend I apply to economic sociology heavy programs. I would be best served, however, concentrating on industrial organization in an economics proper program with that interest, though.

If your last 60 credit hours of grades are very good, you shouldn't worry about your cumulative GPA.

Can you point to anyone in STS who is talking about astro-sociology?

And don't worry so much about coming from a worse school. If you are an exceptional student, your letters and writing sample will reflect that. Sociologists, remember, are particularly egalitarian and interested in upward mobility.

For everyone watching at home: the GRE is a reject criterion, not an accept criterion. So if you bomb it, your application can get trashed before anyone reads it, but above certain thresholds, say roughly 90th percentile, it's pretty meaningless. Grades also, are a a reject criterion. There are lots of people who are good students and work hard for As, so this is a necessary but insufficient condition to get you in. Committees are looking for good researchers, not good students. Your LORs, SOP, and writing sample will be the real deciding factors once you've met a reasonable baseline of quantitative measures and gotten a reading. Your time is better spent discussing your research interests with and plans with your writers, and strategizing what you'd like them to emphasize about you, than it is worrying about bringing your GRE score from a 161 to a 162. Also, life experience is something that will boost your application for researchers who believe it's meaningful, but there are a lot of people who feel it's not. So it's a wash. Prattling on about life experiences is not appropriate in an application to graduate school unless you were engaged in research work. Committees want to know what kind of skills you've acquired, not your motivation for acquiring them, like the socially interesting things you've been through as a person. I'm going out on a limb here with some conjecture, but you have to imagine that sociology programs get a lot of applications from people who have traveled and lived abroad, and that that kind of experience is no longer remarkable, nor does it signal a unique respect for or perspective on other cultures or our own. On the other hand, if you acquired language skills that you'd like to use to conduct ethnography, have a particular interest in social issues that you observed while abroad, etc -- that's something to discuss in particular. OP: you can talk to your UG advisers about where they would rank you as a student compared to others they've written for, and whether they feel they can honestly recommend you for top programs.

Spend minimal, if any, time explaining a checkered history. Nobody really cares that you went through some things and weren't focused before. Your recent track record is what counts. Making excuses for yourself just emphasizes that you didn't do well in the past, and signals that it's potentially something you're not beyond. Discuss your strengths, not your weaknesses. You have a strong profile (nice GRE's btw; congrats).

Not really. It doesn't hurt to reach out and start a conversation, but don't be long winded or a pest (I am, notably, both). On the outside chance, it will help you get into your desired program, but that's less likely than you just getting a better sense of where you'd fit.

Probably about 70th-80th quant and 85th-95th+ verbal. You'll be fine. Full speed ahead.

I think encouraging people to pursue research interests which aren't taken seriously by even a significant minority of researchers in any accredited academic field, which have no theoretical base, and have no empirical data to study, with any method, is reckless and unethical. If OP has a substantive case for why astrosociology is relevant, or what it even is (the website astrosociology.org is a ridiculous mess of empty, abstract statements), we could potentially help him figure out where he can insert himself into sociological dialogue. I'm aware of the incentives and institutional realities of pursuing an academic career. There is no uptick in "hegemonic discourse . . . today which says 'you must study this subject or you will not get a job.'" It has always been the case that academics have created ideas among a community of peers and worked on questions that were relevant to that community.

^as in you really need to be in the 80th percentile to avoid any desk-rejections. Above there is desirable, but not required as long as you have a strong application.

Is 154 in the 80th percentile? You're coming from a women's studies background and have great momentum in that direction; I don't think your quant score will hold you back. You can retake in China just fine, it's just cumbersome to get to a testing center and such. I would definitely apply for this fall -- you really sound like a strong candidate who is worried about marginal issues, and making a bit too big of a deal about it. Good luck researching out there!

Hi Sweet Pea. I'm not sure what your research question is, but covering big-name bases isn't usually how one approaches a problem theoretically. Or maybe I should just speak for myself. My most insightful stuff (a dubious distinction!) hits me when I see an empirical situation like gambling addiction and am then reminded of some theory I read somewhere, which was at one time applied to a different but similar empirical situation. I don't really see how Marx and Simmel have anything to say about gambling addiction.

1. Only the very briefest mentions of personal motivation of study are appropriate -- this goes across fields and has been emphasized in particular by psychologists who get a lot of "I was abused as a child so I'll make a great Psychology PhD student" types of SOPs. In-dept discussion of a particular research interest is not appropriate either -- you want to be specific about what you have done, and telescope those details into a broader sketch of fields you're interested in and how that will fit well at the program you're applying to. 2. The writing sample, without necessarily being publishable or published in a mainstream academic sociology journal, should be as close to that ideal as possible, so yes. If there are no citations to add because you were a cultural studies, philosophy, or lit-crit person, it won't be a problem as long as you're being reasonably insightful and coherent. People say the writing sample is just to see if you can write. My opinion is that that is manifestly not the case, considering whether you can be creative and insightful and produce original research is the primary goal in evaluating the application. 3. Contacting won't get your application trashed. It is most likely to have no effect other than providing you information about where to apply if you get a response, and in very rare cases will have the effect of someone pulling for you on committee. Contact should be brief and clear in what you're asking. If a department says don't contact us -- don't. Otherwise it really doesn't hurt to give it a swing. 4. If you want to do neuroscience and sociology, you should consider cognitive psychology, neuroeconomics, social psychology from within the psychology department or another established interdisciplinary field. There isn't really any mainstream field of sociology to trojan-horse those research interests with, and doing so isn't particularly wise considering the special training you'll need to do. You will have to generate some pretty compelling results, I think, to get neuroscientific experiments published in mainstream sociology journals, but I could be wrong. Since you have such a particular interest already, yes, I would email various professors who you are reading and ask about planning a trajectory -- hopefully you'll get more qualified help than you can from graduate students and undergraduates on this board. 5. Retake the GREs after more practice. Excuses don't go over well on applications, and it's absolutely common for internationals to apply to American PhD programs now -- many of these people read and write perfect English, and many of them speak it very well too. My understanding is that you essentially need to have a "I breezed through it" score on the TOEFL, and perform middlingly to well on the GRE to compete. Try to be in the 80th percentile or above on both sections. If you bombed a section badly, you've got some work to do. You will hear lots of hemming and hawing about how important the score is to committees on these boards. This discourse is tainted with all kinds of old hurt feelings about standardized testing and educational philosophies that go back decades in America. Programs get hundreds of applications and have to trim the pile -- Grades and GRE are the first-cut way to do that.

You will not be able to make a career specializing in astosociology. I would recommend you study sociology independently as a science fiction writer and try to publish novels.

Two-time community college attender here -- yes, a solid portion of community college instructors are MAs in the U.S.

Yeah the anonymous boards attract quite a bit of trolling and vicious comments, but it's worth it in order to have a place for controversial topics. We'll see if socjobrumors takes off -- the original site, econjobrumors, gets thousands and thousands of visitors a day. I thought about starting a forum for precisely discussion purposes, but I think I'm overestimating the demand for such a resource because I in particular seem to have a strange attraction to the over-discussion of under-developed and incendiary ideas online. Most graduate students I think fear that kind of exposure early in their careers and don't want to be running around asking stupid questions and saying potentially stupid things in public. In any event, there is quite a bit of graduate student activity on the blogs, but you can't post open threads on these, and it seems like there is more blogging and discussion among the quantoids than among qual people -- that again could be a part of my non-representative and selective sampling.

http://www.socjobrumors.com/