ohgoodness

I can't say anything about how this will affect CIPA directly but I can vouch that officially being a a part of CHE (which is a part of SUNY) is no different from being in any of the other colleges at Cornell. Cornell is very open between colleges and students can move very easily between the different parts. I am PhD in the Policy Analysis program and there are a lot of different policy research within CHE; Family Policy (especially within the Population Center), Health Policy through Sloan and so; Education and Labor. A lot of the courses that CIPA are requiring are within the college of CHE so no change there. There will definitely be people at Cornell who say CHE is a lesser college but to me - this is just silly talk from kids. I take the first-year sequence in Sociology and the CHE courses on methodologies and policy analysis are far superior to what is offered in Economy and Sociology. This post became somewhat of a defense talk of CHE but I just wanted to speak up as the college (being public at an ivy) gets badmouthed from time to time. Feel free to shoot me a message if I can answer any direct question about Human Ecology or PAM.

For schools in the tri-state area: I'd be keeping my eyes on the weather and remember that there are closings and such. Both my meetings tomorrow are cancelled so I can only assume that the story goes for a lot of activities at schools in the area. UPenn for, example, is closed. http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/connecticut/weather-radar?partner=netweather&unit=f (that's a gorgeous blue cloud moving over PA... 12 inches new snow! woho!)

I live rather close by those apartments and can only give a comment about the state of the buildings, which seems very good and fresh. Someone in my cohort lives there and she ishappy but she's not the most social person. The location is good if you don't care about the hassle of getting up and down the hill (which is a hassle) - you would be nestled in between the fancier parts of Cornell/Cayuga heights, residential/faculty parts of town, and the undergraduate residences, which is a bad thing in my mind. You just have to walk over the bridge to get to campus so very close to your office. The basic thing about is graduate living in Ithaca would be that if you want to be close to other grads and downtown; go for Fall Creek. It's a 5 min walk to the commons, 7 minutes by bus to Cornell and you can walk up the hill if you feel like it. If you want less social scene then go for Cayuga Heights and Forest Home are great. I'm a grouch so I rent in Forest Home and love it.

I concur 100% but a word to the weary - if the program is famous for quantitative methodologies; it probably is. I haven't even heard the word qualitative methodology since startng my program but we have other programs/departments that are heavy in qualitative (DSOC, ILR, Policy). You are always able to spend your electives outside of the direct department thus you can get your qualitative fix from other departments if needed. Finding a advisor tho might be harder

A way of understanding placement into your dream school would be to google the school and add "new faculty" to the search. Find the new hires and then google scholar their publications. You'll see what matters. If you want to understand how you get stuck in the postdoc-situation - google post docs and look at the difference between someone moving into associate professorship and post docs..

What I've heard from the Cornell DSOC is that they have not sent out yet so don't worry yet. Late February is a good pointer for DSOC there

Not that I want to get into a discussion about this but you do know that your comment might have a small but significant influence on someone's life decisions thus buffing up your own department without justification is a tad ego. UCI is a sweet program in my mind but neither of us have any idea about the moves and improvements that programs are making.. besides you are vouching for a public program in the age of debt crisis in a state with a history of refusing money to their state schools

Feel free to send me a msg if you have any specific questions about Cornell or Ithaca as such.

One thing to wager into any offer is whether it says 9 month or 12 months. I only have a 9 month offer but the graduate school has a system where they pay half of my salary if a professor (in my field) were to give me an RA-ship over the summer so voila 12 month offer if I do well enough in school. (a whole different story there). The possibility of a no-pay summer, however, is rather stressful as it is somewhat hard to save up during the school year and most of your savings go towards conference travels and what (reimbursed sure but only after the conference has been).

I agree with this 100% and I would like to stress the fit even more. I am in my first year and it has not been an easy gig so far but what has kept me going has been that I really, really fit into my department. I really didn't think that it would matter as much as it does but it makes a world of difference to feel that one is a part of the department and share interests with what is going on. There are a lot of things going on (seminars, talk, ra-ships) and those things can really be great inspirations if they touch upon what you are most interested in. It is also very nice to be able to talk to senior faculty about your own ideas about research and get very positive responses. I mean - you will work 10 hours a day and spend virtually all of your social/mental energy within domain of your program so it is rather important to feel like you belong and dare to take steps forwards. I at least "love" my graduate experience so far and I would attribute 50% of the positive feeling to fit whereas there are people in my program who feel completely out of the departmental sphere and have struggled due to this. Obviously this could change as one progresses through the program but you know - to get a good job; you need at least 5 solid papers and that's one a year...

Not meaning to butt in this cohorts sense of camaraderie but I'd second this as one of last years applicants. I spent at least 5 hours a day during application season on this board and had nothing to show for it but rejections up until that one glorious e-mail.. (on the 23rd of March...) so yeah - keep on keeping on! Everyone here will probably be sitting there in 6 months, snowed in the middle of nowhere, asking yourselves why the hell you agreed to this in the first place -.-

Any quant-heavy program will help you learn SEM and whatever other technique you may need to progress in the program and be able to do what you need to do. My program does not offer any SEM but are willing to send me to Duke or Michigan for summer school to learn it and then assistance with whatever issues I may encounter.

I am not 100% sure about what you means by this but it sounds like you referring to the general focus/tradition within sociology? If so - it's 2013 and the only thing that matters would being able to investigate empirical matters in a proficient manner. Focusing on either aspect in your application would be impossible as you just want to showcase your own qualities and interests rather than try to place yourself on either side of such a schism. Apply by fit/interest and then tailor your application as to why you see that school being a perfect place for your qualities/future development as a researcher.

I'm a tad late to the party but I am struggling with understanding why you are limiting your horizons already? Your GPA seems ok (mine was about the same) and your GRE is around the mean for Sociology. If you are a minority then it would be a plus at some schools. If you can get solid letters of recommendations from known entities in the field then you should be up there with the rest of them when applying to phd programs. Also wanting to do social inequality is good - you have a lot of strong schools all over the board so you could apply to high,mid and lower tier programs. Focus on your strengths and you should do equally well as many of us who got into last cycle.

I guess it would depend on which kind of methodology is the predominant at the program that one applies to. If you go into a quant-heavy program (econ soc, movements, strat, networks, whatnot) then I'd say that you would be completely lost with a good knowledge of linguist type skills but in a more qualitative program then one could probably do great things when doing comparative, contextual analysis or frame analysis.

Very few people do know what they want to study and so on. It is the job of the school to help you become a good researcher and find exactly what you want to pursue within your interests and they will do that during the first two years. A lot of people move disciplines and have a general feel of what they want to do but not much more and they are just fine. Better just be clear about what you want and why you want to be there and things will go well.

Another tool to determine some fit would be surf the course selection pages of your schools and how they are structured, what they include and who is teaching it (especially the reading courses). I slightly ignored the fit-part of my application (although I am perfect fit at my school) so it was a slight shock to notice how much of the teaching and seminars are strictly on the key strengths of the program. if you spend 12-14 hours a day reading, talking, writing and thinking about something then it's pretty good if it is develops you towards what you are interested in. I have no idea whether it will help you get into the program but fit will definitely help you motivate yourself and keep going.

http://www.sociology.northwestern.edu/graduate/cluster-initiative.html But why sociology? Why not philosophy or social anthropology? I would say that sociology has really returned to being a data-driven discipline but then again I have only worked in one of those places (demography) where theory is a dried-up well of excuses.

Just from the perspective of your research interests and networks/illicit trade networks then I would think that sociology is a great fit if you want to attack it from a novel perspective. Sociologists are the driving researchers of social network analysis in social sciences and you would probably be able to do great things if you had the data and interest to do micro-work. In the sociology part of public policy research - micro studies are becoming the fundamental for all other research, rather than the grand theories of old, so you would be able to fun research (social network analysis is much more fun than event-history or OLS.). This would be true for criminology as well which is increasingly becoming linked to sociology through transdisciplinary centers/programs. This is obviously contingent on whether you want to do micro or macro. This is at least what is happening here in Europe where certain schools of social/public policy (i.e. not real schools but paradigms) are less tied to powerhouse program and more to research traditions. Northwestern's cluster initiative into one of the specific geographic clusters might be an example in the U.S.

Wow - a week until the term starts so revisiting and posting that if any Swede (or Scandinavian) will be applying this cycle and feel like that want a peek at where they stand in comparison to being accepted then feel free to pm me. My experiences, grades, and whatnot does not really feel like comparable to most U.S students so you guys better pm the others

As a fellow European who had no idea about the GRE and had never done standardized tests before; do not quit before you start. If you are a straight A student in the german system then you should be able to hone your math skills to the level where you pass minimum requirements and then some. Just do your best on the GRE and work on perfecting all the other things (such as finding good recommendations who are well-known in the U.S.)

A. http://www.brynmawr.edu/socialwork/GSSW/schram/davis&moore.pdf B. http://homepages.rpi.edu/~eglash/eglash.dir/design.dir/readings%20questions/Fischer.pdf C. A draft of Breen's Social Mobility in Europe: http://www.uvm.edu/~pdodds/files/papers/others/2004/breen2004a.pdf and Non-persistent inequality in educational attainment: http://www.ccpr.ucla.edu/publications/conference-proceedings/CP-05-001.pdf D. Grusky's summary of Social Stratification: http://inequality.cornell.edu/publications/working_papers/Grusky2.pdf I just figured I would post this (again) since you seem to be missing the basics. and I am sorry for posting that video. Krugman sure is a silly excuse for an academic..

here you go as well

Posted this before but just use the chapters in this to find who to read and what to read further into. http://www.amazon.com/Inequality-Reader-Contemporary-Foundational-Readings/dp/0813344840

Percentage or absolute number is a question of the understanding the dynamics of the population at question. There may be even 10% homeless in Saskatoon 1995 but due to resource boost and the in-migration of affluence into the Canadian Prairies between 2000-2010 it is only 4%. Same number or people but population growth of non-homeless has skewed the ratio. Standardization the solution.. http://www.feantsaresearch.org/IMG/pdf/feantsa_ejh_v4_12-2010.pdf#page=19 <- table 1. page 23. Or do your own research