ohgoodness

http://www.gradschool.cornell.edu/costs-and-funding/stipend-rates
 
This is 97% accurate according to the lectures I keep going to (....) 

I wouldn't worry -  the social sciences (i.e me) get less than the natural/hard sciences and I have no issues with economy.   I moved here from Stockholm and rent is about the same but the rest is much cheaper (especially the beer!).   Feel free to send me a message if I can help with any questions about moving from Western Europe to Cornell. 

Fair enough, to each his/her own! I liked developing my calf muscles, but arriving all sweaty to class in the summers was never fun, and during winter, well, steep slopes and ice haven't been mixing well, in my mind. I've noticed somewhere between 25-50% of people do prefer the walk, though.

I try not to attack people personally but I had a bad day and I need to work it out so just know that that high horse of yours is actually a donkey and your comments just bring attention to your own lack of sense.   I hope I get banned for this because wow those replies..... lowest low

http://eerdblurbs.tumblr.com/post/76341117861/we-couldnt-resist

"It's not a contest, but if it were I would win"

I don't really like when people assume they've had the hardest life. I don't know what happened to you and I don't want you to tell me (this isn't a contest), but my parents were both drug addicts who died when I was young and I slept on the New York City trains as a kid. So when you come around here saying things that other people did to you when you were growing up justifies your negativity is a bit insulting. 
 
It also seems like you take things too personally. I'm known on GradCafe to come off as an asshole sometimes, and maybe my original comment was a bit rough, but I don't think it was as mean and unhelpful as you interpreted it to be. The reason I asked those questions was because I just have a hard time believing that everyone in your grad program hates you as much as you made it seem. These are educated and professional people. They don't accept students just to make their lives miserable. Usually when someone feels like the world is against them, I think either 1) it's all in their head, or 2) something about their personality rubs people the wrong way. 
 
And lastly, your attachment and resentment issues seem pretty serious and it makes me think that you would have a similar situation in any grad program. In my opinion, there are two ways to handle the situation: 1) Get the help you need before enrolling in a grad program. 2) Recognize that the grad program (and the people) isn't the problem, and separate your grad studies from your personal issues. 

Are you sure it's not you? I ask because you say you had a crappy life before this. There are people who are just miserable no matter what happens. Are you sure that's not you? Also, are these feelings just your interpretation or are they legit? Are your professors really sexist, do they really favor the male students who just pull things out of their ass, do they really shoot down all the intelligent things you say, do you really say intelligent things, do your classmates really talk down to you, and do they really laugh at you?

Howie Becker, for this article: http://www.medanthro.net/adtsg/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Becker-Becoming-Marihuana-User.pdf

The qualitative-quant thing is important, sure, but we definitely have a few people who are doing qualitative work with advisers known for quantitative work (it rarely goes the other way, but it can).  It's important to recognize also that there are multiple qualitative methodologies and multiple quantitative methodologies.  I started out wanting to do historical-comparative work and my project will be largely ethnographic... but probably with at least two chapters that do some quantitative analysis (vanilla regressions).  I didn't really know much about stats when I came into the program.  You should use the method that best fits your question.  As my question changed, the methods I wanted to use changed too. 
 
One of my colleagues came in wanting to do STS-style social theory, but caught up with networks bug and now is spending the two years doing methodology classes to catch up.  Another one of my colleagues came in as a "networks guy", but then decided that the networks approach was too limited, and got caught up in historical/comparative and through that got interested in "professions" (a la Andy Abbott), and then ended up designing a qualitative thesis... this thesis had a small quantitative part (scraping data from the internet to make networks), but the early results on that were so promising it's become the main part of his thesis so he's back to being a "networks guy".  Two years ago he told me never wanted to write a paper with regression, but I came to him with an interesting question and a dataset we could use to answer that question and now we're collaborating on a paper that mainly uses regressions (with a small historical element).  I talked with the Andy Papachristos (who's now a professor at Yale) and when he talked about his career trajectory, he explained that he started as an ethnographer and that his ethnographic dissertation research kept pointing to coeffender networks so he just had to learn all the networks stuff and now he's known pretty much just for quant research (some regression based stuff but mainly networks). 
 
My point is, sociology is a wonderful discipline because it lets you use a variety of methods to answer important questions. Obviously, you'll have ones that you're more comfortable with and obviously you should pick an adviser who can actually give you advice and obviously some departments are stronger in certain methodologies, but topics change and I don't know if it's a good idea to be averse to any one method.  If you do urban ethnography, or interview-based organization work, or historical comparative stuff looking state formation, those are all "qualitative" projects, with very different methodologies.  And those urban ethnographers end up needing to understand stats because you need to at least be able to read about neighborhood effects, and the orgs interviewers probably need to understand networks and some ecological models, minimally and I've found historical-comparative kids end up friends with the networks kids because we're generally the weird ones who are interested in weird questions (I don't think this is just my program, I think this is a broader pattern I've noticed, but I'm not sure).
 
/shpiel, that wasn't really directed at you by the end there, sorry...

Yes, key word is "new."  We've had unusually high snowfall accumulations this season ... I think.  There's still snow on the ground and we're getting dumped with about 10 inches tonight through tomorrow.  My boyfriend reminded me that February is the snowiest month of the year (he's a meteorologist), but that doesn't ease the sting for me :'(
 
That means it'll be a SLOW day tomorrow!!  I'm assuming Lehigh and Maryland will be closed, and Delaware likely will, too. I posted elsewhere that there are no more TV shows that I can think of to binge on, so I will be doing TONS of cleaning to make the day move by more quickly!!  

^ I would just add that Fall Creek is actually a fairly large neighborhood and while areas that could be considered Fall Creek are a five minute walk to downtown/the Commons, there are also areas that are more like a 30 minute walk there (a pleasant stroll on a lazy summer day but not on a busy winter one) and have very bad bus service.

This is a bit long and admittedly, I went a little crazy. However, I'd like to share the steps I took this cycle and the advice I received from graduate students and professors.
 
F14 was my first cycle. I got one rejection this year. I applied to top ten programs.
 
My background: I have a sociology degree from an elite institution. I worked for a bit before applying. I scored well in both sections of the GRE. I have a little research experience, but I have not published anything, nor have I ever stepped into a classroom.
 
 
LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
I was told several times that letters of recommendation have very little value. Yes, having an outstanding one from a BFD sociologist (Lamont calls you "one of my best students…") is huge. A connection to someone in the department is obviously significant as well (social relationships matter, Granovetter 1973 etc). However, for the most part, professors send generic letters -- by virtue of the fact that most good students are pretty similar and professors always have a number of other thing to do. Furthermore, given that sociology is an incredibly fractured discipline, it is hard to have a single rubric to evaluate undergraduate performance. Red flags are the real problem. If LoRs convey immaturity or other similar issues, that can quickly kill an otherwise golden application.
 
 
GRE
The GRE is important for two reasons. One, it is an initial screening mechanism at most schools (unfortunate, but necessary).
 
The second way GRE scores are used is for merit funding that is dispersed by the graduate school or the social sciences division. How does one decide whether a economics grad student or a sociology grad student should get funding (besides the obvious morally correct answer)? GRE scores are one "objective" way to do so. My understanding is that GRE scores can thus be very important at institutions where funding is not controlled at the departmental level. Funding necessarily has consequences for admissions, and thus a good GRE score becomes a necessary condition.
 
This is what worked for me: This nova math book and then the 5 LB manhattan prep book. One must then also get access to sample digital tests so one can master the pacing and the feel of digital testing. I spent about 3 months preparing and did so nearly every weekday. Berkeley has on their website the average admitted student's GRE scores. One can easily get those if one sets aside the time to do so. Do not forget the writing section either. Every bit counts. I also had to teach myself the reading comprehension section. Apparently actually having a decent daily academic reading habit doesn't help much here.
 
 
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Universally decreed as the most important part of the application. One must cover three things: first, past intellectual trajectory. Two, a hypothetical research project that demonstrates knowledge of the field. Three, one must identify with whom one will work with. Ok, good, we have all heard this before: fit matters and so on.
 
Now, one may sit down and think, "Ok, I will write about my undergraduate thesis" or "I will describe my passion for subject X."
 
Well, hold on for one second.
 
If you reflect for a moment, perhaps you will conclude that you are not up to date on the most recent literature. You probably have "unknown unknowns". Regardless of how great your work is, perhaps it's not where the discipline is now. Furthermore, do you likely know what a really interesting project would be? For example, does sociology need yet another ethnography of an urban community? How about another survey finding that networks matter for health outcomes? Is there yet another way that we can demonstrate that economic actions are situated socially? I am not saying these topics are unimportant -- far from it -- but that if one really wants to stick out as an applicant, one must get strategic and try to move beyond some of the "tried and true".
 
I first did the usual POI selection by research interest. However, I also picked POIs by their career trajectory. One should identify, I think, a recently tenured professor in her early 40s. This is ideal because:
 
1. They are not going to get swamped with other requests to work with them.
2. Coattail riding can happen. If one wishes to work with someone who is already well established and close to retiring, they may not lead one anywhere. Plus, older professors are likely more epistemological or methodologically inflexible.
3. This is a little macabre, but worth keeping in mind: they will probably not die or retire soon. One's dissertation adviser is important for a long time, a quasi-marriage. You may need a LoR in 15 years.
4. Younger professors will usually have contributed to just one or two bodies of work which one can master in order to write a well-tailored statement. In addition, they are probably more flexible when it comes to your own work, so if you decide you want to be an interpretivist postmodernist while previously you were a b-school positivist, you may get away with it.
 
After I identified my POIs, I read nearly every article that they had published (getting access to JSTOR/academic article search from your UG institution is really essential), and used google scholar to track who was citing them and then read those papers. I had google alerts for a few of my POIs (hoping to catch if they posted working papers). I identified maybe three or four POIs per school.
 
I then crafted statements directly tied to the literature that my POIs are engaging -- not just what their views are, but their interlocutors as well. I did not just want to be a close fit; I wanted to be a glove. Furthermore, the research projects I described were closely tied to existing work. My research proposal was thus very feasible and grounded in the relevant literature. My real intention was to signal that I knew exactly what was expected of me by the time I was ABD. Only about 50% of social science grad students (even at very good schools) actually complete their PhD in the US. Many people can be great students, but the personal ethic required to finish a dissertation is very demanding. Signaling competence and fit is thus the most critical "functions" of the SOP. Nota bene that whatever you propose in your SOP is probably not going to be your dissertation (and if it is, that might be a little disappointing given US PhD's focus on several years of coursework.)
 
Of course, a literature review is not a statement of purpose. Regurgitation is for high school. I am simply suggesting that one should be very well-read and relevant. If one undertakes this route, one will also avoid trendy "buzzwords" topics (e.g. "A big data ethnography of the the neo-neoliberalization of online discourses: the case of shirtless Zizek Tumblr gifs in the age of Bitcoin" or whatever).
 
Here are some other tips I received (most of which I think are very obvious to gradcafe members):
 
1. One should probably eschew "activist research" or present one's self as some kind of 21st century soixante-huitard. Sociology dissertations do not end capitalism, sorry to say. Several professors bemoaned statements which contained long personal narratives about working in foreign countries or rough neighborhoods. Admirable certainly, but not necessarily relevant to the task that sociologists do (publish rigorous work). Furthermore, it is incredibly insulting and condescending to say anything like "I did TFA and now I care about poor people of color. Plus, I have seen The Wire." Though apparently every year, there are a few people who write this. Then again, Burawoy/Public Sociology movement also exists. Best not to wade in as a prospective graduate student I think.
 
2. The related iffy statement of purpose is the "personal problem" one. Several professors brought this up as an issue as well. First, just because one has come from a similar background as one's intended subjects does not necessarily make one a good researcher. For instance, I doubt that my ability to read Durkheim or run regressions connecting social facts to mental illness has been dramatically improved by the few bouts of depression that I have had. Second, by highlighting personal problems, one can raise questions of competency. A few professors did mention that they occasionally like hearing a few details about an applicant though. A brief personal anecdote as an introduction might work well, but I avoided the personal all together.
 
3. Avoid C. Wright Mills or other "pop sociologists". Mills was barely involved with the discipline (he didn't even mentor grad students). Merton and Bell dominated the actual enterprise of sociology at Columbia at this time. Speaking of Columbia, no-notebooks-tons-of-verbatim-quotes Venkatesh has been criticized by a few bright guys, most notably Bobo on issues other than his methods. Gladwell and David Brooks are probably just bad calls all around. Avoid citations like this and focus on "serious" work -- the bread-and-butter of sociology.
 
4. Do not have a grand theory of society. As noted above, one enters school to be trained. One probably know very little (or has an inflated sense of what one does know). Be a little bit humble. One professor explained to me that the SoPs he truly hated are persons who engage in grand theorizing or academic posturing. "They are so young, how can they think they have it all figured out? Who are they trying to fool? You know I've been at this 23 years and would never write that." In another instance, a graduate student described a statement of purpose that used a number of sports analogies / inspirational poster quotes as theories of all aspects of social life, from gender to the causes of macro state conflict (think Vince Lombardi in lieu of Weber). I do not think it really worked for the audience. Likewise, "I was hiking the Appalachian Trial and as the sun was rising over the mountain, it dawned on me; we are all social creatures," is probably not a good opening line.
 
5. I was told that at some places, teaching experience doesn't matter all that much. Sentences like "I know I would really enjoy teaching" may not be a good idea. One is entering a program to be trained as a researcher, primarily. Though I do understand that expectations on this probably vary greatly from department to department, particularly if significant teaching duties are core piece of grad student service. This is yet another piece that should be tailored I suppose.
 
6. Many sets of eyeballs should read over your statement (duh, but apparently grammar and spelling mistakes are common). It should both pass "the grandmother test" (be able to explain it to your grandmother in a minute or so) and ideally a current graduate student should be brutal with you. So, have many friends of different intellectual backgrounds read it over.
 
7. One piece of advice that I had a hard time following was that one should connect with current graduate students at your target schools and get a feel for the expectations of mentoring. At one extreme, there are departments that wish that one works very closely with one's adviser -- as Tilly once put it, be a little worker bee and add a little honeycomb to an existing hive of the literature. At the other extreme are places that expect graduate students to be very independent and only occasionally meet with their adviser ("benign neglect" was the phrase one professor used to describe places like Harvard and Chicago). Thus, an added dimension would be to not only signal fit in intellectual interests, but work style as well. However, I could not really figure out a good way of expressing this well with just a thousand words.
 
 
WRITING SAMPLE
This one you have less control over than the others. I was told that a class paper was ideal. It shows you in action. Apparently, even at very good departments, folks will argue very forcefully over whether an undergraduate paper is good or not. It's hard to imagine, but if you are a contender, perhaps Tienda and Zelizer are up late at night arguing about that barely coherent thing you wrote at 4 AM.
 
Do not edit this paper. Turn in a copy that has been marked-up by a professor or an original copy that you handed in and make sure that this is somehow indicated. Showing a bit of integrity can matter. One grad student told me a story of an applicant who hit all the right marks and they were deciding between this person and one other applicant with a comparable profile. The other student had clearly not "freshened up" his writing sample and he was chosen for this display of ethics.
 
I cannot really speak for folks who have publications. Perhaps I am very ignorant, but given that it is unlikely that a paper written by an undergraduate or a masters student is published in a very reputable journal, I am not sure how much of a bragging right one gets. I do suppose it depends on the type of paper as I imagine that a solid quantitative paper is probably much better than an undergraduate theory essay ("But this is not what Marx really means by capitalism!"). That said, if you are the third author because you did the data entry and there is some graduate student who was up late running stata or R all night, how much credit can one really claim? One professor commented that he preferred seeing high quality undergraduate work because it is exclusively the applicant's work and it gives a sense of the type of undergraduate education that the applicant had.
 
My sample was a class paper with a few glaring grammar mistakes and I reproduced the comments from the professor -- a few strong detailed disagreements, though he did like the paper and gave me a good grade.
 
 
RECAP
1. Don't have red flag letters in your letters of recommendation.
2. 3 months, 2 books and you can get  >160 on the GRE
3. Approach the SoP like a research paper. Dig in deep. Be strategic (well-read and relevant), original and humble.
4. Writing sample is important. Be honest with what you turn in.
 
Rojas' *Grad School Rulz* is really worth picking up. 
 
Above all else: know exactly why one is getting into graduate school and express that one understands the expectations  of the institution (in other words, signal homo academicus habitus.)
 
Good luck all!

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  

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  

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...  

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 -.- 

I just woke up to an acceptance from UC Davis. I wasn't expecting it at ALL since it had pretty much quieted down for Davis. I thought my fate was sealed. The letter wasn't from the department, it was from the Dean of Graduate Studies so I'm thinking its probably not a funded offer. Either way, it gives me hope that maybe I'll get a funded offer from somewhere else. It's not over until its over. Keep your fingers crossed, everyone.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

An Introduction
 
All, 
 
 
My name is Jonathan, and I'm currently pursing my PhD in Literacy, with an emphasis on reading and writing in higher education. In other words, my entire academic career is focused on a single, overarching question: How can the difficulties of reading and writing in higher education (primarily graduate school) be demystified? Paired with my PhD work, my primary occupation is as a consultant to graduate students (to help with reading and writing in their disciplines) and faculty as to how they might teach reading and writing in their courses. I've done this for approximately 5 years.   I am thrilled to see such an amazing community here. I look forward to posting here, detailing my own struggles and helping others with theirs.    An Invitation   Given my research and experience, I feel like I have valuable knowledge to contribute to graduate students, both new and veteran students. I've created The Tao of Graduate School, a blog with the goal of demystifying much of graduate student life, based on my experience of teaching advanced reading and writing and the current research in literacy. In other words, the Tao seeks to show the way of reading, writing, and thriving in graduate school. I hope that The Tao of Graduate School can help all of you on your respective journeys.   Again, a huge thanks to all of you for already creating such an amazing community! I look forward to our conversations.    Best, Jonathan