Hoplolly

Hello, good people! I've been a lurker on this forum for the past year or so, but I'm finally hunkering down and starting the application process for grad school (to apply this winter for Fall 2014 admission). I've been out of school for a fairly long time (eight years), so I'm a little unsure of... well, everything. May I spin you a little tale and solicit some advice? UNDERGRAD I attended an undergrad institution that gave written evaluations instead of grades and had programs instead of classes. Recently, I ordered a copy of my transcript to see what was what, and it seems really good. Out of about 15 evaluations, only two of them gave any "constructive criticism," but it was still couched in very positive reflections on my performance. So I believe that if someone had quantitative intentions with this, I'd be in the 3.7-3.9 range. My "focus" (no majors) was on political science and literature. I did two independent studies (one on post-structuralism and one on Argentine poetry of the 1970s & 80s) and traveled to Cuba for another class. I took no "sociology" classes, but all of my political science classes had an interdisciplinary approach that integrated world-systems theory, intersectionality, etc. TEST-TAKING I haven't taken the GREs yet, but I typically do really well on standardized tests. I plan on studying a lot, as well. WRITING SAMPLE Since my undergrad college favored group discussion and constant (short) seminar-paper writing, I didn't come out of it with a strong, long paper. I have begun the research process to write a paper on how the public conversation about abortion has shifted in the past decade. There are a million directions I'm thinking about going with this, but I'd like to know first what the forum thinks about writing a paper for my application that does not include original research. I'm confident I can produce something that showcases my skills in researching, synthesizing ideas, proposing challenges and questions, etc., but is that enough? If so, should I make an effort to cite work from faculty I hope to work with, or is that pandering? SOP I've gained a lot of "life experience," but I'm not sure if it's good enough for the programs I'd like to attend. I have no think-tank on my resume, no research experience, no long-term volunteering gig. Things I did do: I started and ran a farm for a year; I WWOOFed across New Zealand for five months; I got arrested at Occupy; I spent six months in Mexico with a lot of weird people; I worked as a proofreader of mostly academic texts (philosophy, sociology, political science) for the better part of five years; I worked at an AIDS non-profit for two and a half years. I'm a high-school drop-out. I have six siblings and a weird, broken-but-whole family. Does all this garbage a sociologist candidate make? ACADEMIC INTERESTS This is one thing I'm kind of worried about. I've read on the forum that you should have strong but flexible interests, which exhausts me conceptually. I'm very interested in issues of reproductive health and women/mothers in the workplace. I am ALSO very interested in: the creation and efficacy of social movements; effects of technology on identity construction and social connectedness; public perceptions of scientific discoveries (with overlaps into philosophy); and whatever else I happen to be reading about. I'm writing the paper on abortion because that's an *enduring* interest, but I'm not sure if that's something I want to study exclusively for the next seven years, then again for the next thirty. So, while I'm finding a lot of people I would want to work with on that particular subject, I'm worried about being pigeon-holed. SCHOOLS/FACULTY So far, these are the places I've done some preliminary research on. There's still a few places I want to look into, but I would love to hear people's responses to this list. Am I aiming too high? Is it unrealistic for me to have so many top-tier schools on the list? What other programs/faculty should I investigate? Am I finding the right people at these places? Are there any full profs out there whose focus (like Robb Willer) is more conceptual, with a wider variety of research-subject foci? UC Santa Cruz (Deborah Gould, Marcia Millman, Jennifer Reardon) UC Berkeley (Robb Willer, Kristin Luker, Barrie Thorne) UW Madison (Myra Marx Ferree) UT Austin (Christine Williams, Jennifer Glass, Pamela Paxton) Johns Hopkins (Andrew Cherlin, Beverly Silver [<--probably wouldn't work it me, tho] UM Ann Arbor (Jennifer Barber, Elizabeth Armstrong, Pamela Smock) Stanford (Shelley Correll, Cecilia Ridgeway) UNC Chapel Hill (seems like a good program, but didn't really see faculty who'd want me) Okay, thank you SO SO much for any advice you can give me. I'm sure this won't be the last time I post, but I thought I'd get the big stuff out of the way in one fell swoop. xo