Before I got a perfect verbal score on my GRE, I was planning to apply to second and third tier sociology programs. I'm now considering applying to a few top-tier sociology programs, including Berkeley and Stanford. My jr/sr GPA is 4.0 (in an interdisciplinary studies intellectual history major at UGA) and my GRE scores are 170 V, 158 Q, 4.0 AWA. I'm expecting to submit a strong writing sample and SOP, and pretty decent letters.
But because the top-tier school world is a little alien to me, I'm struggling to get a sense of my chances of admittance. Is this a reasonable ambition? Do the facts that I'm coming from a non-sociology major at a middling university and have a low AWA score mean a lot? Are they adequately compensated for? Can I count on the factor of my "life experience" of living and working in Asia for 3-4 yrs after graduating to help me?
Of course there isn't any magic formula for admittance, but I'd welcome input from anybody who has a better grasp of what it takes and maybe what to include or emphasize in my SOP to improve my chances.