socioholic

When I finished my masters I said i was never, ever, ever going back to school. to make a long story short: decided i wanted to study demography. i have a degree in sociology and loved every minute of it. i believe in signs. i decided that if i could go through this process (applying, GRE, getting recommendations, etc) and get accepted, that field (demography) is where i'm supposed to be. if i went through this and didn't get accepted, it would be a sign that i needed to stay on the track i was on.

If you don't get accepted and don't think you will apply again? Mine is project management (already in the field). Not trying to be negative. For me, applying was somewhat of a whim. I'm not 100% sure I can live with a student stipend but I believe if I get accepted, I will go.

well what you say...

I'm finding it harder to NOT use GRE words since I've been studying...

who feels like some of the qualitative answers for my practice tests are WRONG! LOL, this is why I have always preferred math. At most levels, the answer isn't open to interpretation.

Don't know about powerprep software. In Word, it inserts the em dash if you put a space before and after the dash ( like - this) and then continue typing. Someone said Word would do with with two hyphens but it hasn't done it for me. I'd guess as long as you include the spaces, the em dash would be implied....what application do you even type in when taking the test?

That sound like a good bit of studying to me. I wish I had more time - test is Sunday... great scores though.

I guess I'll join the mix. I'm applying for fall 2014 entry for a Phd in Sociology. Right now I'm working on my Interest Statement/Personal Statement/Statement of Purpose. I take the GRE in a couple weeks. My previous scores expired; I didn't study then and I did OK so I'm praying that if I put some time in to study now I can do much better to be competitive. I'm not a kid; been out of school for a while but my BS is in sociology, MS in something unrelated. Also finding a writing sample was rough. I have a paper I wrote for a thesis that never quite happened and it's too long for a couple of the schools so I have to cut some parts out. "Good fit" is an interesting dilemma as well. The good and bad thing about this field is that there are so many interesting questions to be answered. I think I would fall more into economic sociology which is not a theme for many departments.

Cup o'joe, you make a good point. I'm also married and I had to include my husband in the decision. He said he'd go whereever I went and he has been very supportive. I did something similar with him. 5-6 years is a long time. I have opened up my options though to consider some places I immediately rejected. In the end, I guess it doesn't really matter until I get an acceptance letter.

I can understand that; some of these places I'm kinda scared of. Is Chicago, Baltimore, etc. And I'm not sure how anyone could live on a stipend in San Fran or one of these more expensive college towns.

Anyone else not consider applying to "top" schools because you did not want to live there? I'm a life long Floridian and would stay if possible. I've also considered cost of living as a factor.