EdPolicy

Congratulations, pl0x, I got into UCLA as well. I am super excited!

It's among my top choices, but funding is a serious consideration and I have not gotten any information about this so far. I know a lot of people are in the same boat. There's an interdisciplinary training program I'd really like to take part in at Wisconsin, so I hope I'm accepted to that in addition to the Sociology department. Time will tell!

Bummer!

I just got into WISCONSIN! (Posted on results page.) This was among my top choices!!!! Congratulations to focused, Berkeley is absolutely outstanding.

I also applied to University of Michigan, but I applied for the joint program in public policy and sociology.

Undergrad: Good liberal arts school, sociology/economics double major, GPA ~3.8 Interests: quantitative methods/statistics, social policy applications of sociology, soc of education GRE: 760Q/730V/5.5AWA - don't have the percentiles in front of me at the moment Research experience: 3 years as an RA at a policy think tank after graduation (not sure if this is applicable?) Applied to: Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Wisconsin, Chicago, Michigan, Columbia, Princeton, Harvard (sociology and social policy & sociology) and UPenn I'd also like to add that for a long time, I wanted to attend a Ph.D. program in economics. There is a very active forum at http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/ that I referred to during that time, and people are very open about posting their stats as we are trying to do here. In economics, it seems like there is a very defined Q score you need on the GRE (800) and other than that, people sharing their stats did little to help me understand where I stood in this process. I think it is a noisy and random process, so please no one get discouraged by the different stats that people are posting here. It's hard to quantify your writing sample, statement of purpose, and letters of rec, and we all know that these are important parts of the application.

Thanks for looking into that, LJ, did you apply for sociology or sociology/social policy? (or both?)

I just made one document out of my CV and writing sample, and mine was over 20 pages as well, because that's about how long my writing sample was by itself. You've made me worry a bit...but I do think it's fine as long as you're close. They can stop reading after 20 pages if they feel like it.

I have similar interests as yours - I think you should check out Wisconsin, Princeton (they have a joint degree program in social policy and sociology), Harvard (social policy and sociology) and University of Michigan (a similar program there as well).

I'm feeling the same way! I applied to Berkeley as well, after missing the announcement that the PhD program in Sociology & Demography was not accepting applications this year (http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/degrees/admissions.shtml). How did I manage that?! The graduate secretary in Demog forwarded my application to the Sociology department, but we'll see what happens from there. Best of luck to everyone!

Chicago, I'm at the tail end of turning in 10 applications of my own. I feel your pain ($$). In doing my applications, I have definitely seen spaces on some (today, Columbia, although I remember there being others) that had a section where one could apply for an application fee waiver. I do not know the criteria that they use to approve this, but I think it is worth a try! If you tell me which schools you're applying to, I am happy to help you look into this for some of them. Best of luck, EdPolicy

Professor X, I am an applicant to the University X Sociology Ph.D. program for Fall 2010. I have received mixed advice about whether to contact faculty members at schools one is interested in, and I respect that you are busy, so please feel free to disregard this email as you deem appropriate. A brief background of myself - I have my BA in sociology and economics from XXXXX College and have some mathematical training. I have worked for two years at XXXX in XXXX as a research assistant and statistical programmer. I have mainly worked on large-scale education evaluations, and as a result have become interested in both education policy issues and statistical methods used in the field of education. The existence of the XXX program and the XXXX are the two main reasons I am interested in applying to University X, and I know you are involved in both of these entities. I have two questions for you: (1) Do you think my perception is correct that the University X Sociology program is a good fit for someone who is interested in doing sociological research about inequality in access and achievement in education? (2) Are you actively advising students in the Sociology program? I would appreciate any insight you can give me; please let me know if you need more information from me before you respond. Thank you in advance for your time. All the best, EdPolicy ***** EDIT: I have sent some variant of the above 4 professors whose work I was sincerely interested in, and got positive response from 3 out of 4 of them. I have no idea whether this is the appropriate format to do this sort of thing, but I think it has been working so far.

I would respectfully like to point out that you can take it once per calendar month, up to 5 times in one year. I cannot locate this information on the ETS website in the few minutes that I have, but I know I took the GRE twice with less than a month between the two testings. Just FYI, so taking this once is not a do-or-die situation!

I studied quite extensively for the GRE, but I was originally anticipating applying to economics graduate programs and I was shooting for an 800 on the math section. For me, this required a lot of studying. I don't think anyone can tell you how much *you* need to study for the GRE - people vary in their ability at standardized tests and what their target score is. (There are other places on this forum where people have posted the scores required of some of the top programs, if you're curious.) I do think you can change your test date for $50, so if you think this sitting is going to be a waste for you, it could be worth it. Check the ETS website for specific details. If you go ahead with this and only have the last minute to study, I would recommend looking at some practice GREs (if you do not feel like buying a practice book, you can just go to a bookstore and sit down with one for a couple of hours) and make sure you have the directions down cold so that you do not have to spend any time reading them when you are taking the test. For example, it helped me to memorize the answer choices on the quantitative comparisons in the math section - (a) Column A is bigger ( Column B is bigger © They're the same and (d) Not enough information. Knowing how each type of analytic writing essay is set up is another example of a time-saver. Hope these last-minute tips helped, and good luck!

Hi all, I'm applying this round as well - my interests are broadly in social policy-related topics (education, etc.), as well as inequality/stratification. I'm 24 and have a BA in soc and economics, and I've worked for 2 years as a statistical programmer at a social policy research firm. I've gotten good research experience, but I'm pumped to go back to school and dive right in. I'm still working on where to apply (see my other "evaluate my profile" thread where I'm freaking out a bit), but I'm hoping to go somewhere with a solid policy school in addition to a good sociology program. Great to meet all of you, glad this source of support is available! Best of luck to all. ~EdPolicy

Now that activity on this board is starting to pick up a bit - does anyone have anything helpful to tell me? Thanks so much in advance for your time.

Thanks so much for clarifying, that's one thing off the list.

I thought this was great advice, but I'm struggling with whether this writing sample would be appropriate. I have an decent 18-20 page paper that I did for an econometrics class for my econ major that presented a somewhat interesting research question (did race riots in the 1960s have a demonstrably disproportionate labor market effect for black men?), reviewed the existing literature thoroughly, and used simple OLS regressions. However, the paper is clearly looking at things through an economics lens - Is this entirely inappropriate? I'm not sure I wrote anything this sophisticated for a sociology class. Do ya'll think this would be okay as is, would be better to try to refine this paper to put a more sociological slant on it, or should I scrap it entirely and do something new? Sorry for all the questions today.

Hi all, I am brand new to this forum, as I have only recently decided that I wanted to pursue graduate education in sociology. I wanted to do economics for a long time, but have re-evaluated this decision when I realized that a lot of great research in the policy world is done by sociologists, and that I think I would truly enjoy the coursework in a sociology program more. Sociology was my first love, and it's definitely not "settling on it" instead of economics; in fact, I have been very excited about this whole process ever since I made this decision. My main questions for you all, to get me started, are as follows: (1) Do I stand a chance at getting into some of the top sociology programs that have nice "discipline plus" tie-ins with policy schools? (U Michigan's Public Policy/Sociology Dual Degree program, Harvard's program in Sociology & Social Policy, and Princeton's joint degree in Social Policy/Sociology are the three I've found; let me know if you are aware of others). (2) What are some good programs with a quantitative focus where people are doing solid policy work, particularly in education? Who are these people? If there are any older forum posts that it would be easier to refer me to, please let me know. I browsed around a bit, but there are so many old posts to wade through that I am afraid I might have generated a re-post here. Thanks in advance for your time. ~EdPolicy About me Undergrad: Liberal arts college, double major in sociology and economics GPA: 3.8/4.0, probably slightly higher if you only count my junior/senior years GRE: 710 V/760 Q/5.5 AWA Research experience: 2 years as an RA at a well-respected social policy research firm doing statistical programming (mostly SAS, some work with Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) software, Stata, and SPSS); no publications in my name, but I've gotten good experience LoRs: No one famous, but the letters should be strong - probably two undergraduate professors, 1 econ and 1 sociology (UW-Madison), and one researcher from my current job (Ph.D. econ) who can attest to my research experience. Question - Is it better to have sociologists write your recs, or are these economists acceptable?