Milkman95th

Just to make sure, you mean the University of British Columbia when you say UBC right? If so, then just message me your questions as I am a current UBC graduate student (sociology).

Interdisciplinary undergrad. In my app I did the traditional proposal, but also attached a one page write up explaining how well I was prepared for sociology (any projects I did related, intro soc. books I had read, and of course name dropped some famous and obscure sociologists – had my bases covered). Needless to say, I got it.

As an American in a Canadian school (UBC), I can tell you that York has a great reputation overall as a school (from a Canadian perspective). But, I am not sure about the sociology dept in particular.

This post of mine should sum up my thoughts on sociology and what it should be about. http://hubpages.com/hub/Sociology-The-Leftovers-Discipline

I am an American who went to Canada (UBC) for an M.A. From what I have heard and seen, people do pretty well. A lot of people who graduate with PhDs get jobs (at least offers) in Canada and USA (about 50-50). However, one thing is for sure, they LOVE international students. Seriously, at my school they will pull you out of a crowd to get you here. They are trying to have their graduate student population be made up of 25% international students by 2015. If you apply, you will probably most certainly get it. My cohort had I think about 10 people and 5 of us were non-Canadians. Also, by love, I mean they pay my tuition and pay me a nice chunk of change for being a TA. If you have any questions, send them to me.

Yesterday (Thursday), I got a letter from the University of British Columbia offering me admission to their sociology program. In addition, they said they would be willing to offer me at least $20,914 for my first year of graduate study in the M.A. program and at least $10,914 for the second year. $10,000 of the first year’s money is from a graduate scholarship and they are also offering me a full teaching assistant (TA) position for years 1 and 2. I will post more tomorrow, but for everyone who is on waitlists (like I was) there is hope, because you can actually get in as I have shown. Good luck.

No timeline. They just said they would not know about the status of their current offers until March 19th, which was a while ago.

On March 5th I asked the school (see sig.) if they had made admissions decisions yet. They emailed me back quickly and said that I had been put on the waitlist. Also, they asked me to keep them informed on competing offers. On March 12th I emailed them and told them that they were the one school I wished to attend. However, I have not heard anything from them since and I am to paranoid/nervous to contact them again. Any ideas? Should I just wait and see what happens or try and contact them again.

I contacted the school I am waitlisted on two weeks ago and told them they were my number one choice and have yet to hear anything from them. Now I am paranoid to contact them again, fearing that I already annoyed them once before. However, my guess would be that I could be moved up on the waitlist by contacting them. I would think an admissions committee would be more interested in someone who has already selected their school as the one they want to go to over someone who is comparing offers from multiple schools (with moderate interest). But then again, I am not on a ad committee, so I could be wrong.

I emailed the University of British Columbia last week asking if they had admissions decisions yet. They responded quickly and said that I had been waitlisted and that they would like to make me an offer of admission (pending funds). At the end of the email they asked me to keep them posted about competing offers. Because I had none, I told them that they were the one school I wished to attend (to let them know I am seriously interested in attending). However, it has been six days now and no response. I only wrote a couple of sentences, should I have said more? They said they would not know about the status of their current offers in March 19th. Should I be worried or just wait? Thanks.

I am in the same boat as you coffeeandtoast. I am waitlisted by the University of British Columbia and have no one to decline as I was not accepted anywhere.

First, I did not mean to offend anyone nor was I trying to do so with my comments. Like captiv8ed said, I was simply trying to state an “empirical fact” regarding higher education. The simple fact is that higher education has always been for the privileged. From the Greek academies to today’s institutions – they are setup to allow only a select, small percentage of the population in. There are a few million graduate students worldwide out of an eligible population of billions, which means the few attending are a privileged minority. However, it does not matter if you are rich or poor or in between, higher education either elevates or maintains your social standing (we are all aware of the benefits of a graduate degree). Lastly, everything seems to have gotten personal in this thread. There is no need to make personal comments about people when we should just be making general statements and if you want you can bring in your personal experiences to supplement your point (as many have). How my application was brought up is news to me. Since it was, I figuring I will quickly explain it. I graduated in June with an American history degree with the intentions of going to graduate school in museum studies, as I planned to pursue a career as a curator. However, about six months before I graduated, I decided to create a senior project about the state of higher education (for reasons to long to mention). After I was done with the project, I had professors and heads of departments begging me (literally) to join their graduate policy studies program. But, I did not want a policy studies degree. For some reason or another, I had a weird desire to want a sociology degree. Having never taking any sociology classes with almost no background in the field, I applied anyway. Out of the two schools I applied for, I was waitlist by one and rejected by the other. For the past year or so I have been reading as much about sociology as I can on my own. Obviously it paid off, because I was waitlisted by a program that highly desires a sociology undergraduate degree to be admitted to the program. To top it off, I did not even take the GRE. I worked my ass off to get into the program like many say they have to. Yet, it does not eliminate the fact that higher ed. is for the privileged. I (we) are exceptions to the rule.

I should have never said this knowing the controversy it would create.

Just because you are from Asia does not mean you can’t be privileged. One of the schools I hope to go to is in a location heavily populated by wealthy people from Asia. You are correct that there are measures in place to allow poorer people into school, but they are not that effective. For example, I am extremely poor compared to most in grad school. I could only apply to a few schools that are close to where I live because of this. Also, being poorer limits your opportunities. For instance, I am applying to a program going against people with Ivy League degrees and resumes of work/research experience. On the other hand, I am applying with a degree from a public school with no relevant work experience, because I had to make a living to support myself/family. In addition, I have student loan payments to make for the next 5-10 years ($15,000 in debt from undergrad) that may stop me from even going to grad school because I cannot afford to do both at the same time. To put it into perspective, the chances of me going from the USA to Asia for school are almost impossible. However, you are coming from Asia to I assume the USA, which would mean you have some level of wealth because you are able to do so or you are one of the few underprivileged that got lucky and was able to obtain full financial assistance. So, I guess privileged is in how you want to define it. P.S. I think I may have gotten us off the topic of the thread.

Thanks for the reply. I only applied to two schools, with full intentions of going to whichever one let me in. Thankfully (I guess), I did not have to pick between the two as the other school already said no. Because of this, UBC has become the one school I wish to attend. I did mention the fact that I only applied to two schools in my application, so they know that. I am just wondering if I should flat out say that UBC is my primary (only) school I wish to attend.

You are right about the things out of my control. However, I have to ask you a question about something you said. You said, “…there were quite a few people who were weighing a few options and might turn them down.” Because this is the only school I did not get rejected from, should I let them know that I have no other options. I ask this because they asked me to inform them of any competing offers I received. Since I have none, should I tell them they are the only ones that I am interested in? Thanks.

I emailed the school yesterday and they got back to me quickly. They said admissions decisions were made last week and I did not get in, but I was put on the wait list. They said they were “very impressed” with my application and would like to offer me admission if possible (funding issues). They said they would not have any new info until after the 19th. I guess I will have to wait and see.

This thread is for people who made bonehead mistakes during their application process. I will start with mine and hopefully others will add. My mistake was when I decided to contact a school outside of my state. Thinking that I could never go to this school because of out of state tuition (I was unfamiliar with all of the perks of grad school, tuition waivers, etc.), I decided to contact them anyway just to strike up a conversation. Anyway, after one professor referred me to another I eventually landed on the one. This one was extremely interested in my work; he even asked to see any of my undergraduate papers I had on the subject. He was apparently so enthused with what he saw that after one email, said he would love to be my advisor in grad school. However, there was a minor conflict of interest in how to go about the research and we eventually decided to part ways. This was aided by the fact that I thought I could not afford to go there anyway because of the tuition. Flash forward to the present and I was rejected from all of the programs I applied for. Not only that, but none of the many professors I contacted showed any interest in my work. I was a lock to get into a program and turned it down because of a minor difference in methodology and my ignorance regarding grad school tuition. Would it be too pathetic to go crawling back on my knees with a dunce cap on and beg for forgiveness? Anyone beat this or relate to it?

Higher education has always been for the privileged and it certainly still is today. Sucks, but true.

I only applied to two schools this year, figuring I would get into at least one (arrogance or confidence?) and I have so far been rejected by one and assuming the other will soon follow suit. One thing that I noticed is that having reread my personal statement after months of hiding, it really sucked. At the time of writing it I thought a Pulitzer was coming with my name on it, but in reality there was a lot of room for improvement. To learn from my mistakes, I would tell you to put a big gap between the time you write your personal statement(s) and send it off. Lastly, everyone who got in or was wait-listed, for the most part, seemed to have some sort of conversation going on with the schools they applied for during the application process. They were getting phone calls or emails from perspective advisors. I on the other hand, who waited by the phone like a sixteen year old girl, never got a call. Moral of that story, if you hear as much back from the school you applied to as your neighbor who works for the port authority, you probably did not get in. P.S. I have been unemployed for over a year and half, plus I got rejected from grad school. Beat that for the pit of despair.

Anyone hear anything yet?

Yep, our suspicions were correct. I got an automated rejection letter today via email. Classy.

My guess is they send out acceptance and wait list letters first, then rejection letters at the end. I live down the road from the campus and have not heard anything from them. Looks like I am not going there.

My guess is that we should have heard something by now if we were to have gotten in. I say this because someone has posted that they got in on the results part of the form and it looks like they have added a bunch of graduate profiles to their web page. Also, I only live 25 miles from the campus, so if they mailed the results I should have gotten them first. Better luck next time.

I went to UW as an undergrad and I talked too many of the professors in the department about what the program was like and all of them said that it is super quantitative. One professor in particular told me that there are only a few people who have a social interest in sociology within the department.