qeta
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Posts posted by qeta
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@Andromeda3921 As a fellow international student, I have to say that public universities have a lot of trouble paying for international students. Berkeley especially struggles in this regard. My Berkeley soc. advisor told me from the beginning to apply to a mix of public and private schools for this reason. Another option is to win doctoral fellowships and emphasize it in your SOP, and then the university doesn't have to worry about paying for you.
The low grad GPA (I'm a fellow sufferer in this respect) thing would be a red flag, so please contextualize it. In my SOP, I explicitly mentioned that McGill is famous for not inflating grades and cited Canada's Social Science and Humanities Research Council GPA cutoffs as proof. I also mentioned that I went from an uber-leftist undergrad school to the liberal-conservative mecca of McGill for grad school and it was a systems shock. At least one professor remembered this during my visit and we had a fantastic chat about these schools' different cultures. I called McGill "staid" in my SOP and didn't mention that I was harrassed by the professor who sank my grad GPA. So be strategic about how candid you want to be, but definitely definitely provide reasons for low grad GPA.
I also think Brown should perhaps be higher on your list because it and surrounding schools are hard to beat in terms of the number of South Asianists. Brown also has a dedicated institute on spatiality called Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4), which was begun and is run by the soc. department. Patrick Heller considers himself a comparativist and told me that Brown soc. has a long tradition of housing comparativists, so you have an advantage there. Cornell Development Sociology, though a niche program, could be a good fit. I can answer some questions about both departments, if you'd like. Stanford is quite quant-heavy and it's hard-but-not-impossible to survive as a qual person there according to one of my profs.
We have a lot of the same interests (spatiality, qual methodology, comparative sociology, sociology of development, and South Asia namely). So feel free to ask specific questions related to those things or more general questions here or through PM.- Andromeda3921 and AnnaGG
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@jriveracal Speaking from personal experience, good letters from Berkeley soc. profs and extensive research experience go a long way. These are the things people asked me about when I went to campuses on admitted student visit days: they asked how my Berkeley recommender was doing and mentioned what a glowing letter she wrote for me; they also inquired about my various research projects. I think if you bring up your GRE scores a bit more (in the mid-to-late 150s) and craft kick-ass writing samples (sometime you have the option to upload two), your chances would be excellent at any school. Feel free to ask any other questions you may have here or over PM.
I could also try to answer questions about Brown if anyone is interested, but at this point I have only spent a couple of days there when the faculty was putting on a good face.Edited to add that you should always opt for recommendation letters from professors or PhD-holding researchers who are employed at think tanks or institutes/ departments within universities, instead of TAs or GSIs who are graduate students.
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On 4/23/2018 at 8:24 AM, lorenzen said:
May I ask what your research interests are? I am curious!
My closest friend is an ISTJ and he is an extremely disciplined person with a good sense between right and wrong and is someone people can depend on. If you are anything like that, you would be a good person to have in a department. In a sea of "Intuitives" who dream a lot and get pretty lost in the clouds of thought, Sensing types can bring us down to earth and show us how to put policy into practice, make sure deadlines are followed, and conduct research with a rigorous eye for detail.
Or all of that which I wrote above could be B.S.!!! In either case, I do have a lot of fun with personality theory and I believe it can help us understand differences in schools and work places.
My research interests revolve around the co-formation and co-articulation of class, caste, ethnicity, and race over time and space in South Asia. I do a lot of thinking along the same lines in terms of North America and immigration/ racialization/ class formation as well and just started an additional project on the South Asian diaspora in North America (exciting, as well as terrifying even with a co-author!!). What do you work on?
I've never met a deadline I couldn't find a way to disregard, so I wish you were right about that aspect! But readers of my thesis and other writings generally comment that I'm a rigorous and careful scholar. My search for rigor often drives me nuts, so I get lost too - just in empirical details and the nitty-gritty of research design. You are also right about the praxis part: the real-world implications of my projects are generally the first to pop into my mind and sometimes I work backwards from policy implications to establishing puzzle too. But I really wish you were right about the deadlines, lol.
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Fit was not really a consideration for me, as I only applied to schools with very good fit. In the end, I chose the place with the best funding, placement record, and professionally collegial (non-cliquey) atmosphere.
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36 minutes ago, eastcoastkid said:
Although I originally wanted to go to CUNY, I don't know if I like the department culture there. Some people work outside and students have to teach their own classes at a CUNY college from second year. As far as I know, many don't get funding and work menial jobs. I felt cohort members don't really hang out together. I saw almost no collaboration between faculty members and students that resulted in publication at CUNY.
I wouldn't go to a department whose culture I don't like. Having a supportive cohort was extremely important to me, and I cut out many departments from my list because they encouraged competition between peers more than collaboration. Some people thrive in competition, but I find it stressful and unpleasant.
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I think April 15 is generally the last day to accept offers at all schools.
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I've been in your position before insofar as I was in a political science MA program and wanted to move into sociology for doctoral studies. I also recommend that you finish your current program and show your interest in and aptitude for sociology in other ways. My thesis cited a lot of sociologists and was built around a number of sociological theories. I also took 2 sociology classes, presented at sociology conferences, worked with sociologists on research projects, and got recommendation letters from sociologists. The recommendation letters were very important because people mentioned the sociologists who wrote them during my post-acceptance school visits. They also liked my writing samples and clearly thought of them as sociological works. Dropping out of programs could be a red flag for some people on adcomms, and so sticking with your current program while adjusting your research agenda towards sociology in some obvious ways may be a way forward.
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On 2/7/2018 at 7:47 PM, X.G said:
There are some fully/partially funded programs in sociology/social sciences I know: MA. in social sciences/computational social sciences at the University of Chicago, MA for sociology from Boston University, MA at DePaul etc. But I think @Madelene is also right in point out how difficult it is to get a fully funded offer for Master's programs. Plus, even if tuition can be waived, living as a student is still costly.
University of Toronto has a funded one-year MA program. They apparently get 150 applications and accept ten students per year.
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Dear @faculty, I hope you won't mind me posting some similar advice from my mentor. I just had a Skype call with her yesterday, in preparation for visiting three schools, and this is the advice she gave me:
- Make sure you are going to a program where at least two professors can advise you.
- Assign at least equal value on feedback from current grad students (vis-a-vis feedback from faculty) on sensitive issues like funding, professional development, and placement.
- If you're coming in with an MA, ask the department whether your previous thesis can take care of the MA paper requirement. If you have sufficient quant training, ask if you can take fewer introductory stats classes.
- Teaching load in the first and second year can hugely affect your progress in the program. A lower teaching load in those two years would ensure you have time to (almost) finish your coursework and prep for your comprehensive in the third year. Ask the department what possibilities there are for lessening your teaching loads, whether through fellowships within the department, an associated research centre or the university, research assistantships, grading work (instead of teaching), and outside funding (ask if students from the department routinely win external fellowship competitions).
Hope this helps!
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5 hours ago, crushinator said:
Where did you find this info, if you don't mind me asking? I'm curious about number of applications and acceptances at different schools, but I can't find anything like other people seem to be able to do.
Partly from rejection letter, partly from a current grad student in the program. When I was researching schools, a lot of them noted the average number of applications received on the FAQ page. Some departments mentioned the number of acceptances and expected cohort sizes (e.g.: Berkeley). You can also use the r-vest package on R to cull data from your schools of interest from the results page on this site and get an idea of average acceptance numbers. I can share my (rather inelegant) R code if you're interested.
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4 hours ago, ThePastelCalico said:
I need help, advice, or general good vibes. I don't want to feel this way, but I'm so scared of regretting my choice in attending a program like I regret going to my undergrad institution.
Hi @ThePastelCalico, I am sorry you're feeling so down about the Wisconsin rejection. I have also gone to schools that I regretted attending (ahem, McGill poli. sci.) and consequently am extremely stressed about making the right choice now. So I understand your feelings. At the same time, Wisconsin is a very highly ranked program that also admitted a very small pool of applicants this year due to funding issues. You not getting in only means that you weren't among the top eight applicants, not that you aren't capable of excellent sociology research. You must also take into account that you work on topics related to a very small subfield, as do I with my emphasis on sociology of development. Finally, I can't stress this enough: the academic caste system is real, whether one likes it or not. The only reason I could make the terrible situation at McGill work for me somewhat was because the McGill name (and my own research capacity) allowed me to network with folks at even higher ranked institutions through conferences, archival visits, and exchanges. Your supervisor and advisors/mentors at NC State can help you with this a lot. There are a lot of gatekeepers in academia who keep the caste system alive and thriving, along with many people who perhaps don't reflect on how the caste system is reproduced and thus end up benignly reproducing it. I have read about your research on this forum with a lot of interest and it seems great to me as someone who is also somewhat interested in environmental/ rural sociology. So keep doing the awesome work, take advantage of opportunities because signals of productivity and networking matter quite a lot, and use some strategies to get past the gatekeepers. We can also talk more via PMs.
- HMcneil, Mike_Novick and CandideCoating
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5 hours ago, faculty said:
Any student needs to go to the best place for them. To decide that, look at placements, look at funding, look at department culture, look at methodological training and professional development (publishing, grant writing, etc.), look at fit, but do not let the one star who you'd love to work with lure you in if there isn't enough offered in those other attributes to see you through to a PhD and a job.
How does one figure out whether the department has this? This has been hardest to determine by looking at department websites.
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I also transitioned into sociology, although from history and political science. Amassing research experience was key, as @European Lumpi suggested, and I mainly gained these through research internships offered through the exchange offices and policy-oriented centres at my BA and MA schools. Being able to demonstrate how my history and political science training prepared me for a sociology PhD was helpful too. Thankfully, my interest is in historical sociology, so I mentioned that studying history taught me to value archives and language training and political science taught me to approach questions like a social scientist and gave me the tools to learn quantitative methods. If you can articulate on the statement of purpose why your previous training makes you a good fit for sociology and especially to study your particular topic, I think it will make you a stronger candidate.
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On 2/16/2018 at 7:43 PM, Want_PHD said:
I also sympathize because--unless you're affiliated with a university--I can't imagine that you'll (1) have access to a library of publications to do research and (2)--if you did have publishable material--you won't be associated with a university, so would unlikely get published because of that. I've never seen any research article from a person not affiliated with either a university or some research institution/think thank place. I mention this because I'm worrying about the same thing. Not to mention how many times can you ask the same people to write LORs?
Just wanted to chime in here and post some resources. There are several places where academics with institutional affiliation share resources with independent researchers. I don't want to post the links on a public forum, but please feel free to pm me and I'll connect you. Researchers also upload a lot of material on ResearchGate and Academia.edu. Here is UCSB's list of open access sources: https://www.library.ucsb.edu/scholarly-communication/open-access-repositories. eScholarship is particularly good.
Also posting some *maybe* helpful links for folks trying to publish who don't have supervisors to guide them. It is hard to publish while unaffiliated, but not unheard of perhaps.* For researching the review process and turnaround time for various journals: http://www.socjobrumors.com/journals.php; http://turnaround.wikidot.com/; https://scirev.org/
* Impact factors are really hard to judge. I tend to look at where my favourite up-and-coming researchers are publishing, make a list of common journals, and then rate them from highest to lowest impact factor using http://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php.
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1 hour ago, Socioeconnut said:
I doubt I will get in anywhere else, Columbia is the school where I invested the most time, effort and actually forged relationships over the past year. They offered me the terminal MA but it would be my second and my POI and multiple other faculty members told me the curriculum would be redundant and the tuition a waste (not to mention the cost of childcare in order to even take on a FT course load). I will wait to hear back from the other programs but this may be the end of my PhD journey without any type of institutional or financial backing. Academia will be another one of those avenues I would have pursued if I could afford it ?
Hi @Socioeconnut, I'm truly sorry to hear about Columbia. Since you mentioned getting a fellowship before, I've known people who got doctoral fellowships but were not accepted to programs during the same year. They were able to defer the fellowship for a year and apply again; having it on their CV definitely helped during the next application cycle. Just mentioning it since it seems like your profile for next year is already stronger than this year's.
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Congrats @WinterIcedLatte @wildflower21, @runningincircles, and @Baffle on your acceptances!!! Since my cycle is over, I'm going to go into lurker mode. Thank you so much to everyone on this forum for supporting each other - I've appreciated this little haven more than you know. If I can help in any way, even by just listening, please shoot me a pm.
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54 minutes ago, Law&Soc88 said:
That is amazing! May I ask how did you do that? Did you enroll in a program? Did you just speak to professors to attend their clases?
I had been planning to convert my history undergrad thesis into a sociological work for a while because I had established the phenomenon/ research puzzle in a very social scientific way. Luckily, the only development sociologist at Berkeley did a lot of agrarian work. So I read one of her books over the summer and then went to the first day of her class to introduce myself. She gave me permission to enroll in the class, really enjoyed my project and class contributions, and then asked me to enroll in a reading course with her the next semester. I know that I got lucky and was privileged too, because not everyone gets to "just" move to Berkeley: I did it because McGill was such a dumpster fire of an experience and my partner was doing his post-doc at UCB/UCSF.
Edited to say that while I was at Berkeley, I was also able to audit classes and go to free talks and workshops. Those were enormously helpful. I even got an interview for my MA thesis from one of the invited speakers at the South Asia Center.
A second edit because I just got into JHU and have apparently got a fellowship at Brown that covers the entire first year! -
3 minutes ago, AnnaGG said:
Congratulations! So that was you! I was looking at the stellar stats of the Brown admit in the results and wondering if it's possible for a mortal to be that bright.
Haha, I haven't posted on the results page yet. My stats are less-than-stellar, but like @Socioeconnut I took advantage of living in the Bay Area by taking classes at UCB and my two writing samples were good.
- Goldie and Socioeconnut
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34 minutes ago, Socioeconnut said:
This really did brighten the morning, congratulations!!!
Thank you for the congratulations, @Socioeconnut. I'm sorry to hear about Harvard.
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17 minutes ago, ThePastelCalico said:
Thank you! It’s no Brown, but it’s the whole “a great advisor can overcome a lower ranked institution” thing you know? Shriver is so great.
For somebody like Shriver to offer to be your supervisor is a great sign and will mitigate the ranking issue. Wherever you decide to go, I hope we'll run into each other on conferences since we have some overlapping interests.
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3 minutes ago, ThePastelCalico said:
Congrats!
Congrats on Utah and Shriver!!!!!
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Programs in Applied Sociology
in Sociology Forum
Posted · Edited by qeta
I have some friends in McGill soc. and the funding is poor for all students there, period. Montreal is a cheap and fun city to live in, however. Toronto soc. is well-funded and has a large department. York soc. is quite a good department, but does struggle to fund international students and has the least global portability in terms of job prospects afterwards. If you do decide to apply to Toronto or York, you could look into Ontario Trillium Fellowship for International Students and ask the departments if they would be willing to nominate you. The application process in Canada can be viewed as more of a negotiation than the US ones, in my experience.
UMass Boston has a good applied sociology program. My friend got his MA there and that work landed him in UCB soc. And you can't beat Boston in terms of location because there are so many excellent schools in the surrounding area and they have so many South Asianists.