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HKK

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HKK last won the day on May 1 2010

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    Top 20 East Coast School
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    Sociology/Demography

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  1. For students deciding on graduate schools this fall, I thought I'd provide some additional information on recent rankings by the National Research Council. From the NRC, "the data, collected for the 2005-2006 academic year from more than 5,000 doctoral programs at 212 universities, cover such characteristics as faculty publications, grants, and awards; student GRE scores, financial support, and employment outcomes; and program size, time to degree, and faculty composition. Measures of faculty and student diversity are also included." Here is the link to the full report (free, just requires an email address): http://www.nap.edu/rdp/ Here are the rankings for the top 20 universities using the 5th percentile S ranking. The methodology goes into detail about the difference between the 5th and 95th percentile rankings, but the 5th percentile rankings are what is generally reported. The rankings are pretty different from the US News and World Report Rankings, but the excel file for the report is nice, because you can sort on things that are important to you, such as program size, diversity, time to degree, etc. etc. Also note that some really specific sociology programs (i.e. social policy, demography) are listed, but you can also filter those out in the excel file if you choose. 1 HARVARD UNIVERSITY Social Policy 1 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Sociology 3 HARVARD UNIVERSITY Sociology 3 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Sociology 3 PENN STATE UNIVERSITY Sociology 4 DUKE UNIVERSITY Sociology 5 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY Population and Family Health Sciences 5 UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI Sociology 5 PENN STATE UNIVERSITY Demography 6 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR Sociology 6 UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA - LINCOLN Sociology 6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRAN Sociology 7 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN Sociology 8 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN NEW YORK Sociology 8 U OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL Sociology 10 STANFORD UNIVERSITY Sociology 11 OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS Sociology 13 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Sociology 14 UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE Sociology 15 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN Human & Community Development 15 BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY Sociology 16 BROWN UNIVERSITY Sociology 16 CORNELL UNIVERSITY Sociology 16 PENN STATE UNIVERSITY Rural Sociology 18 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY Sociology 18 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY Health, Behavior and Society 19 UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA Sociology 20 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON Sociology 20 INDIANA UNIVERSITY-BLOOMINGTON Sociology Hope this is helpful!
  2. Who is at Texas A&M that does sports stuff? I ask because I went to undergrad there a few years ago in Sociology and can only think of one person who is definnitly a race person with some sports stuff mixed in.
  3. Funnily enough, we did speak honestly, and he laughed when he saw all of the animosity directed at me. "They didn't understand you at all!" He's decided to accept the offer, but he's only going to finish the masters at the school that gave him the offer, which after I pushed him, he negotiated up. He's also planning on applying for several paid internships, and jobs in the area to supplement his income and resume. He understands where I was coming from, and said he can't promise he'll be okay with following me in 10 years, but that we aren't there yet and I just need to slow down and focus on the present. Which he's right, but it's not typical of most type-A people to live in the moment. So we'll see, but hopefully we can make it work, even with our very different career goals. I love him a lot, and he loves me, and in the end, that matters more than any career. edit: Also, thank you for your nice reply. I'm not quite sure why I got so much venom, but I thought the best thing to do was to respond to everyone's thoughts.
  4. Wow... so my original post got a lot of hostility, and I've been busy so I haven't checked back in a while, but I just wanted to respond to everyone at once after I've had a while to think everyone's comments over. 1. I apologize if I came across big-headed in my posts, I can definitely see how they could be read that way. I would say that I have been lucky and blessed to be admitted to a great school, and have worked hard, but I wouldn't say that "I'm all that". None of y'all know my friends, who could confirm this to you, so I guess you'll just have to give this other internet forum person the benefit of the doubt. I'm giving everyone here the benefit of the doubt that they were just trying to provide constructive advice and not personally attack me. I mean, hey, how great can I be academically if I can't even express myself well in an internet forum? 2. I love my partner. I don't think I expressed that well in any of my comments. He is amazing. And I am very lucky to have someone who is willing to follow me around. My concern (which I did a poor job of expressing) is how as a female having a trailing spouse can impact a relationship. Yes, he is comfortable with it right now at this stage in our careers. Will he be in 10 years? Also, the difficulty of women negotiating positions for their trailing spouses when they come into new departments at R1s concerns me. 3. Two years doesn't seem like a big deal to most people in this thread, but most of you acknowledge that LDRs are strains on a relationship. The concern about the two years behind has more to do with LDRs than with.... well whatever I was accused of. It seems that I have personally offended some people, and I'm not sure why, but I obviously didn't do a very good job at expressing my true feelings in my first post. Mostly I'm concerned that my partner is accepting a position that is below him (because I think he's great and worth more!) and that it is eventually going to create more strain on our relationship by continuing the long distance relationship. I hope I clarified my position. I don't know if I need any more advice from everyone, but I just wanted to clarify something that managed to get so many people riled up.
  5. 1. He hasn't had to sacrifice anything. We've only been in a long distance relationship thus far. 2. We definitely are in different fields, and because we're both interested in academia, and I'm a female, our goals will always differ slightly. I will always be held back by having children, no matter how much I want them, and he will always be advanced in his career if we reproduce. 3. It's hard to catch up when someone is 2 years behind you in grad school. Getting a Ph.d. in 3 years... not common. Plus these would be 3 additional years of long distance. 4. His attitude is that everything is great, and he doesn't seem to grasp that his grad school trajectory isn't the same as mine. He keeps talking about how great things are going to be with this offer he got (which realistically, he would have to live rent free with some relatives to make it work) or how 3 hours apart is so much better than 24 and how I can come see him all the time now (HA! In a comps year?!)
  6. I would love advice and perspectives from both males and females on this one. I'm currently in a relationship with a great guy. He's applying to graduate school this fall, whereas I am finishing up my second year. I'm also currently at a top 5 program in my discipline with full funding, I just received an NSF GRFP, I have a prestigious internship this summer, and I finished my masters thesis a semester early. By most measures in my department I am considered highly successful. The fact that our grad school trajectories haven't matched up has been hard, and we've been long distance for a year. Things are still going well, and he applied to a bunch of schools nearby... but with the market the way it is, he's only gotten one offer so far. And to be honest.... it's practically slave wages. He's already got quite a few loans from undergrad (I have none) and I am very hesitant about him taking out more that he would need to survive. I'm not sure what his next move is at this point, and things are really up in the air. Although things have been good up until now, it's hard for me to relate or give my boyfriend advice about his graduate career. Sometimes I worry that he will resent my success some day. At this rate, the way things are going, he would be the trailing spouse, the spousal hire. This is a reality that would be impossible for me to cope with, but I'm not sure he thinks of success the same way I do. So my question is... how do other people cope with success differentials in a relationship? And to my male colleagues, would you honestly be comfortable with a partner who is more successful than you are in the long run? I'm a social scientist, I can take the reality, so don't be afraid to be truthful guys.
  7. I would caution students from using identifying information (names) as their grad cafe names. Grad students in the current programs troll these boards, and we know what you're saying before/after you show up. Just be smart about using the internet. GradCafe is a great resource, but I think people are a bit loose with some of the information they share here. I would also echo what everyone else has been saying about GRE scores. GRE scores seem to only really matter if they are low. If you know you aren't good at taking tests like the GRE, take a class and take it early and often to increase your score. Just remember, regression to the mean! If you scored well the first time, don't retake it, because it's not likely you will score higher.
  8. I would make it VERY explicit to whomever you want to work with that you will be doing qualitative work and see how they react. When I mentioned it on my visit it was almost like I'd said a dirty word or cursed in front of them. I'm highly quantitative, but I also think support for mixed methods is an important quality for a department to have. Ironically, I chose my other highly quantitative school on my list and I've done just fine. Again though, I love numbers, I get numbers, I love stats, and qualitative work was more of an afterthought. My friends in the dept have told me the "support" for qualitative work is laughable though.
  9. HKK

    College Station, TX

    I'm surprised at how negative the posts are about College Station here. I would like to provide an alternative to the doomsday aspects painted here. I went to undergrad there and I loved it, despite being as liberal as you get. As a graduate student, I think you are shielded from a lot of the negative aspects people are talking about on this board. Also, to people that complain that the housing market or bus system is bad... you are DELUSIONAL! Wait until you move some place where the housing market really sucks (State College, PA; Washington DC) and then you'll realize how great you had it. Having a bus system that is completely free is absolutely unheard of anywhere else. I'd be happy to answer any questions, I go back to visit frequently, and I'm acquainted with a lot of the "counter-culture" aspects to what people are describing on this board. i.e.: the gay community, the minority community, activities NOT at Northgate, etc. I also lived in both Bryan and College Station, so I can speak to the pros and cons of both.
  10. HKK

    NSF GRFP 2009-2010

    It really isn't. Something similar happened to me last year (one reviewer kept talking about a study abroad I never went on) and the NSF was all "too bad, so sad". Bureaucracy at it's worst.
  11. HKK

    NSF GRFP 2009-2010

    The shock of winning is finally starting to wear off. Still beyond excited! I feel bad for some people that are saying they can't attend school or are going to have to teach because they didn't get this. I have guaranteed 5 years of funding, so this basically just bought me out of 3 years of it. It gives me some negotiating room if I want to stay a 6th year I suppose. I'm a little embarrassed to post my stats, because they seem so much lower than everyone elses, but if it can help someone applying in the future, then it will be worth it. Field: Sociology (IM/BI): E/E; E/VG; VG/E GRE V700,Q690 Undergrad GPA 3.53 No pubs in my current field (an undergrad pub in a major journal in a different field), and 2 presentations at major conferences I used the same personal statement and research experience as last year, despite my terrible reviews because I was short on time. Mostly I updated them, and added more broader impacts to my proposal. I'd be happy to send any of my essays to other sociologists who want to apply next year. Send me a private message. I'm still in shock, because I was so cynical after last year. They didn't send out my rejection email until June, and then one of my reviewers complained about my study abroad in the Netherlands.... which I NEVER WENT ON!!!! I swore I wasn't going to apply again, but I'm so happy I did! Congrats to all the other winners, best of luck to those applying again next year.
  12. HKK

    NSF GRFP 2009-2010

    Can't get my ratings sheet yet. I got one. OMG I can't believe I got one. It's insane. I'm shaking. I woke my poor West Coast parents up by calling them when I saw the email. Even they understand how big this is... finally!
  13. First, I've never heard of this cloning phenomenon. In a good department, a professor shouldn't be worried about cloning students, because they should be in productive collaborative relationships that don't seek to replicate themselves. Secondly, I can give you several examples of "fit". As a student who works closely with the admissions committee, we often see students applying to the same group of schools. Students who are interested in African demography might apply here and Brown, and be accepted to both. But, depending on the student's exact interest "health disparities in Africa" vs "health disparities, including ones in Africa" we might be a better fit than Brown. In general, we are NOT known to be a theory school, or a qualitative methods school. If you want to do either of those things, you probably wouldn't apply here, and if you got in, you aren't a good "fit" for the program. The few students who are theorists in our department are extremely unhappy because they feel marginalized, or feel like most people don't care about theory much here, and to be honest, they are right. Students delusional enough to think they can come here and do qualitative research will find little institutional support, and be disappointed. So when I say someone fits in our program, I'd imagine it's a student with a strong quantitative methods background, and an interests in family, migration, or health. Anyone else would be fairly out of place here, and a bad "fit".
  14. I saw someone mention Penn State in the list of programs. It is a HIGHLY quantitative program with little to no support for qualitative research. It looks like most of the research you have done has been qualitative in the past, just something I thought you should know before adding it to your list.
  15. There might still be some hope, as several students who were accepted to JHU signed at our recruitment this weekend. The waitlisted students for JHU who came to our recruitment were almost salivating over that, as they were high on the wait-list. Two JHU wait-listers couldn't shut up about it on their weekend. I get that it's your dream school, but when we admitted you outright with a much higher offer.... couldn't you at least be polite about it on our visit? Were any of the rest of the wait-listers given your ranking on the list? I feel suspicious about that, and I'm guessing that everyone is told they are #2 on the wait list, but I wanted to know y'alls experience.
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