jacib

I'm just rechecking this website out of boredom, I applied and got in last year, but let me give you my two cents. Sociology is very flexible when it comes to backgrounds. However, they want to know that you're interested in sociology and not some other field. I also applied to sociology with divided loyalties--I applied to programs in sociology and religion. My father is a sociology professor and told me that sociology programs don't really want to see you applying to other programs. To the sociology adcomms, applying in other fields is apparently the mark of an "unserious student". That's the word my father usef, and I think that's also the word that a professor at Harvard used when I asked if it would be appropriate to apply to the sociology program and the divinity school. I'm not saying you can't apply to both types of programs, I'm saying don't broadcast it. I would definitely put in your statement of purpose why you're switching fields, what the limits of politic science are. For me, I was running into very specific problems with religion programs so it was easy. Oh, and I had exactly one sociology course on my undergraduate transcript. So don't worry about that. In fact, I had one sociology, one and a half anthropology courses, and one political science course. I took a lot more religion and history courses. Most schools just want a social science, broadly defined. Then again, I've definitely seen sociology PhD students and professors who had undergraduate engineering degrees, so even that is a strict limit. Your past is much less important than the promise you show for the future, in all honesty.

It really depends on what you want to do with it later. Places like Dallas and Wheaton mean a lot if you want to work in similar communities, and don't mean so much if you want to work in a secular institution. The best way to find out is to email the head of graduate studies and ask them where their graduating PhD/ThDs have placed for the last five or ten years. See if you can get a list of ALL of them, not just the cherry picked best ones. Or, if you know exactly who you want to work with, see if you can get a list of their graduating students (though asking a specific professor is more personal and I would wait until after you get accepted). Once you have the list ask yourself: are these the kind of places I want to be? Tier means most in terms of placement for your first job, I would say. Another thing you can do is reverse engineer it. Think of the kinds of job you want, and then check: where did those people get their PhDs. On the sociology boards people are much more into numbers, and people tried to come up with ranking systems based on various factors. See The most interesting one was taking all the "top institutions" and seeing where those people got their PhDs from. I personally disagree with the last methodology up their (I'd do it the opposite way; who sends their people to the best schools, not who has taken people from the best schools), but either way it shows you there are many ways to look at it.

My school told me that, all told, they were going to put quite a bit over a quarter of a million dollars into my education. Tuition+insurance+stipend=more than 50k a year for five years. That doesn't even include summer language grants, etc or that my housing is slightly subsidized. Needless to say, I couldn't afford even a fraction of that.

BA: Private R1 University, Religious Studies BA, 3.26 (overall), 3.57 (in major) GRE: 800 verbal, 780 math, 6.0 writing Recs: strong (a lot of "this guy should go into a PhD") Writing sample: decent, used some French and German sources. Languages: some French, German, Turkish Results: Chicago MA (1/2 tuition remission) Rejected at Duke PhD in an obscure subfield that I'm not sure took anyone last year (withdrew other apps once I got into a sociology PhD program) It's a real crap shoot. Make sure to apply broadly. And it's really not the stats that get you in. It seems like it's more stats get you crossed out, other things get you in.

I applied to ten schools (5 sociology PhDs, 3 religion masters programs that did not allow me to apply directly to the PhD, 2 religion programs direct to PhD), but if I were applying only to sociology, depending on how well I knew my odds, I'd probably apply to more than 5 less than 10. Basically for me, I emailed every one who could possibly fit my interest and then that was my list. I think I applied basically to the maximum number of programs that could possibly except me (except I only found out later that Michigan might have been a good match). The thing is though: email people. Some schools you think you'd fit in great with might think your subsubfields are too different. Some other schools might be really encouraging and you get a good feeling about them. Just because a professor is encouraging is no guarantee, mind you. One prof told me, "You're exactly the kind of student we're looking for for this PhD program" but I didn't get in. That's okay, it happens. The program I did get into, my future adviser scolded me for not emailing her first (I didn't email her because I knew we were a good match). In the fall, contact professors who might want you. Ask them if your interests match and if they take on students. If they are, ask them follow up questions about their research etc, the university etc. Try to build a conversation.

Someone once pointed out to me that there is clear anecdotal evidence that often schools end up giving their PhDs to other similar schools. According to this thinking, Duke and UNC, for example, are more likely to get you a job in the South than the North. A PhD from Michigan or Wisconsin is more likely to end up in the Big 10 than a PhD from Columbia, Chicago or Penn. People from private universities are more likely to get jobs at private universities. I think including top public schools like Michigan, UNC and Indiana (all ranked higher than NYU on the last two USNWR surveys) would considerably alter the results (especially because those have such large departments) in a noticiable way, though likely the top 5 or so would stay pretty close. I mean, in fact, it would be surprising if anyone broke into the top 9 (though the top 9 themselves might shuffle slightly). If anyone gets really bored, they should add Michigan, UNC, Indiana, UT Austin, Duke and Northwestern to this provisional survey (that is, they should add all the schools that the USNWR ranked in the top 15 during both of its last two surveys, all of which also coincidentally ranked higher than NYU on the last NRC rankings). The truly ambitious ought to add Hopkins, Washington, Maryland, Penn State, Ohio State, Cornell, Yale, and Minnesota all of whom were on both of USNWR's top 25s and (with the exception of Cornell and Maryland) were on NRC's ancient top 25, indicating to me at least that these are consistently viewed as the top departments. I think once all those data points are added, public programs will have much stronger showings, with one program (probably Michigan) perhaps even breaking into the top 9. Even with "all those data" points, of course, we'd still completely ignore what are generally considered the top liberal arts schools, who often also nab top PhDs from places like Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Columbia (I am going to Columbia next year--all of my probably adviser's recent graduate students have gone to either elite liberal arts colleges or foreign universities). That said, if the focus is on "best research" rather than "best training" then perhaps those liberal arts schools wouldn't add useful information.

I know Columbia is known for social networks stuff.

My experience was a little different. I got into Columbia with a 3.26 GPA. Granted, I had somethings going for me: I had lived abroad in the country I want to study, have intermediate skills in a few applicable research languages, got 1580 on my GRE, and my undergrad is known for not inflating grades. Still, I had a [relatively] low overall GPA (my in major GPA was somewhere between 3.55 and 3.6; my major was not sociology). I did, however, have a well defined research project that fit VERY well with one specific professor's interests--what she's already published and even more the direction her work is moving (by chance); she got me in, I'm nearly positive. Other parts of my application were weaker--my letters were strong, but none were from social scientists (well one was a historian); my writing sample was well-researched but average; I had very little experience with Social Science. No one has the perfect application; everyone has weak spots and a few places they say "if only this were different!" No matter what, you need something that makes you stand out and lets a professor with a good fit argue for you to get in. I had the very specific interest and the high GRE. A lot of other people I met at visiting weekend had a master's degree or research experience. Sell yourself well. I think the statements are a lot more important than people give them credit for, but I really do think that everyone needs to find a few good things that really sells them; you don't need to mention them in your statement, but they should be easy to spot in your application. For the record, I only got into the one Sociology PhD program (though I only applied to four others, one of which wasn't really a perfect match). My point is much more that it's a crap shoot. Apply based mostly on fit, yet apply broadly. Contact professors. Sound intelligent and like you will make a good sociologist and like you will be someone good to work with. A lot of people have over 3.5 GPA's. A lot of people have over 1400 GREs. Both those categories matter obviously, but neither of them things will get you into grad school.

Congrats on SMU! I would also like to say I have both heard the "You don't move up tiers in the job market from your PhD school" but I've also hear some (rare) exceptions to that dictum. Usually there was some compelling personal narrative involved, or someone who just saw a problem in an entirely different way. Definitely check placement records of schools (I'd go with the past 5-10 years, rather than 20) and also consider the effects that any potential adviser might have. For example, someone graduating from CUNY in Anthropology after working closely with Talal Asad would have a different set of job prospects than other CUNY Anthro graduates. Obviously, name only helps get your foot in the door. The other thing is start getting yourself marketable skills early on. If teaching World Religions is what see yourself doing, make sure to teach a similar class as a TA. That's the advice that has stuck with me from graduate students I've met: don't just do a "follow your bliss" approach, but to a certain extent think "How can I make my interests and skills marketable to potential employers?" Obviously publishing and presenting earlier is important for a lot of schools, but a lot of schools care very much about teaching as well. I don't know enough about the secondary campus state schools you're talking about to say how they hire people, but once enrolled, you could probably talk to people and find out and tailor your CV to be more appealing. Do things like keep all the syllabuses of courses you taught and things like that. Basically, my friends in graduate school (in Religion), some of them really regret some of the strategic choices they made. I know a few PhDs from Chicago who have had very hard times finding jobs (one is teaching at a Community College) and I have heard of other people getting great placements out of schools ranked lower than Chicago; part of that has to do with Chicago's overproduction of PhDs, but a lot of that also has to do with individual choices (and willingness to move anywhere in the country for work).

Please forgive this grossly off topic post, but my curiosity has been piqued and Seligson's title begs the question: where can I find a good text on Latin for purposes other than reading?

I was accepted into a sociology program at a top private university... and the direct of graduate studies sent all of his emails to me from a gmail account (I've been called and I visited, etc. The emails are legit). He even wrote his name in the "from" part with all lower-case letters. You shouldn't automatically be sketched out. He did have a signature line indicating his position and affiliation though.

Duke's info is here: http://gradschool.du...s/admitrel.htm. Totally applicants were actually down this year. But they accepted 41 people in 2005 and nine or ten every year since then for a 4 or 5% acceptance rate. Edit: And I'm sure the Judeo-Christian fields pretty consistently have more applications than the others, so that's an even lower acceptance rate by subfield. I heard Chicago didn't even accept anyone into my subfield this year for PhD (Anthropology & Sociology of Religion). So that's a 0% acceptance rate, I guess.

Two older topics:

I want to point out that it kinda sucks that this person has a -2 for just asking an honest answer to a question they didn't know. They weren't being rude, or obtusely argumentative, or aggressively stupid (which are the reasons I tend to give out minuses). It was basically a question about how the system works. Perhaps the poorly chosen words "low-ranked program" instead of "a program ranked lower than I'd like" drew warnings? Seems like we've got some itchy fingers here.

I think it is generally frowned upon to leave one program for another without a good reason. There are definitely plenty of good reasons to move: not enough funding, the loss of a professor (a kid I knew from my undergrad followed Saskia Sassen from Chicago to Columbia), research moving in a direction that wasn't a good fit for the department. Perhaps a change in a family situation (wanting to be closer to a sick parent, for example). I don't think programs frown on transferring for those reasons. Generally, note, that in all of these situations the department and the student would probably agree that this isn't the best place for the student. However, there are plenty of other reasons to leave a program: certain medical problems, difficulty working with professors* or other interpersonal problems, couldn't hack the work. Things like that. But those kinds of things might cast doubt (generally) on your ability to finish a degree, which is what most schools will ultimately want (after all, they're investing the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars in your education). I think it's generally quite rare for students to unilaterally decide to leave; I've personally never heard of it, but think of what signals it might send to the other schools. On the other hand, if it is a separate masters program (not an MA/PhD program), well then that's an entirely different story. *There are probably certain situations where a problem with one professor could lead to an amicable break between the department and the student.

Your stats sound better than mine, and I got into my basically my top choice. Good fit is really important. It might be worth applying to Princeton (as a long shot) to work with Wuthnow (he's kinda the big deal--though I bet you know that. I didn't when I started looking.). Consider Chicago as well (check Anthropology & Anthropology of Religion in its Div school too). Yale has Gorski if he fits your interests. Columbia has Courtney Bender in the Religion department, who could supplement someone in the Sociology department. Berkeley has some people too. Obviously, except Yale, those are all top top 10ish programs, but it's so much fit... and so much luck. Quite a few people have been admitted to higher ranked programs and rejected from lower ranked programs, for reasons that even they couldn't understand. Heck, the same thing kinda happened to me. I got into #11, but rejected from #20, you know? It happens. It's unpredictable. Definitely have a mix. Check out Captiv8ed's schools too. She also applied for Sociology of Religion, but her interests might be in line with yours than mine. Perhaps also consider Michigan. People have generally been surprised I didn't apply there, but I think that might be more for the Turkish half of my interests, rather than the religion part of my interests. I can't remember. As someone interested in programs, see who posts http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/ especially the Sociology of Religion section. Check out this article http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/02/08/the-emerging-strong-program-in-the-sociology-of-religion/ (or rather, the working paper it's about which is actually here http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Emerging-Strong-Program-TIF.pdf) Just study hard for the GRE, especially the vocab part (flash cards). Have a rather specific project in your statement of purpose because that's what they're going to judge fit from. Make sure to run it by professors, etc. Also ask your professors in September for recommendations.

I was the one who posted the thing about withdrawing from U Chicago and being told I was accepted. That was for the AM program. The one that said to call was for the PhD program. They do each degree separately I think; so while you might be able to call for the PhD program results, they might well wait a few days for the other results. Or, for all I know, they admit people to the AM program by interest. Anyway, notice that all the PhD acceptees were contacted on the 26/27th. No one has posted an AM result yet from Chicago so until like two days after that happens (because apparently it's by postal mail) I wouldn't worry too much about it. In past years, as I'm sure you know, people heard in past years more like the 13th than the 10th. Good luck to you all! Don't fret yet.

I love that program, too! Mark Juergensmeyer is one of the coolest scholars of his generation. They just have a really great program that I hope other schools emulate in the coming years. Their graduates generally have much more interesting projects than other places.

Yo and please don't yell at me if I said something wrong; as future teachers, instead offer a gentle corrective to my errors.

Warning: this is going to be very poorly articulated. Please forgive me, and try to show some understanding. Let me give a counter-point to this whole privilege thing: it's not that people with working class background are selected against, actively or passive (well yes passively of course they are... but not to some intense degree after undergraduate institution is taken into effect--and I think that kind of thing would have an effect in every single sector). I think the PhD applicant pool in the Humanities and Social Sciences is incredibly self selecting. I think the pressures of family, salary, etc. usually selects against people going into academia. I mean, presumably we are some of the smartest people, right? I mean, why else would we think we'd be good enough to teach the nation's best and brightest. Well going into academia is a hugely stupid choice for us then, because we could make much more money in other fields. I know my father has had a lot of promising sociology students who have been discouraged from the field by their parents (especially working class parents and recent immigrant parents). I mean, even at the hugely priviliged place I teach now, there are essentially two main acceptable career paths: business or engineering. Occasionally, you'll get an architect or a doctor (presumably the lawyers don't leave Turkey; I only deal with those going abroad). Very occasionally I'll see a visual artist, who is obviously quite privileged... but even those people are normally just encouraged to go into architecture. These kids know their career path before you even start college. Sure some people must deviate from it (I only see them on the high school end of university), but I think in many communities there are a lot of parental/community pressures to conform to the ideal of "good paying job", not some ideal about "love of learning". For the amount of time we're going to be in school, we're totally wasting our time, especially if we're expected to take care of our folks when we get older. We could be doctors or lawyers, or go into business (finance if we're good with numbers, marketing if we're good with people). Years-in-school basically has a pretty clear relationship with higher salaries... but that peaks before PhD (I think it peaks after two or three or maybe four years of graduate education). We'll basically be too educated to maximize our salary potentials. Also someone made the point about approaching professors: My father is a professor. I would talk with professors every time my parents had a party. I literally grew up interacting with professors abnormally frequently. But still, during undergrad, there was only one full professor beyond my thesis adviser that I ever developed a relationship with, and that's as much his doing (and I didn't like bothering my thesis adviser...). I think a lot of people think that they'd be wasting a professor's time, and it's not necessarily a class thing. I never "reached out" to a professor, though I thoroughly regret that decision. My third recommendation was written by a graduate student, who paid his own way through college, through (athletic?) scholarships and work. He used to be the bouncer at a strip club. Beyond that, I think I went to office hours only once or twice in four years, and always with very specific questions. That part is not just class but socialization in general. I won't hide that I had several discrete advantages over most of you because my father is a sociology professor (he could tell me what was up with bits of the academic process, help me figure out schools to apply to, and reread my statement.... though my sister confessed to me in the end my dad thought my statement was "alright" and writing sample was "only okay". I still think my statement was awesome and my writing sample was good), but I think these come from having parents in academia, not from my (upper) middle class upbringing. While I do think things like social networks and having a little "pull" do have an advantage in undergraduate admissions, I'm not sure exactly how they'd manifest in graduate admission. My dad was good friends with the chair of a department I got rejected from (and the department which was one of my best fits, and a good bit lower ranked than the school I actually got into). Though in all honesty, I'm interested in hearing about other concrete ways that class might affect graduate admission in other than the obvious ways (like paying for a GRE course and having a well known undergraduate degree, or things like being able to get internships, especially the unpaid kind, and obviously carrying less debt from undergrad). I feel like I'm missing something. And as a sociologist (tehehe that still feels funny to say), I'm curious what.

My situation was slightly different, but I can tell you what I did. I had a visiting weekend where I requested to meet with three professors. Two were available, the third was on sabbatical, so after visiting weekend, I wrote her a rather long email saying, "I was accepted, this is my history in the field, these are resources I'm excited about at the school, if you can tell me more that'd be great, everyone has said such wonderful things about you, I'm really excited about working with you, would it be possible? Do you have experience with graduate students in Sociology (she's in the Religion department)? What are you working on now? I haven't read your work but it seems exciting. I see your name in a lot of acknowledgments. Can you give me an recommendations on things that I should read because I'm new to the field? Congrats on tenure. This other professor says hi." She is on leave now, so her time is a little short but shot me back a quick note that said, "Dear [Jacib]- your long email introduction deserves a long response but I'm off for the next two days and won't have time to do so properly until Monday. The very short version: I'll be delighted to work with you and am glad that you're coming to [this school]. More soon, CB" I think if you wrote something like, "I'm very excited about this school. These are my research interests and my history. While I don't know much about your own work, I'm very excited about the looking at X, Y, and Z in comparative perspective. I've never studied what you're studying, so I am sure you have a lot to teach me. What are you working on now? Do you know why exactly I was assigned to you?" This person could well have taken on a new project about tolerance in the Mughal empire or some such thing. Or you can just say "Hey these are my research interests, I've been assigned to you, can you tell me a little bit about what you're doing? I'm visiting the area next week, and I understand it's your spring break, but if you happen to be around, I'd love to be able to meet and discuss this further. I'm very excited about the possibility of attending this school, blah blah blah." On a random note, often, I've found, in History of Religion type departments people working on Hinduism are often the ones responsible for method and theory type training, especially when it's comparative (I'm thinking most of all of Wendy Doniger, but also when I was applying to Duke, one professor suggested I contact Leela Prasad even though she didn't have anything directly to do with my topic. Other departments were similar, if I recall, with the South-Asianists doing a lot more interdisciplinary work than, say, the Buddhologists or the Islamists) See what classes this person teaches, and if they teach a method and theory class, it might make more sense. But I might be shooting in the dark. The other possibility is it might be required for you to have an outside person like that, since presumably with your interests, you may well be required to teach a "World Religions" class at some point in the future. But that seems to be really pushing it. Anyway, it's now official that person's job to help woo you to come to their school, so they should be happy to answer any and all questions. If they say, "Here's what I'm working on.... I have no idea why you were assigned to me," then perhaps contact the DGS. Also, I am sending you a short PM about religion and the Ottoman empire. Your topic sounds neat.

During visiting days, they're trying to sell themselves to you, you don't have to sell your views to them. During mine, no one visited classes. No one tested me on knowledge (even knowledge of foreign language... they really should have, but I would have been so nervous). Most of the time was spent with whole cohort, but which naturally broke down into smaller more manageable groups. And a lot of it was like "I'm from here, here and here. I'm into studying this this and that. I want to work with her her and him at this school. (and then in a whisper so the grown-ups don't hear) I also applied to this, this, and that program that rejected me but I'm waiting for these other ones." There were definitely shier people (I'm fairly extroverted) but everyone definitely talked together. I think it's in part to make you meet the other graduate students and see "Okay this is the kind of place I could live." There were one on one meetings with faculty and that's the important time for you to talk. And man, were my people smart. One professor, who doesn't even really publish on Turkey (my proposed area of study), was like "Oh and of course you know all those wonderful statistics TESEV publishes... oh, and you know about the research office in the Diniyet.... no? Okay well look at this this and this. Oh and you know Fox's book too, right? No?" There was no judgment on my ignorance... but it made it clear how much work I would be doing. The meeting with another professor was very different and she was like "Oh, I'm teaching an undergraduate course that's right up your alley next year, here look at the syllabus, tell me what you think... can you TA next year? No not yet?" It was all very very sweet. I explained my proposed research a bit, but most of my meetings with professors was them telling me things, related to their research, the school, interdisciplinary oppotunities and things like "Oh some people in the department are like this... but you won't have trouble with that." Or (with a professor in another department) "I've been lobbying for this guy to come to the school for years but your department won't hire him because he's not quant enough" or "I shouldn't be telling you this, but she's going to be chair of the (x) department once he steps aside." Anyway, after the professor meetings we all met in the graduate student lounge and everyone just looked exhausted in this "All I know is that I don't know nothing" kind of way. I think everyone felt "They just kept referencing all these things I didn't know..." but no one seemed to come away thinking "I can't work with this faculty member." One kid was like particularly distraught and holding these packets and saying, "He gave me homework... I haven't even said yes yet and I have homework." Those parts might be slightly stressful but they're what you expect. Other than these one-on-one sessions with faculty, I was never expected to talk (well I guess I was, but in normal situations, like during dinner I was expected to make normal conversation...there were clearly some louder people and clearly some quieter people, but that's like what you'd get in any group of people). The rest of it was really useful. The chair and the DGS got up and took our questions/explained the program. We went out to dinner. We met with current grad students, asked about funding, problems, housing, health insurance, etc. All the practical things. That alone made it worth coming. The graduate students were very nice, and since usually you stay with one, you also have a more one-on-one chance to pick their brains. They set me up with a guy who went to my undergraduate university and so he told me all the differences between the two. Another girl who I had been emailing with basically just came up and kicked my chair and goes "What's up" in Turkish. That's the closest I came to being put on the spot. There were plenty of drinks both nights so that made the socializing slightly less awkward (we also learned some grad student gossip). To mask the awkwardness, just be prepared to give a few sentences about your history, what you studied undergrad, where you've lived, what you want to research, and then know how to ask them about their research, and where they're from, etc. Interviews might be stressful--this wasn't like an interview at all. I too was reluctant to go (for completely different reasons), and it was my only choice, but I had a really good time and it made me feel really good about the program. Just remember, for the last 4 months you've been worrying about selling yourself to them... now they have to sell themselves to you. You are now in the position of power.

Allow me to be the first on this forum to congratulate you! That's really, really awesome. Out of curiosity, was it your haggling skills or was it a they-were-testing-to-make-sure-i-play-well-with-others type situation?

Yeah that's awesome. Waitlisted people should email programs, ask how long the waitlist is, ask how many students are normally admitted off the waitlist, ask if the waitlist is ranked and if so, where you are on it, tell them that you'd really like to go to their program, etc. Be active! Also, if stuff has changed, update them on it.

Other old threads I found informative (sometimes egotistically because information-vomited all over them... but also like the Talmud they contain a number of opinions which are both illuminating and contradictory). You wanted to know these because you're probably looking for a way to procrastinate actually working on your applications (just wait until you see how bad it is after they're submitted but before you hear back): (very short) After you hear back from schools: What factors should help decisions? (and perhaps applications) Those are mainly just ones from the sociology subforum. I'm sure I'm missing others.