jacib

My notes on GRE's 1. I got an 800 on verbal, 780 on math. I still got into out into only one out of five Sociology PhD programs that I applied for. No one should think that high GRE scores are a silver bullet that guarantees admission over other factors (a 3.26 GPA [from a good school], a non-sociology background, a good but not great writing sample). I think the role of GRE scores and other easily comparable quantitative factors are often overemphasized on this board. 2. I think the role of lower GRE scores is often underemphasized. I think many people don't consider fully the strength of the pool they're competing with. Don't read too much hope into statements like "we do not always eliminate people with lower scores." My father is a Sociology professor and he emailed his colleagues at program comparable to the ones I was interested in (but emphatically not the ones I was actually interested in) and got these responses [i edited them only slightly and only when necessary. I felt obliged to correct the spelling also]. Pay attention obviously to if they're discussing the mean, the minimum, the standards: [Top ten public university] Hi [Redacted], I actually have a precise answer for this. Mean GRE of admitted students in 2008 was 1349, Verbal 644, Quant 705, and Analytical 5. In 2009, the mean GRE was 1409, Verbal 679, Quant 730, and Analytical 5.1 Of course, what really matters is the writing sample and statement of purpose. Good luck for [Jacib]. Best, [Redacted] [Top 25 private university] We have not always ruled people out on low GREs. But generally people have at least around 630-650 in each. Sometimes verbal is a little higher and math a little lower. Foreign students often get by with lower verbal because they have higher math. Score in high 600s and low 700s do attract more instant attention.Some students with around 630-630 have decided to retake for application. [Redacted] [Top ten public university] The percentiles have changed a lot over the years. I would say anything over the 90th percentile (just don't remember what the most recent numbers are) is considered a good score; below 70th is a bad score. If someone is weak in both verbal and quantitative, they would have a hard time getting in unless those scores were counterbalanced by an outstanding GPA from a good school. Then there's the third part, and I have no idea how to weight the [analytical writing]. Personally, i ignore it [the score] but look very closely at the essay [the GRE essays you write are sent along with your scores] and personal statement as well as the writing sample the student turns in. Generally, it's a question of balancing one thing against the other, and I have found much to my dismay that recent admissions committees vary widely in how much they weight GRE's and sadly enough, individuals also vary. One low sore won't hurt; two low scores need to have something pretty outstanding to counter balance; a bad GRE and a less than stellar record will have a hard time, though we admitted one such person who won a prize for the best senior thesis. My guess is that a place like [the above mentioned top 25 school] would be much more rigid than we are about scores, because they are more concerned with improving with their "ranking" and have a larger percent of demographers. At least in one case I can tell you [a top ten private university] is more rigid than we are. ------------------------------------------------------ Make of all of that what you will. My sense is that for top 25 programs it would be good (not necessary but good) to have one 700 or over if one is in the lower 600s, or alternatively, both in the high 600s, but something tells me that to the fallible humans who assess the scores, 700 looks very different from 690. But, like one of the professors above said, if you have another superlative aspect, it can compensate for lower scores. But even perfect scores won't get you in. I think, like one of the professors above said, it's much more writing sample and SoP once you pass all the minimums...kinda. You still want to get noticed. But the GRE is not going to get you a decisive yes, it might get you a decisive no. It might, just might, get you a "yes" over another specific candidate. For more on GRE scores, see the Also, if you want to know how you stack up quantitatively to (a self-selected sample of) the 2010 applicants, see the 2010 applicants stats thread.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/technology-and-tenure/ It's a very interesting proposal. There are similar things going on in the more quantitative sides of these thing. These days data is so much easier to get ahold of, easier to processes, and easier to compute than it was before. One of my friends at a prestigious University wrote their (Bachelor's) thesis on results that it took less than an hour between starting to prepare the data and getting the results. The rest was just writing up the numbers.

I think I fairly well qualified and defined what I meant as Christian in the rest of that sentence that you didn't quote. What I didn't add was that I meant they will "self-identify" as Christian; "they"in this case referring to the MDiv students (as I hoped to make clear in the second half of the clause--though rereading it I can understand the confusion because the original question was about MTS students). That's the part perhaps that was missing. On second thought, I can't guarantee that all the Unitarian ministry candidates identify themselves as Christian. MTS and certainly PhD students may be otherwise affiliated, or non-affiliated.

There was a typo in one of my SoPs. Like I started a sentence and then just didn't finish it. It somethings like "This program is particularly good for me because." And I never wrote the because! (It was clear, though, and they admitted me anyway... and they were one of only two places to admit me!)

There is no harm in asking. I might not ask the professor you'd like to work with simply because he might have had no idea why you weren't accepted if he's not on the committee. I'd ask the DGS, or ask both. I'd try to put it positively, "I am interested in reapplying next year, blah blah blah, how can i strengthen blah blah blah". I would say their is a good chance that, if you get anything back, you'll get a "We had a record number of applicants this year and had to turn away many qualified candidates." If they remember your application, or its a particularly small program, they might be more forthcoming. Your best chance for a response is if they remember you, and it might be simply "You didn't have a masters degree" "Your GRE scores are low" or "You didn't have enough German". But then again, I am sure they are right--many candidates who filled all the prerequisites weren't selected. But you should ask anyway, if you're reapplying next year.

I think Focused really nailed how to write fit. My fit paragraphs in my best statements were great and showed I knew what I wanted to do and I knew what I wanted from the program, not just in terms of professors in the department, but also interdisciplinary resources (I learned about even more after I got in). My pocket change: EMAIL FIRST: My future adviser chided me the first time she called me; she told me, "I read your statement and I thought to myself, 'Why hasn't this boy emailed me!'" I had her first in my fit paragraph, but the way she said it, it's clear that emailing first is standard. I hadn't emailed her because I knew we were a good fit, "Why bother?" I thought. Luckily, she was head of the adcomm this year so she took care of my application, but if she wasn't, who knows if my application would have gotten the attention ti did. I mistakenly only emailed the schools I wasn't sure of, saying "here are my research interests, do we fit?" Do that too. Departments will be honest. Listen to them. Oh, and FYI, even if they say "Yes, you are exactly the kind of student we want," it doesn't guarantee you're in. BE CLEAR IN YOUR RESEARCH INTERESTS: This should definitely be the case. Even if you know your project will change. They know that too. But part of what they want to see is that you are "serious" about the field and can think about these question. Also, I was warned in very similar wording by two different sociologists that applying simultaneously to Sociology and another field (in my case, Religion) would be the mark of an "unserious" student. If you do do that, don't talk about it (that's what I did, it was not a problem). But know that Sociology departments definitely want to admit sociologists. TAKE TIME OFF: In my visiting day cohort of 15, I don't think only one (foreign) student came directly out of undergrad. About half (or more) seemed to have some kind of graduate degree (not necessarily in sociology). Many had experience at think tanks or similar things. I think only two or three people maximum had not been out of school yet (that is, they had gone the undergrad-->masters-->phd route). I'm not saying direct from undergrad is impossible, or equally rare at all schools, but some time off seems like a plus. Again, they want committed sociologists, not sociology majors who don't know what to do next. Two (out of the sixteen admitted students) were from the University of Chicago MAPSS, which is a nice one year option for those wishing to strengthen their resume. A Masters degree is especially useful if your undergraduate university was not very well known. For foreign students, three of the PhD candidates in the last two years had already come to study at this University on a Fulbright (I don't know the details because I'm American). GIVE THEM A GOOD REASON TO ADMIT YOU: First you need to email people to get them excited about you. Then you need to give them some help to convince the committee (and if need be the graduate school). If you have a weak spot (and everyone does), make sure you also have strong spots. Know that different schools put different emphases on different aspects. I talked with another member of adcomm (who happens to be an acquaintance of my father's*) and he remembered very well my high GRE's and strong letters that said I was ready for a PhD program. It doesn't have to be high GRE's; it can be awards from undergrad, a very high GPA from a well respected place, a good graduate degree, published articles, relevant job experience (especially in think tanks, it seems), etc. Some thing to let an interested professor champion you at the adcomm. If you do feel a need to address a weak spot in your SoP, make sure to focus on the positive "Though I struggled my first two years in terms of grades, by the time I started taking upper level sociology classes, my GPA had increased by a whole point;" "Though I struggle with standardized tests, my high GPA in upper standing courses shows how excited I am about sociology." Something like that where the first clause is negative, but it ends on a positive note. So don't spend more than half a sentence on your negatives. THERE IS A HUGE AMOUNT OF LUCK: At the visiting day, at this top program, very few people had offers from other top programs. I noticed professors being surprised at this (on a student by student basis, not necessarily a cohort basis). A few professors expressed surprise I didn't have other offers. I've heard similar things from students at other programs. One or two accepted students were surprised because their interests (race, gender, immigration) weren't actually the best fit with this department... but they had been rejected by comparably ranked departments that were better fits. You only need one department to accept you. *For the record, a lower ranked department where my father's relatively close former colleague is chair rejected me. I don't want to give the sense of nepotism.

I am in the same situation. I got four rejections (some from lower ranked programs), but my top choice (which is probably also my best fit) did accept me and very heavily courted me. You only need one to come through in the end. At my visiting day, it seemed like maybe half of the other students hadn't really gotten any other offers. Only maybe 1/4 of the students admitted there really had several competitive offers from top schools.

I don't know if Columbia HISTORY students are quite unhappy, but the Columbia Sociology students I've talked to seem quite happy and quite high on the program and the school as a graduate institution. You should definitely try to visit and try to email/talk to current students. As for Northwestern, you should really think of Evanston as part of Chicago. It's even on the El (the Chicago Subway system). It's actually much easier to get from Evanston downtown than it is to go there from the University of Chicago. As for funding, check it out in terms of cost of living Michigan's offer is probably more competitive than it seems (possibly unless you have large undergraduate debt) and Berkeley's less. Again, visit, talk to the current students if you can, because they'll have the best idea about living on the stipend. Ask them about time to degree, ask them about politics, about them about placements, ask them about competition, ask them what the biggest complaints they hear, ask them about summer funding, ask them about people who don't finish the program, ask them about qualifying exams, ask them about a lot of things. Particularly try to talk to people who work on similar subject for some of those, but ask widely (like biggest complaints) about others. Most departments have department politics (grad students should admit this), but hopefully they will also reassure you that they don't actually interfere in the lives of graduate students (I was told recently "Oh yeah, I know kids who work with two people who *hate* each other, but he works fine with both of them.") Ask about funding beyond their initial offers (at Michigan and Berkeley it will definitely take more than five years to get your degree--ask how that's funded).

I thought I'd start this topic now as a nice thing to do "for future generations". While not all acceptances have been sent out, we're definitely hitting the home stretch. I for one have already made my decision so I anticipate using grad cafe less and less, but before I go, I thought there were plenty of things I'd learned and could pass on. I post too much so I thought I'd let someone else make the first actual contribution to this thread. What do you guys think were the key elements of your success? What do you wish you had done differently? Which old threads had particularly useful advice? What did you find out the hard way? What did you learn about Sociology applications specifically and graduate school in general?

That said, my father works at a smaller program that only admits two or three students, but its such a self selecting group who wants to be in that small of a program, they often enough yield all two or three students, so this year they aren't accepting more than 2, though I think they have a short wait list.

I got a sense of the breakdown of Columbia's numbers: 300ish applications, there were officially about 8-10 slots, but they had a particularly small cohort last year (7, I think), and usually when a school has a small cohort one year, it can bump up the next year's cohort. I think last year they accepted about 12, this year they accepted 16, and a few of us admitted students were calculating rates and unofficially thought there would probably be 10-13 in the actual entering cohort next year. I get the sense that this situation is unusual though, and that yielding about 7/12 was unusually low, and that if they yield 13/16 it will be on the high side (though I think it would still make the university happy to get that many students). That's just the sense I got from the faculty at the reception/the grad students at the bar afterwards.

$15,000 is a lot. Adjusted for cost of living, it's higher than most of the "top" stipends. I made a few handy charts to compare: Northwestern's PhD stipend in the humanities is $20,928 and to get the same level of living in Athens, OH (I'm too lazy to redo it with Oxford) compared with Chicago, IL you'd only need $13,890. If you still have debt, well then the calculus might be different. Anyway, I linked to a cost of living calculator on the above post, or you can just google one. Play around with the numbers. And yes, it is entirely appropriate with an offer in hand to ask for it. I just went to a visiting weekend, and the head of the department was asking one student he wanted particularly badly "What did (another department) offer you? What can we do to be more competitive?" And the student was like, "Well... they offered me a computer stipend...." I don't know if she'll get it, but the schools know. It'll just be hard for most schools to find more money for you this year.

Many schools do not have waitlists, so if you don't withdraw your applications now, that's one less spot. And also, just because you say no quickly, it doesn't mean they will definitely accept a wait list student (they expect a certain amount of people declining), but if you say no before their decision, they're much much more likely to take another student. I know why you'd want to hear--I had the same morbid curiosity of "how good am I" "how much do these people like him" but I decided that that "knowing" pro wouldn't outweigh the "potentially disadvantaging someone else" con. I withdrew three apps already, and am going to withdraw another one soon I think.

Wow, me too. After two months at number two, I'm DONE. I don't even recognize all those names!

My girlfriend is applying for creative writing MFA programs as well, and from what she's researched it sounds like the only thing that matters is your writing sample and maybe if you have letters from famous people. I get the impression for an MFA GREs matter very little for the program. However, they might matter for the Graduate School itself. The graduate school might have minimums for funding, or minimums for admittance, completely independent of the requirements of the MFA program. If you apply next year, you might want to email the DGS and just say, "I have low GRE score for this reasons. Will it make me uncompetitive?" or "Would you recommend I retake the GRE?" I have found that people answer those kinds of questions very candidly (they will not answer questions like, 'Is there a GRE minimum?" candidly; they will over general advice and say "most accept students...."). Good luck! Also, you know about MFA blog and Suburban Ecstasies? Those are two website where people might have a better sense to what degree if at all GRE's matter specifically for a creative writing MFA.

Sorry to be clear the Master of Sociology/Anthropology of Religion is in the University of Chicago Divinity School which has separate acceptance policies from the Sociology department there, and in fact, is an entirely different school within the university. Also, well put herself.

I'd argue the opposite: there's less and less to celebrate. seems to say there are many fewer offers after the third or fourth week of February. That said, there does appear to be an bit of an uptick in news during the first weekish of March. I don't want to sound discouraging; there are of course schools no one has heard from yet: the New School, and Canadian universities, for example. Some places, like Maryland, have only had a professor contact or two, I guess. Which other programs still haven't sent out any acceptances? All of my sociology programs have already notified people (though I'm still waiting for one official rejection); the only program I'm actually still waiting for anyone to hear anything is Chicago's Sociology/Anthropology of Religion Masters program. Also, I think a lot of people are posting more in the individual school threads, and that's detracting from the popularity of this one!

Judging from the results page, a lot of schools deal with their waitlists in mid-to-late March. You should feel free to contact the schools about waitlist status--how high you are on the waitlist, what the chances are of getting in, when can you expect to hear, are people accepted off the waitlist usually funded, etc. Different schools treat waitlists different. Some places only admit a few more than their desired cohort size (especially now, when schools are not sure of how the economy will affect acceptances) and then fill up from the waitlist. Some places have a waitlist divided up into subfields. At some places the waitlist is basically a thanks-for-trying gold star, and they basically mean "try again next year" (I think this last one is more common in the Humanities and especially for MFA degrees). Check the results page see if anyone got off the waitlist at any of your schools (an acceptance in, say, mid-to-late March, or really any time after the first batch of acceptances that year, would probably be someone off the waitlist). But really, ask the schools. Tell them you are very interested in their program and it might help you move up the waitlist. Who knows. While people on the waitlist at the safety school would be happy if you made a decision early, it is your right to wait for however long you want, and you shouldn't feel rushed into a life changing decision. Notify the schools you know you definitely don't want to go to early, but if you actually are considering going to a school, don't eliminate it.

Though "singular they" is widespread in everyday English and has a long history of usage, debate continues about its acceptability. Regarding usage, the Chicago Manual of Style notes: On the one hand, it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers to use the generic masculine pronoun (he in reference to no one in particular). On the other hand, it is unacceptable to a great many readers either to resort to nontraditional gimmicks to avoid the generic masculine (by using he/she or s/he, for example) or to use they as a kind of singular pronoun. Either way, credibility is lost with some readers. With the 14th edition (1993), the Manual briefly revised their neutral stance to actually recommend "singular use of they and their", noting a "revival" of this usage and citing "its venerable use by such writers as Addison, Austen, Chesterfield, Fielding, Ruskin, Scott, and Shakespeare." However, regret regarding that printing is expressed at their website; and with the current 15th edition (2003), they have returned to their original neutral position. (taken from the Singular They wikipedia page). I think it is the easiest, clearest solution in most cases, and while I used to tread lightly with its use, I am now no longer afraid to use it frequently, boldly and without apology. If anyone has a problem with that, they can personal message me (now, do you really want me to say "he can personal message me" or "that person can personal message")

Yeah, I just want to add I applied for ten programs. After my first acceptance, I immediately withdrew my bottom three applications before I heard decisions from them. Some of the programs I really liked even, I just knew I would never actually attend them. The graduate secretaries at all the schools were very nice and it was totally painless. It took two seconds to send them emails.

Yeah, I don't personal buy that publications thing as a accurate. I just put up because it was alternative ranking system and I think, taken in conjunction with the other things, it can be useful. The main problem with it is I don't even think the data was collected that well--for instance, according to the data that they put online for that, NO ONE at Chicago published a book (again this provides some commentary on it). That's pretty hard to buy. The other two major things it pointed out are : 1) Harvard has 55 sociologists listed, which is more than they have in the Sociology department and 2) "like all article counting methodologies", it benefits programs in medical sociology, like Penn and Hopkins, because of more publishing in that sector (or so one guys says). While I think their methodology might be sound and provide an interesting alternative ranking. One might even think, if the data were collected correctly, that it might have some predictive value for where the other rankings--after all, if a department is publishing and being cited today, they will probably be more respected tomorrow. I think if there were a full list of the top 30 we could make better judgements of it. That said, since this basically a per capita ranking, it benefits smaller departments like Duke and Hopkins and Washington (which I think is small for a state school). And as for UNC, well two of the three reputation based rankings put UNC above Stanford so that's not such an anomaly.

Yes, but no program lists students who didn't place anywhere, and most don't distinguish post-doc/adjunct from tenure track.

Lastly, I just want to put out that there are some ranking alternatives: this guy suggests rankings should be done by articles in the top journals (American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review possibly plus Social Forces and Social Problems). This guy at Iowa actually does it, using the first three of those journals, and offers various possible controls (wow look at that, Iowa ends up on the top of his final rankings...). Part of this is to help smaller departments like Iowa and Vanderbilt be ranked accurately against huge departments like Michigan and North Carolina. It should be noted that rankings like this will always favor quantitative departments over qualitative ones because those top journals are very, very quantitative. A more recent set using the same three journals is available here. Notice how small departments like Iowa or heavily qualitative departments like Yale aren't even in the top 40 by this metric, though Yale is consistently about 20 in terms of respect and Iowa performs well when this metric is corrected for number of faculty. Here is what I believe to be a more reputable rankings thing. It counts publications in all journals as well as books (in the social sciences, a book=three articles apparently). A citation is counted just as much as an article is. Books, journals citations in total are 60% of the ranking, grants are 30%, outside awards are 10%. Unfortunately, only the top ten is publicly available I think. This is the simplest version, to see what's in every category, check out the report in the Chronicle of Higher Education. But notice how Michigan and Berkeley, for example, are not on here. It'd be interesting if we could see a whole top 30 for this. For really interesting commentary on this particularly chart, check out this. Man, I posted a lot on this today... uh... yes I am currently underemployed, how did you know? But moreover, I just tried to give out as much data as I could on the topic, with a little rumor, intuition and personal speculation thrown in. There are many different metrics of quality. In the end, I'd say a school well known internationally might help you a little, but ultimately it's your own work that will matter. That said, ask individual schools about placing people in non-academic positions.

So what's my point? All the rankings are based entirely on academia. And even those are flawed. For example, University of California--San Francisco has a sociology department that only does Sociology of Health and Illness (it's attached to the medical school). How do you rank that? Yale's ranking is lower in Sociology than most other fields because during the 70's, Yale almost scrapped the department (Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Rochester got rid of their departments at about the same time). They had a lot of rebuilding to do, though if you look at the rankings they've been pretty consistent. I think they're too qualitative to get a higher ranking, right now, and to get a higher ranking they'd have to really rejigger their approach. For people planning on going into academia, I would definitely trust the rankings lists above more than school reputation in general. After all, Wisconsin, Berkeley, and Michigan are consistently at the top of the list, with Chicago, Princeton or Harvard usually sometimes also considered in the "top four". Then there's probably the "top ten" tier, which I'd guess includes about fifteen schools (those six plus something like Stanford, UNC, Northwestern, UCLA, Indiana, Columbia, Penn, maybe Texas Duke Washington NYU). Then there is probably the "Top 25/30", which would probably include most of the schools on the rankings lists above, plus maybe an also-ran or two, like CUNY, Iowa, Rutgers, and maybe another UC or two. I bet I'm skipping a tier or two, but you get the idea. However it's not just school reputation, or department reputation that matters; adviser reputation matters a lot. If one middle ranked school has a very well known people in one subfield to advise, that would probably make a lot of difference. At least for academia. Of course, for getting a job it is not just reputation of those you work with, but your own reputation. If you've presented interesting original research at conferences, if your dissertation is great and original, etc. that will probably do a lot for you. On the other hand, if you have a flimsy publication record and your thesis is in-depth but unoriginal, well who knows. For more on this, in the political science forum has good advice that seemed right across the social sciences and a lot of it seems like it would be applicable inside and outside of academia. Finally getting back to the OP's question: for your purposes, it's not just reputation that matters, but reputation in a specific set of subfields. Any department strong in demography would probably help you. The USNWR has seven social subrankings: Historical Sociology, Sex and Gender, Social Psychology, Sociology of Culture, and the three that matter to you: Social Stratification, Sociology of Population, Economic Sociology (there are of course many more subfields than that). Notice that all the top programs in "Sociology of Population", which is probably the subfield where its easiest to get a job outside academia at a place like the UN, are at public universities except one [Just FYI in case this is confusing: the University of Pennsylvania ("Penn") is a private, Ivy-league school while Pennsylvania State University ("Penn State") is a public, state university].. Does that matter to employers? Or does a degree from Cornell or Brown matter more than that? Really, it's impossible to say and there probably isn't one general rule, but I would assume hope that those hiring for jobs requiring a PhD know the reputation of specific programs in their fields. But I'd say, ultimately, it depends a lot on the work you produce (or at least, I'd like to think so).