jacib

Okay, but I realize that didn't answer your question. Some universities are very well regarded in a variety of doctoral programs. These include not only the top private schools (The Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, NYU, Hopkins, Emory, Vanderbilt) but also a variety of public schools which are consistently strong in a variety of things (off the top of my head, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Berkeley, UCLA, UNC, Texas A & M, etc.) For a list of these generally highly ranked programs, see Top 13 based on USNWR figures and NRC Top Schools based on Research area (for this you probably care most about Social & Behavioral and Arts & Humanities). Perhaps the most useful would be the NRC overall rankings. Please note that all the above methodologies favor schools with large engineering and biomed programs. The "average non-zero score of NRC overall rankings" is probably the most useful measure for you. But does a highly ranked program matter? If you want to do something truly international, will the person hiring you know the difference between "The University of Michigan" and "Michigan State University"? Hopefully, but there are no guarantees. My English roommate is applying to American law schools (he's got triple citizenship) and when he explains which ones he's applying to, the only one well-educated English people consistently know is Cornell (and maybe Berkeley). Often they'll say something like, "Ah, I hear that's a good school." My roommate mentally responds, "That's the lowest ranked school I'm applying to." Let me put it a different way, what's the best French University? I bet at least half of you say the Sorbonne, a university that doesn't exist anymore, though four schools carry the name "Sorbonne" [Paris I, III, IV, V]. None of these schools are part of the "grandes Ecoles" which are the best regarded universities in France, and I think the Sorbonnes are generally considered pretty mediocre. Personally, before looking this up, I could name only one of the grandes Ecoles (the Sciences Po). I doubt most of you could do much better. There are two sets of world rankings: "Academic Rankings of World Universities" and "Times Higher Education World University Rankings". According to these, the top four French universities should be: Paris VI (Pierre and Marie Curie), Paris XI (Paris-Sud XI), École Normale Supérieur, École Polytechnique (Paris X). Ever heard of those? I think the only one of those that's strong outside the hard sciences is the Ecole Normale Superieur, but still. (The one French sociologist I can name currently working in the US went to the Sciences Po. Foucault, Derrida, Bourdieu, Althusser and Sartre got their degrees from the Ecole Normale Superieur, Levi-Strauss and I think Baudrillard from the Sorbonne before it was broken up, and Lacan just went to med school somewhere.)

The rankings of graduate programs are almost always completely different from the rankings of undergraduate universities. While some schools are consistently strong in a variety of fields (Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Princeton, etc.), some schools have a few top notch programs in random disciplines (University of Rochester is GREAT in Political Science, University of California--Santa Cruz has a really strong Queer Studies program). For list Then again, some schools fare surprisingly poorly in the rankings. There is not only the US News and World Report, but also the more well regarded (but dated) National Research Council report. Let's compare three rankings to see what is consistent between them. Anyway, public schools are in italics, ivy league schools are underlined, other elite private schools have no formatting. Sources: USNWR 2009, USNWR 2005, NRC 1995 (Sorry for the inconsistent naming--I really didn't feel like changing all the NRC rankings to fit.)

To find out about placements, ask! Ask about the department as a whole, and ask your POI in particular. The department as a whole is often (not always) placed on the website, but that doesn't account for the people who couldn't find a job. The woman I want to advise me, because of her interests, takes on a lot of foreign students, but they were placed in the top universities in their home countries. The ones in Turkey are definitely well placed (not that I plan on coming back here). As for her American students, the sample size wasn't huge, but she named a few top liberal arts colleges and said those are the ones she could think of off the top of her head, but she would be more than happy to look up all of them. If the professor can't remember where their own graduate students have gone off to, that might be a bad sign (though it'd be different if it were a masters program or a professional program).

Rising star's advice is excellent. A wedding ring is a good idea (be warned: it will not deter everyone) and so is the idea of having multiple back ups for your data (if possible, you should try to load all your pictures and data onto the internet every day, so if something does get stolen, your trip won't be wasted). Have a cheapo cell phone, but you probably won't need to use it that much. Try to look as local as possible until you open your mouth (easier in some places than others). Dress frumpy. Avoid name brands. I think your idea to contact NGO's etc is a good one. At least they can recommend people to meet in the area. Also check with whatever archives you're searching, ask the librarians (or whoever it is that you're seing). The local people working will have the best ideas of places to stay, places to avoid. If you can make contact with professors at local universities interested in your topic, ask them for advice too. Many travelers hate Naples, Italy, but when we went someone drew us a map of exactly where to not go and it was our favorite city in Italy. See if you can contact a nice old woman or friendly restauranteur who can give you advice first thing when you get into town. Or a priest or something. Sticking out is sadly unavoidable some places, but it isn't always a bad thing. When I was traveling in the Southeast of Turkey, when a friend and I walked into a bath, they immediately started saying "foreigners, foreigners". We thought we were about to get scammed. Afterwards, we realized it was more like "Yo, guys, we have guests, be on your best behavior." Being a woman unfortunately will make things more difficult for you, but consider what accessories could make you less of a target. Might carrying a rosary, for example, help you? Who is going to rob a conservatively dressed woman on a bus piously fingering her rosary? As far as a weapon, remember it would have to be something you could quickly get to. A knife at the bottom of your backpack won't help much. Keep your cash in multiple places, obviously. Also definitely have a fake wallet which contains like one useless ID and always have like 5 dollars in there. Be ready to hand that over without a second thought (that way you'd only really need to use a weapon to protect your physical well being). Don't bring jewelery besides the fake wedding ring and maybe a cheaper watch, and in the worst case scenario be prepared to hand that over (though you might want to put up a fight about the wedding ring, just for show). Alert the embassy of where you're traveling.

You'll probably get better responses if you post in the computer science subforum

For all of you with multiple acceptances, I made something neat. Unfortunately, I accidentally tucked it into a subform ("The Bank") that no one reads this time of year. Anyway, I found a comparison of top stipends, and then I made a chart comparing costs of living in several dozen cities. It probably won't affect your decision per se, but hey social scientists, they're fun numbers. It's just an interesting way to look at it. According to these numbers, Penn probably makes the best offer of any school.

So here's what I did with my evening. This is a comparison of costs of towns and cities with graduate programs. Please forgive me if I forgot any. I tried to list suburbs under a main city if I thought they substantially shared a housing market. The suburbs tend to illustrate the limits of "cost of living" as a useful indicator for graduate students. Much of the variation, especially within a metro area, is based on housing costs. Take Boston, for example. For a graduate student, Cambridge will not be 29% more expensive than Boston. The Tufts campus is in both Medford and Somerville; the town line literally bisects the library. The housing market in that area I don't think really differentiates between that invisible line, but according to this data there is a significant difference in terms of cost of living. That's just not true in this case. Basically, I would guess there is at least a 5% margin of error, especially in urban environments with extremely varied housing within one city. Cost of living is determined from a variety of factors, but the biggest difference was usually housing. Again, Princeton, NJ will not be more expensive than Chicago for a graduate student. Santa Barbara, CA will not be more expensive than NYC. These clearly reflect conditions that don't affect grad students. Individual notes: Queens was the only borough listed on the website so the only place listable that shares a housing market with New York. The Research Triangle is considered suburbs of Chapel Hill. Philadelphia's cost of living, as well as perhaps Baltimore's, seems artificially low. This is all based on Northwestern's stipend--I was inspired by a little chart they made. Look how the cities stack up against each other there, or on this cost of living calculator. Notice Northwestern used Chicago's cost of living as their basis, even though everyone knows their is only one world renown university within the city limits of Chicago. Again, the cost of living is in comparison with the city of the big shoulders, hog butcher to the world. Without further ado, here's what I spent a few hours on because I got interested. Just to clarify, the "stipend" is the amount of money it would take in each place to maintain a standard of living comparable with one afforded by Northwestern's stipend in Chicago.

Congrats! Update your signature!

I emailed professors at about half the schools I considered. The ones that I didn't email were the better fits--I felt I didn't have to confirm anything with them! I already knew we were a good match, so why should I ask them? The one admit I got was from a professor who I thought I was a particularly good fit with, and when she called me on the phone to admit me, she jokingly chided me, "I saw your application and thought, 'He's perfect for me... why didn't he email me!'" (I did put her name first in my SoP) It seems these days emailing is expected for many programs, but I mean, what did I know before the application? Now, if a professor isn't taking anymore students, that obviously is the kiss of death. However, not emailing does not guarantee rejection. If they are taking students, and you are a good match, hopeful your application will make it on to their desk (my PoI by chance was head of the adcomm). But let this be a lesson for the future for all of us as we write papers and network in our respective fields--communicate!

I'm no expert on this but I'd say you should email them, tell them they're your top choice, and say you'd really like to go there, BUT that other schools have made richer offers. Tell them that you've been in contact with other applicants at this school and learned that they received better offers. Tell them your improved stats. Of course, if they start shelling out money to you after that, you might be morally expected to go there... but if it's really your top choice, that shouldn't be a problem. Schools (especially relatively rich ones, like the top choices in your tag) can often find a little bit of extra money here or there. I wasn't planning on going to a school's visiting weekend (it'd be a 16 hour flight for two days and really expensive) and I told them, "Well, it's really expensive and I don't know if I can get the time off work." Their response was simply, "It'd be a shame if financial reasons were the only thing that kept you from coming. We'll work something out if you can make it work on your end" and ended up paying for the whole ticket, which was much more than I expected! As a note, research has found that one of the aggravating factors of the male/female wage gap is, on the whole, women are more reluctant to ask for a raise. I'd say, there is no harm in bringing it up with the department. Rehearse the conversation first (or write it in a letter, probably better). That's my 1.47 euro cents, at least.

Just for the record, I found a Social Science/Humanities stipend over 25,000: http://www.yale.edu/...al/stipend.html lists the minimum (read: Humanities) stipend as 25,500, but that includes summers. For more comparisons of stipends, I started a new topic:

While looking up a few things for I stumbled upon some information that I thought deserved a topic of its own. This is only about HUMANITIES/SOCIAL SCIENCE not Engineering/Physical Science/Biological Science. You guys can start your own club (naw, just kidding, that stuff just already has it's own spots: Wendy Chao has an updated list of high Biomedical stipends for example). Source: Princeton's Annual Report on the The [sic] Graduate School 2008-2009, table 10 Further comparable stipends: Chicago | $19,500 | $3,000 for 2 years | $103,500 (source) Northwestern| $20,928| $??? for 3 years* | $94,640** (source) *It's unclear if 20,928 includes summer, judging from results page post from last year in Economics "15k + 5k summer; TA years 2, 3, 5" it seems like it does. Also from the results page: one person had 4 summer funded, some people just listed "summers funded", several had three summesr funded **Assuming 15,928*5 + 5,000*3. Admittedly, this is the least definite of all the numbers. If it is 20,928*5+5,000*3, then the total five year stipend is $119,640. Unless noted, the figures were for 2009-10, the last round of admittance. Between 2008-09 and 2009-10, Princeton's stipend was raised by $750 dollars. Between 2009-10 and 2010-11, Columbia's stipend was raised by $500. That seems to be normal year to year. Between 2007-08 and 2009-2010, Chicago's raised by $500 (though it had been considerably lower before 2007). Not all departments pay the exact same. For example, the language departments at Chicago pay slightly more (see first Chicago source). Princeton, in addition, has Presidential Fellowships available to underrepresented minorities (including women in science and engineering, see table 8 or 9 [i forget] in the Princeton Source above). Slight variations are possible other places as well. This table only tries to collect the standard offers. These charts all divide between summer and the school year. Some schools don't do this: Yale for instance advertizes a yearly stipend of 25,500 but that includes five summer. There are more stipend numbesr available from the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/stats/stipends/ if anyone sees a particularly noteworthy one in the Humanities or Social Science, post it here. NYU's is probably up here too, perhaps Duke's is as well. I just wanted to start collating the data.

Man, I've also done that before! Usually on days I'm in a really good mood, giving everyone pluses. And then suddenly I hit a limit and it's like, "Nooo! But I have so much more love to give... Damn it, this new person is way more deserving than the last person, IF ONLY I'D KNOWN!" It's one of them, you know, ant and grosshopper kinda things.

Kid that's wicked cute. You should definitely slip into your interview that the Yankees suck. In my experience, it's relevant to every field of study in that part of the world. (Oh I miss that dirty water).

Man, I got my Berkeley rejection a few minutes back. That means my only applications left out are for Yale (which people have already heard from) and Northwestern (my worst fit). Hey, but I got into one place, fully funded, and it was one of my top two choices. This whole situation is really flukey and I happened to get (what looks to be) my sole acceptance early, but those of you still waiting, you might get your acceptances late. Remember, early or late, you only need one acceptance in order to go to graduate school next year. I just wanted to say good luck, keep your chin up.

Congrats on getting in to ZooMass! I saw this post on the results page.... you may not know about cohort size, but do you know why the heck you got a text message? I'm dying to know... like, what did it even say? "yo i m pleazed to n4m u ur total in! congrats!!!!1! xoxoxo umass. p.s. this isn t fake n is totally 4 realz!!!"

I believe that this wrong. I thought at one point I found a Humanities/Social Science stipend comparison chart, but I can't find it now. I have never known a Humanities/Social Science program to pay that much, even in a place with a high cost of living, like the Bay Area, New York, or Boston/Cambridge. I think generally those kind of places will hit you with something between 20-25,000, though the highest figure I've actually heard is 23. For a reference, here are biomedical science stipends: http://www.wendychao.com/science/stipends/2009-10.html. Engineering can be similar, I think, but Physics and Math I believe are usually lower. Here's something from Hopkins about their low Humanities/Social Science stipends: http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2007/03/08/Opinion/Setting.The.Record.Straight.On.Graduate.Stipends-2769552.shtml the important quote is: Some graduate students, especially those teaching writing and language courses, design and teach these classes independent of any fully paid faculty member, yet their remuneration is the same as those who TA: a maximum of $14,000 a year. U.S. academic institutions of comparable caliber to Hopkins, in cities with costs of living that are comparable to that of Baltimore, have recently raised their stipend rates for graduate students. Such graduate programs are now offering stipends around $19,000-$20,000 [for Humanities/Social Science students], which makes Hopkins less attractive to prospective students who are comparing figures. Private schools tend to have slightly higher stipends. For complete stipends for 111 school, check out http://chronicle.com/stats/stipends/ The University of Chicago offers 19,000 for English, UCLA offers slightly lower than that, but they generally don't have that many elite schools in expensive cities listed. Here's a more detailed look at the U of C's stipends: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/08/chicago Basically, your program is saying "You pay for the Masters degree, we'll cover the rest of your PhD."

That's an excellent question! You should ask them! I mean, everyone who is accepted to a PhD program asks about placement, why shouldn't everyone accepted to an MA program ask the same questions? Definitely ask the administrators about it. Also ask to talk to students currently in the program; if it's a two year program, I bet they have a good sense of where people end up next year... and if it's a one year program, they're all applying now anyway so they'll know at least where THEY ended up. Me, my instinct would be to follow the money because I'd be leery of taking on unnecessary debt that I couldn't start paying off for half a decade at least. However, if the kids from the expensive program get into much better schools than the free program, well then it seems like your future earnings ought to outweigh any current debt. Another problem is that if it's a "we'll take your money but not give you a PhD" program, ask the masters students how much contact they actually have with their professors. At my undergraduate, that was a big complaint of Masters students. Again, ask current students about these questions. If you want personal contact, and you want to work closely with professors, consider the lower ranked schools. However, if all the masters students at the expensive school whom you talk to are getting into fantastic programs and have had wonderful experiences, well then perhaps you should consider that one.

Wait, in your guys' previous academic experience, did you really use Dr. X instead of Professor X? Is that the norm where ever you are from? I have never heard that said out loud in academic setting... except for perhaps theologians. My dad is a PhD and my mom is a medical doctor, and I always used to just laugh at mail addressed to "Dr. & Dr. X" (especially because my parents don't have the same last name... it'd be even funnier when one of the was Dr. X and the other one wasn't... especially when it was Dr. X & Ms. Y). But I've never called a PhD a doctor to their face, nor heard anyone else do it. In English at least (I've heard people do it in German).

I should add that one of my coworkers is applying to linguistics programs after an undergrad as a German major. He didn't have any papers that were very strong linguistically so he spent a few months in the Fall working on a new linguistics paper on language acquisition in Turkish children. He wrote it using mainly stuff from the internet (linguistics is much more based on articles than books) and maybe getting on of his "boys" to scan some stuff from a specific book or two. If your writing sample was weak, you can completely rewrite a new paper even without doing a masters program.

All of the professor from the program I was accepted to sign their first names to emails. I'm still replying to Professor So-and-So. I am waiting for visiting day to see what other people in the program call them. I hope most student actually call them Professor X still, secretly. I remember one of my history professors told me a story. He is German, though he got his PhD in Reformation/Early Modern History at Columbia. This guy Paul Oskar Kristeller, who is a big deal, taught there. When my professor finally got his PhD, P.O.K. (as his was known) bought him a bottle of champagne and raised a toast. "Constantin," he said, "You are now my peer and may now begin to address me by my first name. In English, you may call me Paul. In German, call me Paul Oskar." Maybe it's my German heritage, but I've always thought that was so cool, and so beautifully formal. Like, I want my adviser to ceremonially say, "You are now my peer" when I get my PhD.

I should add that none of my LORs were in Sociology... or even from people in the Social Sciences. I had one from my thesis adviser in Religious Studies, two from graduate student instructors (I know you're not supposed to get those... but I knew they'd be enthusiastic about me, so I chose them over a middling letter from a real professor), and one from a very well regarded Historian who wrote me an incredibly enthusiastic letter that I know said something along the lines of "This kid is fan-freaking-tastic, he has the drive and critical thinking skills to succeed in any discipline and I'm sorry he's not going into History".

Wow, only in the Sociology subsection will my idle speculations be answered with hard facts rather than rumor and innuendo. I read the above study, and there's an updated 2008 version http://www.asanet.org/research/ASAJobBankStudy09.pdf (I haven't read that one yet though, it's also a little longer). In fact, the ASA has a whole series of similar articles that might interest some of you http://www.asanet.org/employment/factsoncareers.cfm

I want to second the idea of writing down the questions and their responses. After I was accepted to a place, I definitely had a couple of question that I asked when they called me and at least once I had to say "Okay, can you spell that name for me?"

I was told by two separate Sociology professors at two separate schools not to disclose that I was also applying to Religion programs. Apparently, it's the mark of an "unserious" student to apply to two fields. While I think Sociology is particularly jealous in this regard, but you should be careful about mentioning that you're applying in other fields. Perhaps if you're applying to one or two departments in other fields it's less of a deal (especially if those are interdisciplinary) I bet, but I was applying to 50/50. I agree with Chimerical's comment. Consider coming up with very specific reasons beforehand as to why their department is so awesome, even if they're not academic (geographic, etc.).