jacib

I would say don't get another bachelors. See about taking classes as a non-degree student (especially during the summer/fall semester), particularly trying to develop a close relationship with a professor or two who could try to write you an additional letter of recommendation (go to office hours every week, etc.). Additionally, see if you can't swing a job mildly related to Sociology, such as one at a non-profit entity. Check idealist.org More importantly, what was the weakest part of your application? Was it your GRE scores, your transcript, your statement, etc? I know in Sociology they want "serious" students, which to them means someone with a very specific interest in Sociology. I was told that applying to Sociology and another field would mark me as an "unserious" student and send me straight to rejection. I also don't a Sociology background either, but I really tried to give the sense in my statement that all I wanted to do was Sociology. Since this is actually true for you, hopefully you already did this this year, but if not, make sure to do it next year. Have a little bit about how you found Sociology in your statement. I had a section on why Sociology was better than my BA field (Religious Studies) for answering the questions I wanted to ask. Make sure your statement is clear and interesting. If you think your statement was a weak point, rewrite it, starting in August. Show it to academic types. If your transcript was weak, definitely take a few more classes. If it was GRE, definitely study (I know Canadian students generally have trouble with standardized tests). Study like it was a class, spending a few hours a week studying it for months. Take lots of practice tests. Make flash cards. If this was a weak section of your application, send me a PM and I'll give you more advice (I teach standardized tests, including the GRE, now). I'm sure there are also plenty of GRE study guides at the U of T library. Sometimes it is just intangibles and luck. Really really look out for good fit. Widen your search. Pick new schools, consider which of the old ones actually had a strong fit, and which you were applying to because of name/ranking/location (I definitely wasted $75 on a few of those).

I want to disagree with you there. I just got into Columbia Sociology program with a 3.26 undergrad GPA (albeit from a well known school), and also my three W's (gasp). I didn't think either would be a problem and they weren't. Yes, some graduate programs do have a 3.0 cut off for applications, but it seems like from the posts above that even those can be waved. A low GPA (3.0-3.5) is definitely not the kiss of death if there are other strong parts of your application (my GRE scores were particularly good, but strong published papers or conference things, or prestigious awards or internships or whatever would do the trick equally well I suppose). My last two years GPA and my major GPA were both between 3.5-3.6, if that makes a difference in any of your estimations. High numbers won't get you in. An interesting project at a good fit and mediocre numbers might.

Better than the humanities. I know the job prospects are better in Sociology than Anthropology. Perhaps similar to Political Science, but the thing is, students in Political Science may have more recourse to jobs "in the industry". I can't say exactly (I doubt anyone can). The number of sociology professorships is at least not shrinking (as I've heard history is) nor are sociology phds grossly, grossly overproduced (like English). I have a friend who graduated American Studies from Yale, I believe the best American Studies program in the country, but simply cannot find a job because there are no jobs there. She's looking abroad. I haven't seen things like that in sociology in the same way, definitely. At the schools I looked at (top 10 schools), most of the job placements seem to be at 4 year colleges (though they of course don't say it's tenure track or post-doc or what). My father works at a much lower ranked program (a small one, with only 2 or 3 students in each cohort) and he just got one of his students placed at University of Louisville. One has to be willing to travel and willing to live outside of a city, but it seems like there are jobs to be had in various parts of the country (it seems like the Americans people I talk to end up often at liberal arts colleges, but that could just be a small sample size.... the foreign students seem to have no problems finding jobs in their home countries). If you want to end up in a city, much less a specific city, or even just a specific state or region, you may have to teach community college, but that's how it is in every field. I get the sense that Sociology is relatively robust. Someone correct me if I am wrong. With schools cutting their cohort sizes, I think in 5 to 7 years with a recovered economy the job market will be decent compared to other academic fields.

My old man gets a sabbatical every seven years (it's from the Bible... same root as "sabbath", if you can make the connection) and I think that's the way it always is. It is only for tenured professors. It's quite common for professors to delay it a year or two or three for various reasons, so it's not actually every seven years necessarily. It's six months full pay or one year half pay, so even if they take a sabbatical, it might only be half the year for your adviser, depending. Many people (I'd imagine especially in the sciences) stay in town. I had to track one of my recommenders down because he was on leave... the department secretary didn't initially realize he as on leave because he was still around the university's neighborhood, coming in to check his mail and what not. One of my friend's PhD advisers was fired at the beginning of what was going to be his last year... he had to stay on an extra year, work in a new lab, redo a lot of research, but even that only added a year (and he had to change his entire project).

This line of reasoning almost convinced me... until I realized it still lacks a hood. I mean, what kind of person has arms on fire, doesn't have a head surrounded with flames? I mean seriously, think about it for a second, it just doesn't make sense.

So today I got home, and the most recent email said DUKE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL DECISION LETTER AVAILABLE. Naturally I check it first. You can skim this clearly of the "check the website" type, but notice it just has two links: Dear Xxxxx, The Duke University Graduate School was pleased to receive your application for admission and to be able to consider you along with the other very well qualified applicants who are interested in pursuing graduate studies at our university. Your application has now been evaluated, and you may view your decision letter on line (click here) beginning February 16, 2010. You will need your PIN (xxxxxxxxx) and password (xxxxxxxxxx) to access your letter. In addition to this on-line notification, applicants admitted to the Graduate School will be sent a paper copy of the admissions letter through regular mail services. To notify us of your decision to accept or decline our offer of admission, please use the link provided in your on-line decision letter to access the enrollment form. Information about Graduate Student Services including housing, child care, health insurance, etc. can be found by visiting the web site located at http://www.gradschoo...sionupdates.htm Thank you for allowing us to consider your application and best wishes as you seek to further your studies. Important Note to Admitted International Applicants: To study in the United States, you will need to obtain a student visa. Please understand that Duke University cannot issue a visa eligibility document (I-20 or DS-2019) to you until you have submitted the enrollment form, the visa request form and any required supporting documents. A link to the on-line visa request form will be sent to you if you accept our offer of admission. Sincerely, Duke University Graduate School Enrollment Services PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE AS RESPONSES WILL NOT BE ANSWERED. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Okay, now which link did you notice first? I noticed the longer one, which had the words "Admission Updates" in it (Grad Cafe truncates links, remember so it's even longer in real life). So I clicked that one, which automatically redirected me to the page http://gradschool.du...itted/index.php which not only says "Admitted" in the address but also starts off with the line, "Congratulations on your acceptance, and welcome to Duke!" Only after pausing for a minute did I realize that I would have to sign in to read any real decision, so I went back, signed into ApplyNow, saw the "check admission decision" link, and got a standard form rejection letter. Thank God I have another acceptance already, but did anyone else make the same mistake?

After you're accepted, ask the schools. If they don't have this kind of data for you, that's a warning sign allegedly. Often it changes adviser to adviser, so ask people in your subfield. At the one place I was accepted, the department head gave me a run down of approximate attrition rates off the top of his head, including reasons. At this program, he estimated one person in every three to four cohorts leaves or is asked to leave because they cannot do the work/sociology isn't right for them. One out of every four or five cohorts, someone leaves for medical reasons. He could recall no one leaving for lack of funding. The school put me in touch with current grad students and I am asking them the same questions to check. I talked to my POI and asked her about where her previous students had been placed. She doesn't take that many students, and because of her interests, many of the students she does take end up being international students and finding work in their own countries. The other students (though it was a small sample size) generally ended up at well respected liberal arts colleges. Again, I'm asking the current students about anyone who's had problems with job placements. Obviously, this was all after I was accepted, I don't know if there is a possible way to check this before acceptance. I wish it were... I want to compare the program I have been accepted to with programs I might be accepted to later! For good questions to ask after you've been admitted, see http://members.terracom.net/~dorothea/gradsch/success.html Scroll down to "But what do I ask". Some of the links don't work, but that's only because they say www.terracom.net; simply change all the "www.terracom"s to "members.terracom" and every link works.

What's wrong with you people? Am I the only person with the requisite amount of refinement and taste to realize the former is far superior to the latter? Does no one care about tradition anymore? Are you all so fixated with some flash-in-the-pan craze that you'll want to wear some cheesy tri-tone robe that i) looks like it's made out of the same material as CVS halloween costumes and ii) apparently doesn't even have a cowl ? Allow me to be the voice of reason and say #1 is by far the more handsome garment... Full disclosure: The first one is from what's pretty much my hometown school, so... congratulations on both!

Best comment ever.

Oh yeah, this makes sense even more now, because at Columbia there is also this new "Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life" which I was assured would be able to help me fund things I wanted to do. I think fit matters especially strongly if you have a regional interest.

Oh man, how nice you noticed! Thank you. Yeah I am really really happy. I also like how people I respect on this board seem to respect me back, and then we all get really excited about each others success and blah blah blah. Good luck! Religion departments are getting back to people so much later than all the other fields, it seems! And yeah, I just got back to Turkey last night. I haven't eaten borek yet, though I did have a really nice Turkish breakfast with eggs and sweet pastries and honey and kaymak (do they have kaymak in Hungary? I know they have it in Serbia and Bulgaria, and that they don't have it in Austria). I normally grab a borek or a simit on my way to work. So grood.

Jigmenorbu, I am incidentally interested in a very similar topic. I'm also interested in secularism, though less focused on ethnographic work and more on comparative/historical work. I applied to five sociology departments, and five religion departments (Duke, Chicago [MA], UCSB, Toronto [MA], BU), though I recently withdrew my apps from the last three after getting into one of my top choice sociology departments. Throughout the process, I actually felt more and more pushed out of religion departments. I went in to the application process considering sociology departments as almost an afterthought, but at this point, that's where my focus has been. Are you applying later or have you already applied (your profile lists "Spring 2010")? Where have you applied, what precisely are your interests? If you don't want to share in this public place, it'd be cool if you private messaged me. I had always thought of religion as my home, but the more I read about it (NAASR and the J. Z. Smiths of the world can only do so much), the more I apply to the departments, see how they work and how I don't want to share their assumptions, the more I feel like people like me are marginalized in the study of religion. That's obviously not entirely true, and there are tons of sweet people around (Bruce Lincoln comes to mind) but a lot of the questions scholars of religion ask I don't find interesting. As for secularism, I had a long talk with Jose Casanova of Georgetown about who is working on the issue right now, and he gave me a long, long list of people with whom I could pursue graduate work relating to secularism--mainly political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists (in roughly that order). The only one he mentioned affiliated with a Religion department was Mark Juergenmeyer at UCSB, who is also affiliated with the Sociology and Global Studies departments. I don't know, I felt like most of the Religion departments were not as accepting to my research ideas as I had hoped (Duke's was the one big exception... Actually I think Chicago and Toronto would have been exciting places if they didn't require Masterses first). But I mean, if you look at where most of the people who post on the Immanent Frame work, it's almost never someone from a Religion department. Philosophers get more stuff published on the Immanent Frame than "Religionists" do. In fact, Ebrahim Moosa at Duke is the only one who has posted recently on the Immanent Frame who is by training a "Religionist" of some kind, at least that I can think of. Actually, that's not true, looking back there are several recently. But none except Moosa are at places that train graduate students, I don't think. But still, I have been surprised at how bad a fit my project was for most religion departments. I was hard pressed to even find five to apply to that had a good chance of accepting me based on fit.

I was in a different country from my contact number when people called with my acceptance. My cell phone was off and it went straight to voice mail in a foreign language. They tried for a day or two, and then sent me an email. Once they have accepted you, the tables turn and it is they who are interested in wooing you. I have gotten phone calls from three different people at this program so far... and only one who would actual work with me. The other two are just doing the job of selling me on the program, getting me to come to the recruitment weekend, etc. None of the things will be time sensitive (or they all will, but not knowing until March 15th is not a problem). American schools can't demand you do anything until April 15 (there's some graduate degree granting university blood oath involved.. maybe someone can link to the text of it). Getting in off the waitlist, they can demand an immediate response, but in the normal course of admissions, I've never heard of 24 hours or anything like that for American universities.

Man, I go out and have a few drinks in my time zone and there are tons of new acceptances! Congrats to everyone, especially Deckard, who if I'm not mistaken was a little shaken by Columbia. See, it is all some crap shoot! Most special especial congratulations to Captiv8d! Way to go, kid! My folks lived in Des Moines for a bunch of years while my mom was in school. By all accounts a great place to raise kids. I know you were down about Princeton, but you got five years of funding at one of your top choices! How sweet is that? That must just take so much weight off your shoulders. (P.S. It's clear you've already started the torturous "What would it take for me to turn own this offer" games in your head... I for one can't tell if such things are fun or horrible yet.)

Man, on how many different internet boards will a disagreement end with everyone apologizing? New guy, I'm sorry that people jumped on your first question, which was a legitimate one. In our own excitement, it's hard to think that posting a legitimate question could upset people, but I'm sure we all realize this is a wicked stressful time. Your questoin is hopeflly a little premature, let's say, because, if the fates will it, there are several more programs to which you will be accepted. I don't have a sociology background so I really didn't want to calculate my chances of getting in, and tried to completely avoid hypothetically ranking my schools. I did a pretty good job at it, even. Stress free. But as soon as I got into one, it has become mental gymnastics, trying to calculate all the possible scenarios of choosing between programs, what the remaining programs would have to offer to disuade me from the first one, long lists of pros and cons etc (I had a 16 hour flight and I accidentally took a medicine that keeps you up). It has become really hard for me to rank the Sociology programs against those in Religion, but I did end up withdrawing from three of the Religion programs to which I applied (somethings I'd recommend all of the accept to consider). But seriously, may we all have tough decisions to make in the future! (Actually... I was relieved to not get into Princeton today because it meant I didn't have to make a tough decisions.... so let me amend that by saying, may our decisions be tough, but not too tough!) For me, there was the added stress of visiting weekends, which I would have to do all at once, because schools offer like 300 bucks in travel money and it'd be 700+ bucks to get back to America (assuming I can get the time off work) so like I'd need to combine at least two schools into one trip. And since the school I was accepted into has a visiting weekend on March 1-2, it'll be next to impossible to coordinate that with another school unless I get accepted like... this week. I fully understand the feeling that one must start deciding NOW, even without hearing from all the schools yet. I know I can visit later in March just fine, but it'd have been nice to see the visiting weekend of my top choice P.S. As for my two cents, your answer is simple. You need money. Even if your wife can and will take a job. Luckily you don't have to decide yet. But note this: dropping out of WI because you're broke has a much worse placement rate than graduating from UNC does.

Also in the rejected.

Ha, the only way I was so composed was that they had been apparently trying to reach me for a day or two! I am in California visiting family but they were calling my Turkish cell phone. I hadn't expected anyone to call this early. My Turkish phone doesn't have voicemail even. They had emailed me and were like, "Uhh so we're recruiting you... got a number? Can we call you tomorrow?" So when I actually talked to them, I had had all night to prepare questions on little post-it notes, especially on rubrics that I would later use to compare it against other schools: number of students, teaching expectations, if students taught at other schools ever, how many students my POI has, where her graduates were placed, how interdisciplinary the department was, summer funding, language funding, etc. A lot of people on this board were wondering how the economy affects admissions so I wanted to put that to them, too. Plus, they said "recruiting" instead of "accepting" in the email and I wanted to sound pretty smart just in case it mattered. Regardless, I was still less than perfectly composed. At one point the adviser person was like, "I'm talking a lot, you know, you can ask questions too." I don't know, I talked with both of them for more than 20 minutes! Yes, obviously GRE scores, etc. do play a role, but fit is really a thing that will make or break you, in my opinion. I really got the sense that my application was adopted by a faculty member. Perhaps it would be a little different at a bigger department, like Wisconsin or Berkeley or something, but I got the impression that one person in particular was very, very excited to work with me.

I was just talking to my old man (a professor) about this today. He teaches at a really small school that only accepts 2 or 3 students a year. Though its ranked I think something like 50 or 60, he has had a few students transfer from or turn down offers from places ranked in the top 5. While he wouldn't recommend this for everyone, he says these two specific students he was thinking of it was the best thing for them. Job placement between the two departments these kids turned down (Michigan and Chicago) and where my father works are probably miles apart. That said, they just wanted a smaller department with more one on one mentorship. They wouldn't have done well at the larger departments. Think of how you fit with the department, if you could imagine working with the person for years, etc. Talk to both of their current graduate students, and recently graduated ones, especially. If the younger guy is at a highly ranked department, I also think it won't matter as much that he personally has less of a track record. You could compare track records of the departments as well.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I was more just waiting for a long time to shove something in the face of those NUMBERS, NUMBERS, NUMBERS people. Just so I could be a little more, "Yo, son, FIT". They are definitely in "sell the students" mode, and politely asked about other offers, and really tried to make it possible to visit. That said, I am fairly sure that fit played a big role in this particular acceptance. If I had the same numbers and were interested in different things, I am not sure I would have gotten in is all.

No, I don't think so. Not for every program at least. I think if you look on the results page, the rejections often come later. Okay let me amend my earlier apocalyptic statement of "today or nothing" and let saner heads prevail. Last year they apparently sent acceptances on the 12th and the 13th. And even apparently one on the 16th. Rejections started the 16th. The year before both were on the same day, with rejections starting the next day. The year before that two on the same day, but rejections came later. Until rejections start showing up, everyone should still keep hope on the Princeton front.

Check out Northwestern, too. Even Northwestern Sociology (they have a very strong faculty in political sociology). It's just up the Purple line (easier to get to than U of C, during the day at least). I just got into an excellent program and my GPA was 3.26, and my last two years the GPA average was only 3.55ish. For a place like U of C or Northwestern, you might want some specific things to counteract the GPA, like high GRE scores or specific awards or something. Other places will be less troubled by it. I think if you mention in your statement, "Though I struggled to find my place at first, since I found my calling, I have had a near perfect GPA" just as one line, you should be fine. Focus on the positive, barely mention the negative, if you do at all. It's hard to argue with an excellent set of grades in the last few years. I would especially try to use the GRE to put their minds further to rest.

When the head of the Grad Committee from Columbia called me, she really emphasized that it was fit that got me in. Though mentioned my "strong file", it was clear from the way she was talking that I got in specifically to work with her. In fact, she scolded me a little for not emailing her. She said something like, "When I got your file, I thought to myself 'Oh, why hasn't this boy emailed me! He would be such a great fit with me here.'" And then she emphasized also the other opportunities that would also fit my interest, but it really seemed like what school care about most is fit. I just wanted to reassure people that have gotten rejections and thought "well that's not really the best fit." I think you need first and foremost fit with one particular person in the department. I know we've said that all along, but some people just don't seem to believe it. Secondarily, it would be fit with the department, or other resources at the school (in the acceptance email and phone call, my POI pointed to two other people to work with, one in PoliSci and one a joint appointment in Religion and Sociology; I think I'd mentioned both in my SoP). I would also like to point out that I got in with 3.26 GPA, which is considerably lower than most of the rest of you. So don't fret yet, if you think you're still waiting to hear from the places with the best fits. Also, I have a feeling that if my interests had been more in line with one of the "stars'" (like Sudhir Venkatesh's or some like that's), my chances of admittance would have been considerably lower. I mean, Columbia was one of the schools which I felt most confident about because Karen Barkey does Historical/Comparative Sociology of the Ottoman Empire, and does a lot with the intersection of Religion and Politics (something Columbia's been expanding on in recent years, apparently). So Religion/Politics plus Turkey, from a comparative and/or historical perspective.... couldn't get much closer to my own interests. Again, I got the impression that that excellent level of fit mattered more than my GPA, writing sample, etc. I also know that Prof. Barkey does not take a student every year (she said she has something like 5 or 6 students where she's the first or second person on the committee). Also, for all of you people out there, I asked about Columbia's admits this year. They're still admitting 12-13 people (it seemed weird that neither the head of the adcomm nor the head of the department remembered the exact number...), which is the same number they've admitted the last few years (they had 290ish applicants). They normally yield 7-8 people, but because of the economy and other factors, they expect the yield to be slightly higher this year, possibly around 9-10. Everyone is still going to be fully funded (the head of the department told this meant that by the time I graduated they'd put more than a quarter of a million dollars into me...which seemed frightening). This leads me to believe that there are probably not significant cutbacks at private schools this year. I think my father said the same thing, though his school is a bit less prestigious than Columbia. I think they let in 2 people one year, and 3 people the next, and this is a 2 people year (it's a really small department), but they recently (within the past 5 years) added an extra year of funding in their standard offer and that's not going away. Good luck to everyone else! If anyone has squeezed any more information from people after they got in, you should post it too! Anyone who has a phone call with the department could maybe try to figure out how many people they're admitting, how it compares to last year, what they expect for yield, if they'll let in people off the wait list to get the cohort up to a particular size, etc. for the other people on the boards. I didn't feel weird asking those questions, because asking about cohort size/funding should be pretty standard questions for admitted students. I felt a little weirder asking, "So did you already tell everyone? Are any of my internet friends going to get a call tomorrow or the next day?" so I didn't. But I got the impression that they'd gotten in touch with all, or almost all, of the people they're admitting.

Looks like there are a lot of Princeton acceptances! I am imagine that if we don't hear today, it's bad news. I wonder who's going to be working with Wuthnow. I hope it's someone/some people on this board. Captiv8d, I have my fingers crossed for you!

I just got in and I live abroad. One of the departments I just got into suggested this: combine the trips. Schools have a certain amount of money to offer (this one offered $300), but if you got two departments to pony up money, that's 600, etc. That will make a much bigger dent in the cost of traveling from overseas. I originally wasn't planning on visiting but now I'm considering it.

Check the results search and simply type in "English", or better yet "English X Univeristy". That will tell you exactly when people heard last year. Some schools, particularly those with larger departments, may have acceptances in waves (but that should show up in the search results). Some schools are a little earlier this year, some schools a little later.