jacib

FWIW, probably the most relevant part of What is Property?: If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required . . . Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is robbery!, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first? I'm not saying that's right, I'm saying that's what Proudhon says. Also Proudhon (if I remember correctly) differentiates property from possessions. Possessions aren't theft, and having exclusive use of a house isn't theft (I forget the category of this), but rents on property or even just the abstract idea of a right to property is theft. I wouldn't be surprised if Proudhon started two failed communes, but I don't think that really has much to do with anything.

Out of curiosity, did they tell you what counted as a "very, very low GRE"?

Just to clarify, the slogan "property is theft" (la propriété, c'est le vol) wasn't coined by some dreadlocked traveler kid with scabbies--it's from Proudhon's What is Property?

Also, not entirely relevant, but Jeremy Freese has an interesting article about how he published a top article using secondary data sets (with a null result, no less) as a graduate student: http://jeremyfreese.com/docs/Freese%20-%20SecondaryAnalysisOfSurveys.pdf

The one thing in sociology--I think our tenure process tends to be a little less brutal than econ's (especially outside of the top 10-15), so that there's more often just "one move down" as you put it. If you're concerned about placement at schools like UCI or Duke or even Indiana, ask them (and ask your potential adviser about their students' placement)--at most places, though, this is unfortunately a conversation that's easier to have after you're accepted. They'll probably only give you the success stories or fail to mention that certain positions are non-tenure track, but it will give you an idea of "the possible". Once you're in school, "playing the game" becomes important. Most schools, probably especially top schools, place in a wide range of colleges and universities departments. Some schools have place particularly poorly recently because all their applicants apply for only top 25 jobs and then (obviously) not everyone gets them. If getting a top academic position is important to you, know that (for quant people, but it's also common for qual people) an ASR/AJS is the best thing to "move up" or "stay up" depending on where you are. I don't know how it is in another disciplines, but an Indiana PhD with an ASR article will look a lot like a Harvard PhD with an AJS article on paper and in those situations, the individual qualitites of the work (how sexy is the topic, how trendy is the subfield, how cool is the methodology) and candidate (is this a guy a want down the hall from me for 10 years?) matter a lot more than credentialing. However, just publishing a lot anywhere is a good start. At my top ten school, there are a lot of people who will graduate with no publications, or perhaps just one publication which, for schools looking to hire researchers, is not a good sign. A couple of qualitative sociologists (Matt Desmond, Adam Reich, Phil Gorski) who got top jobs published their masters dissertations as a book, for example, or published an early ASR/AJS article based on their work (Alice Goffman). Of course, those examples all got their degrees from top schools, but it would hypothetically possible at least to try to do the same from anywhere. And even if it doesn't become a book, there still should be gaps in the literature you can try to fill with term papers, etc. Places will hire outside research assistants for big grants (these days, it seems most common with health; apparently in the 90's, it was criminology; in the 80's, education, or so I've been told by my elders) but I have no idea how you get "tapped into" the kind of network where you hear about those opportunities. Since they're hiring locally, there tends not to be a central place where this kind of information is posted. Contacting the department secretary of U Chicago and Northwestern would be the only thing I could think of. Journals turn around time varies--the best place I know to check is on Soc Job Market Rumors's journal section.

I got into a top ten school with a 3.26 GPA (with a high GRE score), but it was the only one of the five schools in the top 25 that I applied to that I got into. I know a girl with low GRE (I think it was along the lines of 500v/590q from a non native speaker; something like that) scores and a decent GPA from her masters program (no idea about her undergrad GPA) who applied to a couple of schools in the top 20 but got into none. One of the problems is that there's often a "presort" at top 10/25 schools where scores under a certain threshold are sorted out. Depending on things, you might just barely make this cut at some schools but that might not bode well for the process in general. In general, though, it looks like your GRE scores might keep you out of those schools. I remember a girl on this board who had like just under 1200 cumulative and got into Iowa and I think one other school (I forget what her GPA was though). I think at a lot of the schools outside of the top 25 take pretty small cohorts (think two to four kids) so then match becomes hugely important. Unless there's some thing extra ordinary about you you're not telling us, your chances at a top 25 school are probably not that great, but, assuming your SOP, writing sample, letters, and what not are good (aka "the part of the application that actually matters"), I think you'll be competitive at other programs in the top 50.

Do you off hand know what differention they are trying to make?

The Gift isn't an ethnography. Mauss never went to the Trobriand Islands. The Gift is an analysis of data from other people's field work. Anyway, while I think you're right (and Graeber doesn't really acknowledge) that there has always been barter exchange between the inside of the group ("us"--many groups' names literally mean "the people" or "the real people" or "the free people" or "the people who know how to speak") and those outside the group ("those subhumans over there", whose names were often straight up things like "enemy or "mutes" or "the uncivilized people") that could be more efficiently done with money, I think a lot of what Mauss has said has held up for the internal group dynamics. That is, barter is what is done with "them over there"; amongst "ourselves", we gift. Plus, there was also a lot of other non-market transfer of goods to the outgroup such as paying tribute, entertaining visitors (in settled societies), etc. I don't think Mauss is at all arguing against the division of labor, or personal property (how can you give something if don't own it first) because after all, he's relying in part on Malinowski's data. Instead, I think his point is that goods are much more often transfered internally (and in some places externally) through gift exchanges than barter, which goes against the previous assumption people just assumed that everyone bartered for everything "in the good old days". Also, the gift exchange turned goods not into money but into social capital--stuffyou can still spend. One of Graeber's arguments is an internal transfer of goods, barter only happens in places where markets used to exist but has failed, like Soviet Russia right after the Revolution or peripheral regions of an empire, it doesn't predate markets. I don't know how true that part is. Anyway, it's actually pretty cool, and, based on your comments, I think you might actually enjoy it. Even if you don't agree with everything in it (and how could you? We don't fully accept any social science written in 1920's without major revision), it might be (to channel on Levi-Strauss) "good to think with." Yo, to my eyes, this is actually kind of common in anthropology departments, where (again it seems like to me) they're constantly "radically reimagining the possibilities of post-neoliberalism" or something along those lines. I think it's awful but I also think it happens more than you even want to know about. Might be some selection bias in your sample. While most punks I know have mixed feelings about CrimethInc.ers and similar traveler kids (full disclosure: 17 year-old Jacib loved Evasion), my Food not Bombs friends are all doing well and hep free!

AJS/ASR (sometimes Annual Review) are without doubt the top journals, then Social Forces and maybe Social Problems count as either "the worst top journals" and some people count as "the best regional journals" (as one of my professors said, "The main problem with Social Forces is that no one reads it"--not that it doesn't consistently publish great articles). But whatever, it's a very distant 3rd and 4th either way. Where I'd differ from you is I'd probably separate out the top regional journals and top specialty journals. Regional journals are generalist and usually published by like the Midwest Sociological Association, Eastern Sociological Association, etc (hence "regional"): things like Social Science Research (not actually published by a regional association), Sociological Inquiry, Sociological Review, Sociological Forum, etc. Top specialty journals are often published by the ASA section (though might be published for an interdisciplinary audience, like Theory and Society) and include things like City and Community, Journal of Health and Social Behavior/that other medical one, Sociology of Religion/Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sociological Theory, Social Networks, Socio-Economic Review, Demography, etc. I tend to differentiate between the two not because "top specialty journals are better than regionalist journals" (prestige might be about the same), but that they have inherently different audiences. I would say you could have a career as primarily a book writer and then publish articles in top specialty journals, but if you primarily wrote books and published primarily in regional journals, that probably wouldn't be a great sign. But often primarily book people will only publish AJS/ASR articles earlier in their career (Phil Gorski is the most prominent of a couple of examples I'm thinking of--actually maybe this is just a historical sociology thing?) but as they become senior scholars, it's not worth the trouble for them to put their ideas in that particular format. For one thing, they're a lot more work. I had a seminar with a really senior (ancient) professor in political science, and we were sharing our final papers, and he said to a girl, "Where are you trying to publish this?" She said, "Oh, I don't know... maybe (the four biggest comparative politics journals she can think of)" "Okay, well you always need to have what journal you're writing for in mind. This has about 30 footnotes. To get into (one of the biggest journals in the field), it would need at least 100." I feel like some mainly book writing senior scholars, when writing mainly to their subfield, and are already well known and well respected in their subfield, don't always feel the need to go through the hassle of adding in those other footnotes and formatting things to try for one of the top journals (AJS particularly apparently has a distinct format, or so says a senior professor of mine). Also senior professors are ridiculous in general. The guy doesn't have an ASR article from 2005 on his website? Absurd, but also just doesn't surprise me. But like four of the articles he cites are in Socio-Economic Review and Theory and Society, which are really swell journals, and I don't know it well, but I think Politics & Society is really well respected, too. Anyway, it seems more like a book writer who mainly is just interested talking to his colleagues in political and economic sociology, rather than amassing more cultural capital. Like Harrison White (he's known for his books, but I'd say he's more articles) has published once in ASR or AJS since 1988 (in 2010, as a third author), but he's published in journals like Sociologica, Poetics, Theory and Society, Sociological Theory, Social Research, Sociological Forum, Theory Culture and Society, Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Complexity, etc. Once you're senior, maybe it's fine to publish in a lot of top specialty journals instead of jumping through hoops for an AJS or an ASR (or you only publish in those when you co-author with a student based on their dissertation research--I feel like I see that a lot).

As for schools of though, he's more or less a Marxist, I think. Sociology is a little different than Political Science. Whereas Poli Sci has four to six clear subfields (American, Comparative Politics, IR, Theory, plus maybe IPE and Methods), sociology probably has more like a dozen to two dozen major subfields. Everyone in Poli Sci needs to know people across subfields (Putnam, Dahl, Mearscheimer, Walt, Wendt, Rawls, etc.), sociology has less of a clear canon. Since Goffman (who was most active in the 50's and 60's) and Merton (who was active through the 70's), there's been a lot less unity in Sociology (really, probably, the introduction of Marxism has a lot to do with this). Everyone has to know the leading people who research urban poverty: William Julius Wilson, Robert Sampson, Loic Wacquant, Mitch Duneier, Elijah Anderson, Sudhir Venkatesh, minimally, but it's hard to be a "leading sociologist" universally known if you do other things. There are a handful of names from other disciplines which are almost universally known, like Chuck Tilly (historical sociology), Harrison White (networks), Mark Granovetter (networks/work/economic sociology), Andy Abbot (work/methods/historical sociology), Paul DiMaggio/Woody Powell (organizations/lots of things), Viviana Zelizer (economic sociology), Saskia Sassen (urban sociology/globalization), Anthony Giddens (class/theory) and then like the list just goes on and on. Judging from google scholar, Fred Block does stuff on poverty, the state, postindustrialism, so there's just a good chance that no one knows him because no one is familiar with whatever subfield(s) he's working in. But within that subfield, apparently, he's a big deal. Two of his books have more than 600 citations. Like a dozen works have more than 100. That's a sign of importance, and it might just be he's popular within some Marxian critics of globalization, or he's loved by radical geographers more than mainstream sociologists, or that he worked in a way that has become less popular in the last twenty years, but, unmistakably, he was very important to a large group of people at some time. Especially with some less central subfields (gender, medical sociology, sociology of religion, environmental sociology), I could probably post the biggest names working in sociology departments and no one on this board would know them. Also, as for "only publishing in second or third tier journals", he had an ASR (OP, it's one of our two top journals--the equivalent to APSR) with Margaret Somers in 2005 (it has more than 200 ciations on Google scholar)...it's not like he's entirely a washed up hack or anything, if that's what you're worried about. If you want to know similar names, get on google scholar and see who cites him and also look at the bibliography to his books and see who he cites in multiple works.

Yo, I'm curious if there's some academic gossip about Goldsmiths that I don't know about.

So last spring, when we were trying to woo a student (who was choosing between us and an anthro department and not going in to academia at all), I sent her the following email about anarchist "role models" we already have. Notice that none except Graeber actually study anarchists--it's perfectly possible to mix good, empirically-based, social scientific work with anarchist thought without having to carve out an "anarchist studies" (I think the comparison with "Non-Bullshit Marxism" is a great one--guys like Adam Prezworski and Erik Olin Wright are big deals even within mainstream political science and sociology, respectively; the first few things I read by Prezworski, I didn't even know he was a Marxist), though an anarchist addition to social movements literature might also be interesting and worthwhile (be careful: just like after the 2007 crash, every economic sociologist thought about studying the financial crisis, I expect a lot of young social movements people will be studying Occupy, so you'll have competition when it's time to get on the job market). There are also a lot of radical geographers out there, especially in Europe, who are increasingly interested in anarchism, but I know little about them. Anyway, I believe an anarchist sociology would necessarily draw a lot on the guys below, possibly adding in Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zone, even though he's not an academic and he is (more troublingly) a vocal NAMBLA supporter. Anyway here's the email I sent this kid about anarchism in academia (and that there's no reason people can't build on this work in sociology) that I thought worth sharing: Woo okay, so I don't know if you remember but I said I'd send you something on anarchist academics who weren't full of shit (compare with "Non-Bullshit Marxism"); without further ado, here are five (white male) academics whose work is implicitly or explicitly anarchist, some more utopian than others, but all very empirical and pretty fucking awesome: 1. David Graeber (wiki). It's funny that he's famous now for coining "We are the 99%". He's done a lot of random work, including an ethnography of direct action, and his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years is pretty popular--it got reviews in a lot of major places, and from what I've read is quite good, particularly for ancient history, but less so as the economy gets more complex. I saw him speak and he kind of reminds me of a curmudgeonly troll who hangs out under a bridge, but that's neither here nor there. It was a weird lecture in part because I felt like I was in the minority of the audience in that I did not believe that "the global collapse of capitalism" was immanent. I have heard his book, Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value is quite good theoretically (it's about how value is attributed to things), but I haven't read it. What I can recommend are: Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (full pdf available for free online), which is a book that we kept in our bathroom in college which is a great place for it; it's a fun, thin little volume that you can pick up and put down easily. I'd also recommend his wonderful essay on bureaucracy (with its cute little critique of Foucault) called "Beyond Power/Knowledge: an exploration of the relation of power, ignorance and stupidity" and his really great essay on Mauss, MAUSS, gift economies, the annoyingness of trendy French intellectuals, and so much more called "Give It Away" (I think most "anarchist" academics rightly put Marcel Mauss at the center of their cosmos). His wikipedia page also links to a ton more articles that he's written. 2. James C. Scott (wiki). Pure badass. Started out as an anthropologist, but now is referred to as a political scientist as much as an anthropologist. If you don't know his book Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, check it out. You'll love it. Here's a summary/review of the book from the New York Times. His concept of "legibility" is something I think you'll like it. A lot of his terms have become common ("weapons of the weak", which looks at how people refuse to comply without resorting to open protest/revolt, comes from his book Weapons of the Weak). He's just amazing. His most recent book is called The Art of Not Being Governed. Here's a pdf of the first chapter. Easier is just a video of him giving a lecture [gradcafe note: for some reason, gradcafe won't let me link to this video. Anyway, it's cornell [dot] edu/video/?videoID=625] on the book (downloadable, so you can listen to it on your long commute--you won't miss much just having the audio). I have a big crush on him and I'm not ashamed of it. My adviser and him know each other and I keep trying to hint to we should bring him here for a talk. 3. Pierre Clastres (wiki). Again an anthropologist, his Societies against the State, a book I've only read tiny snippets of, is supposed to be a pretty great rebuttal of some of Marx's theories about early societies. He seems to be the best known "anarchist" academic temporally between Mauss and Scott. He was apparently supposed to be Levi-Strauss's intellectual heir, but died young (at 43). Clifford Geertz wrote a (slow, meandering, not that great) review of another of Clastres's books in the New York Review of Books, which he uses to muse on the future of anthropology. 4. Marshall Sahlins (wiki). Another anthropologist, still alive and at Chicago (I know, I know I should be convincing you to do sociology, and I still think you should, but I can at least point out that all these "anarchist anthropologist" are simultaneously much more fun and empirical, worrying less about theory and more about evidence, than the mainstream of anthropology). I don't know whether he'd ever describe himself as anarchist, but again he's just a badass. I know his work less well, but his 1966 article on "The Original Affluent Society" can be seen as influencing three above (its title is a play on a then popular hugely popular book about America called The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Golbraith). I like his work on Captain Cook too though that's not particularly anarchist, nor is particularly not anarchist; it's just plain good work. He not coincidentally runs the press that published Graeber's Fragments. The first book put out by the press is worth reading, too; it's call Waiting for Foucault, Still (again, free PDF; the "still" I think got added with the second edition, so yes, it's a pun on Beckett). He wrote it originally as "after-dinner entertainment" for some big anthropology conference, and it's a lot of jokes mixed with insightful, pithy observations. One section entitled just "Orientalism (dedicated to Professor Gellner)" reads in its entirety "In Anthropology there are some things that are better left un-Said." That's about as funny as an academic joke is going to get. Why I'm mentioning it is because I think the sections "Poetics of Culture, III" (pg. 20-23) and "Borrrrrring" (pg 73-76) and "The Pseudo-Politics of Interpretation" (pg 15-16) are wonderful chapters that summarize why I, personally, feel more comfortable in sociology than anthropology. 5. Marcel Mauss (wiki). Durkheim's nephew. I think Graber's essay on him is wonderful. I can't wait to read The Gift with students once I'm a real professor. Marcel Fournier (a sociologist) wrote the biography of Mauss. It's pretty interesting that many of these guys, Clastres and Scott most clearly, are not interested so much in how to smash capitalism and governments and hierarchy and all of that, but in how to escape from it and avoid it, and how this avoidance plays out in real life experiences. [gradcafe addition: there's probably an anarchist examination of "the underground economy" waiting to happen] Anyway, I know that's a lot of writing and links, but those five guys are just all huge badasses I totally admire and whose ideas surely infect my own work, even if my work is explicitly "not political". -[Jacib]

A bunch of successful applicants to political science programs apparently last year. While not sociology, it should give you an idea of what a statement of purpose looks like. Political Science is probably more similar to sociology than most disciplines, but their subfields are more structured than ours, which means they have to locate themselves a little less (they are field x, whereas we're more likely to say "bringing field y into field x" more often; these fields often imply a standard set of methodological tools as well), and major theorist play a slightly different role in their discipline (you'll notice that some names come up several times--especially in the comparative politics and international relations SOP's). Because of these things, I think if we do anything differently, we have to described our projects in more depth rather than just saying "Hey I want to study this issue in the framework of these scholars." But still, a useful thing to take a look at. I'd say the teaching stuff they'll see on your CV--I doubt it would help you get in, but it might be useful if people are deciding to give you an RA or TA funding. Overall, however, I think all teaching heavy programs would have no problem sticking an inexperienced PhD student in front of a classroom and I think teaching will only matter for how you are funded, but probably not for that you are accepted. Your statement of purpose, I think, should be convincing people that you will complete a high quality dissertation, and that's pretty much all. Quickly go through achievements, research skills, and most importantly ideas of what you'd research, followed briefly by "fit"/why that program specifically will be a good place for you to complete your high quality dissertation.

Previous discussion of analytic writing: If you do retake, keep in mind that your essay is literally graded by a computer. Four to five paragraphs: intro, conclusion, two to three body paragraphs. Clear topic sentences and conclusions (no harm adding "in conclusion"/"in sum"/"in brief", to make it clear your conclusion). Use a lot of fancy words and spell them correctly. Most importantly use like at least one conjuction ("but", "while", "although", "when", "either...or", "unless", "so", etc) or transition ("consequently", "in conclusion", "nevertheless", "moreover", "on the other hand", "more importantly", etc.) every sentence. That shows the computer you're a good writer who "connects their ideas". Also, I'm not sure I remember this correctly, but I believe the GRE sends along a copy of your essay with the scores. if you think it's an awful score for a fine essay, if they're suspicious they might really look at it. I think everyone would agree, though, that your real writing sample is much more important than your AW score.

There's a subforum specifically for statements of purpose: http://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/73-statement-of-purpose-personal-history-diversity/. I don't know if people have found other examples they like online, but that's definitely the first place to look.

Advising in sociology is certainly not equally at all stages. But it also depends heavily on the person (both the adviser and the advisee). In my first year, I had meetings with my adviser probably 3 or 4 times the whole year. The next year, I had more (and I also had classes with them), but the way I work, as I move forward with my project, I will have to ask them more questions about research design and implimentation, but I think I'll have the most imput from them as I'm writing and struggling through my data. One of my colleagues with the same adviser met with our adviser much more frequently, but they also had more questions for our adviser about how American graduate school works. One colleague immediately started working closely with their adviser on a project from day 1 so met with the adviser all the time (in part, to get methodological stuff); another colleague with the same adviser barely sees that professor, but I'm sure will once they have some findings to work out. I don't think there's a universal rule when your adviser is most important, but I believe my adviser will be more important for the writing part of my work. Many of my colleagues, especially the more qualitative ones, feel the same way--my quantitative colleagues might need more one-on-one methods training early on, however, and may only see their advisers later when they're stuck on something (in which case sometimes just a five minute meeting suffices). I also probably don't think it's appropriate to ask about a POI's plans until after you're accepted, except to ask what their current research projects are. It might seem a little premature or presumptuous before you're accepted. But that's definitely something I asked once I was admited, when I met with my adviser visiting weekend. Of course, they will give you a positive answer, and the answer my adviser gave me visiting weekend was a little different from the situation when we talked about it again second year (they're not moving, but it had apparently been a possibility); if you have doubts, talk to the graduate students visiting weekend--especially their current advisees. Not that the grad students (or the professors) will necessarily know, sometimes these things happen in unpredictable ways. I know we have had a multi-year senior search in one particular subfield and we just bring in about one person a year for a job talk related to it. The people we bring in aren't necessarily looking for a new job and they're not "on the market", but they might consider a strong offer.

If you graduated from Bogazici, Koc, Sabanci, etc., check with your professors with American degrees; I bet they have a better idea of where you should aim than we would (because they know you). Where you have a good shot at depends partially on your GRE, but it also depends a lot more on the parts of the application we can't see (letters, writing sample, statement of purpose); just from your GPA's and your wide range of interests, it's pretty impossible to guess. It's also hard for people to guess how high masters GPA/low ugrad GPA is considered (people think the graduate school GPA is mainly what's looked at, but no one knows). It's also hard to know how non-American grades in generally are considered. That's a pretty wide range of schools; I'd consider adding some more American schools. I don't know these areas well enough (and I can't quite tell what you're interested in) so I can't help. Consider rephrasing your question and reposting it: ask, maybe "What mid-level schools should I look at if I'm interested in ethnicity, class inequality, social strat, and labor sociology?" That might get more useful answers. bol sanslar.

Using the "results" page on this website, it's possible to get a very rough idea of what schools have looked for in the past. Often it's only a sample of like 3 or 4 acceptances per school, and keep in mind it's a self-selected sample of people who WANT to report what they got, so it's probably higher than the median accepted candidate, but, nevertheless, it's quite possibly the best way to see roughly what the schools you're interested are looking for. If you're new to the site and don't know what I'm talking about, This is not a full picture of how GRE factors in, but it is a flavor. If you're more curious about GRE's, I've definitely seen sub-600 verbal scores on the board at top ten sociology programs, but I don't recall seeing a sub-600 quant score getting in to a top 10 program. That doesn't mean there weren't any; it just means people didn't report them (or I didn't see them) if there were. Also, "600" forms an easy cut off on the old scores, especially because it would be the same in both quant and verb. However, mentally, it might different with new system because there's less of a clear "just get above this". People might rely on percentages more, people might have two different thresholds (translating 600 would get you roughly, 160 for verbal, 148/150 for quant), or people might just settle out a new minimum at (150 each? 155 each? 160 each?). It's impossible for us to say, in large part because I'm sure each school does it differently. But as someone said before, above 150-ish would probably be just fine for anywhere (in high school, my guidance counselor said it was great that my scores ended in 00 rather than 90, because 90 is generally classed with 50-90, and 00 is class with 00-40; I am sure that professors glancing at scores think the same way). In my department, usually one professor does a first run through weeding out applications that won't be accepted and only the remaining applications are brought to the full committee (though at my school, even at that point GRE scores are still considered). I have no idea what percentage of applications are taken out initially here, but I imagine that GRE score, interests [i.e. if you fit with the school at all--we don't do social psych here, for example, and if you have a really social psych project we're probably not going to accept you], and GPA are all glanced at in the initial weeding out phase. As an anecdote, I went to a research university undergrad and one of my friends' jobs was to work in the bio department and she (as an undergraduate English major) weeded out the applications that wouldn't get in based on test scores. She said she felt bad that these people spent 80 dollars on an application that no professor ever looked at. I don't think in sociology the cut-offs are so formal that an undergrad could do it, but you definitely want to be above a certain (often unwritten) minimum. It's just now really unclear what that minimum is. GRE, at my school at least, isn't just a minimum--it discussed by the full committee as well (when I got in one of my professors remembered my test scores as notable) but once it's before the full committee, I think it's more qualitatively evaluated in light of the full application.

As I thought I mentioned before but I guess didn't, I applied to religious studies programs and sociology programs. On my religious studies apps, I listed the other four religious studies schools plus a sociology school with a good religion program; one my sociology apps, I listed the other four sociology programs plus a religious studies school with a good sociology program. I've heard of other people who applied to a range of schools rankingswise putting only peer institutions on the application. After I got in, I mentioned to my adviser that I applied to religious studies programs as well and she just laughed at me and said, "But your questions are so sociological!" She obviously didn't care that I hadn't listed the schools I applied for and she was head of the admissions committee that year. My guess is once you get into a program, they will laught at you for applying in that other field because they think you belong so clearly at their department (after all, they picked you); in most cases, they will not even be able to imagine you fitting into the rival field.

I'm sending you a response as a personal message because I think it'll be easier than having this play out on the boards, but I thought I'd just clarify that I suggested that networks and markets stuff because you were asking, "Is networks research like ____?", and I don't know the fullest answer to that, so I suggested the best stuff I could, the Annual Reviews (it's pretty safe advice, in general). They'll give a clearer (and fairer) sense than I can of what's going on. Sorry, honestly, if that wasn't clear and I sounded like a pedantic D. I didn't mean to be scolding or demean you by saying "Read this, then let's talk". I was trying to give you a better answer to your initial question because I had thought you were asking more about networks stuff, and I at least know what are hot topics in networks (and less about what's going on in economic sociology, I just know the name Krippner is hot and I like her work that I've seen). Apologies if that didn't come through (which would be a failure on my part, not yours). I have actually coincidentally read (parts of) that Eli Berman book you're talking about. He's got a good thing online for people wanting to use that book as a course book, too, which is nice, I like when authors do that. I know some of his other work work. I think I'm going to actually going to use his paper on Orthodox Jews for one of the projects that I'm working, because I think it's a good paper, though I didn't like that book on terrorism as much.

Rational choice work is all considered "deductive" in sociology, as far as I know, in that you already kind of know the answer before you ask the questions. People maximize utility. People are rational actors. Competition breeds lower costs. Monopolies let you charge higher costs. A lot of sociologists I know (the inductive ones) start with a bunch of data and their first question is just "Whoa, what the hell is going on here?" Like, you should really, really understand the difference before you apply to sociology departments, just because I worry you might be unhappy. Like, we look at things like "racial prejudice" and we're not going like "Okay, in what situations is racism rational", but rather, "In what situations, does discrimination occur?" and ideally "What interventions can we put in place to decrease racial discrimination?" There aren't a priori assumptions about the actors. It's late, so I feel like I'm not explaining well and perhaps that's a poorly chosen example but like... it's just a very different way of going about things. I mostly know rational choice from (qualitative) political scientists, not economists, so forgive me if you think I'm giving it the short shrift. But a lot of people would disagree with that kind of rational choice explanation of the crusades or suicide bombing (rat choice is pretty marginal in sociology, about as popular as the Marxian stuff, maybe more marginal, depending on what population you're talking about, but in top departments, probably about equal). Maybe, it's not that the monopolies allowed states to charge higher costs, but that people really believed that stuff, for example. Off the top of my head, a critic might point to things like Aum Shin Rikyo in perhaps the least monopolistic religious state or suicide bombing in pluralistic Iraq where there also wasn't a state monopoly or countless other examples. The rat choice explanation is not based on sufficient evidence, they might argue, but on certain a prioris that don't explain the action as well as other models. Instead, the cirtic might point to issues around identity (in the case of Iraq--there are actually good, convincing rational choice arguments in the ethnic violence literature) or meaning (in the case of Aum, it's pretty clear they did believe the world was going to end) or status or whatever else being the primary motivator based on evidence and then built upwards. Is that clear? I feel like it might not be but if someone cares, maybe they'll pick up. Sociology, even economic sociology, is really different from economics, and it'd probably do some good to familiarize yourself with the literature and approaches before you apply. I think you're still in school so presumably have access to all the wonderful articles on Google Schoolar but I'd really recommend you start reading a bunch of sociology before you apply. I guess you're interested in networks? Go to the Annual Review of Sociology, and just type in Networks. Read minimally the Stovel and Shaw piece called "Brokerage" and the Pachuki and Breiger piece called "Cultural Holes: Beyond Relationality in Social Networks and Culture". I am not a social networks guy, but I can tell you those are two hot issues in the networks literature right now. Krippner and Alvarez's "Embeddedness and the Intellectual Projects of Economic Sociology", the "Birds of a Feather: Homophily in Social Networks" article, Duncan Watts's 2004 article, and "Statistical Models for Social Networks" (I haven't heard anything about this last one, but like I said, I'm not a social networks guy) would be the next set to read. You should really familiarize yourself with the literature, in just that you should understand how sociological arguments are framed. Are these the kind of conversations you want to have for the next 30 years? "Strong correlations like this seem compelling, but mean nothing without a testable hypothesis on behavior and stated preferences, especially at such a macro scale." That's often not really what we do. We don't often think in terms of "preferences" or (in some cases) testable hypotheses. In one class, we read one early article by this famous guy, and the professor teaching it was like "I know him, and I know that's he's embarassed about this article beause it uses formal hypothesis testing (H1, H2, H3...etc), and he's kind of like now 'Oh, what was I thinking back then? I was so young!'". But go to a soc talk and go to an econ talk--I would wager that in the econ talk, the speaker is interrupted a lot more often during the talk, and the soc speaker is brutalized only after they finish presenting. Why? It's not because econ professors are ruder and more voracious and the sociology professors are low key and polite, but because the way they're working. Econ profesors are making a different set of assumptions and their theory has a different relationship to the data. The problems you pointed to with Culturomics stuff are the kind of things that sociologists wouldn't really have. The two "basic assumption" that I've heard sociologists raise with that stuff is around the representativeness of the sample and what meanings we can say these words have divorced from their context. Those are the issues I remember people talking about. This statement "[it] lacks basic assumptions on behavior to get tested is as I see the major problem with the project" really makes me think you should read more sociology, because you're going to be seeing a lot of "major problems" if you go to graduate school in it. I just get the sense that you don't know what you're trying to get yourself into. I don't mean to be rude, but when you say "most corpus and sociolinguistics lack consistent, well defined assumptions on behavior to test as well" makes me think you just won't fit in in a sociology department, even (or maybe especially) one with a heavy load of economic sociologists. For those still reading, I don't think the qual/quant debate is hot at all right now in sociology. Those fights have died down. It's often more "parallel play" than perfect synthesis between the two, but "mixed methods" is the new watch word, for sure. Mario Small has a good annual review about that for anyone interested. Most people I know are just interested in getting data appropriate for the question. Consider reading C. Wright Mills's the Sociological Imagination. I've never read it (shame, shame) but it's the book that people really recommend for "What is it that sociologists do?" But like, you got to know, economic sociology is not economics with less rigorous math. As far as I can tell, we honestly don't talk about preferences in the same way you think we do (as far as I know--as with all of this, I could be wrong and over generalizing) and I have a feeling for stuff about institutions and norms that you want to do, you might be better served in an econ (or poli sci) department not a sociology department. But like honestly, in your case, I'd describe what you want to do to the professors you want to work with via email and see how they react. Tell them you're switching fields and ask them if this is something that you could work on with them in their departments (I did this when I was switching fields as I was applying--it was useful). But before doing that, though, try talking to professors at your current school about your plans (in soc, poli sci, and econ). Demographers, as far as I know, wouldn't really say "opportunity costs", "labor inputs", or "seemed backwards".

Your talk about this makes me first of all want to suggest by the economist Dierdre McClusky's book The Secret Sins of Economics. I widely recommend it to people interested in both quantitative and qualitative work; it's about economics but many of the things apply equally to sociology. It's also put out by my favorite press: Prickly Paradigm. Best of all, PDFs are available FREE and it's like 60 pages. Summary here (I know one doesn't normally say this about an academic book, but warning: that review contains spoilers). Regardless, I'm no expert, and I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but let me answer as best I can. Most quantitative sociology uses variable-based statistics. "Mathematical sociology" is often, as far as I can tell, just a catch-all term for sociology that uses numbers and computation but doesn't use variable-based statistics. To put it another way, you need a computer to do mathematical sociology but you can't do (most of) it on STATA. It's not only simulations and game-theory. Even though a lot of it doesn't use variables, I think most people still think of it as "quantitative" (in that it uses computers and not traditional "qualitative" methods) but I've gotten into debates with colleagues about whether most social network analysis is "quantitative", which inevitably leads to questions about whether we can just bracket things crudely "quantitative" and "qualitative" (for the record, my answer is yes to both). The point is, I don't think mathematical sociology necessarily has to do with assumptions going into the project. Sure, mathematical sociology uses a lot of simulations, but data mining is, as far as I understand, also an important part of mathematical sociology and it's obviously (hugely) empirical, though, I should add, most of the interesting data mining stuff I've seen doesn't really use variables, at least not like most sociology uses them. Check out the culturomics stuff for example: mathematical, empirical, but also not based on assumptions like you're worried about or using conventional variables. We talked about induction and deduction literally years ago on the board and someone posted a link to this powerpoint. I don't think that powerpoint is 100% accurate, but it's a useful place to start (only the first few slides are relevant, and you can also just check on wikipedia). Is this what your question is really about, "Is mathematical sociology all deductive, or are there inductive mathematical sociologists?" I'd say the answer is no. Demographers are interested in "counting things", largely, and aren't as interested necessarily in causal explanations. Almost all other quantitative sociologists are interested in causal explanations (at least the good ones) so they need, as it were, theory. As far as I can tell, lot of the important theories in stat/inequality come out of quantitative findings. It's empirical, it's theoretical, and it's mostly inductive (there are, of course, a lot of assumptions that go into any research project, but I don't think those are the ones you're talking about). Economics is similarly based on assumptions but that doesn't make it "mere theory"; in that case, though, the assumptions matter in a different way because the theory is deductive. Durkheim's Suicide is of course social theory, empirical, and inductive. Social theory can be inductive or deductive; it can be based on quantitative evidence or qualitative evidence (or, in some cases, show no evidence--DiMaggio and Powell's "the Iron Cage Revisited" is a great example of theory that included no evidence when it was published. It is a very well respected paper). All subfields of sociology (besides maybe orthodox demography) creates new and critiques existing social theory. I might be misinterpreting you, but the difference you're talking about seem to be more the differences between "induction" and "deduction". Take social networks stuff as an example; it can rely on simulations, but it can also rely on very empirical data (either with variables or without). Similarly, I read a lot of qualitative political science which is very deductive (rational choice). I'd say there's deductive and inductive work all over. I just read a great article that covers, among other things, ethnography and rational choice (a kind of deductive thinking)--I can have read the the (excellent) Chandra article, but this whole issue is devoted to the subject. Sociology of religion also weirdly got hung up on rational choice for a while. One of the best books by a sociologist on nationalism is deductive. A lot of gender stuff is deductive (not rational choice, but I'd say equally deductive). Everything using Marxism is obviously deductive and based on assumptions, but that doesn't mean it can't also be based on empirics (my colleague just cited Erik Olin Wright as an example of a rigorously empirical Marxist). You'll see deduction even in social movements literature (everytime you see someone cite Olson 1965, for example). If I completely missed the boat on your question, my apologies, but, yeah, I'd say, there's probably more deductive thinking in mathemtical sociology than most sociology, but no, by no means is mathemtical sociology exclusively deductive nor, I feel obliged to add, is it the only place deduction is used in sociology.

Saw this on Facebook: Male academics explaining things to female graduate students. http://mansplained.tumblr.com/, especially this one: http://mansplained.tumblr.com/post/33844650167/dont-get-pregnant

Huh! This is interesting, I'd never seen it before. This is really cool! A few things to note, in order from least to most important. Programs where a disproportionate number of star students do post-docs (quant-y, health-y programs probably) might have slightly lower numbers as the "since 2000" people might not capture people doing a post-doc in 2009. This probably has a minor affect, if it has a significant effect at all. Anecdotally, it seems likes qualitative people are more likely to land a job outside of top ten and move into it, while quantitative are more likely to start inside the top ten and fail to get tenure. This is absolutely based on my gut and not on "facts". Could be 110% wrong. The analysis doesn't deal with the people who dropped out of the programs without getting a PhD (I've heard in particular Wisconsin, #1 on the list, used to have a real problem with people burning out, not getting funding, and otherwise just dropping it). This just gives totals, not rates/probability. Some programs are much bigger than others. Madison (199 students listed on the webpage) is much bigger than Harvard (96 students listed), for example. Even arbitrarily assuming that Madison has a nine year to degree average and Harvard has a six year to degree average (private schools generally get kids through faster because there are fewer teaching responsibilities which means more free time for work), and assuming there are no drops out, you'd expect 16 Harvard Sociology (and Sociology/Social Policy) students per cohort vs. 22 Madison Sociology (and Rural Sociology) students per year, so even if they place the exact same number of placements in the top 26, every Harvard student is about 1/3 more likely to get a top spot. If you add in, say, say, three drop-outs per cohort from Madison, and one per cohort from Harvard, and the numbers get even more skewed. And so, considering all that, if they're more-or-less tied on this list, then in my book Harvard is ahead since, based on each students probability as an incoming first year PhD student, a student would have a better chance of getting a top academic job from Harvard than Madison even if Madison places slightly more total people in top jobs, if you see what I'm saying. Basically, rather than being based on a total placements in the top 26, I feel like it should be something like total placements divided by the size of the average incoming cohort (I believe cohort sizes often vary year to year, but tend to be stable over time. For example, I know here we're only allowed x number of kids at to be in the first three years at any one time, so like if we have a bad yield one year, the university lets us accept more kids the next).

One of our professors (a new mother and a recent PhD) also told us that the best time to have children was in graduate school. I'm not sure how that would work out for me (if I did, it'd probably be almost at the end of my program). Three women in my program are pregnant or recently gave birth. Another entered the program with two children. I talked with one of them for this thread and I think they're all generally happy with how my program has treated them, the support they've gotten from the department, and all feel this was the right time at the right school, etc. even though this university is probably in the stingier half of the top twenty-five when it comes to OB/GYN insurance coverage (no doula coverage for example) and childcare (weak, to say the least). If you were to look at schools based only on the paper benefits, my school would probably be one that's crossed off (it probably also has a higher proportion of white men than most sociology departments). Nevertheless, my colleague seemed confident that childcare stuff alone wouldn't be sufficent reason not to apply here. This is obviously your decision, and a very personal one, but one thing you could do is, at school's you're not sure about (not the Princetons or the UT-Austins), ask the DGS* if they could put you in contact with any students with children so you could get the inside scoop, or, wait until after you're accepted places and deal with the issue around visiting day by actually talking to the graduate students (assuming you manage multiple offers--this strategy would mean applying more broadly). I remember on my visiting day, there was a woman with a baby in tow--she definitely wanted everyone to know that she was part of a package deal; she told me explicitly she wanted to see how all the professors would react to her bringing a child with her to meetings. There is probably a difference with how school are on paper, and how individual programs are in reality. While my school is stingy, I think my program is understanding, and I'd bet there are at least one or two places that are the reverse. Also, unrelatedly, @mbrown, private top twenty schools do not have graduate student unions to the best of my knowledge. There have been multiple attempts (at Yale, NYU, Penn, Brown, etc.) but they've failed in part because a 2004 NLRB ruling (which came after a successful 2000 ruling; the party in charge changed, the NLRB changed). Cornell (and one other place, I think) had a pre-2004 unionization vote that met a well-organized, student initiated anti-union campaign, and NYU and Yale's unionization attempts met heavy resistance from the administration (NYU, which had to recognize it's union in 2002 and got to unrecognize it in or around 2004, I think. I believe it also changed the way it pays its TAs so they wouldn't be able to form an effective grad student union; they get paid the same as the adjuncts, if I remember correctly). However, in the past decade, I believe most of the unions demands (and more) have been given to elite private university TA's. EDIT: Besides collective bargaining rights, of course. *Actually, maybe this is something that contacting a random graduate student might be good for, rather than the DGS. Whoever you'd feel more comfortable asking. I'd expect most schools have at least one or two students who've had children in graduate school. Just write a "Hey, I know this is random but I'm thinking of applying--could you put me in touch with one or two of the graduate students in the department with kids? k thx."