graddamn

Take advantage of the flexible sign up date on the GRE. Wait til you are having a week when you feel awesome, and confident, and ready to ace the test. Or if you're me, wait til you're having a week when life seems more livable and then sign up to take it like within that period. That definitely helped me out. Having time to dread the test worked to my detriment.

I started out at a community college, and I just got accepted to my first choice grad school just coming out of my undergrad, so I don't think it's hurt my chances. I think the community college enrollment is more of a factor when you are trying to get into undergraduate institutions than graduate ones. Although be warned, some four year colleges don't transfer credits from community colleges. I didn't consider that enough when I was applying in undergrad and so it took me longer than I expected to graduate. Sorry above poster reflected my thoughts exactly. Didn't see that there

I've been going through the same thing. I've been having nightmares. Everyone recommended school A to me. When I visited I really liked it, everything was perfect, and I was and still am super excited about attending. So I confirmed with School A, and declined an accept from school B. The DGS at School B, flat told me that when I woke up and realized that School A wasn't as great as I thought it was, s(he) still would think about accepting me for their Phd program. I thought that response was a bit uncalled for but it has been bothering me ever since...

I agree. I think you've got a great shot at some good programs. The only reason I would or could think that the math grades might be a problem is if you are interested in formal modelling. But otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it. Do well on the GRE and work on the personal statement and you should have a great shot.

Check with the program, each program tends to have different policies towards lors. If they will add an additional lor to your file then by all means do it! The only way this could hurt your app is if the lor were poor. BUT if the prof. remembers you fondly after four years, I don't think that would be a problem.

I would say... to review the literature the prof suggests, but don't take admission as a certainty, yet. Has anyone else in your program heard anything/posted any results? If not, then try not to worry. Some schools send out all admissions packets at once. There is a lot of paperwork that goes on behind the scenes. You have my sympathies, that's gotta be nerve wracking but at least you have at least one positive bit of news.

1. Guitar Hero - can now beat every song on expert and some with my eyes closed, a month ago I'd never touched the game. 2. Six days a week at the gym. 3. Honors thesis, my new best friend.

I have been looking for Wisconsin's attrition rate as well. But with little luck...the best I could find was courtesy of PhD.com (not the most authoritative source, not standing by data quality on this one). According to that site, 81 Ph.D's were awarded between 2001-2005 by the University of Wisconsin's Sociology Ph.D. Program. If each cohort has between 25-30 students, that puts the attrition rate somewhere between 25% and 33% don't know if that is of any help. If anybody finds better data, post here, I'm curious too!

Honestly, depending on what your name is/if it's a common mistake. I wouldn't worry too much about it. I have a first name that everybody spells wrong, it's a fairly common name but with an unusual spelling. Not only did one of my LOR writers misspell my name, but an acceptance letter from a DGS did!!! I can't decide if I should tell the school or not... Seriously, I think if the content is personalized and shows that your LOR writer believes in you even if he/she doesn't know your last name, I wouldn't worry about it. It happens, adcomms are human too.

Yeah thanks for the tip. I've definitely been thinking about talking to grad students, but didn't want to come off as a creeper. Being out is definitely the issue at least in my concentration/research interests. Most of my work has focused on Africa, and so being gay is something that I feel like needs to be kept quiet, esp. since I want to go abroad. It's not a question so much of my advisers but of my research area... Hmm, I may be worrying a bit much. Thanks all!

Does anybody have experience asking schools about the LGBTQ community/culture? I didn't bring up the subject in my personal statement or anywhere in my application, and am unsure how to bring up the subject now. Unfortunately, profs. in my subfield tend to be quite conservative and I don't know who/how to ask....

Lol, I was doing some similar calculations earlier. If you wanted to assume the chances of admission are independent probabilities , then yes, it's pretty easy. Your chances of not getting in anywhere noting that you didn't get into the one school, are roughly 40%. I did this calculation for my own app and made myself very, very depressed. The problem is that your chances of admission are not independent for a few key reasons. First, your subfield may be more or less competitive than the department to which you are applying. Second the strength of your application means that you may not have the same chances (for better of worse) as the average candidate at that school. But as everyone here mentioned, grad apps are a crapshoot, so maybe the independence assumption isn't so bad after all. Good luck, waiting sucks!

For anybody interested the grad school has updated the app status You didn't get the wrong email. And yes, I woke up at 4am after a nightmare of the "mistake" and checked....

Same boat here. I'm waiting for the Wisconsin letter/ final word on funding (they referenced some unknown potential funding source in my email). Although, I'm rapidly learning that if a department says next week, it means two months from now.... patience is not my strong suit

Hoping for good news for you, too. The acceptances have only just begun

I got into Penn State. If it helps any, I think they are doing admits in waves....

I am fairly sure that Princeton is quantitative department while I've heard Northwestern is on the more qualitative side of things. I don't know if the divide for economic sociology is strictly qualitative or quantitative though I have seen a lot quant stuff in that subject area. Again, I think there should be some separation between methods and substance and in turn from theory. Oh and sorry if I implied ethnographers and qualitative sociologists were the same, well aware that ethnography is its own little subset. I was just noting that the people in it tend to have awesome experiences in the course of their fieldwork.

I did the same, and a little worse. I forwarded all app data to my blackberry.....which I carry on person at all times. I also got into the habit of running after the USPS truck, I've made it part of my daily workout. Worst part is I just got my first acceptance, but it was over the phone, so until I have the packet in my hands, I'm too nervous that I imagined it so I've been waiting to post ..... Yes, I'm that neurotic.

I am decidedly on the quantitative side of research and when I talk to ANY sociologist in my department, I am instantly identified as such. I think there is definitely a divide between quantitative and qualitative work, but I don't think I would make this a substantive issue. Most of my research deals with family and culture and lying (I could blather on about my thesis, but anyway). In my experience, ethnographers are so much fun to hang out with. They also have great taste in music and beer (my former prof. just opened a bar). So yeah, I think people on the "softer side" of sociology are the best.

Of course it varies by program, ad com, etc, but it also depends highly on your major and the institution where you obtained your GPA. If it helps any, I have an abysmal math gpa we're talking barely 3.0 (I'm on the quant side of things), but this is seen to be good for a soci major in upper division math classes with engineers and my professors seem to think it's a help rather than a hindrance. Also don't be too afraid of the screen, I've heard (from profs on two adcoms) that it's not nearly as strict as this site would have you believe. Good luck!

Thanks to both of you for the advice. I am pretty neurotic myself, and I never talk to people over the phone, so I appreciate the tip!

I was contacted by my top choice school to arrange a time to talk about my application via phone. Does anyone have experience with this? Advice? Suggestions? Is this a good thing? I imagine there's a thread on this site somewhere about handling situations such as this....

Four months. I wish I was kidding. But then again I first went to a really rural community college. I finally had to drive 6 hours, wait for 3 more in the registrar's office, and then threaten a lawsuit before they finally released my record. My a.b transcripts took 2-3 days processing and 5-7 days after being mailed. So arrival at about now, ish....

Survey Sample Methods Medical Sociology Quantitative Methods II Human Rights Law Demographic Methods II Plus thesis....SO EXCITED! Except first I have to go home to the family and heaven forbid, no internet, fml

Thought I'd say hi officially too. I'm a traditional undergrad interested in quantitative sociology especially applied to medical soc. Starting to bite my nails with the apps out, but good luck to you all!