Tritonetelephone

This site's actually VERY young so of course it's growing steadily. I felt like the only sociology applicant on here last year, now look at us.

[quote name="Louiselab

It's cool - I'm not normally that bitchy. I've been in a bad mood this week, I guess (nothing to do with apps).

It mean's you're in. The department is responsible for reviewing the applications and they "recommend" admits to the grad school. The grad school just has to make sure you meet the minimum requirements (GPA < 3.0, etc.). You're in. Congrats!

Tell me about it! :cry:

Not to mention all the confidentiality issues! There's just no way an IRB would approve it if the data was taken from the applicants' schools and matched. Instead, they'd have to hunt down people who were applying, somehow get a representative sample of the population (which wouldn't happen), and ask them to give all of their stats, etc. Maybe an UG institution could do it for their graduates... but then there's that same sample issue.

Rejections typically come first. Hang in there! Edit: yes, there is some debate about this viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14923&start=45

I think most of my schools are also around 5%, but my two least prestigious schools accept 40% and 70%. The original question though, about what percentage of applicants are accepted by at least one school... there would way too many factors influencing each of their applications for a number like that to be meaningful, I would think. How many schools each applied to, how many months research experience, GRE scores, SES, prestige of UG inst., GPA... I should stop, I'm getting a very nerdy urge to build my own multiple regression analysis.

I only looked at York (didn't apply), but I don't have an MA and would've been fine... as I recall, anyway. I do remember thinking that them not requiring GRE scores was weird.

I was told to expect rejections before I start getting acceptances. I'm glad my first notification wasn't a rejection, though.

That's assuming that all the people who didn't want to study for them do poorly. I have a friend that does VERY well on standardized tests without studying, and she knows it gives her an unfair advantage. That may be more rare, but she definitely supports the notion that they don't prove anything because she's much less confident in her overall academic ability. She's bright of course, but not necessarily any more bright than the people who also don't study and do poorly. She's just a good "test-taker."

Other than your GRE scores, what could you possibly think is so dreadful about your application? I'm actually pretty annoyed here. :roll: GRE scores are only one aspect of your app and they know some people just aren't standardized test-takers. It's your job to study, do the best you can, then emphasize your fit and experiences to balance it out. Edit: Ha! I wrote that before reading that freefallen also mentioned "fit and experience."

I'm personally in the US. I've just heard through grad cafe that letters take forever to reach students overseas, I guess. EDIT: I thought the comma meant "or". :oops:

I've heard that with University security processes and everything, letters reach international students MUCH slower.

Hypothetical situation: a department has 8 spots to fill. They accept 10 and waitlist 15. Since they don't expect everyone who was offered admission to accept but have no idea how many will, the waitlist is a pool of very strong applicants that they can pull from to make sure all 8 spots are filled. April 15th is the legal deadline to let a school know if you are attending after being offered admission, and most people will wait until the last minute to give their decision. Once they know how many people have definitely refused admission, they will admit some off the waiting list if there are still spots left. You usually won't find out for sure if you're in or not until after April 15th. Last year, I found out I was on the waiting list after emailing a school and asking if decisions had been made - it was nearly April. Some schools will contact you first and let you know. I then emailed the prof there that I liked and tried to (subtly!) fish for information about where I was on the list, how common it is to get off the list, etc. but they didn't know anything. In that case, the school ended up not being able to admit anyone off of the waitlist - they actually had every single person offered admission accept, which was VERY unusual and ended up being more than they could handle. Maybe their incoming cohort will have to be even smaller this year - yikes! EDIT/ADD: I've also heard that some schools "rank" their waitlist so they know who to admit first, while others - and this makes the most sense to me - divide it up by specialty. So if you want to study political sociology, their political sociology admits have to decline before you're given an offer. They want a diverse cohort after all.

That's crappy of them. Private schools, I'm guessing?

No voicemail and especially, unknown number = most likely wasn't a school.

Double Update: I keep getting that machine, so I emailed the department earlier - no response yet. I finally just got through the to grad school, and she said that they scan everything and send it to the dept as soon as it's received and the website is updated very last. She could confirm that they had my transcript and one LOR. I tried to ask about the others but she insisted that the sociology department should have them. I told her that I emailed the department but hadn't heard back yet, and she interrupted me to say "and you probably won't hear back." Real nice, lady. (I know she's busy tho - I forgive her.) Edit: This is UMass Amherst, btw.

Last year, I submitted a paper that was interesting but not very professional (gender norm violation assignment). This year, my paper was much more technical/professional but not as "fun" - something I did for my grad quant methods course. I'd bet money that they prefer technical/professional, no matter the content (as long as it's sociological). Something that more closely resembles what you'd be doing in graduate school, that is. And I am also of the opinion that they do read the writing samples, at least of their top 25% or so applicants. If you're GPA and GRE scores are too low to make the first cut, I don't think they'll bother. Someone posted something a while back that was an Astronomy professor talking about how her department does admissions... wish I knew where that was. EDIT: Found it! http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmi ... dmissions/

Definitely wait until you've heard back from everybody. There's been some discussion about this on a board already: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14753 EDIT/ADD: If you're lucky, you might even be able to use an offer from one school as leverage to increase your funding offer from another. Just another reason to wait.

Has anyone has found themselves in either situation yet?

Indiana doesn't necessarily interview everybody. A lot of schools that have short SoP word limits will just make contact if they want more information.

Dubya may be right, though. I noticed last year, someone received a rejection on 2/4 from that school but two people received acceptances on 2/8 and 2/9 or so. Hang in there!

Update: Ok, it's been over 3 weeks and my materials status has not changed. I've called them MANY times today and keep getting a machine that says call back later. $%@&! I noticed that decisions weren't made until March last year... maybe the grad school has a history of being sssssllllloooowwww getting materials together and sent to the departments.

Man, I wish I could live in SF!! All the schools I looked at up there weren't a good enough fit. They have people doing things I like in Social Work, oddly enough (at UCSF), but I'm not meant to be a social worker.