oranges

You should retake the GREs. Your verbal is quite low, and would be a red flag for the admission committees. If not, you should consider taking TOEFL and getting a high score on it. (I assume you're an international student.)

GPA does matter, but primarily if it's notably low. If it' a GPA of 3.0 or below, that's a red flag for committees. Between 3.0-3.3 would be considered mediocre, though technically can be overlooked. Anything above a 3.7 should be considered good. The fact that top schools have average accepted GPAs of around 3.8 is probably due to the fact that students with high GPA are also more likely to have higher quality applications, overall. (As opposed to the GPA in itself being so heavily weighted.)

Alright. And I have to say, I like your username change.

Good advice already given. I would just highlight, again, a "no" to the question of: "Should I highlight the specific debates in my areas of research/interest and offer my intervention?" It reminds me of the recommendation letter Edward Shils wrote for Michael Burawoy in 1975: "It is my impression that Mr. Burawoy is hampered intellectually by excessive and unrealistic preoccupation with what he regards as conflicts between himself and the prevailing trends of sociological analysis in the United States. He seems to think that he must struggle to prevent himself from being overpowered or seduced by "mainstream sociology." At the same time, I have not even detected any originality on Mr. Burawoy's part in analysis which he has made from the standpoint which he regards as disfavoured in American sociology . . . It might be that there is no spark of originality in him, or it might be that he is holding it in reserve. Since, however, I have known him for a long time and he has never hesitated to express his opinions to me on a wide variety of political and other subjects, I would incline toward the former hypothesis. . . when I first met him, I was very much struck by his initiative. He knew nothing about sociology, and he knew nothing about India, but he struck out on his own, and that seemed to me to be admirable and worthy of encouragement. In the Department of Sociology he has done well in his examinations. . . In seminars, I have been more struck by an obstinate conventionality and a fear of being led into paths which might disturb his rather simple view of society. It is a great pity because he obviously likes to do research and he is not inhibited when it comes to writing. He also has a very good I.Q. But somehow, either the security of sectarianism or a juvenile antinomianism seems to have got the better of him. I first noticed the latter in Cambridge. At that time he was an undergraduate and I thought it would pass. Thus far it has not."

I don't know much about JMF or its rankings. But as an undergrad, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just publishing is impressive enough. I mentioned Stanford because you mentioned you did 3 semesters worth of TA on a social network project, a field which Stanford is strong at. (Specifically I was thinking of Robb Willer.) But I did not see that you didn't actually list that as an interest. My mistake. As for Harvard, by "family reasons" I'm assuming you're referring to the prestige associated with Harvard in your home country? That's really not a good reason to place Harvard as your first choice, or even to apply there at all. Your fit is not strong and the Admissions Committee will definitely notice. Anyway, why you want to spend the next 5-7 years at a place where you would get a lackluster training in the field(s) you are interested in? It seems like a waste of app fee to me. And about UCLA: They may not technically guarantee" funding - I think because they're technically a public school - but you can all but be rest assured you will get funding. You could shoot them an email to check, but it's hard to imagine a school like UCLA suddenly being unable to fund their PhD students.

You're in R&R with a single authored paper in a "tier 1 journal," which I assume to mean either ASR, AJS, or SF? On top of that you have 4 journal articles submitted? That's amazing for an undergraduate. Your GPA won't disqualify you. Any of the top ranked graduate sociology programs will take a serious look at your application. That said, you start off your #1 preference of grad schools with Harvard, which seems like a pretty bad fit according to your stated research interests. Only Mary Waters is listed as demography at Harvard, and she's a qualitative researcher. (I assume you are quantitative.) UCLA should be all right. Have you looked at Stanford as well?

Yes, you definitely should apply to top 20 programs, in addition to whatever other programs you wanted to apply to.

Quant score should not be a dealbreaker. It will probably hurt a bit, especially with elite schools, and given that you obviously aren't a qualitative-only researcher, but application of quant research (i.e. your masters' thesis) should be more important than the GRE quant score.

Ginger, given your great record, why not aim a bit higher? Or at least also include more highly ranked programs in your school list?

It won't be a deal-breaker, especially if you write a great honors thesis in your senior year. Overall, you don't need to take rigorous classes "for the sake of rigor," though you should take rigorous courses for sociology classes that pertain to your interests. However, if you're really serious about grad school in sociology, you should consider dropping your minor in sustainable food systems. You can still take courses in the subject, but it may not be worth the time and effort to ensure you get a minor in the subject.