meggowaffle

While it is probably vaguely accurate, the methodology used to order the U.S. News & World Report list of sociology programs is flawed. Quoted from their own website: These rankings are based solely on the ratings of academic experts.... To gather the peer opinion data, we asked deans, program directors, and senior faculty to judge the academic quality of programs in their field on a scale of 1 ("marginal") to 5 ("outstanding"). So they don't take into account ANYTHING ELSE such as job placement, GRE scores, retention rates, average time to degree, etc. They just ask various people who has a good reputation. Maybe some of these people don't know about certain departments and answer anyway ('Oh, that's an Ivy, it must be good so I'll give it a 5.'). Your situation is different because a lot of the best schools might not be recognized in the international setting. But personally, I wouldn't sacrifice the quality of my education just so I can have a brand-name on my resume.

Does anybody want to claim that Santa Cruz acceptance? I am still waiting to hear from them... but I would like to hear if there are visitation details just in case. I'll be flying out to the recruitment day at UC Davis next month and it's only a few hours' drive away from UCSC.