csot

I agree with SocPhDStudent. Send in the results that have the higher Verbal and Quantitative scores. For many schools, AWA is not as important (because they still look at your writing sample).

Thank you for answering our questions. I know this might vary by department, but for schools that have GRE cutoffs, are the cutoffs generally for verbal and quantitative COMBINED? Would you recommend retaking the GRE if you have a high verbal score and a low math score?

I'm in the same boat as you! First, I looked at sociology program rankings in conjunction with location. In my opinion, this is extremely important because if I'm going to be in school and away from family/friends for the next 5+ years, I want to be happy with where I'm at. From there, I generated a list of 15-20 universities and created an Excel sheet. Then, I looked for faculty members who had similar interests as mine and checked their program's admission statistics to see if my GPA/GRE credentials were in the ballpark. I was able to narrow down my list to about 10 programs, and I plan on applying to those 10. If you're able to find 2-3 faculty members per program who have similar interests, have competitive credentials, and can see yourself in that town/city for several years, I don't think there's a right or wrong way to go about narrowing down your options. I hope my strategy helped, nonetheless!

Thank you so much for this. I have been confused for months trying to figure out how to find out that information and have been personally messaging people who post in the forums. Congratulations to everyone who's been accepted!