sociologyapp2016

How subtle. A "question" posed as advertisement.

Out of curiosity, when you say you're interested in virtual communities in your sig, what do you have in mind? Like internet board communities (like this), or like online gaming communities?

Should be quick. Then you also get snail-mail rejection on top of it, I hear, just to rub the salt in the wound :))

I agree that it seems very possible that the 3 Harvard admits were the same person. But if it wasn't, then no, it actually is pretty safe to say that "Harvard is done." Since they only accept like 8-12 students a year, and since most people don't report their acceptances/rejections, 3 out of a possible 8 is a pretty safe bet to say that admissions are over.

US News is probably the best out there. That's not to say it's great...But the others are even more trash.

It's hard to say, since it's really dependent on how much of a likelihood it is that you would change your mind.

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I like how not a single rejection has been listed for sociology on the results page so far.

Many of the top 10s are notorious for grade inflation. You shouldn't sell yourself so short.

I'm not sure if it "happens quite often." While it's definitely true some programs may allow you to defer, I get the impression that programs typically frown upon the practice...Unless you have a very, very compelling reason. At least one reason schools don't like it (among several) is because if deferring a year becomes common practice, students can reapply the following year to apply to better schools and save the original as a sure-safety school. Univ. of Washington, for example, states: "Typically, we do not allow students to defer their offers of admission. If you are offered admission and wish to delay enrollment, we usually will reconsider your application (updated if you see fit) in subsequent years, but not defer the actual offer with very few exceptions." Harvard states: "The Department does not typically allow deferral of admission." Wisconsin: "You cannot defer admission, you have to reapply." Uni. of Southern California: "USC does not offer deferments in the traditional sense of the term. (In other words, we do not guarantee re- admission.)"

"After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure" - Dumby

UPenn reject: "I'll make them rue the day they rejected me. I'll go on to do great things and if ever I'm to issue a statement after that, I'll probably attribute my success over the bitterness this rejection has made me feel. Thanks."

That's not a fair assessment. While I think it's important not to take the book as gospel, it does shine a light into how admissions work on (elite) PhD committees. Also, fields and departments, although not uniform, do share similarities and overlaps as they relate to admission processes.

I can be your friend

Northwestern admits average 157 on their quant, according to their website. And since all the other schools you're applying to are its (more or less) peer programs, it doesn't sound like your score will singledhandedly sink you.

A 149 verbal, 3.0 writing, and 104 TOEFL sounds like your English proficiency will be in question for the Admission Committee. Your odds don't look good. Unless your Writing Sample/SOP can put those doubts to rest, but it doesn't sound like it, judging from your own assessment.

Not as difficult as many other programs, but not a shoo-in by any means. What's your verbal GRE score? I know you said the total is 307/340, but what are the verbal/quant individual scores?

Maybe, depending on your Statement of Purpose, Writing Sample, and Letters of Rec. What you showed us doesn't really tell us anything.

For the most elite programs, I imagine that sub-50% percentile will break your application. And that's a conservative guess. But it's hard to place exact numbers beyond that. My guesses aren't any better than yours. But I think quant scores especially sink a lot of applicants to the top programs, whether it's via cutoff or not.

No, I think you're making unnecessary specifications. The OP said he was working on a "final paper," which sounds like a typical class assignment and not a co-authored paper. He also referred to another paper he wrote that was on films, and that his professor usually specializes in literature. While it is true that the OP's first post is vague, there is nothing to suggest that he comes from a hard-sciences field or that he is writing a co-authored paper. Overall, the gist of it seems straightforward enough: the OP is a perfectionist-type student that typically performs very well in all his classes, but as a consequence doesn't respond well to criticism or negative feedback. He's just got some negative feedback and is accordingly feeling upset and disillusioned over it.

Yeah, applying only to two schools is a pretty brave (risky) move. Unless you are very confident you will get in, but it doesn't sound like you are.

I think it's more accurate to say that in academia, you're going to be receiving a lot of feedback that can be conflicting, ambiguous, disagreeable, or just flat out nonsense. That it to say, don't get upset and personally insulted over a person's feedback to your paper, even if that person is your advisor. Take what you will in stride. At the end of the day, it's your paper, it's your work, and it's your decision about if and how you want to make any changes to what you wrote. As for your advisor and second-thoughts about changing your field...Well, it sounds like you're overreacting. A lot. It also sounds like you just need to take a step away and calm down. Once you've done that, you can think about changing advisors/fields.

Here are my suggestions: 1. Keep the tone positive throughout the statement. While there is nothing wrong with revealing you suffered hardships and that those hardships fuel your passion for studying/pursuing X, you are going into well into TMI (too much information) territory and not nearly enough (if anything) on how you overcame those struggles. In fact, since your first sentence starts with: "I have suffered from anxiety and depression since childhood," that strongly implies that you still struggle with those psychological issues. That's a red flag. 2. The flow/structure of your statement should be improved. From what I'm seeing, your first paragraph is your intro, then your second paragraph is about 5 years from now, and then your third paragraph discusses your experiences, and your fourth and concluding paragraph still meanders on about your MA degree. A more logical flow would be to go from intro -> your past experiences/motivations -> five years from now / why GSU. And even within the individual paragraphs, it feels like there are random sentences thrown in to augment the length of the statement. That's not a good thing. 3. Too many empty and vague sentences (and not enough of the opposite). For example, you spend four sentences in your final paragraph talking about how your enrollment in a different MA program was a mistake. You should be able to briefly acknowledge that much in one sentence; two at the absolute most. Meanwhile, your reasons for wanting to apply to GSU are very vague throughout and could fit the description of just about any program. At the very least you should have more specific things to mention, like naming professors.

Yeah, a sociologist was mentioned. But what I mean to say was that not all observations in the article necessarily reflect comments by sociologists. For example, one of the observations was that "White males “dominated” the admissions committees." I seriously doubt this applies to sociology departments as much as, say, econ, which is much, much more white and male. On the whole, however, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the general findings hold true across fields, including sociology.

Here's the summarized version: -GRE scores matter. "...every department had a GRE cutoff. Posselt said this is particularly surprising since all of the departments boast of “holistic review,” in which each applicant is evaluated on a range of criteria and not a formula...One professor told Posselt: “I have impressions that some of my faculty -- senior members -- were simply looking for the GRE. They have a threshold such as, ‘If it's not over 700, I won't read anything.’ And that cuts usually two-thirds of applicants.”" -Prestige of undergrad pedigree matters. "Prestige of undergraduate program counted for a lot." -(High) grades don't matter so much. (However, low grades will still hurt your application.) "But grade point average? Not so much. One astrophysicist Posselt quotes said, “Grade point, most people said it doesn't affect them very much because basically everybody in the pool -- everybody in the final pool -- has such high GPAs that it's not meaningful.” A sociologist said this was especially a problem with the many finalists from top colleges. “Grades are increasingly a lousy signal, especially at those elite places that just hand out the A’s. So you don't even have that anymore,” he said." -The "what other schools are you applying to?" question on applications. Yes, schools care about that. "For instance, those whose programs were not at the very top of the rankings frequently talked about not wanting to offer a spot to someone they believed would go to a higher-ranked program. They didn't want their department to be the graduate equivalent of what high school students applying to college term a safety school. In this sense many of these departments turned down superior candidates, some of whom might have enrolled. Many of the professors sound insecure about their programs even though they are among the very best." -Asian international students are held to a higher standard. "The departments observed by Posselt appear to practice a form of affirmative action for everyone who is not an international Asian student in that professors de-emphasize the (typically extremely high) GRE scores of such applicants to avoid admitting what they would consider to be too many of them. This is in contrast to the attitudes of many professors with regard to considering American applicants of various ethnicities -- and who insisted on a single (high) standard there." -Bias/racism against Chinese international students. "Chinese applicants appear especially challenging to many American professors, who report that they “seem alike” and hard to distinguish, when the admissions process is designed to do just that. One humanities professor told Posselt, “How do you compare six students from China, who all have the same last name?”...While departments are trying to do a better job of understanding Chinese applicants and are certainly admitting many of them, Posselt writes of a “troubling tendency to think of students from China not as individuals, but a profile of group averages.”" -You can be discriminated for your religious beliefs/political positions. "The applicant, to a linguistics Ph.D. program, was a student at a small religious college unknown to some committee members but whose values were questioned by others. “Right-wing religious fundamentalists,” one committee member said of the college, while another said, to much laughter, that the college was “supported by the Koch brothers.”" -There are affirmative action considerations for race, possibly gender. "Many faculty members...appeared more comfortable considering race and ethnicity as a slight tip among otherwise equal candidates who had advanced to a finalist round. One professor said, “I try not to pay too much attention. I try to admit students that are the best in my intellect with no regard for gender and race.” Only with two applicants who are “equal on intellectual merit, then I will prefer a minority,” the professor said."" Disclaimer: Please note that the departments that were observed as a basis for making these claims are "ranked as among the top programs in their disciplines." They are also not necessarily sociology departments.