2010international

I was accepted as well and my email said pretty much the same thing. While they didn't mention the cohort size they did say that the competition was extremely intense (though I guess that holds for most doctoral programmes). I just assumed that their point about the funding may be a polite way of saying that I wasn't as competitive as the other accepted students (who I assume would be offered some funding at least). I had corresponded with a prof there while applying and she too had raised the issue of funding and how they were having cutbacks. Good luck to the rest!

Carolina45, I'm sorry to hear that. Could you tell me if this was for sociology or for development sociology. many thanks!

Well according to the results search one person already received decision notification about development sociology in response to an email they sent. So I suppose decisions will be emailed soon to everyone. Good luck!

Wow that's really intensive. i feel like i should start doing something similar too, but then again this may be the only time for the next 5 years or so that we DON'T feel compelled to read 10000 books and the latest articles per week? Might as well make the most of it. For some reason my freaking out has been more over the post-phd life. i've read some really depressing articles about employment prospects for phds - and it didn't look good. i keep telling myself that since my ultimate goal in pursuing a phd is not to get into academics, i'll be fine but it's still a little disconcerting. in a similar line, i read something pretty unhelpful in one of the above articles about how if you can imagine yourself doing anything other than grad school then you should. i mean i can imagine myself doing other things, if it comes to that, but i want to do doctoral studies for a million reasons - some good, some not great, but still.

These are the pointers I would give: 1. FIT - that is absolutely necessary. However, fit doesn't have to mean that your research interests match a faculty's interests at all or even most levels. A lot of schools and faculty are doing work that is not necessarily shown on the websites. Especially in sociology, and I would think in the social sciences in general, it's important to make sure that the schools you apply to can fulfill most of your research needs (ie if you're interested in race/ethnicity, demography and latin america) the school should have either faculty OR research centers/institutes which would enable you to develop your own expertise. 2. I personally am not convinced by the argument of applying to a school just because someone renowned in your area of interest works there (hang on - i know his sounds counterintuitive, but hear e out. also, i want to add that I did apply to one school mostly on the basis of one prof working there, and I don't know what their decision will be). This is because this person may move from the school, or maybe you just won't get along with them. Depending on one person in this situation seems like putting all your eggs in on basket probably not the best way to go about it. 3. I know most people recommend mentioning faculty they would want to work with in their SOPs, and usually I would support this (I mean it makes sense, right? Shows you've done your research about the school, that you have a good fit with it etc), but (and this may just be me being superstitious) out of the 4 responses I have gotten so far (2 accepts and 2 rejects) I did not mention the name of the faculty in the sop for the accepts, while I did in the rejects. 4. Keep in mind that when you do get in touch with faculty, they may REALLY encourage you to apply to their department/school, but that does not mean that you will get in. I say this because I applied to a school - which during the application process became my top choice partly because it seemed to me the best fit and also because of the profs' very enthusiastic responses to my emails I thought I had the best chance of getting in. 5. That said, like someone else mentioned - cast a wide net. I will be attending a university actually ranked higher than my erstwhile top choice, but in the application process I dismissed said university because I thought my chances of getting in were very slim. 6. Don't discount luck. You have to realise that the adcomm is made up of humans. So, as my parents pointed out to me, some committee member having a bad day (ie fight with a spouse, someone in the lunch line got the last slice of pepperoni pizza before them etc etc) may end up screwing things up for you. We don't take these things into account, but it's pretty hard to be equally 'fair' and 'attentive' to all applications and little incidents like the above examples could screw things up for you. That's about it. Good luck to everyone!

24/25 (my birthday is in early september so it really depends on the date the programme starts - to be technical about it!). i went through my undergrad and masters faster than it's usually done in the states (undergrad - 3 years, masters-1 year) and have worked for a couple of years, but definitely ready to be back in school this fall!

Love story

I want them all to want me as badly as I want them. Too much to ask? But I guess it would have to be between UPenn and Brown (if I get into the latter...)

If you're not that happy with this school, have you considered transferring after the first year? I would just rather get started straight away, while things could get better next year, then again, they may not. And if you did apply to this place, it must be because you don't totally hate the idea of going there either, right? Just my 2 cents!

Congratulations Chang and whoever else is in so far! I was just wondering if in your conversation you got an idea of the following: 1. When the decisions will be sent out to everyone? 2. Will they be sent out by email or will students get calls? (I guess the calls would only be for the accepted...) 3. How many applied to the programme and approximately how many will be getting offers? I don't know if you'll be able to answer any of these questions (if it was me and I had just been admitted I would probably be too excited to think of anything else then!), but I just thought it was worth asking. Congrats again!

oh thank goodness. i saw that there was another response to this thread and thought that they must have started sending out acceptances. i think last year they sent decisions out this week, so any day now...?

Thanks, especially jacib, these posts have been very helpful. I need to go through the links you have provided in more detail to get a better grasp of the whole situation so far. I am new to this, but I am assuming that 'OP' refers to me? I am not from a country that could be called 'Americanised', rather as a South Asian country and a former British colony it is definitely much more 'Anglicised'.

has anyone had any news about the development sociology programme at cornell?

Hi, I have seen a lot of posts in the sociology section and others talking about rankings and post-graduate school life. As an international student, the american universities that we most frequently hear about are the big names from the Ivies or places like MIT, Stanford, Berkeley and so on. So when I was deciding which schools to apply to, I picked from among these that I thought had the best fit for my research intersts but which also had a recognizable name world-wide. The discussion on rankings on this forum has confused me a little bit. The most ubiquitous rankings seem to be the US News and World Report, where some of the schools which I would think would rank highly often do not make the top 10 even. I have so far gotten into a lower Ivy (ie not HYP) and am interested in knowing how most of these would be ranked for their GSAS (esp in terms of sociology)? Any ideas on this? Secondly, the poli sci forum has everal interesting posts on the importance of ranking esp for TT positions. At this point, academia is not a career I am seriously considering, rather I am looking more towards development organisations (ie mostly UN organisations and some national level research institutes and think tanks). Would a 'big name' be more important for this do you think? thanks for your input!