barilicious

The recruiting event is really informal and rather relaxing. Wednesday night you just do a fajita buffet and lots of beer drinking while conversing with graduate students and professors. Afterwards, you go to the Dog & Duck with the grad students (and maybe a couple profs) to continue drinking and socializing. The alcohol is free at Scholtz, but not at Dog & Duck... On Thursday, you will have a lot of different profs come and give a talk about something, and you can ask questions. You will also probably get a tour of our new building that we just moved into. Afterwards, you do lunch, and then you can go home or meet with professors in their offices. It is always on Wednesday and Thursday, though I don't know why. Maybe that is when faculty are most available? Let me know if you have any other questions.

Congrats UT acceptances! If you have any questions, feel free to PM me...

We were in the process of moving over winter break, which I'm sure put the admissions committee slightly behind...

UT will be opening an urban ethnography lab next year: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/sociology/news/4663

I completely agree, but most people on this forum are applying to top programs.

Half of my first year cohort, including myself, will be presenting at ASA this year as well as at other conferences (some at PAA and so forth).

I know I'm just offering a different perspective. Good luck with your apps!

Yes, I'm beyond happy that I'm here and that I chose UT. That still does not negate the fact that the first year is not hard, especially if the required courses aren't really what you do, and if you aren't on fellowship or whatever else. Many students do TA their first year (and are expected to be productive with publishing and conferences), so not everyone is just getting paid to sit in classes.

Yes really. One, I am TAing during my first year, and I have discussion sections, and I'm grading 70 papers. Two, I am presenting at 2 conferences this year, and I have a forthcoming publication, so no, I'm not just taking classes... Those aside - it sucks because you don't really get to take classes you want. I got to choose 1 class my first year. Besides that I'm in theory for a whole year (aka reading white men) and in statistics a whole year (even though I do qualitative methods). I understand the point of taking these classes, so I don't need to be told about that, nonetheless, it sucks being in classes you don't care about. That, for me, is where it sucks!

It sucks.

I would argue that UT-Austin has a strong qualitative presence - in fact, Qualitative Sociology (the journal) use to be housed here. Our chair Christine Williams is a renown qualitative researcher (and the former editor of Gender & Society), and we have Maya Charrad (an extremely famous historical-comparative academic), Javier Auyero (a renown ethnographer), Gloria Gonzalez-Lopez, Ben Carrington, Simone Brown, Sharmilla Rudrappa, and the list could go on and on. I think our demography program steals the spotlight at times, but UT-Austin also has very strong qualitative faculty and should not be over-looked!

Everyone I know who "interviewed" the last 2 years on here, myself included, was accepted to Indiana a week later. The "interview" literally consisted of the DGS talking for like 40 minutes, and myself talking for maybe 5 minutes. They didn't have a recruitment day, so the phone interview was basically the DGS telling you everything about the program and allowing for you to ask questions and so forth. It is definitely nothing to worry about. Good luck!

Evelyn, the graduate secretary, is the one who sends the official e-mail acceptances. Also, there is not a special application for the demography program, as anyone accepted into the Sociology department can essentially join the Population Research Center. If this person did get officially accepted, then I would assume s/he received an e-mail from Evelyn yesterday, as Evelyn doesn't work on the weekends. If this is so, then I'd say the first round of acceptances have gone out. However, this person, I guess, could have been contacted by their potential advisor today (that they will be getting an official acceptance soon), and that could maybe explain why s/he heard on a Saturday. Maybe s/he will speak up?

Good luck! And yes, I'm assuming you will hear this coming week...

The UT Austin Sociology Department has a blog. Some of it is specific to our program, but a great deal of it is for the public as a whole. http://sites.la.utexas.edu/utaustinsoc/