barilicious

If you are applying to research I institutes, they want to hear that you want to be a researcher at a research I institute.

Fwiw, I also disagree with the above posters. I too got into top programs, and I started with a catchy introduction. I'll post it below, and you can take it for however you would like. "Queer! Faggot! Sissy! Pervert! – these stigmatizing aspersions often replaced my name XXXXX. Constantly, I heard these invective words used to describe people similar to me. These vituperations reminded me that my social identity was spoiled, and as Erving Goffman wrote in Stigma, I was left standing as “...a discredited person facing an unaccepting world.” As a gay, effeminate man, I internalized these disparaging words, and like many stigmatized individuals, I felt shame about the discredited characteristics that were a part of me. I needed an escape."

The University of Texas at Austin is one of the top demography programs in the country, and they have numerous faculty working on migration studies.

Just a fyi, queer theory is extremely understudied in sociology and not really a theoretical framework used in sociology. I highly doubt you are going to find top programs where you will really be able to apply queer theoretical framework. Queer theory is much more heralded in the humanities, but sadly, it hasn't really taken strong hold in sociology. Partly, I believe, because U.S. sociology is much more quantitatively focused. Fwiw, I'm starting at UT in the fall, and I plan on getting a Women's & Gender Studies PhD minor here. Also, the chair of our department now is a qualitative, feminist researcher. This department seems to have many great feminist scholars doing some radical work, so you may want to check out UT.

If I remember correctly, this SOP (to me) reads VERY similar to your SOP last year (even though it is edited significantly), which unfortunately didn't work out too well for you. I really think you need to start clean again and rethink how you want to sell yourself to the universities that you are going to be applying to. As others have echoed, your anecdote is extremely too long, and it is taking up valuable word space where you can be discussing your passion for sociology, your research interests, and your fit. However, I am not totally against starting with an anecdote, as I did in my SOP, but make it succinct. Personally, I think you should pretty much scrap this SOP, and start over, really digging for good material to sell yourself to these universities. Good luck!!

I think the Swype feature on most touch screen keyboards is infinitely easier and quicker than a full keyboard and definitely when 3 letters were on 1 number. Swyping is definitely the best way to text, imo.

You can see what I wrote at the link above about my opinion on contacting professors. Personally, I highly recommend it. Also fwiw, I contacted professors and graduate students all in September, so I could finalize my list of where to apply by early October.

As someone whose main area of interest is sexuality, I can say that you will be hard pressed to find a program that has a sexuality focus. Sexuality is still very much understudied within sociology, and I was told at several recruitment events, that if I want to be marketable on the job market, I better find a marketable field (e.g. health or immigration) that complements my sexuality focus. Having said that, there are professors at certain universities who are doing sexuality work. I would say read current sexuality journals - Sexualities, Journal of Sexuality Research & Social Policy, Culture Health & Sexuality, and so forth (these are all interdisciplinary journals, so not all people publishing in them are sociologists) - to see who is publishing and where they are teaching or are studying. There are great professors out there, you just have to find them, and one's that match your interests. However, finding a department that has a strong sexuality focus is probably not going to happen, especially if you want to go to a top school. As for having an MA in Women's & Gender studies, this should not be a problem. There are many people who go on to get a PhD in Sociology who come from many different fields. Just make sure that your statement of purpose is very sociologically oriented, and talk about how your MA in Women's & Gender studies will complement your research interests in sociology. I double majored in sociology and women's and gender studies in undergrad, so I know it isn't too hard to connect the two areas. Good luck!

I would try contacting Evelyn Porter if you haven't already. She seems to be rather efficient, especially if you call her. Not to be the bearer of bad news though, they admitted 23 of us, and many of us at the recruitment event were already pretty sure we were going there, and everyone else seemed to be strongly considering going there (one woman liked it over her visit to Berkeley and Stanford). Needless to say, I can't imagine them having to turn to their wait list, but again, I'd contact Evelyn. Hopefully I'm wrong, and you get in - if so, see you in the fall!!!

To go where? A couple Yale and UMD rejects today, interesting...

lol this thought crossed my mind too...

Wow, good luck!

If you haven't already, though I'm sure you have, but have you looked at recent job placements of PhDs coming out of UofC and PhDs coming out of Yale? Are people coming out of UofC getting WAY better jobs that is worth taking 2 years of loans for? I'd assume not, but I could be wrong.

I definitely would like to add my "advice" or rather reflections on this crazy process, as this forum was beyond beneficial in my own application process. Hopefully I can remember everything I'd like to reflect on... It has been said over and over and over, and well over, again, that FIT is important, and I definitely feel like it is a major player, but from my own experience, I'm not convinced that if you are not a good fit then you won't get in. From my own experience, I only applied to Ohio State because I live in Columbus, and I think my family would probably think I was crazy if I didn't apply there. So I applied. It was not a fit in any way to any of my research interests. They specifically have NO ONE in my major field of interests. However, I got in. I still haven't quite figured it out, and even when I visited and spoke to professors on the phone, they told me that no one there does work in my specific field. Nonetheless, I don't know why you would apply to a program that wasn't a good fit for you, but if you do (for say the sake of location, prestige, whatever), if you have a good application, you still may get in. Again, this is from my own experience and seems rather rare. Having said that, let me now contradict myself. I'm not fully convinced that applying to "safety" schools is great advice. I think you should apply to programs where you want to go. And I may be a ranking snob, but as going crazy has posted on here a few times, research shows that rankings/prestige matters post-graduation. If you have a good fit with many of the top 20 programs, then apply to them. This process is expensive as noted above, so apply where you are a good fit and where you want to go. Because of the price of the application process, I decided that I was going to apply to 8 programs. I had my list narrowed down to about 10 programs. I ended up cutting Yale & NYU from my list, so I could have 2 "safety" schools - Florida State & Boston College. Boston College was not as good as a fit as I think Yale or NYU would have been, but because I wanted to apply to at least 2 "safety" schools, I decided to apply there over Yale or NYU. Needless to say, Boston College rejected me, and I shouldn't have applied. If you have a damn good application, then shoot for the moon because I think this whole "safety" school idea is crap, IMO. For the GREs, the test sucks. I got a 1280 (620V/660Q/5.0W). Obviously, from my experience, you can get into top 20 programs with this score. However, I'm not sure about breaking the top 10, as the other 2 schools besides BC that I was rejected from were Berkeley (which wasn't a good fit, but I wanted to apply to a top 5 school) and Northwestern (which I thought was one of my best fits). I do know though that to get a university fellowship you need to do better than my score. Both OSU & Florida State nominated me for university fellowships, and the reason I didn't get them at both schools was because my GRE scores were too low. These university fellowships are up against science majors and so forth that have 800Q, and the GRE scores way heavy into this process, so for funding purposes, you should shoot as high as you can. For me, I don't think I could have done much better, I suck at standardize testing. As something stated a million times on here, and which was quite evident during my recruitment visits, your SOP and Writing Sample matter immensely during this process. At each recruitment event, professors who were on the admissions committees would tell me vivid details about my SOP and/or Writing Sample that they remembered/were impressed by. These two pieces show who you are as a scholar and where your interests lie, and I don't think it can be overstated that your majority of time should be spent on these two things. Hell, I spent so much time working on my writing sample, I've now sent it off to a peer-review scholarly journal, so you can always keep in mind that in devoting this time to a piece of work it can serve many ends. As for the SOP, I tailored the last paragraph to each individual school, and specifically named why it was a good fit and who I wanted to work with and why. It obviously should be done. As for SOP word limits, and writing sample page limits - I ignored them all. The places that had SOP word limits (IU) and Writing Sample page limits (OSU) - I got into. So if you write something well, and the quantity is quality, just send it, and don't fret over word/page limits. I personally HIGHLY recommend not only contacting potential professors that you want work with BEFORE YOU APPLY but also graduate students already in the program (and who have similar research interests as you do). When I started narrowing down schools I had a list of 40 that I intensely researched, obviously by the time I got down to about 15 schools, it became hard for me to cut. By contacting professors and seeing what they are working on now and by contacting students who shared similar interests as me to see how well their departments actually support those interests, I was able not only to cut more schools from the list, but also I was able to talk about some of the specific things that these profs or students said to me in e-mails in my SOP - information that was not listed on their website, and I think, possibly made my SOPs stand out even more. I don't believe though that by contacting professors before hand will help in gaining admission. Each person on the admission committees who spoke to me at the recruitment events about how they liked my SOP or writing sample were not people I contacted nor people I specifically wanted to work with. To me, having a good application gets you in, and I don't think contacting or not contacting professors a head a time will give you a leg up in getting in or not. I'm sure there are a million other things I could write about, but these stick out now, and I'm sure as other posts, other reflections of mine may be triggered. Overall, I'd say aim high, treat the process as a job, stay extremely organized, and dream a little, because a few months once the process is over, sometimes your dreams come true! Best of luck!!

50% chance of getting off the WL!?!?! That's awesome if so! And yes. Dr. McManus is extremely (like beyond extremely) nice and warm, as were most people during my visit. Good luck!

I'll be joining the Sociology department at Texas in the fall! I'm mostly looking forward to the SUN! We worship the sun here in the Midwest whenever we are blessed to be in its presence, so I'm quite looking forward to lots of sunshine! Also, I really loved the city when I visited and the food. Oh yea, the department and faculty were pretty sweet as well...

I would say this slightly depends on what you want to study.

If it makes a difference to anyone here, I declined my offers of admission to Florida State, Indiana, and Ohio State this morning. Best of luck to those on the wait list! Hope everyone gets in to where they want to go!!

I'm definitely going to UT-Austin. I fell in love with the program and the city. I have no doubt in my mind that it is the place where I'm suppose to be. I'll be sending them my acceptance this week as well as my rejections to the other schools.

I clean houses currently, and I did not talk about it in my SOP.

DGS is director of graduate studies. NSF GRFP is the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Again, I'd recommend getting Asher's book as it really lays out how to write a successful SOP - highlighting and drawing on items from your resume by placing them in certain context. Plus there are over 100 examples of successful SOPs in the book. Also, not saying I have an amazing SOP, but if you would like to see mine, I can e-mail it to you or PM it to you, as I got into Texas and wait listed at UMD - two schools that were of interests to you.

UT-Austin puts on their website that the average GRE quant of admitted students is 647, and I'm sure back in 2003-2005 it was lower than this, so I'd say yea, possibly...

I too recommend these books. I used both as well. Asher's book was rather invaluable to me.

No, I haven't contacted UMD at all because I wasn't too worried about my decision either way. They e-mailed me early this morning while I was at work saying I was on their "alternate" list, and they only had 12 spots available from over 200 applications.

I studied for the GREs for at least 2 hours a night for 5 months - excessive, yes, but I like you don't test well on the damn thing. In the end I only got a 1280 (620V/660Q/5.0W). Needless to say, you can obviously retake the test, but I would focus more on other aspects of your application. One route to consider is going to an MA program to hone in on your interests, build more research experience, and possibly publish as well. This isn't the route I chose, but it seems to work for a lot of people on here, and if you can get into a funded MA program, it definitely can't hurt. I for one am a firm believer that your SOP and research fit is pretty important. Writing a killer SOP will really make you stand out, and having a well defined research plan/interests I think helps too. Obviously LORs are important as well as the writing sample, so they need to be strong as well, but I think a great deal of the magic lies in your SOP. I say REALLY research schools/programs/faculty (I spent 4 months on just building an excel sheet about schools), and apply where there is a good research fit for you, then write a killer SOP conveying this message and make sure it makes you stand out. A lot of this is just a crapshoot process as well, as I got rejected from my "safety" school while I got into great programs, so having a little luck on your side never hurts as well!