socme123

I've now done all my dirty work, having declined Chicago, Yale, and Princeton (this one hurt - hope it was the right decision.) Hope this helps someone!

No, I won't be there. I've met a lot of the folks already.

So far I've declined Penn, Michigan, Duke, and Columbia in case any of you are waitlisted at those places. These are terrific schools where I met/communicated with terrific people, so I agree with goodmp that it's emotionally taxing. Aside from the concern that my other offers will magically dry up, I'm also concerned that maybe I'm making the wrong decision.

Yeah, I heard from them at the end of January and their visiting day was March 2

I dunno; I think you two are in pretty different situations. Maybe it's because I could not afford to go to a school that wasn't fully funded. Any school that was at risk of not funding me would be pretty much off the list if I had a funded option. But I'm already in massive amounts of educational debt so . . . But when it comes to choosing between two fully funded programs, but just one with a bigger fellowship, all kinds of other stuff would come into play: (1) Research fit: Which is the best fit, and do you know you actually would get along with your POIs at each place? Who's going to support you, not just by throwing money your way, but by giving you the research support you need to succeed in your chosen field? (2) How much ACTUAL love: I don't know how to phrase this but it's connected to (1). During this recruitment process professors blow a lot of smoke up our asses. I mean, a lot in the form of both praise and fellowship money. And it's easy to fall into believing the hype about yourself and the school. The whole goal of this is to lure you in, but the question is whether they are going to keep all that love for you once you get there. This is why fit has to trump everything, in my opinion. Once School 1 has you, you're still screwed if once you get there, no one's doing the exact work that interests you and no one wants to be on your committee, etc. School 2 may not have recruited you as hard, but if they have a couple people you know would fit well with your project, that's the kind of interest that will sustain you over the long haul. So maybe this is just a more detailed restatement of (1). (3) Placement records: It won't matter if you got more fellowships at School 1 if, in the end, School 1 doesn't get you a job. The point of all this is to get a job at the end. (4) Cost of living: Being broke is stressful and may impact your ability to focus. If you can't live on the School 2 offer, that's something to think about - esp. since you mentioned above that School 1 is in a lot less expensive place. All of this sounds like I'm leaning School 2. I'm not considering that I don't know your research interests and how they fit at each place. I would just hate to see anyone make a consequential decision on the basis of a few thousand dollars in the short run, when what really matters is the research fit and where Ph.D. will take us in the long run. That said, you definitely need enough $ to live on. Have you mentioned to School 2 that you have a $9k larger offer from School 1 and that the cost of living is a lot different? They may adjust your funding even if they don't give you a named fellowship.

I agree with barilicious. It's a crapshoot, but also the SOP and fit matter a LOT. I've had people at various schools basically tell me my SOP is what won the day for me ('cause I knew it sure as heck wasn't my undergrad GPA, which was quite a bit lower than yours.) To write a great SOP, step back for a moment and think about what ties together all of the work you've done in the past and present. You mentioned that your thesis was on Chinese mythical beings, but you want to study deviance, school discipline policy and effects on minority students. This is all interesting stuff. Is there a thread that links your interest in Chinese mythical being with your interests in minority youth "beings" (or is there a colorable argument you can make that ties them together in a creative way)? What about the non-sociology-related things you've done, like your current job? Why did you take those steps? What made those things appeal to you? Sure, all of us can be idiosyncratic at times but I suspect that underneath it all, there's a common motivation or common reason we do what we do, and I think it probably connects to why we want to pursue a PhD in sociology. Reflect on the trajectory of your life and find that common thread, and that will guide you as you rewrite your SOP. Once you rewrite it, feel free to PM it to me and I'd be happy to comment on it if that would be helpful. I am not an adcomm and don't know exactly what they are looking for, of course, but sometimes peers can be helpful too! I also agree with social comm that more information about the schools you selected and why you selected them would help us figure out what kind of advice to give.

I have been there, my friend. I'm a lawyer, and I'm starting a PhD program in the fall. Like you, I'm interested in law, but not in that way. My opinion is that if you can stomach it, you should get the law degree. You don't have to choose between PhD and JD; I was just ambivalent about it which is why I didn't go JD/PhD route. (By the way, even if a school doesn't have a "joint" program, they will sometimes let you do JD and PhD concurrently on an individualized basis.) First off, you're a 1L and the first year sucks. It only goes up from here. You will have more control over the classes you take; after my first year, I never took another class about moving people's money around and it was awesome. Professionally, there are many reasons to keep going: (1) I think completing a law degree made it easier for me to get into the grad school of my choice. (2) If you get a law degree, you can teach at a law school with perhaps a joint appointment in a history department. Legal history is HUGE in law schools. You might have to teach con law or crim law once in a while in addition to legal history subjects, but it's worth it because law professors make like 3x as much money as history profs and it's way easier to get publications (in law journals) and tenure. By the time you've taught in a law school for a few years, you will have made back the difference in salary of all your law school debt. This is - if you can stomach it. No need to massively depress yourself or feel like you've wasted your life getting a JD. Skip Gates dropped out of Yale Law School his first year, and now he's a University Professor at Harvard. But I'm giving you an electronic hug, because I've been there and know you need one! Edited to add: You can also teach in a law school without a law degree, but it's harder. And: Don't get too thrown off by anything that happens 1L year. It's really not the best indicator of anything. All of your classmates proabbly feel the same way you do.

Their interview weekend is going on right now, so I imagine all that is happening this upcoming week?

Would you consider Yale over, say, Michigan?

OMG. Are you 100% sure your recommendations were 100% positive? Because otherwise this makes absolutely no sense.

Ahh, very good point on the TAing/RAing. I need to check into that.

THANKS! I honestly cannot believe how lucky I've been. My stuff is really not all that tight but I'm happy to have confused some adcomms. You have a point with this grad school app help business thing! I am broke and your idea actually sounds like a pretty lucrative side-hustle. My goal is to research and write about the impacts of both specific anti-poverty policy and laws that disproportionately impact poor people on low-income communities. Both quant and qual.

I just got into Yale! Joint-degree. They had some mixup with my documentation so this was a shocker. And it means I got in everywhere . . . these people are crazy! Yale has a relatively very high living stipend and extremely good health insurance. Is it bad that this was the first thing that came to mind?

I agree with the previous two posters. It sounds like you don't want to go to grad school, and frankly an MA from the kind of school that will accept you with a 260 math gre (sorry, but as you know you're probably not getting into many schools with that score) is not going to help you get into law school as much as actual legal experience. Paralegals are always needed. Maybe you should apply for such a job. Also FYI, while the LSAT doesn't have math, it does have logic games that tend to trip up the same people who struggle with math. If I were you, I'd scrap the whole time-wasting grad school/GRE retake/debt-incurring path, work in a law-related environment, and start studying for the LSAT super-early so you can really master those logic games.

Also in at Harvard. Yay. The plot thickens . . .