THS

Almost every program in the country had some people reevaluate why they were there AND had students MA out or finish their PhD. AND many also didn't take cohorts last year. This has resulted in a labor shortage in a lot of departments that rely on graduate students to TA, RA, and teach. I know in my department because phd candidates are being forced to TA this spring when they have been teaching or RAing due entirely to this labor shortage.

Heads up that a lot of programs will be taking on big cohorts (this is good for getting your foot in the door, bad if you want personalized attention from the department). That said, Washington State University will be taking in a large cohort- if you are interested in quantitative methods, environmental sociology, sociology of gender and work, or experimental methods it might be a good program to look into. The program has also moved away from academic only prep and is really starting to focus on applied/sociology for industry preparation for graduates. Don't go there if you want to study qualitative methods (only 2 profs do this, very little support) or racial/ethnic sociology (the support/knowledge base just isn't there). Also don't apply if you aren't ok living 2 hours from a Target. Otherwise, beautiful hiking/fishing/outdoors activities, low cost of living, and great beer for when you aren't buried in work. Good luck on your apps and hopefully this post is helpful to some of you!

Look into nonprofit work. With your training in social science you'll be a good fit and have skills that many are looking for. They won't pay well but they have flexible schedules and are fulfilling to work with (depending on the route you go-- most of the nonprofits I've worked with deal with food security and domestic violence).

Christine Horne at Washington State University.

Of course the American Dream is over. Instead, you have people (like posters above) who want to believe that meritocracy/their work and what they've been able to accomplish is that "dream" while the rewards for the work have objectively diminished over the last 50 years. There's nothing wrong with reframing it as "my American Dream" but realize that when you do this you are 1) managing your personal self image (normal psychological response) and 2) managing your perceived and projected social class (moral capital management- how worthy others view you and how you want to be viewed). Just look at studies of downward mobility amongst the millennial generation or recent reports on inequality in this country...those tell the quantitative story of the death of the American Dream (and the job market we'll all experience after grad school is just another symptom of that).

If you end up applying to programs next year, at WSU, Kmec has been known to chair committees for students doing historical/document analysis type research (or, at least, I know of one student who recently graduated). Otherwise I seriously suggest you consider a PhD in Anthropology. They share a lot of theory with Sociology, but you'll find far more emphasis on history, context, and culture-- and huge emphasis and excellent training in qualitative methods (multiple courses likely offered and field schools to practice before its your thesis or dissertation on the line). I have grad degrees in both/know the differences well. Hope this helps!

Washington State University will not be recruiting a new cohort. Internal e-mail confirmed this morning. There is a statement on the WSU Sociology homepage, but the prospective student webpage has not been updated (and it is unclear if it will be updated as a lot of the department's web presence is out of date).

I know that the pandemic has really messed things up for a lot of you. Your dream program might have cancelled admissions this year or you are looking at an even more competitive market because there will be fewer programs accepting students. This might mean that you choose to take this year off and wait to apply next year OR that you want improve your skills and increase your chances of success in a program. I am writing this post to suggest skills you can develop on your own, without being in a program, but that will make your life better when you get there if you learn them beforehand. They will also make you more attractive to programs that expect their students enter with certain kinds of skills/knowledge. The first thing you should do is learn to use R. If you don't know where to start a really good textbook is Discovering Stats Using R by Field, Miles, and Field. This text is great because it will give you a refresh on your stats knowledge and will teach you to use a free stats program. The learning curve for it is pretty big, you have to learn to speak its language- but if you can teach yourself how to use this your life will be so much easier later. A lot of people might say that learning R first is a bad idea, but if you learn to use R then using state, SPSS, or SAS later is a breeze. Plus the R community is amazing and there are so many free tutorials out in the world if the book is confusing. The second skill you can develop on your own is practice regression models (learning the code to run them, to interpret them, learning what you use various types of models for...). This is super important if you want to be a qualitative person. What? You might be asking. Yes, I am serious. Many programs will expect you to be competent in every method so going in knowing how to do quant work will mean less push back for your qual dreams. There are lots of textbooks you can use, my program uses Regression Models by Example by Chatterjee and Hadi. But anyone can teach themselves to do this as well. Download free data (CPS is pretty easy to work with if you are just starting out) and play. The third skill you can develop on your own is the ability to use python. There are lots of online programs that my peers have used to learn this skill (I, honestly, have not). I do know that as you progress in your quant skills that eventually this becomes something you'll want to know how to use. I work with survey data/not crazy huge datasets so I've been able to avoid it, but this might be something to think about. A lot of posts on here suggest doing things like learning theory, but from my experience you have no idea what theory will be covered in the program you end up accepted to. You could spend an entire semester learning Talcott Parsons or you could get a general overview or you might just cover Marx/Weber/Durkheim. My point there is I wouldn't bother. I would download as many pdfs of peer reviewed research articles on the area you are interested in writing your thesis on NOW while you still have access to your undergrad institution and to start building a literature review. Make sure to do specific searches of major journals (AJS, ASR...) If you don't have access get your hands on as many "free" sources as possible and make it your goal to read at least a couple books in your interest area. Make sure to save the citation information, the gist of the article, and any quotes you think you might later use (I do this in excel spreadsheets). Even just saving them to a PDF is a good starting place though. This will help you when you finally do get to that point in your career. Your interests might change, but it never hurts to have a solid lit review started. You will be able to pull from that for class papers if you don't use it for your thesis someday. I know that not being able to apply is going to be super stressful for many of you and that it will probably mean working a job during this time which is why I gave a list but with varying levels of commitment or time attached to the tasks. I'd suggest doing ANY of these things- but if you don't do anything that is ok too. We are living through a global pandemic and it is ok to not be ok. The thought here is that these are good ways to build on your skills while you figure things out (let's be real knowing how to do statistics or use python are great skills to have on a resume anyways anymore). I am so sorry this is happening to everyone who is at this point in your grad school journey, I login to this site like idk every 4 or so months so if you DM me I won't answer for a while, but I promise I will eventually reply if you have any questions about what grad school is like or about how to go about any of these suggestions I have made. I did this because after advising a student from my summer class I realized that she is far from the only person thinking "what now" so I hope this helps. A side note: obviously polishing your application materials will help too. An extra year to craft the perfect letter of intent might be a blessing for someone who is still wrapping up their BA. Also I hope other current grad students share their insights. I am ABD in my program and nearly done so people earlier in the process might remember some things I don't or have insights from their programs or other books to recommend

It looks like some programs will still admit students, but that this cycle will be highly competitive due to an even smaller number of spots. Just wanted to share. Not sure what my own program is doing, if they are reducing the cohort size or skipping a year- either way I'll post it to this board when they announce. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/06/01/some-departments-plan-suspending-or-limiting-graduate-cohorts-year-or-longer-free

Just realized you posted in two places and I already replied once

I made this switch and it has been fine. I would advise brushing up on your statistics, you'll need to be able to use quant methods if you want to make the switch work. That will actually be a benefit to you in your new program because you'll be one of the few of your peers who is actually trained in both (I found the qual training to be pathetic compared to what we get in anth which made me glad I did my MA there first)... I do qualitative (method for my dissertation) and survey (work for a center at my university) primarily now that I am in my dissertation phase- but I have been an RA doing quantitative analysis too- I definitely learned more quant skills in my soc department, however. Best of luck if you make the switch. Feel free to DM me if you have more questions!

I wish I had a better answer to this but I'd say both but I am not sure. I am in a combo program but came in with an MA. My program goes back and forth for whether it prefers to admit BAs or MAs (basically it seems like it depends on whether the department head thinks we need more TAs or ppl to teach classes as crappy as that is). At any rate my personal experience was that my not stellar GPA but decent GRE was why I had to do an MA prior to applying to a PhD program (that's actually what the rejection from the combined MA/PhD program I applied to told me right out of undergrad). So I had to do an MA first. If your grades and GPA and research experience are excellent then I'd apply straight to the PhD programs. If you are worried you won't get into the PhD then I'd apply to the MA as well (cover your bases). It also depends on what your interests are... I also wouldn't knock applied programs. They teach you lots of methodological skills that make you a great researcher which is a huge asset in a PhD program. Lots of the people who come in with Mas in my current department went to applied programs first. The only hang up is if their MA thesis work wasn't rigorous enough the department makes them repeat this step- so it really just means that when you hit that stage if you decide to continue to the PhD make sure your chair knows that so you can do something that'll be comparable to what you call "academic" programs sometimes do (in my experience terminal program MA requirements are far more intense than when its in a combined program, our MAs don't do nearly as much as I had to for my masters). I hope this helps! Sorry it took me so long to get back on here to reply- comps are kicking my butt but hopefully this isn't too late to be helpful!

It won't hurt you in the process, but lean into the sociology courses you took and why those were important. Sociology is more territorial than anthropology department are so that's why you want to focus on why you want to be a Sociologist. Having studied both you'll know they are very similar- share theorists even- so it is weird that they are this way, but Soc especially is. Best of luck in your applications!! Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions!

Hi I hope you are still checking this sometimes- I can see it is from awhile back. I did my MA in cultural anthropology and am working on my PhD in Sociology so I know a bit about both fields. 1) The first is that it might be harder to come from industry straight into a PhD program, especially if you haven't been doing research in your industry or aren't working in an area related to what you would want to study. If this sounds like you then I would highly recommend applying to a terminal masters program first-- in either field. There are some that will pay you to TA and cover your tuition (Oregon State's MA in anthropology, for example) and lots of pay programs. These are often a little easier to get into for a step in the middle and are a great way to figure out what you are really interested in/narrow down what you want to do. I was generally interested I poverty and inequality...why some people make it and others don't (social mobility) when I left undergrad. In grad school I narrowed that down and shifted a lot as I learned more about safety net programs and stigma/the role of symbolic capital. That allowed me to write a much clearer SoP when it came time to apply to a full PhD program. The good news is that from here, as long as you put the work in on that MA, your work should translate into part of your PhD work and cut some time off of that program. This advice means getting a phd will take 1-2 years longer than if you go straight into a PhD track but it is a good option for people who don't know what they want to study or were kind of goofy during undergrad (I was the latter- I transferred a bunch and didn't declare a major til the last minute). 2) The second case might be that you just have broad interests but you work in an area you could study. If that is you then start talking to local professors who also study in your area. Ask them about their programs/if there's room to translate your current work into a degree. In my current soc program I've watched that strategy work for 3 phds we've brought in (my cohort and after cohorts). So reach out and ask questions. In my experience whatever you write on your SoP won't be what you actually end up doing for your dissertation anyways so as far as what you write you are interested in it isn't a make it or break it once you are there-- and the committees know that. It is more about showing your interests are aligned with the people who could teach you. That's true for both soc and anthropology programs. You do need to pick one though. Although we know they are super similar fields- they are territorial and won't be pleased if you want to be a "social scientist" they are looking to train Anthropologists or Sociologists (as ridiculous as that might sound to people who are kind of between the two fields for where their interest lies). Anyways, I hope this helps!!!

I am not blind to the problems that can come up as an instructor of record, I've dealt with some already. I think the difference is that in my own classroom I can at least make sure racial slurs and hate speech aren't used. That might be a small thing, but when you TA for another person that's the kind of thing you can only do if they let you (or at least that's what I've realized this term- I can't imagine anyone else I've ever been a TA for allowing this). Also suggesting that finding a POC in an other department suggests that every POC faculty member is going to be open to supporting/mentoring minority grad students from across the university...they are heavily burdened as is and there are so few of them! The reality is that I am in this alone- and other POC grad students will be in this alone until the institutions that are supposed to support and protect us from this kind of behavior (UMBUDS and OEO) stop acting as legal buffers for the university and follow through with their mission in good faith. I have support from the uni where I did my MA, I've talked to my previous advisor and some old committee members and they have all expressed concern but also told me to keep my head down and just try to get through unscathed-- that I'll be stronger for it. So in addition to posting here when I was angry I did reach out to my support group. Unfortunately no one has a good answer beside that it sucks and just to keep my head down for the rest of the term. To me that is sad. What I am experiencing is a well documented and, unfortunately, frequent occurrence for POC graduate students across the country- I just am beyond pissed off that it found me and was hopeful someone would have some brilliant solution/miracle story. Also I think it is important to share these kinds of stories so other people know they aren't alone when it happens to them.