theorynetworkculture

Great list! I love JLM's advice on grad school, there's more to check out on his website if people are interested. To add on: 
Sam Perry's (Chicago grad; University of Oklahoma AP) advice on the job market is pretty good: https://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/job-market-tough-love-from-sam-perry/ Org theory has many interesting discussions about grad school, how to succeed in grad school etc. Julie Posselt's book, Inside Graduate Admission, gives you a good insider's account of how admissions works: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674088696

Great list! I love JLM's advice on grad school, there's more to check out on his website if people are interested. To add on: 
Sam Perry's (Chicago grad; University of Oklahoma AP) advice on the job market is pretty good: https://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/job-market-tough-love-from-sam-perry/ Org theory has many interesting discussions about grad school, how to succeed in grad school etc. Julie Posselt's book, Inside Graduate Admission, gives you a good insider's account of how admissions works: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674088696

Accepted by UNC Chapel Hill via email this morning! Details are still hazy, but they mentioned ~20k of funding for 5 years, via fellowships or possibly TA-ships. It make the Berkeley rejection easier to take for sure. 

Some brief concluding thoughts as I check out of this year's admission cycle. I found this site very useful throughout the application process. I trawled it when I was a younger undergrad interested in grad school, and it was a good relief valve during the application season. Not many of my friends and peers apply to graduate school, not least sociology, so it was great to have the forum. My experience is anecdotal of course, but I hope people glean something from it.
I applied to 14 schools in this cycle, and I was accepted to 5. All of them were ranked in the top 20. While I wasn't admitted to some of my top choice programs (namely, Harvard and Berkeley), I do have great options available. I'm writing this in the wake of a few rejections, so there may be a strain of ambivalence to my words, but I know that in more sober moments I am very thankful and humbled to have the options I do.
I have a reasonably strong application profile. Without identifying myself, I come from a top 10 liberal arts college. I'm currently a senior. My GPA is within the summa/magna cum lauda range. My GRE scores (verbal/quant/writing) are above the 90th percentile. I have worked as a research assistant, and have dabbled in an independent summer research. 
I applied only to top ranked programs that were strong in what I was interested in (culture/theory/networks). I thought I made a strong case for my admission in each case, but as you can see, I was far from uniformly successful. 
I'm passing on tips and advice that I have accumulated from all over.
Make sure your file is as strong as it can reasonably be. Low test scores can entirely break through application (though high ones don't necessarily make it). Prestige and status of your undergraduate institution matters. There might be very little you can do to change and affect this, but it is wise to cognizant of its effects on your application, and to try to accommodate for this as best as you can. Network early and often with your letter writers. Make sure they know who you are, and how/why you're dedicated to a career in academia. Apply widely! You cannot apply to just a select few and expect to get in, unless you're a bona fide star (and perhaps, even if). I imagine my application profile does not look too dissimilar to that of the modal "good" applicant: in which case you might expect a similar result from mine. Start early! Start preparing your writing sample and personal statements by June, if you can. I started in September or so, and I wish I had started earlier.

You don't need a 4.0 major GPA. You have an excellent track record. Just work on your personal statement and writing sample, and try as best as you can to articulate why you want a sociology PhD. PhD admissions can be decidedly arbitrary on some level, but that's out of your control. It's good that you're reading Posselt's book, that gives you more insight into the inside baseball. But don't obsess too much about it.

You don't need a 4.0 major GPA. You have an excellent track record. Just work on your personal statement and writing sample, and try as best as you can to articulate why you want a sociology PhD. PhD admissions can be decidedly arbitrary on some level, but that's out of your control. It's good that you're reading Posselt's book, that gives you more insight into the inside baseball. But don't obsess too much about it.

You don't need a 4.0 major GPA. You have an excellent track record. Just work on your personal statement and writing sample, and try as best as you can to articulate why you want a sociology PhD. PhD admissions can be decidedly arbitrary on some level, but that's out of your control. It's good that you're reading Posselt's book, that gives you more insight into the inside baseball. But don't obsess too much about it.

MA programs are one way: Chicago MAPSS, NYU's AQR program etc. You can also looks to work at various research institutes, like the pop. centers at many universities (NORC at Chicago for example). But "research experience" can also be a really nebulous turn of phrase: what kind of research are you looking to do? I don't think a budding ethnographer would be interested in working as ICPSR or NORC.

Acceptances you had: New Mexico, Utah, Washington State (off of waitlist), Arizona (off of waitlist)
Research Area: Cultural Maintenance, Globalization, Indigenous Sovereignty, Social Movement, Race and Ethnicity, Education
Final Choice: Arizona!
Reason: After waiting for a week knowing I was first on the waitlist, Arizona just sent me my official offer! It's definitely late in this nail-biting season, but the opportunities I will have at Arizona are unmatched. The DGS was VERY transparent in the process and extremely helpful, which was honestly a godsend and a sign of a cooperative, friendly, and prestigious place to study that wasn't so... 'east-coast'. I couldn't be more excited! 
Edit: Tucson is freaking hot which scares me, but its a large city with a lot of opportunities outside of the immediate university. Another deciding factor.

After being rejected from all of my schools except no answer from my home institution and being waitlisted at one school that was not my top pick but has a fantastic faculty member there (University of South Carolina), I just received an e-mail this morning saying that the grad committee is meeting in a couple of days to pick someone off of the waitlist and would I like to be considered. This took me by surprise because we're two days out from the acceptances deadline, so I thought I was out of the race and had already considered switching topics to be more competitive and looking into new programs. I was merely expecting a polite "sorry, we couldn't find room for you" e-mail when I opened it this morning. 
Yes? I would like to be considered? But that doesn't mean I'm going to accept... South Carolina is literally the opposite side of the country for me, I don't have anything to compare it to since I didn't get any other acceptances besides maybe my own home institution (which pays shit and I have already gotten my first two degrees here), and I feel like I would need to get to know them before accepting so I would NEED to fly out there and that's expensive and takes time. All of this while my master's thesis draft is due in a week.  
Obviously I don't want to say an absolute no, because it may be a perfect fit for me (I'm more into fit than rank). It's also horribly far away from home (physically and in terms of similarity) so it's a huge decision. I guess what I'm asking is, is this a horribly irresponsible decision to even consider since it is high pressure with low time? Or at least, what factors should I be focusing on going into this IF I am accepted? I've got thesis tunnel vision and this is almost completely unwelcome right now. Thanks folks. Sorry for the novel  

Great list! I love JLM's advice on grad school, there's more to check out on his website if people are interested. To add on: 
Sam Perry's (Chicago grad; University of Oklahoma AP) advice on the job market is pretty good: https://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/job-market-tough-love-from-sam-perry/ Org theory has many interesting discussions about grad school, how to succeed in grad school etc. Julie Posselt's book, Inside Graduate Admission, gives you a good insider's account of how admissions works: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674088696

Great list! I love JLM's advice on grad school, there's more to check out on his website if people are interested. To add on: 
Sam Perry's (Chicago grad; University of Oklahoma AP) advice on the job market is pretty good: https://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/job-market-tough-love-from-sam-perry/ Org theory has many interesting discussions about grad school, how to succeed in grad school etc. Julie Posselt's book, Inside Graduate Admission, gives you a good insider's account of how admissions works: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674088696

Great list! I love JLM's advice on grad school, there's more to check out on his website if people are interested. To add on: 
Sam Perry's (Chicago grad; University of Oklahoma AP) advice on the job market is pretty good: https://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/job-market-tough-love-from-sam-perry/ Org theory has many interesting discussions about grad school, how to succeed in grad school etc. Julie Posselt's book, Inside Graduate Admission, gives you a good insider's account of how admissions works: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674088696

Hi all,
Over the last several days I've discovered a wealth of resources on the Internet for new graduate students, many of them directly relevant to sociology. I hope this list benefits others as much as it is helping me prepare for the challenges - and enjoyment - to come. 
How to Get the Mentoring You Want: A Guide for Graduate Students (University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School): http://www.rackham.umich.edu/downloads/publications/mentoring.pdf
Grad Skool Roolz: Everything You Need to Know about Academia from Admissions to Tenure, by Fabio Rojas (Sociology at Indiana): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/93455
No More Lame Prosems: Professional Development Seminars in Sociology, by Chris Uggen (Sociology at Minnesota) and Heather Hlvaka, Sociology at Marquette): http://users.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/uggen_hlavka_ch_08.pdf
Talk given to the First Year Graduate Student Proseminar at the University of California, Berkeley, Sociology Department, Fall 2007 (John Levi Martin, Sociology at Chicago ): http://home.uchicago.edu/~jlmartin/Talks/Notes on talk to graduate students at proseminar.pdf
How to Survive Your First Year of Graduate School in Economics, by Matthew Pearson (Economics): https://law.vanderbilt.edu/phd/How_to_Survive_1st_Year.pdf
How to Publish, by Kwan Choi (Economics): http://www.roie.org/how.htm
Info and Advice for Graduate Students (University of Maryland, Economics): http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~limao/graduate_info.pdf
Advice for First-Year Ph.D. Students in Economics at Cornell: http://www.economics.cornell.edu/graduate-program/gsafe/advice-first-year-phd-students-economics-cornell
Reflections on Surviving the Academic Job Market (R. Karl Rethemeyer, Public Affairs at Albany): http://www.albany.edu/rockefeller/gateway_docs/job_market_resources/2014/ReflectionsJobMrkt_AoM_July14.pdf
Graduate School Success by PhDs.org: http://www.phds.org/graduate-school-success 
Peter Bearman's AMA - Sociology Job Market Rumors: http://www.socjobrumors.com/topic/peter-bearmans-ama
Looking forward to reading others' discoveries as well!

Well I defended my thesis Friday and passed!!  I have some edits but should be done by the end of the week  AND, the reason I got on here, is that when I e-mailed WSU to let them know I had passed I got an e-mail back from my poi saying I'm at the top of the waitlist (knew I was waitlisted previously but didn't know my position)!  There is still hope!  Anyways now I'm hoping that someone tells them no and hopefully soon so this anxiety can pass.  Good luck to everyone this week!  Hopefully this week will have some good news  

This isn't necessarily true. Yes, you should seriously consider going to Pton since it's one of the best programs out there. All things being equal, Pton > Columbia/NYU.
But it's also worth noting that NYU is on a steep rise in their ranking and quality of program - they've poached a lot of faculty, they have top-notch faculty, and they place students very well on the job market. Princeton, on the other hand, has been bleeding faculty like crazy, a lot of their faculty are nearing retirement, and the faculty:student ratio is among the worst among the top ranked programs. As a result, to say Princeton is #1 and NYU is #16 (or whatever it currently is on the rankings) is just not true. It's likely that in the rankings that are coming out soon, Princeton will decline a few spots and NYU will rise several spots.
So it's not out of the question to choose a school like NYU over Princeton. 

Some brief concluding thoughts as I check out of this year's admission cycle. I found this site very useful throughout the application process. I trawled it when I was a younger undergrad interested in grad school, and it was a good relief valve during the application season. Not many of my friends and peers apply to graduate school, not least sociology, so it was great to have the forum. My experience is anecdotal of course, but I hope people glean something from it.
I applied to 14 schools in this cycle, and I was accepted to 5. All of them were ranked in the top 20. While I wasn't admitted to some of my top choice programs (namely, Harvard and Berkeley), I do have great options available. I'm writing this in the wake of a few rejections, so there may be a strain of ambivalence to my words, but I know that in more sober moments I am very thankful and humbled to have the options I do.
I have a reasonably strong application profile. Without identifying myself, I come from a top 10 liberal arts college. I'm currently a senior. My GPA is within the summa/magna cum lauda range. My GRE scores (verbal/quant/writing) are above the 90th percentile. I have worked as a research assistant, and have dabbled in an independent summer research. 
I applied only to top ranked programs that were strong in what I was interested in (culture/theory/networks). I thought I made a strong case for my admission in each case, but as you can see, I was far from uniformly successful. 
I'm passing on tips and advice that I have accumulated from all over.
Make sure your file is as strong as it can reasonably be. Low test scores can entirely break through application (though high ones don't necessarily make it). Prestige and status of your undergraduate institution matters. There might be very little you can do to change and affect this, but it is wise to cognizant of its effects on your application, and to try to accommodate for this as best as you can. Network early and often with your letter writers. Make sure they know who you are, and how/why you're dedicated to a career in academia. Apply widely! You cannot apply to just a select few and expect to get in, unless you're a bona fide star (and perhaps, even if). I imagine my application profile does not look too dissimilar to that of the modal "good" applicant: in which case you might expect a similar result from mine. Start early! Start preparing your writing sample and personal statements by June, if you can. I started in September or so, and I wish I had started earlier.

Adding to the discussion, I'd like to recommend Fabio Rojas' book, Grad Skool Rulz: Everything You Need to Know about Academia from Admissions to Tenure. It's only $5 to download as an ebook. I've had my eye on it for a while and downloaded it this morning. From what I can tell, it has quite a lot to offer in a blunt and constructive way. Fabio teaches sociology at Indiana.

Some brief concluding thoughts as I check out of this year's admission cycle. I found this site very useful throughout the application process. I trawled it when I was a younger undergrad interested in grad school, and it was a good relief valve during the application season. Not many of my friends and peers apply to graduate school, not least sociology, so it was great to have the forum. My experience is anecdotal of course, but I hope people glean something from it.
I applied to 14 schools in this cycle, and I was accepted to 5. All of them were ranked in the top 20. While I wasn't admitted to some of my top choice programs (namely, Harvard and Berkeley), I do have great options available. I'm writing this in the wake of a few rejections, so there may be a strain of ambivalence to my words, but I know that in more sober moments I am very thankful and humbled to have the options I do.
I have a reasonably strong application profile. Without identifying myself, I come from a top 10 liberal arts college. I'm currently a senior. My GPA is within the summa/magna cum lauda range. My GRE scores (verbal/quant/writing) are above the 90th percentile. I have worked as a research assistant, and have dabbled in an independent summer research. 
I applied only to top ranked programs that were strong in what I was interested in (culture/theory/networks). I thought I made a strong case for my admission in each case, but as you can see, I was far from uniformly successful. 
I'm passing on tips and advice that I have accumulated from all over.
Make sure your file is as strong as it can reasonably be. Low test scores can entirely break through application (though high ones don't necessarily make it). Prestige and status of your undergraduate institution matters. There might be very little you can do to change and affect this, but it is wise to cognizant of its effects on your application, and to try to accommodate for this as best as you can. Network early and often with your letter writers. Make sure they know who you are, and how/why you're dedicated to a career in academia. Apply widely! You cannot apply to just a select few and expect to get in, unless you're a bona fide star (and perhaps, even if). I imagine my application profile does not look too dissimilar to that of the modal "good" applicant: in which case you might expect a similar result from mine. Start early! Start preparing your writing sample and personal statements by June, if you can. I started in September or so, and I wish I had started earlier.

Some brief concluding thoughts as I check out of this year's admission cycle. I found this site very useful throughout the application process. I trawled it when I was a younger undergrad interested in grad school, and it was a good relief valve during the application season. Not many of my friends and peers apply to graduate school, not least sociology, so it was great to have the forum. My experience is anecdotal of course, but I hope people glean something from it.
I applied to 14 schools in this cycle, and I was accepted to 5. All of them were ranked in the top 20. While I wasn't admitted to some of my top choice programs (namely, Harvard and Berkeley), I do have great options available. I'm writing this in the wake of a few rejections, so there may be a strain of ambivalence to my words, but I know that in more sober moments I am very thankful and humbled to have the options I do.
I have a reasonably strong application profile. Without identifying myself, I come from a top 10 liberal arts college. I'm currently a senior. My GPA is within the summa/magna cum lauda range. My GRE scores (verbal/quant/writing) are above the 90th percentile. I have worked as a research assistant, and have dabbled in an independent summer research. 
I applied only to top ranked programs that were strong in what I was interested in (culture/theory/networks). I thought I made a strong case for my admission in each case, but as you can see, I was far from uniformly successful. 
I'm passing on tips and advice that I have accumulated from all over.
Make sure your file is as strong as it can reasonably be. Low test scores can entirely break through application (though high ones don't necessarily make it). Prestige and status of your undergraduate institution matters. There might be very little you can do to change and affect this, but it is wise to cognizant of its effects on your application, and to try to accommodate for this as best as you can. Network early and often with your letter writers. Make sure they know who you are, and how/why you're dedicated to a career in academia. Apply widely! You cannot apply to just a select few and expect to get in, unless you're a bona fide star (and perhaps, even if). I imagine my application profile does not look too dissimilar to that of the modal "good" applicant: in which case you might expect a similar result from mine. Start early! Start preparing your writing sample and personal statements by June, if you can. I started in September or so, and I wish I had started earlier.

I really applaud your determination to get into a PhD program But I think you may be overlooking some serious weaknesses in your application profile. You say, "Look at me. I am your ideal candidate," but if you've been rejected 27 times over the course of 10 years, I think there's more to this.
For example, your grad GPA is 3.77. That's a poor GPA for graduate school, akin to to 2.8-3.3 GPA range as an undergrad. Especially since getting an MA is supposed to be used as a leverage to "prove" to PhD admission committees that you can handle PhD level coursework at the bare minimum, this GPA alone is a damaging signal.
There's a lot more you raise that a lot of questions. Like are you really sure your LOR wrote you "GLOWING" letters? That your personal statement was "perfectly crafted"? Or maybe your aggressive reaching out to professors actually backfired on you?
It's absolutely true that there is a lot of arbitrariness in graduate school applications. Specific programs reject wonderful applications for completely random reasons beyond their control. But there is also a lot of overlap. There are students, for example, who get offers from all the schools they apply to. 
To get rejected 27 times over 10 years does suggest that something is "very, very wrong." But it's probably not the admissions committee.

Some brief concluding thoughts as I check out of this year's admission cycle. I found this site very useful throughout the application process. I trawled it when I was a younger undergrad interested in grad school, and it was a good relief valve during the application season. Not many of my friends and peers apply to graduate school, not least sociology, so it was great to have the forum. My experience is anecdotal of course, but I hope people glean something from it.
I applied to 14 schools in this cycle, and I was accepted to 5. All of them were ranked in the top 20. While I wasn't admitted to some of my top choice programs (namely, Harvard and Berkeley), I do have great options available. I'm writing this in the wake of a few rejections, so there may be a strain of ambivalence to my words, but I know that in more sober moments I am very thankful and humbled to have the options I do.
I have a reasonably strong application profile. Without identifying myself, I come from a top 10 liberal arts college. I'm currently a senior. My GPA is within the summa/magna cum lauda range. My GRE scores (verbal/quant/writing) are above the 90th percentile. I have worked as a research assistant, and have dabbled in an independent summer research. 
I applied only to top ranked programs that were strong in what I was interested in (culture/theory/networks). I thought I made a strong case for my admission in each case, but as you can see, I was far from uniformly successful. 
I'm passing on tips and advice that I have accumulated from all over.
Make sure your file is as strong as it can reasonably be. Low test scores can entirely break through application (though high ones don't necessarily make it). Prestige and status of your undergraduate institution matters. There might be very little you can do to change and affect this, but it is wise to cognizant of its effects on your application, and to try to accommodate for this as best as you can. Network early and often with your letter writers. Make sure they know who you are, and how/why you're dedicated to a career in academia. Apply widely! You cannot apply to just a select few and expect to get in, unless you're a bona fide star (and perhaps, even if). I imagine my application profile does not look too dissimilar to that of the modal "good" applicant: in which case you might expect a similar result from mine. Start early! Start preparing your writing sample and personal statements by June, if you can. I started in September or so, and I wish I had started earlier.

Interesting insight. Are you currently a graduate student?
Two professors whose works I admire deeply have reached out to me, and I have to admit I'm a little starstruck: "'so-and-so' actually wrote me!" was the running thought when I read their email. My current advisor told me not to be so easily seduced, because that's par for the course during this "courting season." Do others have similar experiences?

Some brief concluding thoughts as I check out of this year's admission cycle. I found this site very useful throughout the application process. I trawled it when I was a younger undergrad interested in grad school, and it was a good relief valve during the application season. Not many of my friends and peers apply to graduate school, not least sociology, so it was great to have the forum. My experience is anecdotal of course, but I hope people glean something from it.
I applied to 14 schools in this cycle, and I was accepted to 5. All of them were ranked in the top 20. While I wasn't admitted to some of my top choice programs (namely, Harvard and Berkeley), I do have great options available. I'm writing this in the wake of a few rejections, so there may be a strain of ambivalence to my words, but I know that in more sober moments I am very thankful and humbled to have the options I do.
I have a reasonably strong application profile. Without identifying myself, I come from a top 10 liberal arts college. I'm currently a senior. My GPA is within the summa/magna cum lauda range. My GRE scores (verbal/quant/writing) are above the 90th percentile. I have worked as a research assistant, and have dabbled in an independent summer research. 
I applied only to top ranked programs that were strong in what I was interested in (culture/theory/networks). I thought I made a strong case for my admission in each case, but as you can see, I was far from uniformly successful. 
I'm passing on tips and advice that I have accumulated from all over.
Make sure your file is as strong as it can reasonably be. Low test scores can entirely break through application (though high ones don't necessarily make it). Prestige and status of your undergraduate institution matters. There might be very little you can do to change and affect this, but it is wise to cognizant of its effects on your application, and to try to accommodate for this as best as you can. Network early and often with your letter writers. Make sure they know who you are, and how/why you're dedicated to a career in academia. Apply widely! You cannot apply to just a select few and expect to get in, unless you're a bona fide star (and perhaps, even if). I imagine my application profile does not look too dissimilar to that of the modal "good" applicant: in which case you might expect a similar result from mine. Start early! Start preparing your writing sample and personal statements by June, if you can. I started in September or so, and I wish I had started earlier.

Some brief concluding thoughts as I check out of this year's admission cycle. I found this site very useful throughout the application process. I trawled it when I was a younger undergrad interested in grad school, and it was a good relief valve during the application season. Not many of my friends and peers apply to graduate school, not least sociology, so it was great to have the forum. My experience is anecdotal of course, but I hope people glean something from it.
I applied to 14 schools in this cycle, and I was accepted to 5. All of them were ranked in the top 20. While I wasn't admitted to some of my top choice programs (namely, Harvard and Berkeley), I do have great options available. I'm writing this in the wake of a few rejections, so there may be a strain of ambivalence to my words, but I know that in more sober moments I am very thankful and humbled to have the options I do.
I have a reasonably strong application profile. Without identifying myself, I come from a top 10 liberal arts college. I'm currently a senior. My GPA is within the summa/magna cum lauda range. My GRE scores (verbal/quant/writing) are above the 90th percentile. I have worked as a research assistant, and have dabbled in an independent summer research. 
I applied only to top ranked programs that were strong in what I was interested in (culture/theory/networks). I thought I made a strong case for my admission in each case, but as you can see, I was far from uniformly successful. 
I'm passing on tips and advice that I have accumulated from all over.
Make sure your file is as strong as it can reasonably be. Low test scores can entirely break through application (though high ones don't necessarily make it). Prestige and status of your undergraduate institution matters. There might be very little you can do to change and affect this, but it is wise to cognizant of its effects on your application, and to try to accommodate for this as best as you can. Network early and often with your letter writers. Make sure they know who you are, and how/why you're dedicated to a career in academia. Apply widely! You cannot apply to just a select few and expect to get in, unless you're a bona fide star (and perhaps, even if). I imagine my application profile does not look too dissimilar to that of the modal "good" applicant: in which case you might expect a similar result from mine. Start early! Start preparing your writing sample and personal statements by June, if you can. I started in September or so, and I wish I had started earlier.