tanayamohanty4

Hi, CONGRATULATIONS to all those who got acceptances. I am a newbie in this scene and I received my final rejection from UCSC, from which I had some hope as a professor had agreed to work with me. I just wanted some help in finding out what will help me ensure an admission next time. I had applied in OSU,UW,UM,UK,ASU,UA,UCSC,UCSB,UCLA,Emory. I'm giving my details here:
MA in Economics 6.4
BA 6.9
One year of  a prestigious national rural development fellowship on women empowerment
GRE 156Q, 152V, 4.5AWA
TOEFL-108 iBT
 
Please dm me or tag me here. I will be very grateful if you guys can make any suggestions at all.

Hey!
 
1) I had a horrible (not "horrible," but horrible) GRE score. The program I got into doesn't look at GRE scores. w00t.
2) I wrote a thesis for my MA program, part of which I used for my writing sample. I think that probably made me look good?
3) By seminars, do you mean conferences? I was lucky in my MA program in that I presented at several conferences and also helped organize a couple. For the program I was accepted to, I believe this looked good, as they seem to value engagement with others in the field (which tends to happen at conferences).
4) I think I had some killer letters of rec. Obviously I couldn't see them/am not privy to their contents, but I've seen letters that those faculty had written for other students, and they were great. Plus, one of the faculty at the program I got into has a working relationship with a faculty member from my MA program. I'm not sure if that helped? Seems likely. Also: even though my GRE was awful, I had a 4.0 in my MA program, which apparently didn't help with regard to the other two places I applied to, as I was rejected from them. However, I think the place I'll be going to in the fall just doesn't care about numbers that much and is much less invested in quantifying students' abilities than most programs-- so I'm not sure they were all that impressed by my 4.0, anyway.
 
Good luck!!

While all of those components are important, I really think it comes down to the fit of your research interests with those of the faculty at whatever schools you're applying to. It was always my dream to go to a feminist studies program, and I had such a hard time finding professors who could mentor me that I ended up accepting an anthropology offer over two GWSS offers (still a little bummed about it). It could be even harder to justify your case to a school when you're not using an explicit gender studies perspective - committees reject so many great people for any number of small reasons. You really have to sell them on the fact that YOU belong there over the many other SUPER QUALIFIED applicants.
Great for you that you found one professor already - I would say keep trying to personally connect with professors you're interested in working with, and also talk to current graduate students. Read the research that comes out of these departments and think about how yours fits in with it - are you using similar lenses/language, etc? I think a lot of people don't understand that gender studies isn't just about "women's issues" and you need to speak to the larger disciplinary POV and terminology. I did development studies in undergrad and I knew a ton of people who studied gender in one project and thought that qualified them to do a gender studies MA. (Not saying you're doing that, just to be mindful of it.) If you want to do gender studies over sociology, you really have to make a case for why that framework shapes your work.
Make sure you don't send the same statement of purpose to every school - tailor as many details of your application as you can to the specific program. That can be hard (I know, I applied 13 places this cycle), but I think sending in a handful of really thorough applications is better than just sending one general one everywhere.
Also - have as many people read your research paper as possible. Professors, colleagues, friends, etc. I was originally really proud of what I submitted (after having it reviewed by two former profs), but I read it recently and wanted to *facepalm* so much. There is always room to grow and add nuance to your arguments. Plus, even multiple rounds of editors can miss small grammatical errors. Same goes for you SoP - I ended up paying a professional editor to look at mine (I can be a little bit on the verbose side), and it really helped me craft a stronger and more succinct statement. It's easy to forget that the people reading our applications don't know us at all. Really use the space you have to knock them over the head with why you belong!
Good luck to you, feel free to PM me if you need anything else!

Were these all gender/women's studies programs? What are your research interests and methods? I only ask because the field of gender/feminist/women's studies in the U.S. tends to have a heavier humanities/cultural studies bent, and an MA in Economics is not usually good preparation for the kinds of critical cultural analysis that these programs demand. Your V score is somewhat low for a humanities degree as well.
If your interests are in economics, rural development, and gender, a sociology PhD program might be a better fit. You might also look into interdisciplinary programs in area studies or global/international studies. 
Hope this helps...

@MickeyRay maybe to keep people interested and not lose applicants who may otherwise think they've been rejected
for people who want to know about stony brook, I just got my formal fellowship offer in the mail today. i haven't gotten the general formal letter of offer yet, as I assume I will get something else.

Looks like you can see ur status from UCSB here - 
https://www.graddiv.ucsb.edu/eapp/Login.aspx
and UCLA here - 
https://appstatus.grad.ucla.edu/Account/AppStatus.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2faccount%2flogin.aspx
 

UCLA link does not work, and likely won't work until they upload our decision.