Hey, so I've finally heard back from my schools and I'm trying to decide which soc phd program to go to in the fall and I've narrowed it down to three: Princeton, NYU, and Columbia.
I don't know what my stipend would be for Princeton yet, but I've been offered around the same for NYU and Columbia (30K ish)...however NYU offers paid teaching positions, whereas Columbia has teaching requirements(about 15 hr/ week) but teaching is unpaid.
In terms of programs, I am interested in cultural and computational sociology and it seems like all three programs have the resources/faculty in those areas.
I have some extra considerations because I am a single mom of an infant...so the idea of unpaid teaching time seems logistically and financially troublesome, making NYU appealing....but I went to NYU for undergrad and I know there's kind of a stigma against going to the same grad and undergrad.
Any thoughts on these programs? How important it is to go to a different school for grad than you went to for undergrad? Also, any single parent students out there with advice/comments?