infovore

Just out of curiosity, how much did you tweak your personal statements for each program? Were they all basically the same with a few sentences different?

Yup, I am. I applied specifically to the Science Studies program through the Sociology department. I'm trying to wait until the funding info comes out (on Friday, I believe?) before I get super excited, because they don't guarantee full funding, but if I had to bet right now, I would say odds are good that I will end up at UCSD in the fall. I have two other programs I'm waiting to hear back from over the next two weeks, but all things considered that's the most likely outcome.

The latter.

A closely related question would be: what is the best way to approach attending the open house of the only program you got accepted to? (Considering that it's looking very likely I'll only have gotten accepted into one program.)

I got my first acceptance, from UC San Diego's Sociology program, and I was invited to their admit open house on March 6th-7th. They offer to match you with a Sociology grad student as an overnight host, and they also offer a $500 travel reimbursement to people travelling from out of state. Because I'm in OR, $500 will basically cover a hotel room for a couple days plus the flight, but I assume it's still better to go with the overnight host, right? Just so I can get as much info as possible and such? I would be better off with a hotel room if the overnight host turned out to be just kind of annoyed that I was there and ignored me the entire time, but otherwise that seems like the best option.

I have similar interests, and I would second the recommendations from others here, I applied to UCSD, UPenn HSS, and Northwestern.

Somehow my UCSD Sociology-Science Studies app slipped through the cracks, it's due on the 10th and I'm waaaay behind, compared to where I was two days before all my December 15th apps were due. Kind of ironic how that goes. I thought I had more time, for some reason. The word limit for the SOP is way higher than the others (2500 words) and the SOP prompt is more detailed and asks about stuff like, "How did you become interested in this field?" i.e. the kind of stuff I've been avoiding putting on every other SOP.

Yep, I want to work with him, too. His current projects on sexual health are even more closely related to my research interests than they were when I applied to the program back in 2014. But I'm not gonna hold my breath -- my SOP was probably terrible. I just don't really have any time to write one -- I couldn't find anyone to pick up my shift today at my retail job, and tomorrow I need to finish my SOP for UPenn HSS, which I somehow forgot was only about 2/3 done. I would have called out of work, but I had to call out a few days ago because my wrist got strained and I had to let it rest (which meant I couldn't type, either!). Oh well *shrug*

Here's my plan: my last app is due mid-January. I'm gonna take a breather for a week or two, and then I'll start working on getting a manuscript ready to submit for publication. I have stuff I've been sitting on for a while, and I need to just get off my butt and make it happen.

Yes, I actually haven't even started my cluster statement yet (Science Studies), and I don't know how I will be able to differentiate it from my SOP. I'm considering just not including one, even though my work is incredibly interdisciplinary and it would be great to be a Cluster Fellow. I feel quite pessimistic about my chances of getting into Northwestern in general, though, so spending extra time to work on a cluster statement feels admittedly foolish.

Thank you for the suggestion! I'll look into UW-Madison. Cornell STS seems like a very non-traditional program, at least based on their web site, because of the way it blurs disciplinary boundaries more than every other program I looked at.

I am in a very similar boat, my Quant score is 156, which is slightly lower than some of the programs I'm applying to. I went in knowing I hadn't really studied enough for that section, and I feel confident I could get a higher score if I really poured a lot of energy into it. But looking at the average scores and such I came to the decision that it's better for me to focus on making the rest of my applications as polished as possible.

I wanted to start a thread for those of us applying to programs under the umbrella of Science and Technology Studies and History/Philosophy/Sociology of Science, Technology, and Medicine. What programs are you applying to, and what are your interests? My main area of interest is the DSM as a site of conflict and negotiation between sexual & gender minority communities and mental health professionals. I'm applying to: Indiana Bloomington HSPC, Cornell STS, UChicago CHSS, UPenn HSS, UCSD Science Studies (Sociology), and Northwestern Sociology dept. I'm still considering adding one or two more to that list.

In sociology is it standard practice to email professors at graduate programs you apply to? I know in psychology it definitely is, but I'm unclear how important it is in sociology.

The thought of studying in Europe kind of freaks me out, but what you, @TMP, and @laleph are saying makes sense. I'm actively terrible at learning other languages, though (one of the big struggles I'm foresee with any history-focused program, though reading in another language is the one facet I am less terrible at picking up). Thank you for your thoughtful response, @Sigaba. I spent some time over the summer trying to get my bearings regarding the different disciplinary boundaries of the fields I'm interested in, and I still don't really have a detailed sense of the answers to that question. Do you have any recommendations as far as papers I could read that might help me get a better sense? Your comments about framing my work are very helpful, I will definitely keep that in mind as I start working on my SOPs in the next month or so.

I have looked into this some, but most of the history MAs I looked at at least expect you to have SOME prior history coursework, and I have absolutely none, except maybe for one literature course that strongly emphasized historicism. So I'm not even sure if it's worth applying to history MAs, if they are just going to tell me, "You need to pay X amount to take some classes for a semester or two before you can even start our MA program." If I had that kinda money I would, but I just don't. I was always told "The classes you take during undergrad don't really limit you in the future," but it seems like they actually do. I have done a good bit of independent reading related to my historical interests: the history of psychiatry/mental health in the US, LGBT history, and the intersection of the two fields. For my undergraduate thesis I did some historical analysis with primary sources, close reading of some published letters and official documents that were fairly easily accessible and directly related to my topic, but I didn't do any archival work or anything along those lines. I'm very interested in getting training in historical methods and perspectives to sharpen my overall interdisciplinary approach, but I'm thinking my best bet is to focus on interdisciplinary graduate programs with a historical element, like history and philosophy of science programs or UPenn's History and Sociology of Science program. I'm already planning on applying to UChicago's Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science PhD, but I'm wondering if I should also apply to the MAPPS program directly? It does look really appealing to me, for helping me figure out what I want to do next in case my PhD applications are all a bust, but I suspect I wouldn't be able to qualify for 2/3 for 100 percent funding, and I don't think I'm interested in taking out $40k in loans. I'd be okay taking out a huge chunk of loans if I knew I would be able to get an okay job in 10 years or whatever, but realistically I understand that going outside disciplinary boundaries like that can make it a lot harder to get a job, so I don't want to shoot myself in the foot by also taking out a bajillion dollars in loans for MAs.

I'm interested in history programs, but I have no prior coursework in history from my undergraduate work (I majored in Psychology, with most of the rest of my classes in literature and sociology).

I'm working on my list of schools to apply to right now. I am applying to science studies-type programs, programs with a lot of support for interdisciplinary work. I know that I want to do some mix of sociology/philosophy/history of science/medicine, but narrowing it down from there is hard. My two "definites" are UCSD (Sociology - Science Studies) and Northwestern; I'm also looking at History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine at Indiana - Bloomington, and History and Sociology of Science at UPenn. My BA is in Psychology, though I did take some sociology classes. I don't have any philosophy or history coursework, I just am interested in more training in those approaches after doing a lot of independent reading on my area of interest. To be honest, I'm not even sure I want to go into the field of sociology -- a lot of sociological theory seems either so convoluted to be meaningless or of limited use. For example, most of the classic theorists just seem kinda useless to me, while some of the crit theory just seems so intentionally confusing that it's hard for me to take seriously. On the other hand, I love Latour, who a lot of people might put in the bucket of "intentionally confusing and overly convoluted," so go figure. I take a pretty pragmatic approach to theory, drawing from different fields as it seems useful, and there is certainly some sociological theory that I find useful. As for methods, I have no problem getting trained in quantitative approaches, because even if I'm not using them myself they are helpful for analyzing other social science research, and while some qualitative methodologies seem hand-wavy I probably will end up using some of them in my own work. So I have a pretty ambivalent feelings, but I'm starting to realize that choosing a disciplinary "home base" is really going to be about who will accept me, not based on the raw percentage of work done in that field that I appreciate. There is a pretty big tent in terms of the range of theoretical and methodological approaches that are considered "Sociology," as far as I can tell. Is that obnoxious to say?