KevinJHa

Lmao I got a phone call from an unknown number today and hoping it was a school answered quickly -- turns out it was just an advertisement. 
I get my heart broken every day.

Oh my gosh, same here! I keep getting email solicitations with "Sociology" or "Application" in the subject line and every. single. one. makes me just about jump out of my skin! All false alarms though. At least I know my epinephrine production is working! 

Damn, that was a kick in the gut! Absolutely true, and yet...here I am.

I'm sorry to hear you had that MA experience, it sounds like it really got to you. I really wish you the best in getting into Berkeley. 
The good part about all of our individual stresses and such is that it will be over relatively soon, and we will all know for sure where were going and if we can handle it. Now is the time for strength!

Yes it is! LOVE LOVE LOVE It!

I'm alright most of the days because I am sure that my applications this cycle were not up to par. My partner wasn't ready to apply to jobs this cycle as we'd planned, so I get another shot at applying next year with not a lot of downsides. My problem is that my MA department was horrendous and discriminatory and my exchange at Berkeley soc. absolutely wonderful. The combo makes me extremely scared to go to a department that I do not know well. But I only know Berkeley and getting into that department is so so hard. I actually had serious breakdowns before submitting apps to other schools because I don't want to repeat my MA experience, which made me feel utterly powerless and less than human.

The mental health support in this group is real and I love it.

YASSSSSS!
Welcome to the party, @Len
The feelings you wrote about are normal. You're hearing this from a guy who has done this five times already!  If it makes it any better, usually all application portals have that check for missing/incomplete option before submitting those life changing things! lol
As for age, it doesn't matter! We'll be competing with "youngins" who are just about to finish their undergraduate degree and others who have an extensive CV of working, publications, etc. If you also think about it, there are others are coming from other academic disciplines other than Sociology. 
Like many have expressed on here, we can only hope for the best. I'm pretty sure we all have our personal strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes, it comes down to pure luck AND  fate. I personally opted to take a break after my getting my MA this past May because it's how my brain/energy for school works. I realized that I can't do a straight-up PhD program or else I would burn out and drop out. If I ended up going to a PhD program last Fall, I don't know how motivated I would be at the moment.
Of course, I have a lot of stake for this year. My GRE scores are horrible and expiring. Sadly, I don't want to retake them because I'm not such a great test taker. 
Let me know if you want to talk!
Congratulations on taking the first step!

Thanks, @qeta
Unfortunately, I work a full-time job that comes with research experience, but not health benefits. I was working in social media that had benefits, but couldn't pass up the opportunity to work in health research and get more experience for grad school!
I do question why I left that job that provided a benefits package! Alas, I'm more concerned with getting into school again for the last time.
Really crossing my fingers that things work out!
How are you keeping up with waiting?

Yikes! Make that three that are vying for UWM and UM for sociology of health. Hope it works out for all of us!!

Hi @pinoysoc, that sounds extremely tough. I also suffer from anxiety and depression and taking my medication honestly helps. I don't know what your finances are like and if you are able to get a prescription. If you have a prescription and a Costco in your area, the medications at their pharmacy are super-cheap and the pharmacy specifically is not legally allowed to discriminate against non-Costco-members.

I hope that you hear good news from your schools soon!

This is so true, and I'm trying to hold onto that thought! 
Fingers crossed that I get to be one of the motivation/experience admits, then, since my scores are far from perfect. Oh, well. 
I am *so* ready to start hearing about everybody's results. If I don't get in, at least I'll get to see some of you get in. 
I KNOW, that 160 mark is killer. I retook it after subpar scores when I took it during undergrad, but didn't improve nearly to that 160 mark. 166V, 151Q (from a 162V and a 147Q)..
You and I both for UWM and UM! Sociology of health is my jam too. No publications here, but I have some brief RA and TA experience with good LORS (including from my sociology statistics professor, who hopefully vouched for my ~~wacky excellent~~ statistics skills). SOPs are my downfall, and I'm very much hoping committees will review my writing sample even if they're iffy on my SOP; the writing sample is probably the strongest part of all of my applications. 

I'm social movements too!
 
I just started doing The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross and joined a gym. 

Thank you so much for starting this thread, as I know no one else in my life with these experiences and it can feel lonely to wait it out. 
I know some people in this thread are commenting about being older while applying to PhDs, but I have the opposite problem. I'm only 20, graduating in a three year program, and seeing the schools that everyone else is applying to is really intimidating. I have a fear that I'll be overlooked in favor of applicants that appear more...adult. I relate to the experience of other posters whose family and friends waive off their concerns and treat admission as inevitable. I, too, am constantly comparing myself to everyone else, trying to find in these forums the GPA/GRE scores of others, and trying to form any sort of expectation about what my grad decision will look like. I have a 3.99 GPA from a small Northeastern college, and a 163V/161Q/5.0W. But I still have fears that it's not enough. I think I applied to schools that were too high up the lists and am now regretting it. I know my professors put in a lot of work for me by writing my letters, and I really don't want to disappoint them by being rejected by all 6 of the schools that I applied to. 
Especially during winter break, especially while being snowed in (hi Northeasterners), the days don't seem to pass quickly enough. I wish you all the speediest responses to your applications! 

I agree -- I DONT WANT TO WAIT ANYMORE. I feel like a baby.

I remind myself that right now (January 8) is still super early to hear back from most sociology programs (as we can see on the survey, most of the latest entries are from the sciences and psychology), so I'm just anxious in the sense that I don't want to wait anymore. But that could change if I still haven't heard anything by March or something (or if I've only gotten rejections).

I'm in the same boat. To be quite honest, even if I have an MA, I still feel doubt. I was super cocky the first time I applied for 2014 application cycle. After lowering my expectations and "discovering" my true research interests after, I found the courage to apply for 2015 and got in. I thought that finishing my MA and going to a PhD program was going to happen, but I realized that this might be the last time I can take a break between degrees..especially the fact that I want to start my career after getting the PhD. 
What brings all these doubts (in my case) is not believing in myself and the work I've done. Partially, there's also my untreated anxiety & depression since losing insurance after graduation. So it's a double whammy. I came in this application season trying to be confident. I ended up deleting all my application things (i.e. SOPs, drafts, etc.) in December 2016 thinking I wasn't going to go for my PhD anymore; then used July through September to research what programs I was going to apply to, rewrite SOPs, and contact my professors who I told months earlier that I was going to do a Pre-Med Post-Bacc after graduation. 
I'm also freaking out because my GRE scores are expiring...(Sorry for the long rant). But at the end of the day, I know I have the initiative, work ethic, and research agenda to do something for my adoptive home. But it gets tiring being told that I was good enough, but not good enough to get an admission offer.
T_T
I hate how this year it seems that a lot of the interview invites or potential talks. I feel like they switch up the way they do things yearly. But I'm just really anxious about this whole "WAITING TO HEAR IF WE'RE GOOD ENOUGH" period.

KevinJHa I've seen your posts and thought the same thing about you! Honestly, fit is what I'm most worried about. I know I'm qualified to be somewhere--my big fear is that I chose the wrong places at the wrong time, and there's just no way to know if that's the case.

Well now that most applications are submitted and the waiting game is officially starting, I figure it would be good to figure out ways to occupy headspace while we wait for our lives to be determined by a committee of strangers. It's funny because most people who apply to graduate school are neurotic and anxious people in general.
Things I've been doing:
(1) I've been using this time to start saving money, considering i'd probably be broke in graduate school
(2) Going to the gym and trying to get the body I want
(3) Activism 
(4) Video games
(5) Checking the application pages for each school I applied to every morning 
 
What are you all doing to keep busy?

Holy crap congratulations!!! Thats incredible -- I didn't know some programs responded that quickly.

I received a letter of acceptance via email from University of Nebraska - Lincoln this morning, pending funding. I will fly in to visit in February. Y'all, I was so scared I would not get in anywhere I have been scream-crying happy for an hour. 

I think its best to go in with the understanding that the process is pretty arbitrary, and there are lots of factors that we could not possibly control! Whatever happens happens, but I have a good feeling about all of yall <3

I think its best to go in with the understanding that the process is pretty arbitrary, and there are lots of factors that we could not possibly control! Whatever happens happens, but I have a good feeling about all of yall <3

I think its best to go in with the understanding that the process is pretty arbitrary, and there are lots of factors that we could not possibly control! Whatever happens happens, but I have a good feeling about all of yall <3

It’s so important to remember that *none of us* know what might happen! Your stats are one part of your application but so is your writing sample, the letters of recommendation and the statement of purpose. Chin up everyone, we won’t know how everything shakes out til April 15th so we might as well be positive now!