Socioeconnut

Thank you! I already have an MA that is very qual heavy so the director and poi told me they would tailor my curriculum to the courses that would best serve my research, which will be a mix of both qual and quant. I'm admitted to the program already so I don't want to wait another year to apply separately to QMSS. I'd either apply to QSSS at CUNY or take up Columbia on this "curated curriculum" situation.

I’m currently up against a wall after receiving my last PhD rejection and have an admit to the Columbia MA. My poi there is very supportive and willing to work with me towards getting my first MA thesis published, but I’m struggling to decide if I should invest the money towards the ivy name or pass it up and apply to the MS in QSSS at CUNY. There is no guarantee I will get into the masters program at CUNY and worst case scenario, I pass up Columbia and don’t get into the CUNY MS. In the event that I did get into the CUNY masters, does anyone know if they have a good placement record into PhD programs? Is the difference between Columbia and CUNY one that adcomms give weight to? Anyone have experience with either program or similar situation?

MIT and HBS both have economic sociology in their management phd under the organizational behavior umbrella and harvard sociology works with hbs and mit. I spoke with the head of both programs over email and telephone over the past year as they both found my research topic compelling. mit was surprisingly more responsive this year and the chair actually met with me back in october to discuss my research topic further and advise on how to pitch it in my app. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. I would do a second MA if it was part of a PhD. Doing a terminal MA, like the one offered by Columbia is much harder to justify bc I would use it to apply to PhD programs that will require ANOTHER MA? A third MA? I can't justify that.

Not everywhere but the odds of getting into the other programs is close to 0 bc I don't have as strong of a connection to the remaining three as I did to Columbia. Columbia was my best shot so I deduced if I didn't get in there, there is no way I'm getting into Princeton, MIT or NYU. I also went to NYU for undergrad and grad so the likelihood of getting in for PhD was already a reach since schools rarely admit you for all three. The LOR's are all NYU profs but not the same dept... but you are right, the rejection party is still going strong lol..

Keeping my fingers crossed for you, there is still time and in the words of my gf who is a lawyer and first time mom: you are a superhero for even getting the applications together! Seriously. Even the childless female academics know what's up bc their male peers that have kids use the paternity leave to churn out papers while their wives take care of the kids. Academia is still incredibly misogynistic.

I can't add any more reactions today lol but you just get me. We are living parallel lives in different cities. I sent my thesis to the dean of social science at UC Irvine, who authored the only qualitative study on my research topic (I approached it from a mixed-method, quant focused angle), and have been exchanging ideas and emails for the past 2 years. He cc'd emails to multiple professors in his sociology dept and even asked them to advise/connect me to their alma maters/the best fit east coast schools bc he understood I couldn't relocate everyone to cali..Had I just moved to Irvine, I could have continued working with him! Every acceptance I see to Irvine, I just wince.

First off, high five fellow parent. Secondly, to assume that being parent will do anything but contribute to our efficiency, determination and scope of perspective is wildly ignorant. Now I know academics are not exactly the most “Street/life” smart, but sociologists should know better. They should DO BETTER. The reason I was so moved by Columbia was bc it was the first dept I had visited that had installed a changing table in their gender neutral bathroom This was such an incredibly low-cost yet highly meaningful gesture to show that, yes, this is a place that accommodates small children. Now maybe it was put there for a faculty member and not a student, but still.. they had me at changing table You hit the nail on the head, I had to apply locally bc of family obligations. We are also taking care of elderly parents so I would be relocating two sick senior citizens, the primary earner with no replacement income and 3 small children...on a 30k stipend? Riiiiiight ?

Dear @qualsoc2018 I seriously admire your incredible positivity and resolve and wish you and @2733amh both success in everything you pursue.

@proctorvt thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful and heartfelt message. I’m in my early 30’s and already put aside a career in finance when I got pregnant with my first back in 2014 since I was working on my MA concurrently and saw it as a sign to pursue grad school full time. I was fortunate enough to get a fellowship that covered full scholarship and stipend (which went entirely to help with childcare - babysitters are $20/hr in nyc area and daycare is around $3500/mo.) but it was incredibly hard to do both full time at home with a newborn and grad school. I had my second last year and managed to juggle another newborn with a toddler, a doctoral course (while I deferred the MA offer on maternity leave ), PhD applications, and working remotely on a European study. I figured with all this wind behind the sails, I finally had a fighting chance. With another little one coming in July (we are done after this lol) I don’t have the fight left in me to torture myself and my partner and kids to keep clawing for a space somewhere I’m clearly not wanted. Without institutional support to get IRB and funding, I have 0 chance of pursuing any more original research. I can try to boost my gre score (162 Q and 158 V) but as another year passes, my entire portfolio will age too while my peers continue to grow and plump up their credentials. Is it conceivable? Depends who you ask. Is it possible? Anything is. Is it probable? We all know there is overwhelming evidence pointing to no. Even going back to finance at this point is fruitless bc the few years out of the game have set me back professionally to a point where the comp won’t even cover the cost of childcare for the insane amount of hours I’d have to put in at the office (yay gender pay gap!). I’m out of ideas. I don’t know where to go from here. Btw I’m including personal details bc 1) it clearly doesn’t make a difference anymore and 2) I have not come across many students who are primary caretakers for anyone but themselves. So many have to or choose to put off/sacrifice the personal side of their lives, whether it’s their relationships or families, to pursue this field and others simply have the road “paved in gold,” as you said. I guess I thought from an ideological standpoint, the ONE place that would be supportive of a working mother would be a Sociology dept but alas, nope nope nope.

Thank you @qeta , that means a lot, especially since you had a similar experience and made it through to great programs. I wish you so much future success and hope you stop by every now and again with updates so we can root for you in your upcoming endeavors I think I'm most disappointed by the fact that there was no personal interaction. My professor/POI, the dgs, no one reached out. I seriously thought even with a rejection I would get more than a generic letter from admissions.

Thank you! That is great news about Albany, I know funding can be the difference of attending or not so that is really promising I doubt I will get in anywhere else, Columbia is the school where I invested the most time, effort and actually forged relationships over the past year. They offered me the terminal MA but it would be my second and my POI and multiple other faculty members told me the curriculum would be redundant and the tuition a waste (not to mention the cost of childcare in order to even take on a FT course load). I will wait to hear back from the other programs but this may be the end of my PhD journey without any type of institutional or financial backing. Academia will be another one of those avenues I would have pursued if I could afford it ?

It's not over until it's over! Have you heard from Albany re: funding? Fingers crossed you have a few more schools to hear from!

just got email from Columbia to check portal. rejection.

Saw a Columbia rejection today - is it safe to assume Columbia is done with acceptances?

I’m with you in spirit @2733amh, my husband came home with an entire valentine’s cheesecake last night bc “pregnant women don’t eat flowers” ?