lkaitlyn

The only ones I know about are NYU (1/2 cohort) and UCI (20% reduction). If you have others in mind, happy to add a second list to the not accepting list!

Just popping in to say if anyone has questions about UCI or doing grad school online, hit me up! But hopefully you all won't have the online experience next fall. ? Good luck on your apps!

RUNNING LIST (A-Z) (new additions: Brandeis, Colorado) Boston University: https://www.bu.edu/sociology/graduate-programs/admissions/ Brandeis University: email Brown University: https://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/programs/phd Columbia University: https://sociology.columbia.edu/content/admissions-0 Northwestern: https://sociology.northwestern.edu/graduate/admissions/ Penn: https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/graduate-program Princeton: https://sociology.princeton.edu/graduate-program Temple: https://www.cla.temple.edu/sociology/ University of Arizona: https://sociology.arizona.edu/graduate/apply University of California - Berkeley: https://sociology.berkeley.edu/prospective-students University of California - Santa Barbara: https://www.soc.ucsb.edu/news-events/item/fall-2021-grad-admissions-deferred University of Colorado - Boulder: https://www.colorado.edu/sociology/apply#graduate_students-109 University of Maryland: https://socy.umd.edu/graduate/information-prospective-students UMass - Amherst: https://www.umass.edu/sociology/graduate/admissions University of Missouri: https://sociology.missouri.edu/grad/graduate-program University of Pittsburgh: https://www.asgraduate.pitt.edu/admissions Washington State University: https://soc.wsu.edu/graduate-program/prospective-graduate-students/applying-for-admission/

So much of admissions is fit with faculty, writing (e.g., personal statement, writing sample), and depending on the school, perhaps LORs. This means we're pretty useless in gauging chances. That said, your stats won't hold you back, so it will really come down to those other things that we can't see. I will say that programs are indeed admitting fewer students this year (e.g., NYU cutting the cohort in half), so I'd say anyone applying should be prepared for the real possibility of needing to do a second cycle next year just due to the lack of space in programs. Heck, a ton of people do second or third cycles without the pandemic! But in terms of hard numbers, you'll be competitive.

Can't believe I forgot this. ?‍♀️

Some schools (Stanford being the prime example off the top of my head) really prefer that you not email faculty. However, I think there's a difference between emailing and "scheduling meetings" — Stanford just flat out tells you not to email at all. So I'd say if your email generally asks to Skype or something similar, I'd remove that request, and instead ask a question that can be answered in an email. (This all said, I never applied to Harvard, so take this advice with a grain of salt.)

Unfortunately the #1 suggestion I'd normally give here would be UC Berkeley, but they're not accepting apps this year. So I'll plug UCI since there are certainly plenty of good qualitative and political sociologists. Michigan is pretty balanced. NYU (PhD, not the MA) is also solid. Also check out UC Santa Cruz Gender Studies. I know some people with your interests who were considering UCLA but I'm not as familiar with their political sociologists so can't vouch for that. Oh, and MA-wise, Brandeis has a Sociology/Women's Studies joint MA program!

Most programs don't even look at AW ... or require the GRE this year. Send your recent score (164/161). Your AW is fine.

RUNNING LIST (A-Z) (new additions: Maryland, Temple, Pittsburgh) Boston University: https://www.bu.edu/sociology/graduate-programs/admissions/ Brown University: https://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/programs/phd Columbia University: https://sociology.columbia.edu/content/admissions-0 Northwestern: https://sociology.northwestern.edu/graduate/admissions/ Penn: https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/graduate-program Princeton: https://sociology.princeton.edu/graduate-program Temple: https://www.cla.temple.edu/sociology/ University of Arizona: https://sociology.arizona.edu/graduate/apply University of California - Berkeley: https://sociology.berkeley.edu/prospective-students University of California - Santa Barbara: https://www.soc.ucsb.edu/news-events/item/fall-2021-grad-admissions-deferred University of Maryland: https://socy.umd.edu/graduate/information-prospective-students UMass - Amherst: https://www.umass.edu/sociology/graduate/admissions University of Missouri: https://sociology.missouri.edu/grad/graduate-program University of Pittsburgh: https://www.asgraduate.pitt.edu/admissions Washington State University: https://soc.wsu.edu/graduate-program/prospective-graduate-students/applying-for-admission/

RUNNING LIST (A-Z) (new additions: WSU, Arizona, BU) Boston University: https://www.bu.edu/sociology/graduate-programs/admissions/ Brown University: https://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/programs/phd Columbia University: https://sociology.columbia.edu/content/admissions-0 Northwestern: https://sociology.northwestern.edu/graduate/admissions/ Penn: https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/graduate-program Princeton: https://sociology.princeton.edu/graduate-program University of Arizona: https://sociology.arizona.edu/graduate/apply University of California - Berkeley: https://sociology.berkeley.edu/prospective-students University of California - Santa Barbara: https://www.soc.ucsb.edu/news-events/item/fall-2021-grad-admissions-deferred UMass - Amherst: https://www.umass.edu/sociology/graduate/admissions University of Missouri: https://sociology.missouri.edu/grad/graduate-program Washington State University: https://soc.wsu.edu/graduate-program/prospective-graduate-students/applying-for-admission/

NSF will absolutely not accept a later letter, unfortunately, from what I know about them, though please let me know if that has changed. If you're a current grad student with another year of eligibility, I'd consider waiting and applying next year since you can only apply once in grad school. If you're a 2nd year grad student or undergrad, I'd keep the app in. There have been people who have won with only two letters, but it's not ideal. I'm sorry your recommender did that to you. That's really unprofessional and not cool on their part.

UPDATED LIST (new additions: Northwestern, U of Missouri) Brown University: https://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/programs/phd Columbia University: https://sociology.columbia.edu/content/admissions-0 Northwestern: https://sociology.northwestern.edu/graduate/admissions/ Penn: https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/graduate-program Princeton: https://sociology.princeton.edu/graduate-program University of California - Berkeley: https://sociology.berkeley.edu/prospective-students University of California - Santa Barbara: https://www.soc.ucsb.edu/news-events/item/fall-2021-grad-admissions-deferred UMass - Amherst: https://www.umass.edu/sociology/graduate/admissions University of Missouri: https://sociology.missouri.edu/grad/graduate-program

Wow. Do they have current students? I can't imagine how awful it is to be in a program and have them collapse. I hope they're getting support until they defend.

Responding to a couple things here: Acceptance rates have traditionally been consistent, as in, they have roughly the same acceptance rate across the board, so categories with more submissions will have more awards than categories with fewer submissions. (For example, if acceptance rate is 10%, ~10% from every category will get an award — this does not necessarily apply to subfields.) Not sure if it's still that way this year. And @PopSoc, I went to their webinar and was griping at them because I'm in the social sciences and we already don't have many funding sources. They said they aren't allocating more awards to the priority areas. It sounds like they're adding those priority areas as new categories one can choose, but applications in other categories (e.g., regular social sciences) won't be reviewed any differently. It basically sounded like they are just going about business as usual but trying to recruit applications that incorporate these areas, not necessarily giving more awards to these types of applications. I hope they're not just messing with us, but it at least provided some momentary comfort.

EDIT: Delayed reply. I see someone else answered. My bad. My brain is mush right now. ORIGINAL: This changed this year. It's 11pt font for everything.

If you take a GRE practice test and are scoring 160/160 on it or something, I can't imagine it hurting to have that score. If it's not going to help your application, don't take it.

Honestly this is true across most social sciences/humanities disciplines, so unless you have a career change to biomedical engineering, I'm not sure doing a "dual degree" (as a PhD? Very few schools do that ...) won't help you very much. Just know you might wind up outside of academia in the end.

Not going to update the list for this since they're still deciding, but U of Arizona and UCI also still figuring out whether or not they're taking apps. I'll update both of those situations when they (hopefully) announce later in October.

Many of them, honestly. It might be easier to make a list of the schools that aren't doing this.

Hey! So Ivy League vs. not actually isn't really a thing for PhDs — some of the greatest programs in the country are at non-Ivy schools. PhD admissions are really about research experience, what you write in your application, and research fit with faculty, not as much about grades, so if those who share your research interests happen to be at highly ranked schools, you'd do better applying there than you'd do applying to less selective schools with no research fit. This year, unfortunately a lot of programs have suspended admissions. Normally I'd suggested UW Gender Studies to you, actually, given your interests, but I believe it has halted applications this year (as has UC Santa Barbara, which also might be good for your interests). That said, many programs are taking applications, and if for some reason things don't work out this year, apply next cycle as well. Many people apply several cycles before they find the right fit. Given your interests and coming from a gender studies background myself (though focused more on law and incarceration within that subfield), I'd be looking at the following this cycle: University of Michigan (also look at their American Culture PhD), Rutgers, Emory, UCLA, U of Arizona (announcing if taking apps mid-October; also check out Gender Studies), University of Southern California, UC Santa Cruz, UBC Vancouver, and U of Chicago (quant-heavy, but has some amazing trans studies scholars right now). Beyond that, try looking at where people who have written articles you've found useful for your research currently teach. I found my programs by reverse-engineering like that. Your goal is to find programs where at least 3 faculty members share your research interests broadly, so going backwards by starting with faculty will save you time. Just make sure you check that the programs you apply to offer full funding to PhD students and have reasonable placement. You don't want to go somewhere that won't give you a shot at getting a job.

Awesome! Glad JHU reversed course.

Added this to the running list in the FYI form (along with Berkeley and stuff). I'm so sorry for all applying this cycle.

Sorry I keep having to repost; silly website won't let me update the original list (ugh). Added Brown and Penn. RUNNING LIST OF SCHOOLS NOT ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS THIS CYCLE (A-Z): Brown University: https://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/programs/phd Columbia University: https://sociology.columbia.edu/content/admissions-0 Johns Hopkins: https://soc.jhu.edu/graduate/admissions/ Penn: https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/graduate-program Princeton: https://sociology.princeton.edu/graduate-program University of California - Berkeley: https://sociology.berkeley.edu/prospective-students University of California - Santa Barbara: https://www.soc.ucsb.edu/news-events/item/fall-2021-grad-admissions-deferred UMass - Amherst: https://www.umass.edu/sociology/graduate/admissions

Berkeley confirmed: https://sociology.berkeley.edu/prospective-students

Some schools haven't cared about GRE quant scores very much historically (e.g., Berkeley), and others are very score-happy (e.g., Stanford). If you're not marketing yourself as a quant researcher, you will probably be fine at schools that favor qualitative methods since you've demonstrated basic competency in other ways. If you're pitching yourself as a quant person, the GRE score might be a bit of an issue. But ultimately, every year people get into top programs with a wide range of scores. The GRE is a racially-biased, flawed measure of people's capabilities that doesn't correlate with grad school performance, and if your application package is strong, schools will overlook a lower GRE section score. Focus more on other parts of your application.