sociopolitic

You're absolutely competitive for these schools, in all three disciplines. Sociology adcomms are very open to applicants who come from other social sciences. I get the impression that this is generally true for political science as well. Political science has in the past few decades really made a move towards applying econometrics to political questions, so I'd imagine your economics credentials will serve you well. Economists might be less open to admitting applicants from other social sciences, but with your MSc that obviously isn't an issue. You'll really need to figure out where you fit, though. You sound like you'll make a strong applicant (especially if you have the GRE scores to match) but you should focus on figuring out where the best disciplinary home is for you. Luckily, you have time. Read articles that interest you from each of these fields and figure out what you find most convincing, most thought-provoking, etc. Best of luck!

I think it largely depends on the rest of your profile, and perhaps to a lesser extent on the kind of research you wish to do. If you're applying to learn computational methods, it might be worth studying for the math section and taking the GRE again (unless you have other things you can point to in your profile as preparing you to be a quantitative sociologist). If you're interested in historical research or ethnography, however, it really does depend on the rest of your profile, and probably particularly your GPA and research experience. And of course, pretty much no matter what your SOP will be the most important part of your application.

As far as I've been told the structure of UK PhD programs tends to be rather different than those in the US, and US programs have a definite bias towards hiring US PhDs. If your end goal is a TT job in the US, options 2 and 3 might be safer bets.

I'm doing this on behalf of a friend. Here's her profile. BA in Sociology from a top 20 private school; minors in poverty studies and public policy GPA: 3.636 Research: Senior thesis where she collected interview data 3 years of research experience from 4 different RAships; two of these involved coding newspaper archives, one involved transcribing interviews, and one involved database management Coursework in Statistics (for research, where she became familiar with Stata), sociological methods (where she gained familiarity with Qualtrics) Work: Internship with an education nonprofit GRE: Not taken yet -- what scores should she be shooting for? LORs: Not sure what she would choose. Her senior thesis adviser would write her a stellar rec and is a prominent figure in his field, though because her thesis was qualitative he can't speak to her quantitative skills. She also has a policy professor that would write her a fantastic rec, though he can't really speak to her quantitative ability either. She has a few professors she's RA'd with and taken multiple classes with that would write her great recs, though again they can't speak to her quantitative experience. Her statistics instructor would write a strong letter as well but he was a graduate student when she took his class, so I'm not sure if that's okay (he is a professor now, at another institution). All her recommenders would speak very highly of her but almost none of them can speak to quantitative skills. Concerns: Lack of quantitative research experience. This seems like a potentially large weakness. How can she leverage her qualitative experience to convince admissions committees to admit (and ideally fund) her? Does she need to achieve a stellar quantitative GRE score in order to offset this potential weakness? I should note that she's not going to apply for a couple of years. She's looking for a job in the Ann Arbor area at the moment. It's likely that she'll end up in a research position of some sort. Based on the applications she's submitted recently, it's likely that what job she lands will require mixed methods or more strictly qualitative methods. Any advice for leveraging her resume into a work experience that better prepares her to apply to the Survey Methodology program? Sidenote: We're especially curious whether she might be eligible for any sort of funding. Also, is she competitive for the MPP program at Michigan?

I think it's probably important to note that admissions committees are evaluating you based on their impressions of your potential to become a sociologist rather than whether you're currently a sociologist. With a background of research in sociology and the ability to ask professional social scientists to vouch for your potential as a researcher, I don't think you need to be concerned with making your resume "more sociological" or anything. The part of your application which does need to be very sociological is the SOP, in which you should situate your research interests firmly within the boundaries of sociology and outline the particular faculty/resources a department offers that would assist you in your pursuit of that research. In other words, it seems pretty clear from your application materials that you're capable of being a social scientist. What's going to matter to adcomms is whether you can demonstrate commitment to being a sociologist, and that's something they're going to comb through your SOP (not your CV) to evaluate.

Applying to programs based on how easy they are to get into rather than based on the research their faculty do is probably not going to result in a very successful admissions cycle. Being able to convincingly articulate fit was, at least in my experience, effectively what determined whether or not I got into a program. I had the same GRE scores you mentioned on the soc forum as well as 2-3 years of research experience and the programs I didn't get admitted to are the ones for which I was least excited about preparing my application. In other words, you're a strong applicant and worrying about which program is "easiest" to get into is kind of a waste of your time. You're better off perusing faculty rosters at any department which you think might be a good intellectual home for you until you've developed a list of programs whose faculty do work that really gets you excited. Geeking out a bit was what distinguished my successful SOPs from my unsuccessful SOPs. In any case, I'm not convinced that at the level of the top 5 or 10, programs across these disciplines are really any more competitive than one another. Maybe you can make a case for differences the quality of the "average" PhD student in that discipline, but I think that these differences are more rooted in the philosophical orientations of the disciplines themselves (and therefore the socialization structures they create) than in intrinsic differences between their students. Either that, or students self-select into disciplines based on these philosophical orientations.

Generally speaking, I personally would not take on debt in pursuit of a sociology PhD. I'd probably take the PhD offer. That said, without knowing more details about your situation, it's hard to know what to recommend. There are some subfields (such as my own, lol) that don't have as wide a range of job market options as others (i.e. stratification and other topics at the core of the field). If you plan on going into an area like religion or culture, it might be worth getting your MA and trying to land in a higher ranked program. That's hard to say for sure though, because there are programs in the range of ranks you specified that are really, really good at getting their students tenure-track jobs. I also think it's probably important to come up with a solid estimate of how much debt you'd need to take on to get the MA. That'll make the whole cost/benefit analysis easier, I think. PM me if you'd like to talk more but don't want to post tons of details on here!

Why can't I stop checking this site?! The application cycle ended for me with my final rejection last week! I have a problem...

How many responses has it gotten thus far?

I think I would recommend getting your GREs up if at all possible. Your profile is generally strong, but without research experience in soc (unless your publication is super sociological) I think getting your scores up would be very helpful. No matter what, you definitely need to make it clear why you're going into soc and not polisci. (I'd be happy to help in that regard -- I majored in both!) I think your GRE might be less important if you had a "name brand" degree, so to speak, but I'd say bumping your score a bit can likely make up for that, especially since your GPA is excellent.

I've heard that with its prominent grad student union, Michigan offers all its students the same package. I can't confirm this for certain, though, because I'm definitely too terrified to have even asked (the voice of paranoia in my head is convinced they'll rescind my admission lol)

Well, if we're labeled as "weirdos" for being polite, I think I'm cool with it!

Oh I hadn't even thought about this yet... I'll probably email whomever informed me of my acceptance a polite email that says something to the effect of "I'm honored by the offer, but after much thought I've decided to attend University X." Academic sociology is a pretty small world, so they'll likely find out where you're headed anyway -- might as well be the one the giving the news! Surely establishing an early reputation for friendliness and professionalism can't hurt!

I'm not super close with any of my recommenders, but I'm definitely giving them thank you cards! If you're wore a gift is too much, I think a card is a good route to take

I'd also be happy to look over SOPs and offer suggestions! I definitely took more of the "strictly business" route that @jriveracalmentioned. I still briefly touch upon the development of my research interests, but the majority of my SOP is spent outlining in rather broad strokes the research agenda that I hope to pursue in grad school and beyond. I also connected this proposed research to work that's currently being done in sociology. Please feel free to PM me! I'd love to read about everybody's research, and if I can be of any help, even better!

I love this idea! There are a handful of articles about the PhD program hierarchy of hiring but much less information about the stratififying structure of PhD admissions, so I'd love to see a lot of responses to this survey!

I think they've only sent out rejections to those they interviewed but did not admit. Does that help at all?

Is it too soon to point out that this makes no sense? It's almost like "I know you are but what am I?" except it doesn't mean that even a little bit. Anyway, cut it out y'all. This site (and the field) is (are) better off without trolls.

I'm really glad to hear that you're happy with where you're headed! I actually have a background in political science as well, so our interests might be pretty similar (in terms of being interested in the role culture plays in politics) but I found that political science programs don't allow for as much focus on culture as I'd personally prefer. Sociology is great about allowing interdisciplinary work though, so maybe I'll see you at conferences one day! Best of luck!

Will you be going to Boston University then? Maybe you can apply to transfer to Brown in a couple years (after the Masters perhaps?) if your heart's still set on going there!

I agree completely. Nobody should be accusing anyone of being cold-hearted or callous until they've walked a mile in that person's shoes.

I'm sorry, but I think that the effort to make this thread a place where only a certain subset of applicants are allowed to vent is also rather insensitive. I posted this thread for everyone. And until now, I think everyone has felt welcome to share on this thread. But when someone posted in this thread, looking for support -- and even being careful not to dominate the thread's conversation by requesting PMs -- you called her annoying and callous. This thread and this site are a place for everyone who's looking for support to find it. Not for ad hominem attacks and "turf wars" over who's allowed to express emotion here. The poster you originally became so upset with has to think about not only what's best for her but what's best for her children. With information about departments' culture/attitude towards families not being readily available, I'd absolutely be stressed out of my mind too, were I in her shoes. Everyone in this thread needs to be more conscientious.

At this point, it really seems as though you're looking for reasons to get angry with people's comments. This thread is not supposed to be the locus of conflict, although you seem intent on making it such. Can we go back to, y'know, being friendly and helpful? We're rapidly approaching the point of toxicity here.

Agreed. Certainly, everyone should be considerate of one another, but it's not as though anyone in this thread is gloating. Everyone is stressed. This time is hard for everyone.

Can we stop belaboring this already? This time is stressful for absolutely everybody, regardless of how many/which programs you get into. This thread is for everyone who is going through this to find some kind of support, if they're looking for it. It's for everyone. No matter where you did or didn't get in. Being harsh with others on this forum for seeking support (which is what I meant by going on the offensive) hardly does anyone any good. I know that @utley24thinks so too, considering I remember seeing him/her admonish a poster for exactly that about a week ago. So let's stop trying to decide who's allowed to be stressed out in this thread. Especially when they're merely asking for people to converse via with PM. She didn't even mention the schools she's deciding between.