sociopolitic

First UNC acceptance is on the board! Can anyone claim it?

Can anyone the claim the UChicago interview? Haven't heard anything from them personally!

Lots of Ohio State acceptances going out today! Can anyone here claim them?

Another Irvine acceptance is on the results board. Can anyone claim it? Congrats to the lucky admit!!

The results board's been updated with an acceptance at UC Irvine! Can anyone here claim it?

Congrats to the Temple admit!!! Can anyone here claim it?

I agree with @JWalters. I think that in general, adcomms are likely to prefer seeing 155s in V and Q as a sort of threshold to pass. That said, I think plenty of people who don't meet that threshold get in; the rest of your application materials just become MUCH more important. Are you an international student, by chance? I've heard that GRE scores are weighted more heavily in considering the applications of international students (though I can by no means confirm this), so it might be more worthwhile to retake it if that's the case.

Just don't get too anxious, haha! I'm interested in political culture, and particularly its cognitive foundations. UCLA is in a three-way tie for best fit of the places I applied to, so I'm pretty hype! Breathing a little easier now, lol.

What are your research interests? I'm curious whether maybe they were trying to fill a niche with their admits last week. For instance, I'm particularly enthusiastic about the opportunity to get involved with the department's working groups in computational sociology and knowledge/cognitive systems, and anticipate my work having a political/cultural bent to it.

Thanks!! It looks like last year they rolled their acceptances out over a period of longer than a month, so don't get too anxious yet! There's still plenty of time. What are your research interests? Where else did you apply?

I can claim the UCLA admit! I'm super stoked about it. Wasn't expecting to hear anything from anywhere until next week at least.

To my knowledge, no. I posted the top 20ish programs' decision dates (which I found through this site's results page) in another thread and if those data are correct/complete, it looks like Indiana and Chicago are the only programs in that group that interview. I know Notre Dame interviews as well. I'll go through and create an equivalent list for programs ranked 20-40 later this week, I think. TL;DR: You'd think it would be very common, but it isn't. I think it's more common in other disciplines, though.

You sound like a competitive applicant to me! My recommenders make it sound like most applicants don't have any publications yet, so I don't think you're at a serious disadvantage there (I certainly don't have any publications!). And if your GPA is awesome, I'd bet that helps offset lower GREs than you'd like! Plus, I bet that having research experience but not having written a thesis is just fine as long as you show that you can think through research in your SOPs. I applied to 8 programs but after writing my SOPs I don't even know which is my top choice anymore. The cleanest fit, methodologically and substantively, is probably Duke. NYU would be up there in fit for me too -- maybe even moreso than Duke -- but since my SOP was single-spaced and they asked for it to be double-spaced, I can't help but feel that probably wasted $110 on that application. (And I don't even want to think about the money I wasted in applying to Harvard... why'd I do this to myself?) Are UCLA and Irvine your top choices/best fit? Or is there another reason that you think your chances are strongest there?

I'm just trying to push it to the back of my mind! I've been a ball of anxiety for so much of the past few months, it's almost calming to realize that I'll know one way or the other in just a couple of months. Why do you think you only stand a chance at those schools? Where else did you apply? I'm starting to worry that I didn't apply to enough departments... Here's hoping things pan out the way we want them to!!!

I've scoured the results page from last year and compiled a list of dates that various departments released decisions. I think there's some variation in these dates from year to year, but I still thought you all might find it useful. These are all strictly for sociology doctoral programs (which is to say, I haven't included any development sociology degree programs or terminal masters programs). (I've only done this for the top 20ish programs though -- feel free to add any that I missed!) Berkeley - Acceptances released on Jan. 26 Michigan - Acceptances released on Feb. 9 Harvard - Acceptances released on Feb. 10 Princeton - Acceptances released on Feb. 1, 8, and 19 (not sure why so spread out) Chicago - Acceptances released on Feb. 6, interviews requested in the second-third week of January (not clear if interview is required of all admitted applicants or not) Stanford - Acceptances released on Jan. 26 UCLA - Acceptances released on Jan. 12, 20, 26, 30, and Feb. 13 (as with Princeton, not sure why so spread out) UNC - Acceptances released on Jan. 22, 25, 26, 29 -- most released on Jan. 26 UW-Madison - Acceptances released on Jan. 31 Northwestern - Acceptances released on Feb. 15 UPenn - Acceptances released on Feb. 23 Columbia - Acceptances released on Feb. 6 and 7, but mostly on Feb. 12 Indiana - Acceptances released on Feb. 2, 8, and 10, interviews requested on Jan. 30 UT-Austin - Acceptances released mostly on Jan. 25, some on Jan. 28 Duke - Acceptances released Jan. 29 NYU - Acceptances released Feb. 16 (REJECTIONS NOT RELEASED FOR A WHOLE MONTH AFTERWARD; this is not the case for really any other department) Washington - 1 Acceptances released Jan. 18, most acceptances released Feb. 5 and 6 Yale - Acceptances released on Feb. 15 and 16 Cornell - Acceptances released on Feb. 15 Brown - Acceptances released on Feb. 14 UC Irvine - Acceptances released on Jan. 15, 23, 24, 25 U of Arizona - Acceptances released on Feb. 3 Penn State - Acceptances released on Feb. 3, 5, and 20 Minnesota - Acceptances released on Jan. 31

I might be a bit early in posting this here, but since my final deadlines are approaching and some admissions committees are beginning to meet in the next few days, I figured it was time to create a thread designated for information/moral support in this stressful time. Let's commiserate!

I do believe that Chicago interviews potential admits; the results page on this site says they had interviews last year, at least. I'm not sure where else does, though.

Honestly, the weakest part of your application sounds like recommendations. I think I may be in a similar boat. A couple of my relationships with my recommenders sound like yours; took one class, did well, demonstrated some research potential maybe, but never really talked after class or anything. Weirdly, I decided against asking the professor I did have that kind of relationship with for a recommendation; my class with him was a "writing seminar" where we never wrote a research paper or even an essay. Instead I chose recommenders who I felt could more directly speak to my ability to ask interesting questions and think through research. Hopefully I made the right choice; either way, I'm sure that my letters are extremely weak compared to many applicants'. Moral of the story: if you're screwed, so am I. If you wanted to improve your application package, though, it might be worth taking a course in economic sociology at a local university. It would help you write a convincing SOP and give you a chance to earn a recommendation from a sociologist who can speak to your potential to contribute to the field.

Uh, what? Lol

If dropping the money to buy a couple of cheap review books and retake the exam isn't out of the question, it might be worth considering. I think you're right that some programs have a baseline or cut-off you need to meet, and I suspect that top 5 programs are more likely than the rest to drop applications that don't meet a minimum quant score. Still, though, you can probably offset that aspect of your application with strong writing samples, good research experience etc. TL;DR You should retake it if you want to maximize your chances of admission but opting not to retake probably won't keep you out of grad school, especially if the rest of your apps are strong

I'm applying this fall, so I can't do much other than regurgitate things I've heard from my own advisers/mentors. But based on what they've told me, provided that you accumulate research experience (preferably beyond just a thesis; if any of the professors you're close with need research assistants, that would be ideal), and provided you're able to cogently and persuasively outline your research interests and how a given department would be an amazing place to pursue those interests, you should be competitive at most of those programs. Based on student profiles, Columbia and Harvard seem to care more about undergraduate pedigree (TONS of Ivy League students in their program), but I would think that with a strong record like the one you're predicting for yourself, you'd probably be a strong candidate at any department in the top 20-30. However, because of your less prestigious institutional background I wouldn't be surprised if your GRE score is weighed more heavily than it would be for a Harvard undergrad. The admissions committee can trust that the Harvard student is a sharp tester because they got into Harvard, even if their GRE score is mediocre. In your case, thought, it'd be helpful to have as high a score as possible, as an indicator of where you stand relative to your prestigious peers in terms of your powers of reasoning. Basically, they probably get the benefit of the doubt where you wouldn't, but that shouldn't mean you can't get into a great program.

Took the GRE today and thanks to the Manhattan 5lb book my quant score jumped an insane 8 (!!!) points from my diagnostic score to test day. If anyone is feeling underprepared for their quants, get this book. It's only $20 and while you can't necessarily learn how to do advanced combinatorics or the like from it alone, I don't think I would have scored anywhere near as well as I did without it.

What are your substantive interests? There are a lot of schools with great comparative-historical scholars, but the topics they study are rather diverse. However, generally speaking I would say that aside from Berkeley, departments that are particularly strong in historical sociology are UCLA, Michigan, and Yale. Wisconsin and Chicago are also pretty good if you're specifically interested in comparative-historical research with a political bent to it. These are all very highly ranked departments though; I'm not sure which departments outside the top 20 (aside from Yale) are strong in the area. I get the impression that top departments are more likely to accommodate comparative-historical work than lower ranked departments (meaning I'm not sure you'd really find anyone other than Marxist sociologists doing this kind of work outside the top 50 departments).

If your work informs your research interests at all, and you can tie that into your SOP, it seems to me that your work experience would be an asset.

By the time applications are due, I won't yet have my grades for my 7th semester and won't have started my 8th. What GPA should I calculate? Just my 3rd year GPA, or 2nd-3rd years?