unchienandalusia

Program: PhD in Sociology, Comparative Human Development, and Psychology A very preliminary list of schools I'm interested in (in no particular order): Princeton, Columbia, Northwestern, UChicago, and UW Madison Expectations/what I'm looking for: Programs strong in family poverty research, poverty policy, and child-development Interests: The role of social supports in family stress and child outcomes, child welfare policy and interventions, child development across SES, and parent-child relationships Undergraduate Institution: Notre Dame Undergraduate Major/Degree: Major in Psychology, minor in Interdisciplinary Poverty Studies Other undergraduate notes: Completed a thesis, where I developed and tested an at-home intervention with parents and children. Also took several sociology classes as an undergrad. Graduate GPA: 3.52, 3.8 within my major/minor (I started out as a pre-med, which messed w my overall GPA) GRE: V 168/ Q 155/ W 5.5 Age: 25 Languages: English, French, Spanish Work/Research Experience: > Research in a Developmental Psych lab for 3 years in undergrad, where I completed my grant-funded thesis > Paid and credit research assistant, co-authored 2 presentations/proceedings in developmental pysch lab. Also presented independently-researched paper in an unrelated field on the side at an international conference my senior year of undergrad (I was a little all over the place with my academic interests back then). > Moved to France, was a live-in au pair for a family, collected data/interviews about school and daycare access > Now I'm a Social Worker for children and families. It will be 2.6 years of work by the time I'd leave for school. It's very intense work, and has really driven my current interests: policy, social supports, and child outcomes (as opposed to cognitive development). SoP: Finished draft, getting feedback now Concerns: Low quant score, low overall GPA, scattered research history. Took a lot of time off to do some soul searching. Also, I loved my Soc classes in undergrad, but never really considered Sociology as a PhD until I realized how many incredible poverty and family policy researchers exist in the field, so I'm in uncharted territory (even for me). Would love to know if I even have a shot.