socparty

For those of you open to a terminal MA program I wanted to put our department on your radar. We are a two-year MA program with specializations in health, society, and demography; criminology, law, and justice; urban sociology; and sociology of the family. Our curriculum emphasizes a balance between quantitative and qualitative training and many students carve out specializations by taking electives in adjacent disciplines like Geography/GIS, Economics (including econometrics), and Environmental Sciences. Students from the Western and Mountain regions qualify for in-state tuition via our membership in the WICHE compact and the department offers smaller scholarships to most those admitted (outside of this though, there are few financial resources available). In the past five years, we have placed graduates of our MA program in top doctoral programs like Wisconsin, Washington, Maryland, and Princeton (along with offers from IU, Minnesota, Texas, and Penn State). This year, our lone student applying to PhD programs was just admitted to Ohio State with an enhanced fellowship offer. We help our PhD-bound students via careful mentoring, curated training opportunities domestically and internationally, and co-authoring on published work. If this year doesn't lead to an offer from the doctoral programs ranked highest on your list, give us a look! We're hosting a virtual open house on February 2 from 6-7PM MST. I'd be happy to share the zoom link if you email me (subject: CU Denver MA Open House). Good luck! Adam

I think it's best to explain the genesis of your transfer, and I agree with letsgetit21's recommended revision. I like that you discussed what you got out of your time there (e.g., research skills), but perhaps that could be moved to another section so that this statement can be shorter and focused on the cause of your transfer. If any of the outgoing faculty you planned to work with will be furnishing a letter on your behalf, consider asking them to briefly touch on the subject. Good luck!

If you think it's too late to take the GRE (personally, I wouldn't at this point), you might ask a letter writer to speak to your methodological skills. Your undergraduate stats or methods prof would be up to the task. That's a role I've taken on as letter writer and instructor for some of my department's quant methods courses and it seems to have worked out well for my former students.

Those scores are very competitive. I wouldn't advise re-taking the GRE but your purpose statement should emphasize what touch points you've had with sociology as an undergrad (classes, seminars, etc).

Not at all. I direct our graduate program at University of Colorado Denver and we actively recruit students from groups that are underrepresented in the academy, including first-gen learners and working-class scholars (most of our faculty fit this description). Waivers make it easier for such applicants to consider our program, and while we can't always get the fee waivers from the graduate school sometimes we can pull from department resources to cover the cost. Related to this, the university is offering free applications today and tomorrow (10/19-10/20). Our terminal MA program has recently graduated six students that have gone off for doctoral studies at Princeton, Washington, Maryland, Wisconsin, Northeastern, and CU Boulder. If you're keen to learn more about the program just email me! Adam

Michael Gaddis (UCLA), Ariela Schachter (WUSTL), and folks at Harvard (conventional counterfactual designs) come to mind. I guess 'experimental' is a broad term that includes natural experiments, match-pair audit designs, or statistical/counterfactual stuff like propensity scores/IPW. An econometric course/elective might be beneficial, so consider looking outside of the soc programs you're considering too.

Hi everyone, With application season upon us I wanted to introduce myself as the director of the MA program at CU Denver. Over the years, we've carved out something of a specialty in helping students launch from the MA into top PhD programs like Texas, Wisconsin, Maryland, and Indiana. Faculty specialties include health, criminology & law, families and social welfare, urban sociology, and demography. We offer multiple methods courses - qualitative and quantitative - and allow students flexibility in taking courses outside of the program, with many adding specialization in topics like GIS/spatial analysis, data management, policy analysis, advanced stats, and survey methods. Applicants from the Western and Mountain regions qualify for in-state tuition, and we offer scholarships though these are competitive and usually small (not always). Our students have had success publishing with faculty while in the program and many present at regional and national conferences with financial support from the university and department. Admissions at top programs have gotten so competitive lately that I know not everyone will get into the program of their dreams. If you think we can help you feel free to email me directly. Our application deadline (officially February 15) is flexible and should occur after you've heard from most of your top choices. Best of luck! Adam

I know every year there's a lot of anxiety over what to do if one's favorite PhD program doesn't have room for them. So, I thought I'd pitch our MA program at CU Denver as a backup option for candidates that need a few years to strengthen their profile before making another run at a PhD program. I'm the graduate director of our program, which emphasizes scholarship in four key areas: methodological training, medical sociology, criminology & law, and families & social welfare. We also have strengths in urban sociology and demography, plus we now offer a graduate certificate in social science research methods which can combine training outside the department (e.g., in GIS, advanced stats, survey methods, ethnography, etc). We don't offer full funding but we do have several pots of money for scholarships from the department, college, and graduate school. Plus, students from western and southwestern states qualify for in-state tuition. Our graduate students have done well in the past and out of each cohort, several go on for doctoral studies at top universities like Wisconsin, Texas, and Emory. I'd say that mentoring is a strength among our faculty and we're all quite keen to work closely with students who aim to go on for doctoral work. To that end, we publish with students (even though the program is only two short years!), help them with conference submissions/presentations, and coach them during GRE preparation and throughout their development of PhD application materials. You can learn more about our program here, and you can reach out to me anytime! Application deadline is February 15, 2020 (no GRE required). Good luck everyone, Adam

Again, maybe not a solution for everyone, but some schools (e.g., CU Denver) have admissions deadlines for terminal MA programs as late as June. If this might be an option consider reaching out to the grad program coordinators.

I agree with you with respect to two-year programs being more feasible for quantitative sociologists. In my case, I was able to crank out a quantitative public health article that sociologists publish in and put together a 40 page thesis that was a strong writing sample, which was enough to open the door for admission to several top PhD programs. So that worked for me, but it wouldn't for everyone. When I was shopping for terminal MA programs I found more than I expected that offered financial support - some with full tuition remission in exchange for TA work, and some that offered a lot of scholarship money (but no tuition remission). I know resources are limited and not everyone can splurge on application fees, but I wanted to offer this as an option. With so many PhDs on the market these days, a lot of smaller programs have very productive junior faculty happy to work closely with good grad students. Might be an option for some here .

I agree with you with respect to two-year programs being more feasible for quantitative sociologists. In my case, I was able to crank out a quantitative public health article that sociologists publish in and put together a 40 page thesis that was a strong writing sample, which was enough to open the door for admission to several top PhD programs. So that worked for me, but it wouldn't for everyone. When I was shopping for terminal MA programs I found more than I expected that offered financial support - some with full tuition remission in exchange for TA work, and some that offered a lot of scholarship money (but no tuition remission). I know resources are limited and not everyone can splurge on application fees, but I wanted to offer this as an option. With so many PhDs on the market these days, a lot of smaller programs have very productive junior faculty happy to work closely with good grad students. Might be an option for some here .

This might not be an option for everyone, but plenty of MA programs are still taking applications. If you struck out on your top choices for a PhD program it might work to do an MA first, maybe publish a paper and work on research skills, and reapply in 2020. That's what I did and it worked out.