dakotadakota

-yes, for sure. most research experience PhD applicants have had are fact-checking, editing, or simply staring at spreadsheets for weeks, not doing anything until their boss tells them to play secretary or fetch some coffee. the experiences you have are definitely worth including and some competitive applicants will not even have this level of experience, tbh. -yes, you can. -you should do whatever it is you're comfortable doing, however, i doubt that you need to waste your money with a masters program considering the fact that you already have legitimate research experience. just my take tho, others may disagree

i suggest you look at uchicago, princeton, notre dame, and penn state. should these schools be incompatible for any reason, baylor and purdue also have (or at least had) faculty with expertise in the sociology of religion

Your scores certainly don't disqualify you from most top programs. It may hurt if you're looking at quant-heavy programs (such as Harvard) or if want to have a quant focus of some kind like the person above said, though you match UC Berkeley's average quantitative score (source: http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faq-admissions). Not sure if you're applying there, but regardless, it's the #1 program in the country, so that's a good sign. For what it's worth, I also scored a 154 on the quantitative and got into a top 20 program. Here's another link (https://www.coloradocollege.edu/dotAsset/be00c34c-5b8c-4097-97b9-4855574b8a3b.pdf). The information seems a little dated in this one, but it may help you get a sense of what certain programs look for

That may be true in some cases, though I think that wouldn't apply to schools with names such as U Toronto or McGill. Also - U Toronto has a lot of food-focused sociologists that may fit your interests and you actually have to apply for the MA before applying for the PhD too so that may be a good fit. It's true that most MAPSS students get PhD offers after completion of the program, though I think some people expect that they'll receive these offers from schools of the same rank as U Chicago, which doesn't happen for a lot of folks (see placement source below). This may be an important factor to consider, as the vast majority of applicants receive only partial funding. Taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt may not be worth it if the student is placed in a PhD program they could've already managed to get into with their BA. There's also the issue of attention, as you won't receive the same guidance as you would in a PhD program since there are about 100 students in the program per year. When I was considering my offer from MAPSS, I read some really negative threads about how the students aren't treated with much respect by the faculty and PhD students. I suggest you click around these threads to hear some firsthand accounts. Perhaps you're already aware, but if you apply to the PhD program at UChicago and they reject your application (as they did to me lol), they'll often send your app to the MAPSS grad committee. It may be worth doing this '2 apps for the price of 1' approach rather than applying directly to MAPSS. I think Columbia and Brandeis both have small sociology MA programs. You may also want to look into schools abroad to get your MA for cheap. Freie University in Berlin, for example, has a great MA program and it's taught in English. https://mapss.uchicago.edu/careers-placement/phd-placement

Hey everyone, Looking for some advice. I was offered full funding from a PhD program that usually hovers in the high teens-low twenties in the US News rankings. I was also offered tuition remission (though no stipend) by the master of theological studies program at Harvard Divinity School. I'm interested in studying the sociology of religion and feel that a theology masters at Harvard may help me get into a top 5 or 10 soc PhD program (I was rejected by every top 10 PhD program to which I applied). i have a BA from a mediocre state school so i feel a masters from Harvard may help if i were to apply for those programs in 2 years. At the same time, I understand that route of action would just add on debt and I'm not sure if it actually would help my chances. Any advice would be appreciated