whooshboosh

Yes, the process starts in the fall, but there is little change (if any) year-to-year on what programs ask for. It is not unheard of for somebody to begin writing personal statement drafts during the summer, especially if they are in school and have no classes during this time. I'd say 1 and 2 are accurate. Lots of people want to get a sociology PhD and tenure-track jobs are becoming less frequent over time as universities will close tenure lines when somebody retires or leaves. As for the 3rd point, this is always a problem with sociology: We're just such a giant field that there will forever be battles between conflicting views. I don't think it is necessarily a negative, though. I haven't heard any stories of individualists vs collectivists, though this doesn't mean they don't happen.

Are you planning to use the MA to boost future PhD applications, or do you want to get the MA and not go further? If you want to use it for PhD applications, be aware you will most likely have to take additional statistics courses within the PhD program. Many require 2 semesters, and not all will allow you to transfer the course from your MA. I can't answer whether it will be a waste of time and money, because that depends on your personal goals and situation, but I personally wouldn't spend money on the MA if I later planned to get a PhD. (Remember that PhD programs will pay you to attend.)

I can't offer specific departments, but one way to get a head start on researching is to start with a list of people and circle out from there. This will give you a list of departments that currently have people working in these areas; with a little work, you can also search them and get a list of departments where those people did their PhDs. Two ways to gather this list of people: Pay attention to who is authoring the research articles you like and whose work you want to emulate. Are there any repeat names? Anybody whose work you think is just phenomenal and prompts you to want to do that for the next few years? Go to the homepages of relevant ASA sections and finding the list of section officers and award winners. For you, it seems like the Sex and Gender Section and CITAMS (Communication, Info Technology, and Media Section) would be good places to start. Some sections will also have newsletters that list recent publications and interviews with section members, which will give you another place to find literature you like (and people to research).

I'm not at Brandeis, so I can't speak specific to them, but I do know that, in several departments, students are already ranked before they even send admissions information. This is because the key limiting factor for many of them is funding: they only have so many TA and RA positions and so much grant money to give out. If you get an external award (NSF, Ford, etc), it's definitely something that will likely move you up since that decreases the department's cost to add you. Unfortunately, publications don't do much to help cover your costs. I will echo what @CeXranoted above and say that you should go ahead and email the grad program coordinator to ask if it would be appropriate to notify the grad director about.

Without knowing anything about your research interests, I can't say whether it'll be a good fit for you. What I can say that the field of historical sociology hasn't been doing well job-wise, so make sure they have another field that would offer more applicability.

Think about what hard skills you've learned during your degree (or at least what skills you could pretend to know). Then consider jobs that would use those. Qual research: focus groups, market research, UX research Quant research: market research, UX research, survey company (Qualtrics, NORC, YouGov, Ipsos) Subject area: nonprofits in that area, government agencies in that area Government jobs need lots of social scientists, so search "sociology" and/or "statistics" on USAJobs.gov. Similarly, government contractors (RTI International, American Institutes for Research, RAND) use them too, so they're good places to look too. If you know of national associations for your area, they might have job boards. AAPOR has a great one for survey researchers. As @letsgetit21 said above, ASHE, AREA, and NEA would have similar for educational fields. Lastly, if you're a member of ASA, the section on sociological practice and public sociology sends out a weekly digest of jobs outside of academia. If you're an ASA member already, it's worth it to purchase the section membership. If you aren't, maybe see if a faculty member in your department is willing to purchase a section membership (or even you just pay them back for it) and send you the links.

Many of the large departments will have at least one person who is well-versed in experimental methods, though I don't know of any that are especially known for using them (like Cornell for Computational and Duke for Networks). It's probably best to start with people who have similar substantive interests. If you've found a recent paper on a topic of interest that uses experimental methods, looking at the authors' affiliations would be a good place to start your search. From there, you can spiral out by looking at where the authors' students have gone, where the authors were trained, and where else the author's school's alumni have gone. Then rinse and repeat.

1. Yes. GRE's are often the first way to pull applications. These programs have intensive first year sequences in theory and stats, and they think the GRE will determine success here (probably doesn't, but no way to tell). They receive so many applications and it's easier to drop people based on this than something else. 2. Haven't looked. It could be that they got in, likely with other factors helping (publications, references, etc); it's also possible that people lied. It is the internet, after all. 3. This is good. It means they want to tailor their letter toward the program and your strengths, rather than just writing a default " sofmeister is a good student" letter. Approach it as them asking you to draft it but without any of the actual writing, aka give them an outline of key points. Send them A copy of any papers you wrote for their class and a very quick 1-3 sentence summary of these papers Resume/CV Your personal statement (a polished draft is fine) for every school you're applying to If you're applying for a specific subfield, tell them, and tell them how you've worked in/on that area. (State University has a strong area in XXX. As you know, I've taken these classes in that area, volunteered in something similar, and done something else too.) As for whether you should apply, that's something you'll have to figure out soon. Go ahead and apply to any schools where you get an application fee waiver, but don't apply anywhere you wouldn't actually want to go. Good luck!

You said your quant score was 167 and that's low? Or did you mix them up in your first sentence? If you can, I would retake it and spend almost all your prep time working on improving your lower score. If you can't, make sure everything else you have in your application is top-notch.

Ah, I hadn't seen these. Looking at their methods, it looks like they mainly measure research output and faculty awards. US News's rankings are based on rankings done by faculty members at other departments. Of course, this is subject to a great deal of bias and certainly rewards already-strong departments, but I would argue that US News's are more important, simply because it is this perception of prestige that people care about when giving names. (Of course, this prestige is less variable from time to time, so maybe Shanghai's is a good predictor of future prestige.) Of course, fit could also be a great reason to choose Cornell over UNC. M Macy at Cornell is the leader (at least historically) in computational sociology, so he's definitely a pull there if that is your interest. They also recently (or are in the process of) merging with their development sociology program, so that's another draw. All this to say, rankings are fickle - go where you think you'll be most productive.

Exactly this. Yale has good name to those outside the field, but there are many Publics with stronger programs, and people in the field (aka the people who matter to your career) know it. Back to your original question: Cornell is ranked 17 and Yale 22 (granted the outdated rankings but its what we have). If you get into Michigan or UNC, for example, you should take those over a school like Cornell or Yale. Generally, you should use rankings (after the top ten or so) as a guide. The rankings change every time they update it, but not by that much. At this point, go by fit. For your career goals, R1 is too broad a category to mean much. If you're talking about the big names, you'll want to shoot high, but even second tier will work. I can't speak to the long run, but I'll share my advice: Go wherever you'll be able to work the best. Do you value having student colleagues, or a faculty mentor who is top-notch, or centers and institutes for your work, or a friendly department, or location close to family, or even money (you won't be happy and work well if you can't eat).

I'm not sure either, and I don't think most people on here will be much help since we're all generally towards the beginning of our graduate careers. As lkaitlyn said, your advisor might know, or if you have a mentor or PI for your current position, they might be able to help too. I'd also suggest just asking your Routledge editor and see if they have any ideas. They've likely gone through the process of promoting books, or at least seen people do it, and can offer advice if not direct help.

Rutgers is not requiring GRE scores: "GRE scores - DUE TO COVID-19, GRE SCORES ARE NOT REQUIRED FOR FALL 2021 ADMISSION" - https://sociology.rutgers.edu/academics/graduate/admissions

"To better support our current students through the global pandemic, admissions for our Ph.D. Program will be paused for the 2021-2022 academic year. We look forward to reopening the admissions process in the fall of 2021. The Sociology Department will be accepting applications to the Master's (Sc.M.) Program in Social Analysis and Research. Please see the program website for more information." - https://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/programs/phd

I'd like to add to, second, and comments on a few points loves2hike made. 1. Learning R is hard. If you have the opportunity to learn Stata or SPSS first, you should do it. They'll help you understand the process of coding and computerized analysis and are far easier to learn. That said, they're far more expensive than R, which is free. When you do get to R, take your time with it. The best advice I've seen is to only learn a few things at a time. These can be regression, management, visualization, or even just finding the mean of a variable, but there is too much possible for any one person to learn, especially starting out. Learn one thing well and everything else will follow. The key is to know enough for your basic work and then learn how to search for the answer to your questions that will come up. (And don't be afraid to ask the internet for help. Everybody has questions about R.) 2. I agree with practicing regressions, especially if you aren't great at them. That said, you'll have stats classes your first two years that will teach you everything, so this isn't your priority. UCLA IDRE's website (https://stats.idre.ucla.edu/) has a ton of resources on how to run and interpret various models on different software. It's free and a great place to turn when you have questions. 3. Python is up and coming within sociology. If you learn it, great! If not, you won't be missing out on much UNLESS you want to use computational methods. R and Stata are still the workhorse programs for quant analysis, so it's more important to get good at these first. 4. I wholeheartedly agree with not reading theory outside of a course. It's dry, boring, and complex. Instead, read more exciting sociology that will exercise your sociological imagination and make your life easier. University presses will usually have a huge discount this time of year, and you may even be able to get some books from your library, either university or local. Journal articles are also great places to start, but they can also be pretty dry and typically have a very narrow scope.

The ASA's section on Environmental Sociology has a great listing of graduate programs in the field: http://envirosoc.org/wordpress/graduate-programs/. Each program tends to have their own subspecialties that, while not totally limiting, can have better or worse fit depending on your own interests. A great way to look at it is by looking at the research being done as well as the focus of many of the other members of the program. Off the top of my head, some programs are Brown, Oregon, Colorado, Colorado State, Michigan State, Boston College, Rutgers, Utah, Utah State, and Wisconsin-Madison. Two other potential programs might be Washington State (historically good but has been rumored to be on the decline) and Cornell (focus on Development Sociology). I don't see something similar for Political Sociology section, but a look at recent officeholders and award winners can show you where there are people doing that work: https://www.asanet.org/asa-communities/sections/political-sociology. I would second @limonchello's suggestion for Boston College; they have a great mix of environmental and global political economy. (Edited to add Washington State and Wisconsin.)