Thank you very much for your response. I genuinely understand what you say, but I also believe that your response includes two different components that do not have a necessary logical connection:
- You say that there are strong inequalities, not only in the way we understand academic work, but also in the way we play the game. I genuinely agree with that, and I am *currently* living the same thing. I come from a working-class family, and believe me, I know.
- Yet, you also say that because there are inequalities, then the personal stories should be an integral part of our "game." This is the part I have strong disagreements. My point before was that an admission process should be, in an ideal world, only about the quality of the work and the quality of the research imagination, and nothing else at all. The main reason I think this way, and I believe this reflects the deep problems in the sociological field as well, is that I do not want to *change* the world with a sociologist hat in my head. If I want to do political work (as I do in my own country - I am an international applicant, and yes, GRE was a third of my salary, too), I can do it as a citizen, as a worker, or as a social movement member. I do not think that sociology (or any other social science) should be about remedying social inequalities. I want to do sociology because I want to do scientific work. I want to contribute to the scientific understanding of human behavior and social groups, and I believe that this should be the only goal we have to strive for. This does not mean that we are value-free (the research shows that we *have* strong values), but this doesn't exclude it as a normative ideal.
I am really upset to see that a highly personalized trend is occurring in the social scientific disciplines, where people are asked to provide "personal statements" that document their life-stories. I do not understand HOW one's life story should be a measure to understand valuable scientific research. I, personally, do not have strong personal histories. As I've said, I come from a working class background. I do not know what to tell about my life. I really love science, and I want to be evaluated with my potential as a scientific contributor, and nothing else. If an admission committee wants to learn more about me rather than looking into what I want to say as a contributor to the field, then I am sorry, I do not have anything to give, and I, personally, do not want to be judged on account of how poignant my history was.
We would have no common ground for comparison and evaluation if we lose the fact that we want to be scholars.