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Awesome. I am keeping my expectations exceedingly low, since PhD admissions feel statistically equivalent to winning the lottery (lol) but I am grateful to have a hazy timeline. I'll be honest, this process and "what they are looking for" has been extremely opaque to me, so fingers crossed I understood locating and conveying my research interests with faculty properly. Where are you currently, and where do you hope to go, if you don't mind me asking? I am applying to schools in and around Manhattan (CUNY grad center, NYU, Rutgers, Princeton, Yale) to prioritize keeping my son in his current school. In that way, my options and research 'fits' were limited, but I do feel particularly good about some of them. I am anxious to hear about other people's feelings and position in their process. I have been a total mess!

For those of us applying this cycle, could you give a sense of what the process was like from the time you submitted to your acceptance? When do you typically start hearing back from programs? Any ‘pro tips’ or trends you noticed in those who fared better than others? Hope you find what you are looking for.

Hey guys. Wondered if anyone would weigh in on how they suspect applications in GRE optional pools will be evaluated? For example, I was told by a top tier institution that they need to feel you will be capable of demanding statistics courses in their graduate program to be considered. I followed up with asking how one might demonstrate this, and they said through GREs, yet GRE was made optional for every program I am applying to and am not submitting. Thoughts about how this will actually play out inside adcoms given the documented weight GRE has played historically? Just food for thought. Good luck to all this cycle!

For writing samples, what is it that faculty want to see the most? For example, my senior thesis is well above most application maximums, so I'm going to have to choose a section or two at best to display my research and writing abilities/fit. With 20-25 pages, I could focus on my introductions and lit reviews, or I could also focus on methods and findings. I suppose I could cut and paste together something that 'samples' each section a little, but that seems weird. Thoughts?

I just graduated Columbia GS (undergrad), if you have any general questions about the campus or some sociology faculty i know, feel free to ask!

NYU will require GRE for 2023. With only average scores, I’m debating on retesting, but NYU is the only program on my list that will require!

Hey! Thanks for starting this thread, I was dying for the upcoming cycle thread to get started, haha. Sportyspice, what kind of sociology/program are you interested in? I’m largely interested in biomedicalization, gender and sexuality, bioethics and discourse analysis and I’m looking at Princeton, Yale, NYU, CUNY and Rutgers. Sending good vibes out for app season!