waitinginohio

I will be attending the University of Arizona. Deciding factors: Only acceptance with several years of guaranteed funding and definitely the best fit for me in terms of faculty, peers, and areas of study.

I just got back from visiting UA. It went very well! I met with 6 profs (individually), sat in on a grad class, and met with lots and lots of students. Everyone was very friendly and collegial. I found out that only 8 people were accepted this year, which is a significant drop from past years. Last year 28 people were accepted, with hopes of getting a cohort of 10, but 14 ended up coming! Given the budget situation and the large group of current 1st years, UA is now hoping for an incoming cohort of 5 to help balance things out. I'm not sure how many people were waitlisted.

The top story in today's Chronicle of Higher Education is about the budget cuts at UA, and in Arizona in general. Worth checking out: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i29/29a00101.htm

I was going to apply, and e-mailed 3 profs there in September. None of them responded to my e-mails. Every other prof I e-mailed (at the 7 other schools I did apply to) got back to me. Not always right away, not always the most personal or helpful response, but they did reply. I took the lack of responses from UCLA as a sign that they weren't interested in me and didn't even bother applying. Obviously other people might have very different experiences, and I don't think anyone else should rule UCLA out based on my experience, but I figure it's worth sharing.

That is a huge area! Any thoughts on West University and Iron Horse?

Do you really think that's true? They offered me some good funding for 4 years, so I don't think things are so bad that they couldn't read some of the applications... CALL!

I don't think US News includes urban sociology... all I've been able to find online are: Economic Sociology, Historical Sociology, Sex and Gender, Social Psychology, Social Stratification, Sociology of Culture, and Sociology of Population. (source: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... ocsci.html) I would collect some articles and books that you like and find out where those authors teach. Also do some references searching (both works cited by those authors, and works that cite those authors) and find out where they all teach. If that isn't as helpful as you would like, send some e-mails to your favorite professors of urban sociology and ask them about grad schools. Good luck!

I'm originally from Seattle, but currently an undergrad in Ohio. What about you MtnGoats? And is your name a reference to the band or the animal?

That is odd... maybe they have an unofficial waiting group, and once they get some rejections they'll look at the remaining possibilities? It probably wouldn't hurt to e-mail Dr. X to ask for clarification and mention that you're very interested in the program.

yeah, I would call.

I would try calling Vienna Marum. I know the DGS went abroad for about 10 days, and I'm not sure if he's back yet. good luck!!!!

The DGS just got back to me. This is not particularly reassuring.

Do you mean AFTER the MA? According to phds.org, the shortest 20% of programs are MA and PhD in 6.1 years and below, next shortest 20% is 6.1-6.9 years, middle 20% is 6.9-7.7, next longest 20% is 7.7 to 8.5 years, and longest 20% is 8.5 years and above. Granted, I don't take phds.org to be the gospel truth, but I think this is pretty close to what we should be expecting. For the record, UW Madison's median years required to complete a doctorate is 7.9, which means 20% of schools take even longer (according to phds.org). And from what I've heard, grad students who do quant work can get out of Madison quite a big quicker than qualitative people.

exactly! And then a follow-up to that: how much do you care? I think I would be totally happy teaching/researching at a place similar to my UG, which is ranked 30-something among liberal arts colleges. Some of my soc profs got PhDs from top 10 schools, and some went to grad schools ranked in the 50-60 range, and the rest are everywhere in between. I'm more concerned with doing good work (both researching and teaching) than the ranking of the school I'm working at, and it seems like any top 25 school (and probably many with lower rankings) will provide the experience and value of degree that are necessary to accomplish that. update: I got a response from Bob Freeland

living_in_paradise, in response to your post on the other UW thread, and I guess this one too: I e-mailed Bob Freeland asking about funding options this morning, and haven't heard anything back yet. I signed up for the visit day this Friday on the off chance I decide to visit, and was contact by my host today. I wrote her back explaining how discouraging the lack of funding is, particularly when I have an acceptance with 4 years of guaranteed funding, and she responded with quite a bit of useful information. Hopefully she won't mind me just copy/pasting chunks of her e-mail...