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An MA may help you get into a PhD program (it certainly won't hurt). I suggested Louisville to one of your eariler posts and I stand by that recommendation. They have four fully funded positions each year (which, by the way, are relatively non-competative). If you require funding to continute your studies, you should apply to Louisville (deadline 2/15). If money isn't a factor, then you might want to find a better "second tier" school to apply to. I cannot think of any program that is that much better than Louisville with a later deadline though.

^Good point...but I was waitlisted at my current program and ended up getting in. Speaking of waitlisted, I was just waitlisted at North Carolina State... two thumbs down...

HAHAHAHA! I know her!

Got into Iowa State. Notified via e-mail on 1/26

Fair enough--we did have a number of applicants who were obviously deined tenure at their current institution who had a pub in AJS or ASR but had little (or nothing) else. Maybe we can settle on 8-12

I'll add an advertisement for Louisville--that's were I received my B.S. and they have some excellent faculty members. Their deadline is Feb 15th. It lacks the prestige of Emory, but they do offer funded positions every year to incoming MA students.

Oh cool, thanks

Hmm..I don't see any of that, not that you're wrong though. The only thing I've come across is a bio major who has an interview....no soc majors--I haven't seen anything about the "group interview" either. It may just be that I'm blind (or have an inability to successfully search topics), but I don't see any of that.

I realize Old Dominion is not a top school, and Delaware is in the mid-60s according to U.S. News and Reports. Either way, Univ of Delaware is a decent fallback (they do have a highly ranked crim program). Anyway, I received an e-mail from ODU that said they will contact everyone "prior to February 10." Delaware informed me that they will contact their top choices "no later than February 24" to schedule campus visits (they pay for their top choices to fly out and visit). Thought I'd pass the info along.

Your reasoning makes sense for sure, but I don't know of anyone who has received an invite. As far as I know, no one on this board is aware of anyone with an invite within Sociology. I know of a bio major who received their invite--but departments work independent of each other. All that aside, you (and the topic creator) are probably correct. Emory is a tough school to get into (they have Robert Agnew--probably the most famous living criminologist in all of America). Emory is at the top of my list of schools I've applied to. I guess we're all in the same boat

How do you know it's a reject?

Agreed. The best programs in the region are IU Bloomington (of course) and Cinncinati. But Purdue is pretty close. Louisville's a good up and coming program and the University of Kentucky used to be decent (but they fell apart a few years ago and have been rebuilding since).

This is great advice, and I agree completely. I decided to get my MA prior to the Ph.D and it completely changed my interests and really helped make me a better candidate when I applied to PhD programs (publications are the key!)

How do you know you got rejected? They haven't sent out communcation yet have they?

I'm not so sure this is accurate, at least not in the current job market. My department is currently interviewing applicants for an open position and we've had a very large number of individuals with publications in AJS, ASR, and a number of highly ranked journals in specific errors or concentration (most notably, Criminologists with pubs in in the ASC journal). We had well over 150 applicants--nearly all of whom were well qualified for the position. It is an extremely competative job market and we immediately cut individuals with degrees from "lower" institutions and publications in low ranked journals (basically, anyone with a PhD from an unranked program was cut). Our top ten list of candidates comprised of PhDs from Chicago, Penn, Maryland ect...The lowest pedigree to make the cut was an individual with a PhD from North Carolina State (who also had a pub in AJS).

It's nice when your advisor takes your work on to help you get it published. I'm glad to hear he didn't take first-authorship!

Just curious, how many applicants have publications on their CV? Anyone have a pub in a decent journal?