faculty

You are not tied down at all. Students' interests are always changing. That only hurts them if their topics are not well-served in the department they select.

@Valerian Yes, many students' interests change in graduate school, but let's assume all these hypotheticals are true. Your interests are more likely to change if you go to Harvard and there isn't anyone doing what you do (although, Ellis Monk's work combines social psychology and race). But if the choice is actually between these two schools, that's not really a difference in ranking at all. These are two VERY highly ranked schools. People sometimes complain about Stanford's job placement and Harvard had a banner year with a number of market stars coming out of their program, but whatever decision you make will be a good one. If you're interested in social psychology, I would attend to differences in the type of social psychology that various schools do and also think about other in the department who do work that you would see as complementary (e.g., gender, race, networks, health, etc.). @qeta Look at student CVs and see if they were awarded grants and their publication records. Contact current students and ask about professional development in schools and departments. Ask about this on visits, as there is sometimes a special office on campus that works with students on funding or a course or workshop to help students prepare papers for review. Even if these don't exist, if a lot of students are publishing or getting external funding, it suggests that there is a strong culture among students to work hard and take risks. Other departments that might have these resources, but can't seem to translate them into success for students, could be a sign that something in the department, or among students, is holding students back.

I'm not sure what you mean. I don't know much about NCSU, but a cursory look at the webpage shows me a lot of grad students study environment and no one seems to obviously work with or study under Tom Shriver. That bodes well for someone like you because, if he left (or any one of them did), it looks like you'd be able to continue with what you're interested in. Like eigen notes, it's okay if you do somewhere that multiple people could be advisors. If the webpage showed that everyone who was studying environment had him chairing their committee, I would be worried there could be fallout for students if he left. Places that have strengths in something, like Stanford's social psychology tradition or UMass's gender/family/sexuality core, are unlikely to shift radically with the exit of one professor. Those places are also likely to be committed to replacing people with others who study in that area. Any student needs to go to the best place for them. To decide that, look at placements, look at funding, look at department culture, look at methodological training and professional development (publishing, grant writing, etc.), look at fit, but do not let the one star who you'd love to work with lure you in if there isn't enough offered in those other attributes to see you through to a PhD and a job.

I used to frequent this place, but haven't been in a long while. A discussion in another forum made me think about all of you over here preparing to make a big decision. I'm not sure if this is buried in other threads and I'm sure you've heard this advice before, but to reiterate, it is very important that you go to a school because of the program more generally and not for a professor. Sure, you want to go to Duke in hopes of working with Steve Vaisey or Wisconsin to study under Eric Grodsky, but ask yourself if you would still generally get the education that you want if they left or if they were uninvolved with students? In both those cases, you'd likely be fine, even if you wanted to study culture or education, but it's important that you think through these things as you're making decisions. Faculties shift. Junior faculty don't get tenure, or move someplace as they're getting it. Commuting couples get tired of commuting and someone moves. More senior people are recruited by other programs. As morbid as it is, people also die or suffer profound health crises that render them incapacitated. Even if they stay, some faculty are very involved in departments while others only show up for visit day or on the faculty web page. Even for people who are generally involved, a need to care for an older parent or child who needs attention (whether a baby or a troubled teen) can also change the involvement of faculty. You can ask about potential movement or involvement, but it's difficult to predict the future. The best thing you can do is to attend a place that you believe has a lot to offer you with or without the star that you might dream of working with.

The universal deadline is April 15th. Schools would like to know much earlier, especially if you're going to turn them down, so that they can make decisions about people on the waitlist. It can be hard to turn schools down if you have connected with faculty or students or saw yourself there at some point, but the best way to not burn bridges is to not string people along. Cut some of the schools who are out of the running early to help others who might have that as their first choice but who are on the waitlist. Speaking of being on the waitlist, don't let it dissuade you from attending your top school if you're invited. I've talked about this before on this forum, but some of the top students in my grad program were from the waitlist and went on to do really well on the market and in the field. The initially waitlisted students have also been impressive in the department where I'm a faculty member. The admission process is not an exact science and schools often can't admit everyone who they believe would be a good student because of limits on funding/cohort size. Don't infer that a waitlisted position (or a rejection) means that you're somehow less worthy than someone else. Once school starts in the fall, you'll be in the same position as everyone else in your cohort.

A data scientist-oriented skill is a great idea, but before people delve into classical theory or sociology textbooks, I would recommend reading books written by sociologists that interest you. There will be plenty of dense reading to do in grad school. Why start early? Central books in the field (largely ethnographies) engage classic and contemporary theory, but also demonstrate the sociological imagination and give insights on how to generate questions and conduct research, all while being written for a rather general audience. Plus, they equip students with topics and conversations that they can use in a variety of professional settings because so many people will have read them or are familiar with the general ideas. You want to decide what appeals to you, but some places to start might be The Managed Heart and/or Strangers in their Own Land, Pedigree, Flat Broke with Children," Dude, You're a Fag," Unequal Childhoods (2nd Edition), On the Fireline and/or Evicted, Paying for the Party, The New Jim Crow, etc. The list is endless! Malcolm Gladwell also engages a lot of sociology in his books.

Notre Dame is under-ranked and on the rise, so I'm not sure I would let ranking hold you up if you're choosing between that and a school closer to the bottom of the top-20. More important might be whether the schools have placed in education schools. Did you ask about those placements during visits or in correspondence? It sounds like your heart is in Johns Hopkins, though, so I would embrace the uncertainty for ten more days and wait to decide after you've heard from them.

If you're definitely not interested in a sociology job, the education school vs. sociology department doesn't matter. An ed school degree will get you a job in an ed school or in policy venues, practice, etc. If you had any possibility of changing your mind, though, it would be exponentially more difficult to get a job in a sociology program with the education degree than a sociology one. The admissions process doesn't end until April 15th. Tell yourself that you have the next two weeks to hear from Johns Hopkins and that you don't need to decide until you do, when you have full information. Good luck!

You'd find more CA folks in Europe, but there is an active CA working group at UCLA. A good place to start is the Ethnomethdology and CA section's website to see who is represented there (in awards, elected positions, etc.): http://www.asanet.org/sections/ethnomethodology.cfm

I would seriously consider one of the Top 20 programs you got into rather than going through it all again, especially if you feel you have good offers in departments that you could flourish in. You'd be hard-pressed to find a sociology department, even at the very top, that doesn't have faculty who earned their PhDs from outside the Top 10. In my own department, it's impossible to tell the difference between those of us who were trained in the Top 10 vs. Top 20. In fact, the people in the latter have a better record of getting tenured than those in the former.

It's important to take into account fees, but the vast majority of graduate students won't be paying social security taxes on their stipends. See: https://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Student-Exception-to-FICA-Tax.

I give this advice every year, but I highly recommend that people visit as many of the programs that they are accepted to as possible. I was convinced of where I was going to go to grad school - for a wealth of reasons - until I went on campus visits. Those visits shifted my ranking significantly and I opted to attend one of the programs that was at the very bottom of my list. Not only because I learned more about the faculty and what they were actually doing (or not doing) and who was leaving or who actually worked with students, but also about the grad students and the culture and what my life would be like as a graduate student, beyond classes and research projects. Departments vary. Your potential cohort does too. Cities that you know nothing about hold all kinds of pleasant surprises and even those you grew up in might not be worth returning to on a grad student stipend. Grad school is such an all-encompassing enterprise. I know people do a lot of research before applying, but it is just as important - if not more - to do other types of research before making the final decision. Selecting the program that I thought I'd never choose was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Many students enter sociology programs with backgrounds in other areas. This can make them incredibly well-read and innovative graduate students. It is not generally a drawback. Plus, you're doing your homework to determine how your interests might be realized in sociology, making the move more intentional than some other applicants who might flounder trying to move into sociology. As far as topics are concerned, political sociology is at the intersections of your interests, prominent in both the aspects of social movements and of education that you are drawn to. You're also interested in stratification and education's role in reproducing inequality. Finally, you likely want to find a program that had some global expertise, given your experience and interest in cross-national variation. In addition to the schools mentioned, you might explore Indiana, NYU, and UC-Irvine, and perhaps Northwestern and Notre Dame.

I can't speak for all programs, but I don't think this is true at all. I've never served on a committee, or heard of a committee, where we already had a spot filled before the committee read the applications and voted. It is in these meetings where there might be discussion of a particular student who we've met or know or whose advisor made a personal call, but those are not shoo-ins, it's simply additional information to consider. Also, programs accept more people than they have space for, so if they want 6-10 people, they're making offers to 12-30 (or more, depending on how many they net). I know it's a stressful time, but it is very early in the game. Many of the top programs who have accepted people will continue to make offers off their waitlists (even if students haven't officially been notified of such a status). Most places that can't guarantee funding now will find money later in the season. People doing interviews will schedule later interviews if they are unable to fill their cohorts with the earlier invites. Programs don't close up shop until April 15th. Don't lose hope until late March. There are certainly sociology superstars (and perfectly content - and employed - non-superstars) who were brought in off waitlists later in the game. Hang in there, everyone.

I can't speak for all committees or programs, but I bet that early Skype interviews with international students are often to get a sense of their language facility and comfort level studying abroad. Later in the season, departments might connect with admitted students over Skype if it's not feasible to invite them out to visit weekends. In any Skype interview, I'd expect to be asked about research interests, why you applied, faculty you'd like to work with, and a general conversation to get a sense of your interests and your conversation skills. I would be prepared to talk about that, as well as any questions you might have about the department.