Derrick Rose

that depends on your financial package. all things equal, definitely riverside. you'll have so much fun there.

i am international from china mainland. i am pretty sure the private schools, especially the top ones, like the ivies and stanford don't care about your nationality. but for state school, even good ones like berkeley, internationals are MUCH harder to get in. for that reason, i didn't apply to very many state schools.

your stats are good, but the thing is, all the schools you applied to are very competitive, and pretty much all those who got in have similar stats. i am sure you would get into any second tier school though

did anyone get into brown?

GRE 1510, GPA 3.5, publications in math, solid recs, and pretty good ps, i guess.

Hey people Between Harvard and Princeton, can you guys give some pros and cons for each?

Hey, looking at your stats, did you turn down your Duke interview? I am also thinking of turning it down but they already booked my ticket and have everything set up. I don't know if turning them down for interview at this point would appear rude.

got an interview with them. but i probably won't do it since i already have a few other ones in mind. they sent out interviews to all their shortlist candidates

Yeah, the application fee is such BS. I applied to 19 schools (because i am not sure where i would get into) and I spent 2000 on it. As an international, I can't get waiver either. That, plus GRE testing fee and sending score fee, totaled 3 k for me.

I am sorry to hear your situation. Your application seems very competitive, maybe you just miss the cut for these top PhD programs. I think your GRE score may be the reason why you are not getting offers. Usually PhD programs expect GRE scores at least around 1350, your GRE quant score is especially low for someone who has taken lots of math/stats courses. So I think if you retake GRE next year and get a better score then you should be able to do well in your application endeavor. Good luck

I think the purpose of research experience is to show that you are interested in sociology. I don't think the research itself is that important. I have done only one research project and no publication/presentation in sociology. Especially for undergraduate they don't expect you to do a lot of research.

Anyone know why Princeton is ranked so high these days. It was ranked outside top ten by most standards five years ago. Did it add more faculties or something?

I think you'll be fine. If they give you five years funding, then they will give it you. I do know that it is extremely difficult for international students to get into UC schools with funding because of the budget situation, which means that these schools, especially the top ones, would unfortunately lose a lot of qualified students.

Thanks for the detailed info. Btw, how do you find acceptance rate for each school? I do think acceptance rate is a good indicator, but then there is also the issue with the quality of the applicant pool

I don't think GPA is that important. I have a 3.5 and I am getting into all the top schools this year

So here is my rational for listing these five. UChicago has been ranked #1 historically, except in recent years. Wisconsin is the current #1. Berkeley has been consistently ranked in top 3. Harvard and Princeton are also ranked in top 5 according to the recent ranking, and they are two of the most prestigious universities overall. So the hardest school to get into should probably come from one of these. Of courses, some others schools are also very difficult to get into.

Obviously I can't list out all the sociology programs out there. Which other ones are you thinking about?

I am just curious as to what people think as the hardest sociology program to get into