hoobers

I just wrote a long and very detailed report on Draper, and my browser crashed taking it down with it. So it will have to be very abridged: I went to Draper, and got into four top-15 Soc programs after coming out of it: pretty decent, I think. I would give a slightly reserved endorsement for Draper. Just put the effort to get attention from Sociology people, and you will get it (not a single prof I met in Soc cared much that I was from a different department). Try to take the maximum number of classes in your target department, and start doing this right away. It will help a lot to have faculty links in other departments. Draper classes are OK but are usually too broad and interdisciplinary to be much use for you in the future. If you want to get credits for independent research or doing a summer reading list, make sure you use up a required Draper class. Don't use your non-Draper classes on this: focus those on your goal. Take the other two draper classes with the Draper faculty in your area to get to know that person better. Join an ongoing research seminar in another department to meet the grad students there -- the other Draper students won't be that helpful. Try to get on their event mailing lists, too. Don't rely on the Draper faculty for too much, though forge close links with one or two of them because they will be your backup and your allies against roadblocks, if any come up. They are all great people, but are very young so you probably don't want them to be your thesis advisers or even recommendation-letter writers if you can get the relevant senior faculty to do that for you. Furthermore, in my experience they all understood this, and encouraged me to reach out outside the department. It worked out well in the end.

I would go to MAPSS and apply again. MA programs boost your chances a lot, and the cost of MAPSS is tiny compared to New School. Grad school w/o funding is a bad idea.

I am really excited about Berkeley visiting! Who else is going? I see at least one of your names on the email lists for this thing I am also quite curious about who all you talked to/would want to work with, and how you feel about the free-form aspect of the program, the language of the fellowship and what they are actually offering us, and all that jazz. However, as the Muni train signs say, "Information is gladly given, but safety requires avoiding unnecessary conversation"(*) -- so I would really rather have this talk over PM than in a public forum. Message me if you want to chat. (*) -- ok, really not that relevant a quote. but it's my favorite bay area-ism, so I had to throw it in.

I talked about this to a senior faculty member at one of the schools before and he expressed the opinion that all the stats on this are dated, as most (top 10?) phd programs have recently made moves to shorten their graduation time.

NYU soc has that extra one-year fellowship for people going on to work outside the academe...

I actually don't have anything on the website -- just the email. I have a feeling that the website only posts accepts/rejects.

I got the same letter. It's by email.

Their final cohort goal is only 1/2 of what it usually is. Unless they are damn good at predicting that the 10 they gave offers to would accept (and in previous years it seems like their average rate of "guessing" this was only 44% or so), we should still see a few offers. My guess is 5-8, based on the numbers you list (18 offers to get 11 applicants is a 61% accept rate--far more accurate than before). More importantly the reason they will be able to get this extra accuracy is that the waitlist will be self-selecting and self-narrowing, if things go right -- so those 5-8 offers will actually represent a larger number of initial applicants, if we count those who drop off the list voluntarily. Which means that if you actually really want Chi over the other schools and you are persistent (and near the top of the list) then hang on tight and you've got a decent shot.

Hm. I am pretty sure that's what I heard from some current students there. I suppose I could be misremembering if it's still on their website. Slothy -- I am really surprised to hear your opinion of Berkeley. I think it's easily a better department than a number of your top-choice ones, with far more distinguished senior Sociology faculty. Beyond that, Berkeley has the single largest collection of prominent academics anywhere in the world. The chance to have a seminar with Butler, Rabinow, Lakoff or Searle is pretty damn exciting. Chicago, Northwestern and probably even Columbia don't have anything to match that collection of scholars. On the other hand, I do hear what you have to say about the size of the department and the possibility of getting lost in it. That is the only reason I am considering any other program.

I am pretty sure those stats are dated. I know they redid the program a few years ago specifically to shorten it. They dropped the foreign language requirements they used to have.

Irvine is pretty bad. I never went there, but I had a job there briefly so I got to know the area, and it is very conservative by SoCal standards. I think the description of it on the other thread is accurate. But if you live in Long Beach like the other thread suggests, and just don't hang out around campus, you should do fine. LA, for all the flak it gets, is a wonderful and diverse place, and if you live in Long Beach you should have no trouble basing your social life there. Also I am certain the other sociology grad students aren't going to be "Irvine types". Just my 2

Congrats! I've never presented at these, but I attended a few at last year's ASA. They are really not intimidating: just a small round table with 3 presenters and 5 or so interlopers. Papers get presented and discussed. You can hand out copies, but I don't think you have to. They feel a lot like grad seminars.

Have any of the other Columbia admits had any contact from the department after the initial call? I haven't received any emails of letters after the call telling me that I was admitted, so I am starting to get a bit weirded out since that was almost a week ago. They said then that the admissions were still pending the Dean's signature... I hope he hasn't decided to, you know, not sign.

Berkeley has a bit of an endowment, and is also partially self-sustaining (tuition, grants, etc). Some of that cut will indeed be felt, but I don't think your fellowship is in too much jeopardy.

But it'll probably help knowing just how soul-draining a 9-5 can be if the dissertation starts seeming insurmountable

I'm going to be 28 when I start. Glad to see not everyone here is straight out of undergrad (but I do expect to be a bit older than my cohort average)

I'm one of the Columbia admits. It's for real. By the way, anyone heard anything about Duncan Watts? Is he at Yahoo for good?

Have any of you without a decision link heard any news from NW?

Yes, and somebody posted another Harvard accept, apparently without an interview. Call me a cynic, but these unexpected simultaneous posts seem fishy to me.

I've heard Wisconsin described as a program that is intentionally structured to maximize ranking (as opposed to quality). That is to say, there is a strong emphasis on the pure number of faculty publications in high-ranked journals, as opposed to on intellectual content per se. Of course, this is just one opinion... On the other hand, go look at where the faculty in top-10 schools comes from. I think you'll see more Harvard grads than Wisconsin grads (I certainly haven't carried out a formal evaluation of this or anything -- but I did just look through the Berkeley faculty bios, and an overwhelming portion are Harvard grads).

Another thing I wonder is just what percent of the Sociology PhDs come from the top 10 schools? Since the top 10 includes the biggest schools (Berkeley, Wisconsin and Michigan), and since there's only about 60-70 programs total with some of the smaller depts being truly tiny, I wouldn't be surprised if 20-25% of all PhDs came from the Top 10. This, of course, is just speculation -- but has anyone seen any data on this?

I don't know if Top 15 to Top 3 is a big enough jump, but Rob Willer, who is the young star at Berkeley, got his degree at Cornell three years ago. I wonder if, in addition to the stellar names on the CV and the benefit of being more selective at admissions, the top schools are also able to provide social and cultural capital in ways that lower ranked schools cannot.

Rankings do matter, but not those that hold Harvard to be lower than Wisconsin I think you're referring to the rankings that are based on citation counts. As far as I know, those aren't taken very seriously. What is taken far more seriously is how effective the program is perceived to be at producing good scholars -- the same subjective judgment that will be applied when your CV is evaluated. And I think that Berkeley, Harvard, and Princeton are the top three on most versions of that list, though perhaps not in that order.

Re: weather --- I hope you're kidding. Madison is 10-20 degrees colder in the winter than Boston. Boston is fairly mild; Madison is rough. I am turned off enough by Madison's funding that it is a definite 'no' for me.

I don't think I often see Yale grads teaching at top departments. Or am I wrong?