AaronM

wow lots of great advice, thank you so much!

I'm heading out this summer to visit some family that happen to be near a school that I'm applying to and I'd like to visit said school but am not really sure what I should ask professors about. I don't want to ask info that is available on the website because I don't want to waste their time. What should I ask the professors about the program? If anyone has already had some campus visits, how did they go? Am I just over thinking all of this?

Stanford, Cornell, Texas, Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame, UCLA

in my social theory class, the main theorist used to introduce postmodernism was Foucault (hence the snarky do acid in the desert comment) so I'm with darthvegan, he's probably a good place to start

do some LSD in the desert

(Undergrad with research experience) My professors have told me to try not to go into a PhD program with a dissertation planned. From what I've heard that it is very common to change topic areas when seeing the research other professors in the department do. For example my advisor went into grad school hell bent on studying criminology and now he studies early childhood development. I know your not going in saying "this is my dissertation!" but I thought I would just relay some things I've heard in my department

well, thats awkward

agree with everyone who says that coming out in a sociology department is probably the safest place to come out in academia. My school just had a forum for LGBT students and all of them said that life got so much better once they came out to their friends and colleagues, one who suffered from mental health problems said that they pretty much washed away once he came out. With the stress of graduate school already so high, I personally wouldn't want to have the added stress of hiding who I am. I do also recognize that as a straight male I can't possibly understand personally how difficult it is to come out, I just thought I'd add my two cents.

if you don't mind my asking, how exactly did you connect with potential mentors? Some people have said to email them beforehand and try to have a meal with them asking about the program but I'm interested in many different ways of networking and I'd be interested to hear how you did that

I didn't get to the honors thing, but I'll be presenting a paper there! Way pumped for that!

I'm currently doing the Kaplan Online one and while I haven't taken the GRE yet, I've scored really well on practice tests and I really like the personalized approach they have

that's what I'm banking on. I've been a research assistant with two large national surveys conducted from our department for a year and a half for one professor and have been working with another professor on quantitative research that we are submitting for publication in a month or so. I had a pretty rough GPA my freshman year and am in the process of recovering (I'm at 3.5 right now and hopefully will graduate with a 3.6, 3.9 major GPA) and even though I'm prepping for the GRE pretty intensely I'm not banking on doing amazing. Research experience will be my main strength because I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time a couple of times. To my fellow 2013 applicants, I would highly recommend doing everything possible to get research experience. In my experience it has helped me to find my niche in the field, get familiar with potential POI's that share my research interests, ignite a passion for sociology, and just get good experience

I'm in the same boat. I must have thought there were more hours in the day when I signed up for it all

I've been lurking for a while as well. I'm getting ready to take the GRE in July. I want to go into sociology because a) it's fascinating and keeps me up at night thinking about stuff and because I feel I can actually make a difference in people's lives and help figure out how to improve society. As of now, what I want to focus on is stratification, education and mobility. I've been lucky enough to work on some papers with some professors in my department and the field is really interesting! I'm anxious but excited for the GRE and application season! Good luck to all 2013ers here and hopefully we'll have a lot of good discussion on this board as we get into GRE and pre-app season!

I'm applying next year, just trying to gauge how competitive I am in different ways and stuff.

What do you guys think about my situation? I am third author on a paper that (from what we've been told by professors who publish there regularly) has a good shot at being published in Soc of Ed and we just got accepted to ASA where I'll be doing the presenting. How do you think grad schools will look upon this? I've gotten a lot of good experience doing analysis, literature review, the publication process, and working with three other top professors in my department. Do you guys think grad schools will look and say: "Third author? Probably didn't do anything" or will it help show good potential on my side?

I am NOT envying the waiting-to-hear process you guys are going through. I'm applying next year and I'm already stressed!

I put quant because that's what I primarily do, but I agree that the future is in mixed methods. That's one thing I like about Northwestern's program is their emphasis on the question coming first and the method coming second. I do still think it is appropriate for an individual the emphasize in quant or qual but I also think it is inappropriate to say that there is only one way of obtaining "Truth" (if you even believe in capital T Truth). Or maybe I'm just a pragmatist, either or.

sounds like there will be a lot of notifications this week, good luck to all! I am definitely not looking forward to the suspense a year from now when I'll be finding out where I will have been accepted/rejected.

congrats! I'm thinking of applying to Ohio State, would you mind if I messaged you and asked some questions about the process?