Darth.Vegan

Well a friend of mine had a quant score in the 25th percentile and got into the MPH program at BU.

Just thought I'd let everyone know that by utilizing all of my time on the verbal sections and reading each reading comprehension section 2-3 times before looking at the questions, I improved my verbal score to 163-165. Unfortunately my quant score remains unchanged, but I start my first of 4 days drilling quant problems with my gf tonight. Hopefully I can improve it a bit before the actual test.

I feel ya there. I took social statistics last semester and got an A+. I personally think that is a much better predictor of my ability to conduct quantitative sociology. I ha.te reading the text on the screen, and just can't seem to get my attention where it needs to be. While I certainly have trouble with certain types of problems, I also make stupid mistakes like writing things wrong or not paying attention to what the question is actually looking for. Take out my stupid mistakes and I score much closer to 157-160. My partner is also studying for the GRE and taking it on Monday. She has been scoring in the 164-169 range and will be working with me for 2-3 hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night. My test is Friday so I am hoping that will help me get up into a decent range. I am hoping for a minimum of 75th percentile in both sections which is about a 158.

I received this email from a potential POI before explaining that I was an older non-traditional student with plenty of lived experience. If I had known that might happen, I would have opened with said experience, haha. Take from this what you will, but I do think being older is helpful, I don't think sociology ad coms are as interested in 22 year olds right out of undergrad. This is from a well known top 5 program that will remain nameless, haha.

torturous*

While taking a GRE practice test today, I realized that I probably have serious ADD. It hasn't affected my work in college because by and large I don't procrastinate. However sitting for hours trying to take a test is tortuous. I actually have to remind myself to concentrate and then I end up concentrating on the fact that I am reminding myself to concentrate. I also can't stop moving, chewing my pencils etc. Ugghh. It got to the point where I was guessing on the 2nd quant section JUST TO GET IT OVER WITH, because I couldn't bare to sit there any longer. Ugghhh.

Barron's Online Test Prep. That would be awesome.

I imagine the ETS ones are pretty accurate. I know the free Kaplan practice is intentionally more difficult but I don't know anything about the Princeton ones. I think you can expect that they will be a pretty close predictor for the most part. It's not unheard for people to do better though. I've seen people say on here that they thought the verbal questions on the real test were more straight forward than most of the practice ones they had seen. Keep in mind, some people also do worse.

So, the fact is I didn't end up having nearly as much time as I would have wanted and now I feel awfully unprepared. I am a very busy undergraduate student with 2 research assistant positions, a graduate level course, ridiculous general ed requirements and finishing my honors thesis in time for graduation. I know many students are super busy, and I'm sure I am not the first person to say this. I've had about 3 weeks of serious studying. While my scores have improved, I am unfortunately not where I need to be score wise for the caliber of schools I'm planning to apply to. My current practice scores are Q:150-156 and V: 155-161 and AW: 5. Based on those scores I am expecting somewhere around 152-154 on quant and 157-159 on verbal. ' While the verbal was ok, I am feeling really down on the quant stuff. I know I can learn it, I just need MORE time haha. I have the most trouble with rate problems, and proportions. I'm hoping my GPA 3.94, and 2 years research experience will make up for this mediocre score. Here is where I am planning to apply, should I reconsider some of these based on practice scores? Wisconsin-Madison Sociology PhD Cornell Development Sociology PhD Stanford Sociology PhD Brown Sociology PhD UC-Irvine Sociology PhD Oregon Sociology PhD UC-San Diego Sociology PhD UC-Santa Cruz Sociology PhD Michigan Environmental Justice MA Fordham Sociology MA U of Oklahoma Sociology MA UVic Sociology MA Simon Fraser Sociology MA Toronto Sociology MA York Development Studies MA

Mine is 1500 words but I plan to cut it to 1200 eventually. This is difficult though because some programs ask for a separate SOP and Personal/Academic history statement, while some ask for you to combine both in a longer SOP. So that 1200 mark is for a combined version which I will be splitting into two approx. 600 word essays for the programs that require it.

I have a really rough draft of mine I would be willing to swap.

Most programs don't even look at the AW. That's what your writing sample is for. Those scores are insanely high, be happy with them.

Ya I definitely think it varies across departments and disciplines. The geography department at UNC specifically says you should find a faculty sponsor.

At the top programs I think this is largely a waste of time. I've gotten feedback directly from top 10 programs saying that this is a waste of time and will make no difference in admissions. ScienceGirl also commented on this last year, she didn't write any faculty and got multiple offers from top 20 programs. If there is only one potential advisor at a program of interest I would recommend it only to make sure they can take students next year and aren't retiring or something. While some disciplines suggest a faculty "sponsor," in soc it is generally not needed.

A lot of departments have cut offs for both Q & V sections, after the cut off, I don't think the GRE is nearly as meaningful.

Things have changed quite a bit for me Wisconsin-Madison,Cornell, Stanford, NYU, UC-Irvine, Oregon, UC-San Diego, UC Santa Cruz, Michigan, Fordham, University of Oklahoma, UVic, Simon Fraser, Toronto, York, Teach for America

As long as you're above 70th percentile, I wouldn't worry about it. I'm not sure if those scores are 70th or not but I'm pretty sure they are close.

Wisconsin Cornell (Dev. Soc) York (Dev. Studies)

I tend to think of political economy as the politics of production and economic sociology is often focused on issues of stratification. I am not an economic sociologist though, so please feel free to correct me.

it really depends, Foucault tends to come up a lot in development/environmental sociology with the concept of biopower, biopolitics and governmentality. You may also see Foucault used quite a bit in sociology of gender and sociology of health. Also quite common in a lot of political sociology.

It sounds like you did some research there. Sure it's not sociological research, although comparative-historical methodology is pretty common!

A topic paper does not qualify as research experience. The legal stuff you can sell, but the other stuff does not count unless it was using comparative historical methodology or something like that.

Right now I am around the 13-16 mark.

You could also add Michigan and The New School to your list.

my top 5, Wisconsin, Stanford, Cornell, NYU and UBC.