Darth.Vegan

I would accept at Madison, NYU, Stanford or Cornell without ever seeing the school. In a heartbeat actually.

Could be true. I stress over the GRE because I feel if my score isn't high enough that my application won't be fully considered. If I end up with 80-85th percentile I will be happy.

I care about not having to drive around to 3 different community colleges and making only $28,000/ year when I have $100,000 in student loan debt. Adjunct sucks.

Well lets see, my honors thesis is basically a master's thesis and I have taken and done well in graduate level courses while completing my BA. That should weigh a hell of a lot more than a standardized test that covers geometry and abstract vocabulary.

I do, like many of you think tenure is on the way out. However, without tenure there may actually be chance that there are LESS adjunct positions and more full time non-tenure or contract positions. I am sure most of us do not like contract positions (myself included), but they sure as hell beat adjunct.

You're right, actual cited statistics are no where near as reliable as your assumptions based on hearsay "from people in the field." You're going to produce some great research with that approach. Lastly, I don't think the job market is "good." I would never consider roughly 350-400 tenure track jobs for roughly 650 new PhD's to be "good." We are simply suggesting that top 1X isn't the only path to tenure. I would also doubt there is much difference between 1X,2X and 3X. Outside of that things do get more complicated, but not nearly as bad as you have suggested. Don't mistake "not that bad" to mean "good."

As far as lower ranked it depends, schools like Oregon, UCSC and The New School are all tied for #57 and I would say you would have a decent shot for tenure track job placement. Personally, I would like to find myself at a liberal arts college where you still conduct research regularly, but the emphasis is on teaching and community interaction. Plus I prefer the smaller class sizes.

Again rankings also change. I doubt Berkeley will still be #1 in a few years with the budget crisis in the UC system.

Just to let you know, from the new ASA jobs report "In 2010 there were a total of 638 new PhD's granted." Which means the number of PhD's granted from the top 30 programs was nowhere near 300-350. Lastly in 2011 there were 890 faculty positions open, 41% of which were assistant professor positions.

Do you mind listing or PM'ing your stats?

Well then, I think you forget that specialization matters. My main focus is environmental sociology. It could be argued that the top programs for Enviro Soc are Madison, Cornell (Dev. Soc), Brown, Irvine among others... Point being, only 1 of the schools listed is in the top 10.

So I have to ask, what have you learned from this application cycle? Also why did you need to resort to people who were not in academia for letters? Did you not develop relationships with three faculty?

Good luck!

Anyone have any idea what a competitive applicant at Oregon looks like? Numbers and experience wise...

I also think this whole thing about the top 10 is exaggerated. While it is true that outside of the top 25-30 landing a tenure track job right out of a PhD program is more difficult it is not impossible. To suggest however that finding a tenure track job would be near impossible if you went to say Cornell or University of Washington is just ludicrous. The same is true for SUNY-Albany, UCI etc. Outside of top 30 things get a bit more difficult, but there are plenty of of even top 75 programs that would allow you to eventually secure a tenure track position, albeit with more difficulty and patience. Getting a PhD from unknown or unranked school may cause more problems and people in that situation may find themselves forced to take visiting positions or the dreaded adjunct position, but again even from those programs it is not impossible to find a tenure track position with the right connections. Prestige does matter in the job market, no doubt about it. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. That said, this thread has been exaggerated beyond epic proportions. Lets also keep in mind rankings change and 5-8 years is a long time.

I get your point, but I think it also fair for someone (if possible) to attempt to put themselves in a labor/capital relationship that is less exploitative than the fast food industry. I think a lot of us in sociology would hope to see those relationships change to more equitable forms, but until then, it's not wrong to want better for ourselves. Frankly if it wasn't for nature of capital exploitation I don't think fast food (as it is known today) would even exist.

Well. I want both as well, but I am more than willing to go the terminal MA route. Next cycle I am applying to 10 PhD programs (most in the top 30, but one or two in the 50's), and 5 MA programs. I am applying to 5 MA programs because I am hoping to get into a competitive program like Columbia or MAPPS, or get into a lower ranked program with at least some funding. I have been told that I would be competitive at top 10 programs, but I am also very realistic about how competitive those programs really are. I see no shame in getting a terminal MA and applying to top 25 programs again in a couple years. I also have no real need for prestige, but I do care about job placement. That is finding a tenure track job at all, regardless of the school.

anyone know what the target competitive GPA/GRE for BC is?

Anything in or near the ocean. I even loved just sitting on the beach when I lived in Oregon. I will miss that if I am in the midwest, but seeing as I am so busy with school now I hardly go anyway.

Well 130 is the lowest score you can get. You essentially get 130 for showing up. That would mean you could get a combined score of 260 if you got every single question wrong. Thus a 275 would probably only require getting 1-2 questions right on each section. Even if you just filled in bubbles at random you could get a 275. Now what I would really like to know is what my quant score will be if I miss 4 questions on each section.

Sorry to hear it. Any left?

So a lot of undergrad soc students didn't have methods stressed in their programs? At UH Manoa it seems methods is a constant theme.I am a sociology major and I have taken an undergraduate methods course, an undergraduate quantitative methods course and a graduate level research methods course. That said there are still plenty of methodologies I don't entirely understand, and many journal articles don't really explain methods. A good methods book is always handy to have around, but those tend to have a ton of general information on a large variety of methods.

Hopefully I will be feeling the same way next year.

Don't. It's the future of social research in my opinion. The dichotomy of quant vs qual is destructive and needs to be forgotten.