Darth.Vegan

Oklahoma is not a bad option (OU), they offered me over 30k a year with fellowship and TA'ship combined, and cost of living and graduate housing is cheap.

Might I suggest applying to some Canadian programs? doing your MA separately in Canada is the standard so most programs offer modest funding. I was offered fully funded offers from both Simon Fraser and Victoria, 2 out of the 3 Canadian programs I applied to. In all honesty, I applied to 5 MA programs and was offered funding to all of them, some offers were extremely generous. My point being, don't assume that you will have to carry the cost, funding for MA's is possible. On another note, most Canadian programs don't need or care about the GRE. You might also want to look into some one year programs. At UCI we have the DASA program which has a pretty good track record in terms of placing students into PhD programs and it is reasonably priced. On top of that, I know a number of DASA students were offered at least 1 quarter of TA'ship that covered the cost of the program + healthcare and stipend. best of luck to you.

I would say that our department is collegial and collaborative as well.

The important thing in my mind is to have faculty that can advise your work. Apply to programs with faculty that can support the type of work you see yourself doing, including methodological approaches.

That should say: "Ranking isn't everything." ugh, darn typos!

My biggest concern would be the adjunct trap. If you don't mind being adjunct or you intend to work part-time, you don't need to worry about it. Otherwise, it's something prospective applicants should seriously consider. That said, ranking isn't anything. I know of programs ranked in the 50's and 60's and do a solid job placing students into tenure track jobs. Many departments work in a particular niche, and place students in jobs because of it, that isn't reflected in the overall ranking.

1) I would definitely say that faculty are collaborative and work together often. That said, this can vary by specific faculty member and there are some competing perspectives in the department, such as world society and world-systems that would be worth looking into before you accept. 2) I wouldn't say anything is off limits and you can generally find faculty support for whatever you want to do if your methodology is solid. That said, in my experience, this is a fairly normative department, and many of the faculty are determined to do work that will increase the status and prestige of the department overall. 3) I honestly can't speak to how well inter-disciplinary work is supported. You may want to email some prospective advisors and ask, as well as more senior grad students 1) Most students live on campus the first couple years, those that do live off campus mostly live in Long Beach or Santa Ana and commute. The surrounding area is quite expensive in comparison to on-campus housing. 2) There are definitely opportunities available for summer RA's, but don't expect this in the first couple years. You need to build up a relationship with certain faculty members before this is likely to happen. That said, there is a call for summer funding every year that is fairly easy to get. 3) There are a lot of requirements that can be waived if you have an MA already, but this is generally done on an individual course basis. I was able to waive research design because I took a graduate level methods class as an undergrad. 4) There is a small but committed contingent of grad students working in environmental sociology. I don't have specific placement info, but there's no feeling that they have any harder time placing in the job market. I would email David Smith to talk about this, especially if you work from a world-systems perspective or similar.

Here's the concern I would have, better ranked programs tend to have faculty members that regularly publish in the top 3 journals. That increases your likelihood of getting a co-author pub in a top journal. I would look at whether or not faculty members at prospective programs are publishing in top journals, and whether they are including their grad students as co-authors on a semi-regular basis. While you may get into a top journal on your own merit as a single author, it is much less likely than doing so as a co-author. I certainly wouldn't count on a single author publication in a top journal while you are a grad student. It's not impossible, we've had a few happen within our department, including a recent one in social forces, but it's very unlikely.

You really don't need to retake. I am firm believer that GRE scores are used for sorting piles more than anything and there is no way a score like that will get you in the reject pile. That is an insane quant score (wish I had you to tutor me on the quant section when I was taking it!), and a very respectable verbal score.

While my opinion may be "biased" I also know the culture of the department first hand. I'm not trying to prop up my own department here, I just have a personal feel for where things are going. We did move up two spots in US news last time around and 4 spots not including the infamous 08'/12' average.

I can speak from experience that this can definitely help in negotiations. I was seriously considering offers from 3 different departments and all of them improved my initial funding package, some more than once.

I am gonna go out on a limb here and say that UCI will be a top 20 program in 7 years or less.

I meant in terms of improving acceptance chances.

This has been debated over and over on here. Personally, I think it makes little to no difference and is largely a waste of time. I was accepted to programs I never received replies from and was rejected from programs that I received long and incredibly enthusiastic replies from.

Congrats to all who have gotten an acceptance thus far, I know what a relief that first acceptance can be. Just wait until you have to make your final decision, for some people it's the most anxiety inducing part of the process. To those who got WL notifications or haven't heard yet, hang in there!

It's doable for some people without taking on loans. If you share an on campus 2br and don't have car related expenses, it shouldn't be a problem. In general, this part of Orange County is definitely expensive, but the on campus housing prices are reasonable.

Well, that won't be a problem. There is veggie grill across the street from campus, and a pizza place with vegan cheese. Within 10 mins there is also Native Foods and Wheel of Life, among others. The standard funding package is a guaranteed TA'ship for 5 years, stipend is 17k + tuition + healthcare, this is the minimum and is offered to all accepted applicants. That said, there is more funding to be had for competitive applicants, including summer funding and recruitment fellowships.

The overall feeling in the department is that the job placement is strong, especially relative to the ranking. Some of the less than stellar placements are a consequence of people that insist on staying in California. If you're flexible, you will be very likely to get a tenure track job out of this department. The placement statistics are also listed right on the website, a number of other "better ranked" programs do not publish their stats are only show a snapshot including their best placements. This is a very active and hungry department that regularly publishes in ASR, AJS and Social Forces.

That can definitely be arranged. Are you vegan!? There are 2 vegans in the first year cohort!

Ranking is definitely important, but I would look at job placement of prospective programs as well. You might be surprised by how well some lower ranking programs place in comparison to higher ranked programs.

Hi all, Congrats to those who were accepted into UCI's PhD program for 2014. I am a current first year and I am happy to answer any questions you might have about the program. For those of you planning to attend the visit, I look forward to meeting you. Feel free to post here or PM me with any questions are comments you might have. Take care

Interestingly enough, my first notification came from the school with the latest application deadline. It was in mid January btw, so try and relax for a few more weeks :-)

As deadlines approached last year I dropped off the forum for a little while as well.

Charles Ragan also does some really interesting stuff with comparative historical methodology at UCI

You might want to look into UCI.