michigan girl

Hey! I have experienced something similar to what you're going through. I was accepted into a graduate program (2018) and it wasn't my top choice at all. I was rejected from my other top choices. On top of that, the program I was accepted to didn't have my areas of interest. The department was cool, and the environment was okay, but I made the decision to leave because there was no one there to help me with my core research areas. No room for me to grow either. In 2020 I was accepted into my top three choices and I can say it was the BEST decision of my life. I am doing more with my research and time, I don't even remember the previous years spent in my first program. 
I recommend reapplying but I also encourage you to think critically about these questions/areas:
What have you done so far to make your application stand out from the first time you applied? You mentioned that you wrote a bad statement, but was that all that made you a less desirable applicant? For me, I had to improve myself so I made sure to get all As in my first two years of coursework and apply to external fellowships/grants. These things (if you get it) make you more desirable to graduate committees. I got a three-year external fellowship after my acceptance to programs, which made me a more desirable applicant and opened the door to more funding. So think hard about the ways you can relay to other schools that you have grown.
If nothing has drastically changed for you to make your application stand out more from the last cycle, a possible suggestion is to complete two years and obtain your MA in sociology before leaving for another Ph.D. program. This is what I did, and there are short-term and long-term benefits. Short term, it tells committees you are able to take Ph.D.-level coursework. If you don't get any offers you can at least work in applied research and gain experience for the next round. The long term is that you may be able to transfer the majority of the course credits you have taken to your new program, which cuts down your course load leaving you with time to do more research. You mentioned you had MA/MS. If it's in sociology, disregard this. If it's not, possibly consider it.  
What will graduate committees think? Well, it depends on you. Sounds like to me, you have a legitimate reason for leaving. You can relay that they no longer have the subfield you want to specialize in; therefore, you are intentionally seeking programs that do what you want to do. Avoid applying to programs with 1-2 faculty studying what you want, because 1) you don't want this to happen again, 2) graduate committees will likely be weary of you; if they know you left because of a lack of people to work with, they will likely not want to invest time in you because they know you are prepared to leave if their 1-2 faculty in your area leaves. 
Overall, graduate committees don't care if you leave. They understand a person may have to leave their current grad program for numerous reasons. You aren't the first to do this so you should be fine. Just never bash the school you're leaving because new schools won't take kindly to that.
Who will recommend you? You need to think about who will write strong letters of recommendation for you when you apply elsewhere. I had my faculty in my first program write my recs and they did a good job. Committees will expect that most (or at least one) of your letter writers come from your current institution. Not having this can be a red flag for committees. So think about this carefully. Did you make deep connections with the faculty at your current institution to write a strong recommendation? If not, you may want to start now. 
Transferring? You aren't transferring. You are reapplying. Depending on the program you are accepted into, they may not care if you did a year or two years in your first Ph.D. program, in the sense that they won't let you transfer over credits... so essentially you may start over. With that said, it's good programs don't care because they won't be held against you! Graduate students leave their Ph.D. programs for a number of reasons. Just be confident and explain in your statement (and interview if asked) that your subfield is no longer being looked at within your current program so that is why you want to leave. So again, you aren't transferring. You are leaving your program and applying to another. Also, don't make it about you leaving, make it about your new institution and what they can offer you (and you them). 
Highly ranked programs? You mention this a lot. Why does this matter to you? Depending on the answer, it may or may not be as important as you think. You should focus on programs you can get into with your stats that have faculty that share your research areas. My new program is a top 30 school. It may not have been a top 10, but the resources and research, and external opportunities they have for my subfield make up for that. In addition, I don't want to be in academia, I prefer industry so research/job experiences are more important to me than a school's rank. If you want to be tenure track, I can see why you want to aim for the top 30s or even the top 20s. So just think hard about why high ranked.  
Apply between 10-50. Don't throw your eggs into one basket. You need to ask yourself did you as an applicant improve from your last cycle. If the answer is no, wait another year (become more exceptional). If the answer is yes, apply now but don't throw all your eggs in the top 10 or top 30 schools. Spread out between 10-50 only applying to schools with your subfield. If you get into the schools of your dream, that's amazing. If not, think long and hard because once you accept, you likely can not apply to another Ph.D. program in the future. It's unheard of to leave a Ph.D. program again for the second time to find your "best" fit. So just think long and hard. 

For those of you who are on the waitlist (me included), I was told that many admitted students will make their decisions between April 1 and April 15. Those who absolutely know their first choice will make a decision by the end of March. Hopefully, we will receive a status update during that window!! Even if it's not ideal, keep up the faith!

If you know they've sent rejections, it means you're application is indeed still under consideration and you're quite possibly a filler for the incoming class depending how many people initially accept their seats.  you're not out of the race, but you're not head of the pack.  this is both a good and a bad thing, good because you havn't been denied, bad because you're stuck in limbo.  I know for a fact one of the schools I applied for has sent acceptances and rejections, but I have not heard anything which means I'm still under consideration.
 
hope that helped

They probably have a certain number of seats they are looking to fill each year. If admitted students are accepting their offers, the school may send out more rejections, based on some sort of ranking/order. If students are declining/not deciding on their admission offers, they may hold onto applications before sending out rejections. Think of it as an informal wait list.

Yes, at least my U was always open to having Admits do a campus visit, regardless of when. And yes, you could get an offer of admission--with funding--close to April 15th, depending on how it goes. One year, someone had accepted early, then changed their mind, and an offer to one on the list was made after April 15th. It's rare, but it happens. Remember--this does not in any way mean you're not good enough. It means there was a very large pool of well-qualified candidates, and the committee had some hard decisions to make, and it just shook out the way that it did because the ones in the initial pool opted to go elsewhere.
Some of our best grad students were wait-listers... some have gone on to do very noteworthy things, award-winning things, bestseller things. So, wait-listers don't suck. Even if you're rejected from somewhere, it doesn't necessarily mean you suck, it just means that you and the program were determined to not be a good fit for each other. Sometimes you're rejected one year, reapply the next year, and get in via the initial round of offers.
It's a total crapshoot, in some ways. Some years, a popular program gets 200 applicants. Other years, that same program for some odd reason gets only 75 applicants. And even if it gets 75 applicants (if you're one, that's 74 competitors for, say, five spots), maybe the majority of them accept elsewhere. It's inexplicable. It's unpredictable and bizarre.
So, if a graduate degree is what you really want, don't let anything get you down. Keep the faith on up through April 15th. Hang in there, keep trying, if you don't make it this year, finesse your application materials and try again next year. It ain't over til it's over.

I can tell you why they do this. (Insider info.) They only send rejection letters right away to those they flat-out would never accept. If you didn't get rejected yet, it means you're still in the pool. After the committees rank the candidates, they send offers to the top however many (say five). Then they wait to see who accepts and who rejects them. It's a two-way street, both applicants and programs are playing the waiting game and both get accepted and rejected.
So say offers go out to the top five. Of those one is still waiting for their #1 to accept them, so they hold off on committing to #2's offer. Two of them reject the offer because their #1's already accepted them. Now there are two open slots for the cohort and one tentative and two who haven't bothered to respond either way. The committee moves down the list and sends out two more offers. Then waits to see if those two accept or decline.
From having worked on the programs side of things for awhile, I've seen years where programs got their top five right away and didn't go deep into the list, and years where they had to go so deep into the list that they considered reopening applications to allow more people to apply late, so they'd have enough to choose from because they'd made offers to 22 people who declined for various reasons, only had 30 in the pool to begin with, and if the "current" top five assembled after making all those offers didn't all commit, they'd be "short" for the cohort.
In other words, the TL:DNR version is, if you haven't gotten rejected right away, you have a chance up until April 15th. Even if you aren't in the top five first-round, you ARE still of the quality necessary to be considered for admission. Does it really matter if you were on their list at #30, if you got IN?
Still, it sucks to wait.

The whole problem with the apparent lackadaisical attitude towards rejects is that it is actually counterproductive, is it not? What exactly is involved in the whole 'wooing' process of admitted applicants? If this forum is any indication, many applicants are not going to make final decisions until they receive all, or most, of their notifications. The very fact of not sending rejections impedes the ability of admitted students to make decisions.

Just got accepted off the Rutgers "waitlist" with a funding package, so there is definitely movement going on there for everyone else currently waiting!
 

Don't give up if your name is on the waitlist! Openings will become available when candidates begin making their decisions next month. Keep in mind that candidates who receive numerous offers can only ultimately select one school. It's possible that you won't get a status update until the end of March or perhaps April. A waitlist option is better than a rejection!

Don't give up if your name is on the waitlist! Openings will become available when candidates begin making their decisions next month. Keep in mind that candidates who receive numerous offers can only ultimately select one school. It's possible that you won't get a status update until the end of March or perhaps April. A waitlist option is better than a rejection!

Don't give up if your name is on the waitlist! Openings will become available when candidates begin making their decisions next month. Keep in mind that candidates who receive numerous offers can only ultimately select one school. It's possible that you won't get a status update until the end of March or perhaps April. A waitlist option is better than a rejection!

Don't give up if your name is on the waitlist! Openings will become available when candidates begin making their decisions next month. Keep in mind that candidates who receive numerous offers can only ultimately select one school. It's possible that you won't get a status update until the end of March or perhaps April. A waitlist option is better than a rejection!

Don't give up if your name is on the waitlist! Openings will become available when candidates begin making their decisions next month. Keep in mind that candidates who receive numerous offers can only ultimately select one school. It's possible that you won't get a status update until the end of March or perhaps April. A waitlist option is better than a rejection!

Don't give up if your name is on the waitlist! Openings will become available when candidates begin making their decisions next month. Keep in mind that candidates who receive numerous offers can only ultimately select one school. It's possible that you won't get a status update until the end of March or perhaps April. A waitlist option is better than a rejection!

Don't give up if your name is on the waitlist! Openings will become available when candidates begin making their decisions next month. Keep in mind that candidates who receive numerous offers can only ultimately select one school. It's possible that you won't get a status update until the end of March or perhaps April. A waitlist option is better than a rejection!

Don't give up if your name is on the waitlist! Openings will become available when candidates begin making their decisions next month. Keep in mind that candidates who receive numerous offers can only ultimately select one school. It's possible that you won't get a status update until the end of March or perhaps April. A waitlist option is better than a rejection!

Don't give up if your name is on the waitlist! Openings will become available when candidates begin making their decisions next month. Keep in mind that candidates who receive numerous offers can only ultimately select one school. It's possible that you won't get a status update until the end of March or perhaps April. A waitlist option is better than a rejection!

It's pretty standard to include a signature that states the following:

Your Full Name
Master's or PhD Candidate, Program of Study, Expected Graduation Year (Optional)
Name of University and Graduate Program
Email Address
Other Contact Information (Phone, Web Address, etc.)

It's pretty standard to include a signature that states the following:

Your Full Name
Master's or PhD Candidate, Program of Study, Expected Graduation Year (Optional)
Name of University and Graduate Program
Email Address
Other Contact Information (Phone, Web Address, etc.)

I would also recommend checking out apartments in the surrounding Ann Arbor suburbs like Pittsfield Township and Ypsilanti if you are looking for affordable or budget-friendly options. I also believe the Ann Arbor public transit system is free to UM faculty and students. Please research if this is still the case.  

I work in industry. While a postdoc won't hurt you, it's certainly not necessary for the vast majority of non-academic positions. There are some non-academic positions that function pretty similarly to academic ones, and some of those might prefer a postdoc (think think tanks or policy institutes). But for the vast majority of non-academic jobs - especially if they are not research roles - not having done a postdoc is totally fine.
Second, if I want to gain industry experience while still in graduate school, what might be some recommended ways to go about it? My research focuses on questions of development in Latin America so I'm considering incorporating ethnographic fieldwork not only at my research site but with NGOs/development agencies working in my geographic area of interest to see another side of things. Would this be the best way to go about it or should I consider internships as well?
Both? This doesn't have to be an either/or; if you are considering non-academic careers, you should get any kind of industry experience you can in graduate school. Working with NGOs/nonprofits/other agencies while doing your fieldwork is an excellent way; you can build connections and demonstrate your research skills. I know several people in social sciences who have gotten non-academic jobs this way. But you should also consider internships as well.
Lastly, and maybe this is more personalized to different jobs/fields, but for any of you who are now working outside academia, do you feel that you're still able to do enough research, apply the skills you learned through your PhD, etc. in your non-academic position? 
It's definitely dependent on what you do. I'm a research manager at a tech company, and I definitely apply the skills I learned in my PhD - both the "hard skills" of statistics, research methodology, etc. and the "soft skills" of critical thinking, time management, planning and executing on a giant project, prioritization, communication, conflict resolution, etc. I would say that the latter set of "soft skills" has been FAR more important in the long run for my success here, and I actually work in a direct research role. I do less research myself now that I am a manager - I manage other researchers - but my research skills are still necessary so that I can advise them and direct their work for maximum impact. I also do research project planning that can be multi-year and cover large strategic areas of the business, so that research agenda planning that your PhD teaches you (perhaps indirectly) - that's super useful, too. Surprisingly, grant-writing was useful, too. Not because I write grants here, but because learning to budget what you need to get your work done and learning how to ask for money and resources that you need is a generally useful skill in business, and I now do that all the time.

If I could suggest with some more direct knowledge of this process:

1. You really need to go to a T18 school in Law.

2. There is literally no such thing as graduating in the top of your class at Yale because YLS grades are not convertible into a GPA and no rankings or graduation honors are given.  There is no such thing as graduating in the top 5% of your class at HLS because the highest distinction has a top 10% cut off.  And none of this matters because no one actually cares about your grades when applying to law teaching positions and you will not be asked to produce a transcript. Their only relevance is in securing clerkships and fellowships that are useful signals.

3. Clerking for a federal judge is nice but not necessary, a SCOTUS clerkship is rare and totally unnecessary (though would help if you have it).  

4. Literally no one care that you worked at biglaw and if you practice in biglaw for long enough to develop your area of expertise you will actually hurt your chances on the law teaching market for having been away from academia for too long and appearing to be a burt out senior associate.  

5. It is extraordinarily difficult to get a law teaching job without doing a post-JD teaching or research fellowship at a law school, it is essentially a prerequisite unlike a biglaw job (meaningless) or a clerkship (a signal of prestige but not essential).

6. It is impossible to get a law teaching job without publishing law review articles.

This statement is ridiculous. The emergence of education schools did not lead to a decline in educational quality. What caused the decline is a policy shift from an emphasis in access/achievement (in the 1960s and 1970s) to an emphasis in accountability and other controversial measures (since the 1980s) that continue to ignore three factors: poverty, institutional racism and structural inequality. As long as these so-called educators--ironically, many have little-to-no classroom experience--ignore these factors and continue their war against middle-class communities, little progress will occur in K-12 education.

I am an aspiring higher education professional, but even I can see the flaw in Simpson's statement.

Eigen raises a good point about the difference between PhD Student and PhD Candidate in the signature. However, I think it's totally fine for master's students to use the "candidate" in his or her signature since program lengths are generally much shorter (less than three years).

If you rent the textbook, you must return it in similar condition. When you buy the textbook, you can write notes and highlight inside it since it belongs to you. If you plan to re-sell it, it's best to leave it in like new or very good condition (minimal highlighting) for optimal resale price.