maximus82

I had a someone "adopt" my application last year at a very good program. I didn't have the best GRE scores and my GPA was good, but not from the best school ever. However, I did have a LOR from a guy who went to gradschool with one of the committee members.. and they happened to be very good friends (i didn't know this when i applied). So this guy in the committee was like "If my friend wrote such a good letter for X person, X person must be a really good student and deserves to get into school". And so I made it all the way to the top of the waitlist. I am not the biggest fan of numbers and stats, but I know that they matter (especially the quantitative scores) in terms of funding. Some schools don't like to fund people with bad or mediocre quantitative scores. It isn't that the department doesn't like your application or anything, but that the University isn't willing to invest all that money on someone who didn't do so well in the only standardized part of the application. It sucks, but the social scientist in me understands that if you have 200 files and only one thing is standard in all of them, you're going to pay a little bit of attention to it. btw: congratulation on the Columbia admission.

Congratulations!

Congratulations! Princeton is one of my top choices, it is truly an amazing program. It looks like you have a tough decision to make in the next couple of months.

LOL ME TOO!!! and checking my spam folder every 5 seconds

Someone posted an acceptance. Does anyone want to share the good news?

I am an international. Last year I received my 2 rejections and 2 waitlists at the same time as everyone else. So far this year, I feel like I was one of the first people to get the one acceptance i've gotten. I think the only difference is when the school you're applying to does rejections by postal mail. If you live outside the US that might make a difference. Other than that, there's no reason why you would have to wait more for the notice.

UPenn usually notifies later, and it just seems strange that the notices came the same day as some of the Penn State notices. Since some people didn't like my previous post about this let me clarify something: I don't come off as being elitist or anything like that. UPenn and Penn State are both very good soc departments, but they're very good in different things. They're also very different schools. I don't think one department is better than the other. I do apologize if i offended anyone.

Did someone really get into UPenn already or is this someone else confusing UPenn with Penn State? No offense, but if you don't know the difference between UPenn and Penn State (and their extremely different sociology department, not to mention Philly vs. State College) you shouldn't be applying there. By the way, congratulations to the Columbia acceptances and to my fellow IU people.

I think that in sociology, as in most other graduate programs, the first year or so is going to be so packed with the "basics" that it doesn't really matter whether or not you took the classes before or not. The important thing is that you can "think sociologically". I personally majored in sociology, but I've been out of school long enough (and some of my classes sucked) that it is almost as if I hadn't. So I could use a little refresher or two.

Congratulations to everyone else! I'm glad so many people are getting acceptances right now. It feel incredible!

Acceptance from Indiana!

I'm in!!!!

Hey, at least you have one acceptance! I have nothing!

Since notices should start coming out soon I figured it would be helpful to start this topic. Feel free to post here about your interests, background, etc. I'll start by saying that I am interested in the Sociology of Religion, Migration and migration adaptation, and population change in latin america. Princeton is one of my top choices and although I don't think I'm the most qualified student to go there, I have my fingers crossed. Who knows, maybe I'll end up in NJ after all the bad things i've said about it (no offense to anyone). cheers and good luck to everyone.

Thanks to both of you. I know that the Stats game doesn't really provide the most useful information. I ask for two reasons: 1) I think that for some people who didn't graduate from top private/public universities, and who might not have letters from known professors, stats are useful (that's my case.. since I didn't go to a prestigious school I had to rely on my GPA and GRE scores). 2) I also ask because I'm starting to thing that the people who visit this forum tend to be some of the better candidates. I find it hard to believe that we are representative of the overall pool of applicants. So I wanted some evidence for my hypothesis. Anyways, congratulations.

Congratulations to the 2 UCSD admits. Do you guys care to share your stats?

I'm doing this for the second time. Last year I got rejected from two programs and waitlisted at other two. Obviously those two waitlists didn't result in anything. Not only do I feel like this year things are quieter, but I also feel like the wait is more painful...

I am starting to think that the person who posted the UPenn admission made a mistake and was really a Penn State admission. Does anybody want to prove me wrong?

I'm not applying to any of the UC schools but I had the opportunity to talk to someone from the cultural studies at UC Berkeley. She told me they are admitting less students, but the funding is still the same. A week later a read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that said graduate students are very cheap labor, and that's why schools wouldn't survive without them. That's why funding for graduate students is usually one of the last things to go away at some schools.

I know there was already a topic for Duke form last year but I figured we start a new one for 2010. If last year's acceptances are an indication, then we should hear from them some time next week. Good luck to everyone!

Hey, I don't know if it will be the same for you... but, I basically talked to the DGS about my academic and personal history and how I became interested in the Sociology of Religion. We also talked about how I would benefit from Indiana, and how Indiana compared to some of the other schools I had applied to. I asked a couple of questions, she answer them (I regret not asking more questions, but whatever), and we talked about how two of my college professors were IU grads. The DGS is one of the nicest people I have talked to (and I talk to many many sociologists every day)... So, my advice is simple: 1) know who you'd like to work with and know they're stuff 2) Have questions (perhaps you can find out when they'll be making decisions, the size of the cohort, etc... all the things I forgot to ask) 3) relax and be yourself This is of course coming from someone who hasn't gotten in... but I felt really good after the interview and I have my fingers crossed. I hope I get in. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

yeah, congratulations to those two admits. oh god... i'm nervous

Good luck to you! it would be weird if we were competing for the same spot.

I know that a bunch of people applied to IU, so i figured I start a topic. I'll start by saying that at least one person got an interview (so did I, but I never post it in the results page). My phone interview took place Monday morning and I think it went pretty well. Now I just have to wait.

It's been kind of slow in here for a couple of days... So I thought I say something... Is anyone else really freaking tired of waiting?