mv0027

No worries on changing the topic. Nobody else is going to reply Happy to hear that though. Haven't taken the GRE yet, but I'm pretty confident I'll do well. I plan to take it as many times as needed to get at least a 780 on the quant part. If not, my narrative is debunked.

Never talked to my undergrad professors. Talked to a several of my grad professors. They all encouraged me to apply. I told them I didn't have a strong undergrad background but I never felt like they really understood the extent of it because they only knew me if via their courses and experiences. We didn't really talk about specifics though (what my gpa was, what school I wanted to go to, etc). The vibe I got was TAing the courses I was TAing would be my ticket in. The TA before me (though she had a very different background) ended up going to Yale and got into everywhere she applied. I tend to disagree with the professionalization point, could be off on that though. My masters is actually in IR (the subfield I want to pursue along with methods) from a "professional" school. While that isn't viewed as favorable, I think they will appreciate some of the skills (namely, wicked stata programming skills) I picked up, as well as the field research methods stuff. At least at where I was (UCSD) the general vibe is that the field as a whole is moving in the applied direction. They don't want people that can write long narratives, but people that can crunch numbers and run regressions. That is just based on the vibe I got from one school though.

I don't buy that schools have automatic cut-offs. Sure, some stats are unredeemable, but I think adcoms are intelligent enough to look at candidates holistically. Esp when they are older (I'll be 26 when I apply). Obviously, if you are straight out of undergrad there are cut off, but that's because they have nothing else to go off. My grad GPA was a 3.45 (at a school which is hard on grading), and I TAed two master-level quantatative methods courses (which many of the pol sci PhDs actually enroll in). If profs are not willing to think-out-side-the-box enough to consider these things...we should question whether we want to spend 5 to 6 years working with these "geniuses." Regardless, I'll apply to one or two lower-ranked (like top 20-40) programs. I want to do research, but I'd be happy to end up working at a teaching-focused institution as well.

I plan to apply to PhD programs to start in 2013. I currently work as a research analyst at a very well-respected think-tank in DC. Does that help my application significantly? I'm hoping it does because I plan to apply to top schools, with pretty low stats.

Oh, and my rec letters would come from a top development economist, a decent financial economist, and a leading pol sci guy in stats/methods. I TAed a quantitative methods courses for two of them, so the letters should be pretty personal. Is not having a sociology professor a big problem?

I have a background in economics (international econ, actually). I’m interested in getting a PhD in sociology and focusing on economic sociology. I was under the assumption that my econ background (lots of statistics/methods stuff) would be a huge plus in the application process. However, I have ZERO sociology classes in either my undergrad or masters. I don’t plan to apply until next year (to start in 2013). Do I need to worry about taking a sociology class before then?