The_Epicure

According tho the folks over at orgtheory, program prestige is the most important factor, with some nuances: http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/how-to-choose-a-graduate-program/

Your comment made me look into this and I learned something new. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalous_Society

Yea, my point was that a top school might get you a tenure track job. I'm hugely pessimistic. I didn't mean to make it sound secure. Edit: Sorry if you were talking about this: "If those statistics are correct, fantastic, we'll all get tenure track jobs." I was more being facetious, which doesn't always come through online.

If those statistics are correct, fantastic, we'll all get tenure track jobs. You can quote the ASA all day, but I'll remain skeptical.

The ASA also has a bias to try and paint as rosy of a picture of the sociology job market as possible. Those statistics are vastly different from what I have heard from people in the field. Trying to pretend like the job market is good is not going to help you upon graduation.

Hey everybody, I appreciate the feedback, and I have some responses/ additions, although I stand by most of what I said. With regards to my "freedom to do research quote" I agree that I over generalized. There are always a million limiting factors that play into the research you are able to do. I was speaking more in terms of the long run. If I am able to get tenure somewhere someday, it will allow me a great deal more academic freedom. With regards to the hubbub on elitism, I am speaking from a purely pragmatic standpoint. I want to get a tenure track job after getting my PhD, and that is incredibly hard to do right now. Going to a top ranked institution (and working as hard as I can while there) increases the odds of that happening. Also, my interests are broad enough right now that I felt comfortable applying to a few different top ranked programs. If you want to specialize in something specific, then that is certainly a reason to shoot for a specific program, but I am not willing to pigeonhole myself into a topic this early in my career. The "Historical Comparative Economic sociology" definition is about as specific as I want to get. I'm sorry if I offended anybody, but I stand by what I said. It is an incredibly competitive market out there. I would say the the top 30 sociology programs graduate 300-350 PhDs every year, and there are simply not 300-350 tenure track openings in sociology departments every year. I don't have any stats to back that up, but I would be surprised if I am wrong. If your goal is to land a tenure track job, you need to go to as prestigious of a school as possible, work as hard as you can, and get lucky. Edit: Also, the comment from my professors about "top ten schools" came when they asked me what I wanted to do with a PhD, and I said get tenure at a school, so I do have a specific process in mind that somewhat qualifies that statement.

@Sociolog86 I'm sure there are exceptions, but sociologists themselves find the prestige of a school matters a whole lot when being hired. All three of my letter of recommendation professors told me, with no uncertainty, that unless I could get into a Top 10 program with funding, they could not in good conscious recommend going to graduate school in sociology in the state it is in now. Thankfully, it worked out for me. I want to have absolute freedom to do my research, write books, and publish articles, and for me, that means going to a top tier grad school, and being adequately prepared for the even tougher crapshoot that is the hiring process after graduate school. Idealism aside, I fully intend to make a career out of sociology, and I plan on doing everything I can to make that happen, within reason. Doing an unfunded masters at any level, and then doing an unfunded Phd is, to me, ludicrous. I love the research I do, but I would never go into crippling debt for it. As I have been told, if you can not get somebody to pay you to do something, then that is a clue it should remain a hobby. I realize people have different aspirations, and every case is different, but I think many, many applicants need a healthy dose of realism when approaching the application process for graduate school in sociology. I am very glad I had professors who, early in my undergraduate career, told me what I needed to do to get into a top graduate school and explained what I should expect when approaching sociology as a profession

I got into UCLA as well. I was sulking about my 3 rejections on Monday while watching storage wars, and suddenly I'm going out with friends to celebrate. Very excited.

"It's pronounced Vay-Ber."

Yea, my gut tells me that was it.

How so? Every school I applied to required it.

In my opinion, and I could be wrong on this, the writing sample is by far and away the most important part of the application. Not only is it the application committee's chance to see your potential for academic research, but you get 20 or so whole pages to prove why you should be accepted. The method I took when writing my statement of purpose was maybe 2 sentences on future research, backed up by 20 pages of writing sample proving I could do it. The entire last paragraph of my writing sample explained where I wanted to take the research in the future. The way I think about my application is that the statement of purpose will get the admission committee to take a closer look at my writing sample, and my recommendations will verify how much work went into the research behind the writing sample. When I imagine the admissions process in my head, I see the GPA, GRE, and statement of purpose as the initial round stuff that will get you a closer look, I see the writing sample as the evidence that you belong there, and I see the recommendations as the proof that legitimate and independent research went into the writing sample. Once again, this is just my opinion. How do you think the process works? The goal of this is really just to get a discussion going. I see so much focus on GREs and GPAs when I don't think that should be the focus at all. In my opinion, a perfect GRE and GPA is neither necessary nor sufficient for acceptance into any school, whereas proof of potential for research is both necessary and sufficient for acceptance. Let me know what you think.