sciencegirl

I would second @jenjenjen.... Stanford's site is also very specific about not contacting anyone, and I got in despite not having any contact with anyone there. I think the important question to ask/answer here though is not whether or not you got a reply back or an inquisitive response, but maybe OP is wondering if contacting a POI actually led directly to an acceptance (in someone's opinion). I've seen a few postings on the board here where a POI has e-mailed a rejection or WL back... or people have had what they think to be a great POI contact, only to lead to a rejection. Thoughts? @thisslum always makes me laugh! his/her posting of the madlibs POI e-mail template looks totally hilarious in they way its posted.

Hahahaha - Stanford and Berkeley are the same days! @jenjenjen... now they are making things *really* complicated for you. You can't really graciously split the time between them, can you? "Sorry I need to excuse myself.. I'm going to your arch rival's admit event right now.."

Hahahaha - I love how the post intended to "not be UCLA" is turning out to be the UCLA thread. Anyone want to make one? I think they might be one of the last schools we hear from. @SocialGroovements... so, I feel terribly lucky right now.. I basically almost didn't apply to Stanford for 1. fear of rejection, 2. the first app due in late November and I didn't feel "ready" to apply yet, 3. the fee is like $130 I think. I remember spending a day or two ready to back out of the application and talking myself into why I shouldn't apply. Then a good friend was like "Stop obsessing and just do it. They accept credit cards. And you will never know if you just don't apply" It's my first acceptance so far and OMG.. I can't even imagine now what would have happened if I didn't apply, especially if I wind up going there (which seems like a good possibility for me at this moment). I definitely owe my friend at least a drink!

did the rejections all come in a blanket e-mail/at the same time? maybe they have an informal wait list and are holding off on a few people? does anyone who got a rejection e-mail want to help @panasic and share time and form of e-mail?

@dizzidawn.. CONGRATS! I know you seemed so frustrated a few months back about the process and I'm so happy that you are have success! Any program would be lucky to have you given the amount of comeback you've shown!

It's really hard to say... my guess is that they probably made the final decision by Friday and devoted yesterday to notifying people since there were 4-5 admits on the board? But then again, notifying and sending out all acceptances in one day might be a lot of work and it will be somewhat staggered over the next few days? @socscholar... that's what my e-mail said too which I thought was really high for a cohort target.. which is why I might have thought that they meant to say they had a target admit cohort of 14.. (since immediately after they talked about how hard it was to choose candidates...) but a target of 14 incoming seems awfully high and much higher than in all the years past.. which led me to think that they meant they had a target of 14 admits as opposed to a target of incoming 14 (which means they would have to admit 15-25?).. thoughts?

The other qualitative person that probably gets the same overwhelming attention there would be Christine Williams.. probably some of the randomness of the UT admissions this year would be the qualitative/ethnography oriented faculty having too many students/responsibilities.

I'm glad my info is helpful @sociology27. I've been obsessing over this grad school thing a lot so I sometimes feel like my postings here a big waste of time and no one cares and its all a form of therapy for me One more thing about USC that I thought was interesting, was that some of their recent hires have been in the "superstar" full professor category - which often takes 2-3 times as much money than hiring an assistant professor. It shows a real commitment by USC to beef up their sociology department to be able to throw 200K into full professor lines into a department in this economy.

That seems like a really small cohort they are aiming for... wow. My guess is the budget crisis and funding. I think Stanford either wants a cohort size of or offered 14-15 admits (wasn't sure exactly from the wording of the e-mail).. out of about 200 applications.. never would have thought Berkeley would have a lower admission % rate than Stanford. So weird, since I almost didn't submit my application to Stanford thinking that it would be impossible to get in, but thought Berkeley would be easier. (roughly 7.5% vs 5.5%) I guess many of the public schools have decided that their way of dealing with the budget crisis is to make sure all their admitted students have funding/faculty resources, but need to shrink the size of their department esp. with the cohort size in order to do this.

Interesting forum... regarding the UC schools, I had done a lot of research into UCLA's program and it appears they are well positioned with the budget crisis, as their department had really planned for a downturn. In regards to being able to retain and hire faculty, they seem to have done a good job over the last few years, being able to actually hire new faculty and not having their superstars poached. Also, I'm going to venture on a limb here and say that I can't think of another program that has had better placement during the economic downturn/last 5 years: 2 placements at Chicago, 2 at UW Madison, and then others at Columbia, Michigan, Brown, Boulder, Yale, UCI, USC.. among others.. (I think its hard to judge if its "the most/best placement" though since some other programs don't list their placements as orderly and prominently as their website). Another program that I think will really rise in the rankings would be USC... they were ranked 39 overall in 2009 by USNWR, but were ranked 3 in the area of gender.. but they have since been on a faculty hiring spree thanks to a recent $200 million grant to their hum/soc science school. Something like 7 new professors will be added since 2010? I know they hired 3-4 new professors in the sociology program since they got this grant in 2010, and they are currently in a search for 3 more tenure track positions right now according to their website. Who the heck does that in the great recession? If you are focusing on migration/immigration, and/or gender, it's an incredibly great program already. And I would venture to say that give it 5-10 more years, is probably going to strengthen its other fields and rise quite dramatically from #39 in the next few ranking cycles. I would also to venture to say that Berkeley's lock on number 1 is probably ending soon.. anecdotally, I've heard that they are having a surprisingly hard time in the budget crisis and are facing a series of retirements that won't have the money to back up replacing them with equal stature superstars. For instance, I believe Barrie Thorne is retiring soon, but finding an assistant professor to replace her in the area of gender would be near impossible with the money they've been allotted. They only have 31 ladder in their department right now (compare that to 38 for UCLA, and 61 for UW Madison) - which was very surprising for me to learn when I was comparing all of them. Anyway, those are my two cents... as I mentioned before I had a strong desire to move to California so I did a lot more research on the schools there. I didn't hear the best things about UCI actually (but if you are interested, PM-me). And ironically the school I did the least amount of research on was Stanford which I can now consider as an option (still in shock)... I was of course online all day yesterday researching their department.. I can't figure out how their recent grad placement has been (slight concern). I also wonder somewhat how they retain their top-5 ranking (where Yale is "top-20"). I guess they do have their superstars in social psychology and political sociology/social movements. My parents also wondered if silicon valley sucks up their top graduates for $$ careers in consulting which is why they don't advertise placement as much on their website. These are my thoughts on the California schools I looked into...

immigration/migration, social stratification, social psychology mostly.. though my research encompasses a broad swath of fields... and is interdisciplinary as well. My background is actually in American Studies and Ethnic Studies. Re: the Berkeley thing.. I probably didn't get in anyway, but my thoughts would be funding, and larger cohorts may also mean that you get lost among other students more and have less time with faculty who have to oversee more students.. I had a few conversations with some grad students at various programs I applied to... there was a very lukewarm response from the Cal student I spoke with.. there was some grumbling about funding and the lack of the program being able to hire more professors to replace some that have retired or will be retiring soon.. again, the budget/funding thing. But I agree that it isn't a clear cut decision - rankings wise the two are pretty up there. And honestly, I'm not even worried about it, since I finally got into a program and it happens to be Stanford. whew!

@panasic... I venture to say you have better "stats" than mine: 650V, 750Q, 3.7GPA. Part of the reason I'm surprised about the admit is because while the scores are good, I've seen many posters here with higher GRE scores and 3.9 GPAs etc. I think there is a cut-off rule with these things with the elite level programs, and that past a certain point, the SOP and "other" are more important than "stats". I re-read my SOP this afternoon, and realized reading it in hindsight after not looking at it for 2 months, that it was to my surprise well-written, focused and edited well (I spent 3-4 months working on it, and workshopped it with friends and advisors quite a bit)... of course I could read it now with a sense of relief knowing that the adcom had liked it. And yes, it was a really pleasant somewhat personal e-mail. The school really knows how to make you feel special (blush). Did you hear anything back yet? I'm still perplexed by Berkeley. Nothing from them - though at this point, I'm pretty sure I'd pick Stanford over Berkeley anyway if I happened to get in there (unless someone else thinks otherwise for some reason and that I should consider Berkeley over Stanford.. I did notice more people had it as their top choice/dream school).

I would second the idea of placing research in front of diversity/personal for the SOP, but it seemed that 30% of the schools asked for an additional diversity/background statement. In my main SOP, my "background" was the last paragraph.. I led with my proposed and past research.

congrats socscholar!!! Yes.. I saw the e-mail in my inbox and started freaking out there since it basically just read "Stanford doctoral admission" in the subject line. And yeah, we will know about funding details next week but it seems as if its going to be pretty unbeatable.. they've already guaranteed 5 years no tuition, years 1 and 5 on a fellowship and 2,3,4 combo TA/RA, with 3 years guaranteed summer... they are a pretty loaded private so I'm curious as to how it compares to others. had not even thought about moving to the bay area... @socscholar, so you think its your top choice right now? Its hard for me at this point to not think how it doesn't move into that spot...

lol.. @giacomo.. actually I was one of those from the results board that got an acceptance e-mail and don't really know how to react. It's a bit of a shocker since I had assumed that I was a no-go from Berkeley which then snowballed into my insecurity about not getting into UCLA.. which led to all sorts of weird feelings of rejection last week even though I haven't received any rejections yet. Anyway, I was hoping that others would chime in first since I honestly feel really weird getting in. I had set my sights on UCLA as my top choice thinking that this was a reasonable goal. So I did not think that I would make the Stanford cut, hence I hadn't even considered the program seriously. I've been trying to get work done all day but in a weird state of shock.... so I hope this doesn't come off as bragging.

yes... a bunch of e-mail acceptances went out today...

@badone.. I think the idea that there is a "safety" school is a bit of a misnomer... I think it has a lot more to do with match. Being interviewed at a top program means that you are super competitive. And you also applied to a ton of places.. was Indiana your top choice? If not, I think you should chin up a bit and keep thinking that a better school might let you in (without having to sweat an interview).

I think USC generally has small cohorts of 4-5... I heard though that they have really great funding, between $22-30K. I didn't hear many on the forum apply though - does wannabeaphd want to fill us in on who/how they know someone in the department? maybe start a USC thread?

you probably will have to compete for summer teaching gigs that pay like $2000-3000 a class... what my friends have told me about funding at the public schools.. @chuck.. you seemed really excited about madison.. not your first choice though? What other places are you waiting to hear from?

@Chuck - and I read that Madison was $14,000 a year? That's really significant... What about Duke? I honestly think the two biggest differences might be size of program (publics are a bit bigger) and then funding.. the latter would concern most people I think if the difference was over $10,000... that's basically rent for the year.

@Supernovasky... yay!! Now you are learning... I think with all challenges you have faced/are facing, it shouldn't be hard to get your application fees waved at man places...

Yeah - I'm curious about this part a lot... what the funding packages seem to be this year and what is considered "amazing" vs just "ok"

What are we talking here in terms of "good" funding packages... what have people heard so far?

I am also wondering the same about Berkeley... it seems that when notifications all come by "uniform/standardized e-mail" - all the acceptances, rejections and WLs go out around the same time.. but then when acceptances happen by phone call or personal e-mail, things get a bit out of whack. However, it does seem weird to me that with so many of us applying to Berkeley, there would be a few automated WL e-mails, then one personalized e-mail for an acceptance, but then suddenly nothing else. Perhaps that one acceptance was it though. But yes, I'm wondering the same if there are a few waves or committees where the applications were broken up into areas of interest with separate committees? Or there really only was 1 acceptance to Cal out of all of us this time around. One way to further be obsessive is to ask the people who were WL at Berkeley what their interests were and if they were about political sociology/org theory/social movements, or if the WL group's interests were random. This might give us a clue as to if they are admitting/making decisions in waves by interest/areas of study, or if they have more or less finished with everything.

@SocHope... lol.. that is totally obsessive... and probably not out of the realm of reality for many of us right now!