sciencegirl

OK - so I am thinking that we got punked with this... unless someone would like to step up and claim the U of C acceptance I am under the inclination that someone was just playing a prank on the board. Oddly too, there is now only just one acceptance on the board, not 2... one of them got deleted. I realized after looking at the post on acceptance dates, that Chicago acceptances are normally mid-March.. their apps were also due Dec 10... so somehow, a top program was able to come to agreement out of hundreds of applications in 3 weeks during the holidays/end of semester to admit a small part of their incoming class on Jan 3. Seems really fishy to me. Especially since we haven't heard more acceptances or from the person claiming the admit. Bueller? Bueller?

@SocHope Immigration? Gender? Not sure the connections between them are but maybe its a big duh and I'm not seeing it...

@TSISV hahahaha - same thing happened to me when I saw the e-mail from them - then realized it was fellowship info. Weird how there are two supposed acceptances on the board, and neither one is claiming them here. It seems that at least one of them applied super early (they waive the fee if you apply before Nov 15.) Maybe this is their version of early action and they are doing an early round of acceptances for those that applied early? Or maybe just one advisor who might be gone/out of the country this quarter and wants to do her/his admit stuff as early as possible.

Hey all, my older sister got her MFA in photography from a top California school a few years back... over the holidays I showed her this forum (I'm applying to phD programs in a completely different field right now)... and she was shocked about this online forum thing as she didn't have this when she applied in the early 2000s. She's staying with me for a few more days and volunteered to give advice to people if needed - we figured for anonymity reasons, people can just message me here and I'll have her answer. She now teaches studio art at a liberal arts college and has her own budding art career so she stressed keeping private.. however, she felt bad about the lack of solid advice from people who have successfully gone through the process. She had no idea that this forum existed and doubts her colleagues teaching MFA programs know of this either. She also thought some of the advice here could be stronger. Anyway, might be too late now to help, but she'd be happy to lend a hand and to answer questions from her experience.

@tt503 To adequately answer you original question, I think you are a strong candidate, but apply broadly and widely... the only real negative is the below 3.0 ugpa. You will need to have one of your LOR address this, IMHO, and maybe even address it *briefly* near the end of your SOP. If Wisconsin is your dream program, I would try to make contact with some people in the program somehow.. start with grad students, friends of friends of friends... or meet them at a conference, grad students whose interests intersect with yours. Make a good impression on them. If they think you are a strong candidate, they may provide you with an introduction to some faculty there. Do well on the GRE's, but don't treat them as a golden ticket. @Jacib from last year's forum was really illuminating to read about... and perhaps you might be in a situation where you apply to many of the top 20 programs, but get into only a few, or 1 -- and as long as that 1 program is your dream program, you are all set I would not worry about not being from a strict Sociology background. I am actually not from one per se (I have more a double major Science/American Studies background). I don't consider this a weakness -- and just played up my strengths instead in my SOP.

@mf3000 Thanks so much for the advice - and after wavering on the application, I've decided to apply thanks to the wonderful advice from all of you here on the board. I actually spent the weekend with my parents who were mixed on applying to Yale... they are in California and are pushing me to move there so they are completely biased of course I also have an interest in visual ethnographic methods - but have somewhat downplayed it, probably for the same reasons you have. But a qualitative program is important. Weird how the whole process is almost over.. I think I'm on this forum almost every other day now since I'm going through application withdrawal or something. Strange to suddenly have free time.

I agree about the "higher bar" part - but it also depends if OP is moving from a different field into Sociology, or staying in Sociology (perhaps the advice given to @shibboleth was if you are staying within the field of Soc from undergrad, taking a lot of time off in Soc. research and now applying to Soc phD programs). My guess is that if you are moving from another field, you need to show some excellence there, but more importantly, frame why you are moving into Soc. Over the last few months of applying, I met a few "older" students, and one came from law (a JD degree) and another came from a journalism masters... both didn't have too much Soc. research but their work in their respective former fields showed promise for Sociology. I asked them about having "Soc. papers" published - neither did, but were able to frame their applications successfully to convince the adcoms about their move. It seems that OP doesn't come from Sociology (As the MA and MS are in "historical" and "social science" fields, but my guess is that neither is strict sociology per se) - and this probably makes a difference about the importance of their publishing record.

Hey tt503, I think a high GRE score would help, but I think anything in the 80th or 90th percentile is a great score. It almost seems like what you are thinking of is trying to ace the test with perfect 170s which IMHO is just a waste of energy and very self-defeating. My big fear with your approach is that you are going to think your entire application depends on acing this one test to "make up" for your GPA, and in reality, a good GRE score won't cancel the other out. (This isn't a law school app where they have formulas that add your GPA with your LSAT score, where a low score on one needs a high number on the other) A better approach might be to just address the low GPA head on in your SOP - near the end of it, or to see if one of you letter writers can address it. The time off from undergrad will really help set some distance. Also, try to get to know some of the graduate students in some of the programs you want to get into.. and maybe they will have better advice.. perhaps they sat in on an adcom meeting where a low GPA came up with an applicant, and what this person did to mitigate this.

I'm going to chime and say that you are certainly competitive - but again, nothing is certain, and the low undergrad GPA is annoyingly something that will stick with you... was it below a 3.0? If so, things might be really difficult since for many top schools you will need an exception granted or something like that (a friend of mine had a below 3.0 GPA and was applying to the UC schools for a humanities phD. A program accepted him but had to jump through some administrative hoops to get him in. The thing that will make you stand out (hopefully in a good way) is the time off from UG, and why you are now applying... what are the reasons? It seems that religion is the one constant in your academic interests.. was it just finding the right framework for what you are interested in? What are your goals? Is it research or teaching? I believe many of the public schools - even the top ones such as Wisconsin - are more realistic goals than the Ivy's, only because your chances are better.. doesn't Wisconsin/Berkeley/UCLA accept around 20-40 a year, while Harvard/Princeton/Stanford might not take more than 10? The public schools just have larger cohorts and may be more inclined to balance their classes with students not just out of UG.

@allhandsonthebadone I can't imagine that applying to as many schools as you are (though all in the top 20 right?) you wouldn't get into a handful of them.. unless you are being totally unrealistic about your stats. I think the process though is a bit weird when applying to the top programs.. it does seem that a handful of applicants become sort of "top choice" recruits: these people get into a bunch of programs with great funding - then there is a second tier that will either wind up on WLs or get into one or two of the top programs with ok or bad funding, and then there are a few posters who didn't get into any programs. The weird thing though is that the separation between the three categories is hard to figure out since we don't have all the information (SOP, GPA, undergrad schools, GRE) that is needed -- and truthfully, I think it comes down to the SOP. I spoke with a few phD candidates who had sat on some committees for their top 10 programs who shared with me that so much of it was the SOP. They also stressed the importance of the first page of the SOP. It makes sense, if you have a hundred applications, you aren't going to be able to read all the SOPs, and you probably will read the first page, see if it the candidate hooks you in, and then decide if you want to continue with the rest of the app. I think your research experience is what you make of it and its the quality not the quantity - and probably more important is the research you want to do in graduate school and how interesting and well prepared you are for it, not what you have done in the past. Anyway, perhaps this info would have been more important a few months ago -- but its all stuff I learned myself in the process. I actually didn't meet or interact with many professors/POI, but e-mailed their graduate students and engaged with them instead. They seemed to be really accommodating and gave me great advice, and I felt that this was more beneficial than trying to get the brief attention of star professors. I also got a bit freaked out in the process when a graduate student shared with me that her advisor often weeded out applicants through e-mail exchanges and meetings.. that she would engage with potential students to gauge fit and interest, and most of the time, the potential students would strike out. The lesson here was that meeting or contacting a POI can be both beneficial and detrimental. Being a bit on on the shy side, and already kind of intimidated by everything, I didn't reach out to profs at every school (though through their graduate students, I did interact with profs from 3 schools. and these interactions were really organic and came from a referral instead of a blind e-mail so I felt better about it). Sorry for all this info coming so late. I guess I'm now on break and have all this free time!

@allhandsonthebadone Thanks for the advice.. you are right. It's a very solid program and I think I just need to muster up the energy to fire up one more shot (and one that is more qual. than many other programs). I already spent over $ on sending GREs and my LORs spent time sending in their part. Their app is due Jan 1 so I'll tackle it after the Christmas weekend. Even though I'm only changing a paragraph really for each school, it takes up so much mental work. My guess is that most of you tailored your apps to each school? (There was a discussion forum on this already started by @avee I think). The person who compared this process to serial dating was totally correct...

@TSISV You are right, I think Yale would be great for religion - not sure about my interests though.. trying to hear why other people are applying there.. I have read here about how they are rebuilding the program there after almost shutting it down a few decades ago. On the other hand, there are also a lot of postings from last year's forum about people really wanting to go to Yale, and I'm trying to just get a better sense of their program. Perhaps its the fact that its in New Haven that is making me shudder a bit (the rest of my schools are all in fairly urban settings - except for Palo Alto).

I think everyone has honestly. In fact, my recommender who was late is ironically also on her school's own admissions committee... and I think because there is this unsaid grace period for almost all schools, overworked profs sometimes use it when the end of semester work needs more attention than LOR. 2 days will be perfectly acceptable.

Hey Joe, I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. It sounds like you know that your only one weakness is the GRE's and that financially things seem to be difficult. The GRE offers a low-income waiver for those that qualify. Research this and try to get the low income waiver. If you qualify for the low-income GRE waiver, then a lot of schools will also waive their application fee. Also, if you and/or dizzidawn happen to be first generation college students (ie, your parents and grandparents did not graduate from college), this is perhaps one of the most important areas of diversity for graduate programs right now. (Studies have shown that first generation college students are highly underrepresented in graduate programs - and many sociologists are well aware of this, so programs make extra efforts to encourage such students). The most important thing, IMHO, is to not mentally let down. So much about academic success, particularly standardized tests, is to not give up mentally. If you already go into the GRE's thinking that everyone has spent $1500 on prep tests (I spent $40 total on two prep books), you won't give yourself a fighting chance to do well. Get that stuff out of your head and believe that you will succeed. Do that Oprah thing where you visualize yourself doing well: imagine getting into graduate school and finishing with flying colors, and keep that mindset as you pursue your goals. Work hard and do your best and don't defeat yourself before you even start.

@mf3000 interesting how our interests are really similar, I'd add social inequality to the mix for my interests - and why do you keep visual soc quiet? It seems that it is a less studied field/methodology and in today's world of topics that seem overstudied (I'd add that my own interests in gender seem to now feel overstudied), advantages would seem to go towards those interested in areas that are not studied as frequently. My list so far: Princeton, Northwestern, Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and USC. I may back out of applying to Yale. I'm burnt out, would almost rather spend the $100 on holiday gifts for my family, and not sure about their reputation in Soc. Thoughts from those applying to Yale on this?

I think USC is really changing rapidly right now... I'm not a USC student, but I have some friends who are in various doctoral programs there. Part of their very recent change is that they just got a $200 million grant from the Dornsife family to improve the humanities and social science programs, and they have been throwing huge funding packages (free tuition and $30,000 stipends) at their top graduate students, basically poaching them away from other top programs. The climate there is also changing fast as the college has been recruiting top faculty and are in the process of expanding a lot of their departments. In today's competitive application climate, no school in the top 30 is a safe bet really (just look at the admissions forum here). I think OP's dilemma is hard to solve... you want to find a safety school that is also known in UK/Europe.. problem is that an American safety school implies a 2nd tier status that would be hard to translate into worldwide recognition. You'll have to give up one part for the other.

Yes, I will agree that its nice to have more action on this board.. I was lurking for a few months (also feverishly working on my apps) and then sad that this board was sort of dead so I figured I'd just chime in a lot more here. I usually try to stay off such boards but it seems that this will give me something to do now that almost all but one (Yale) of my apps are done. (And I almost want to save myself the $100 and not apply there.. a bit burnt out by the process right now). Also - I do want to add that $55,000 is a very good salary for many living in the US right now (with our unemployment as high as it is). And in our field, there is a lot that you can write off in your taxes (travel for research, books, meals/coffee where you have meetings with research participants). And most schools have great benefits still if you are full time. Worst case scenario, is that you get to ride out this great recession in graduate school working with awesome profs in sociology while writing a sweet dissertation that you can call your own at the end of the day. Cool deal if you ask me.

Do you want to say which school and the deadline? I think for a lot of the upper tier schools, they seem to be slightly flexible with letters coming in late.. not to say that this isn't the case with middle and lower tier schools, but just the feedback from some of the schools I've applied to seem to be that they understand late letters (ie, after I submitted the Stanford app on the deadline Nov 29, they sent me an e-mail saying that LOR would be accepted for another 2 weeks, and I forwarded that to a prof of mine who was stressed with other deadlines.. she really appreciated the extra time to finish). Some of the other schools I applied to (UCLA, Chicago) also seemed to be a bit flexible by one or two weeks about the LOR deadline. Much I think depends on when the review of apps will be, and I doubt faculty will be meeting on Dec 16 to figure out their incoming class, given all their end of semester deadlines/work and the holidays.

I think it just depends on what type of institution/role you see yourself in more.. one of my main goals is to wind up in a large research based institution, primarily doing research, secondarily teaching - salaries in those positions are higher than $55,000. Also, I'd be curious to read more about studies that show the average at $55,000... do these include community college professors? Adjunct positions? Average salaries are suspicious in many ways since I think higher education has a few select positions (yes, highly competitive) that pay a lot, then a lot more that pay a lot less, and then a lot of Soc. phDs with no jobs. (Some statistic I read was that only 7% of all phDs get a University teaching job). @avee.. I'm not at all discouraged by this in any way.. seems like a fun and rewarding challenge

Avee - Did you see this from the Chronicle? (Sorry that it is premium content - but most college campuses give you access from their network.) http://chronicle.com/article/Faculty-Salaries-Vary-by/127073 I was surprised that social science professors earn 17% more than English ones. And most full professors make more than $100,000 at doctoral institutions. If you are play your cards right, you can get tenure to be a full professor in about 10 years. The 40+ is a bit crazy. A friend's mentor is just 12 years out of phD making close to 200K now in a Sociology dep. as a full prof.

I think it really depends on the program and the faculty that you want to work with.. it seemed that almost every school's application wanted you to list the faculty that you wanted to work with. If you highlighted someone in your app that was quantitative but said you wanted to do qualitative work, then it's probably going to look funny, and vice-versa. I actually proposed in my SOP that my doctoral research was to be based on a qualitative study, since my project lent itself much better to that and my experience is more in that area. But my GRE quantitative reasoning score was in the high 700's, so I don't think they will think I can't do math either. Trying the game the system by saying quantitative work is what you want to do (when it isn't) could also backfire terribly. They could split the applications into two piles and then judge you against only quant. people who have higher math experience and more interesting doctoral projects dealing with quantitative methods that yours. Also, the advice I got as someone who wants to do more qualitative work was to skip all the schools that only strongly prioritize quantitative work - as I just wouldn't be a good fit and I would be miserable trying to do the work I wanted to do.

I would second faculty's assessment... oddly, when you look at the work of graduate students in the top tier schools (1-12), many are doing cutting edge qualitative work and the schools have professors who are doing top level qualitative work (and also publishing in top journals with it)... but it seems that its the roughly ranked 12-25 area.. sort of 1.5 tier, where there seems to be a much larger emphasis on quantitative methods being prioritized... and then you see a strong shift to quantitative work starting from there, where OPs suggestion holds more validity... then in the lower tiers, qualitative work comes back. Perhaps this is because qualitative work can either be very great and groundbreaking, or conversely easily seen as badly done, soft and not rigorous. A sort of sink or swim type methodology, where quant work is more easily passed as more evenly good and rigorous for most sociologists, so it holds weight in the upper-middle tiers, while the top level qualitative work rises to the top tier schools.

I think many of them are for funding reasons, so my thought is that you could just opt out and not write them that "personally" -- are you referring to the UC ones? These I am sure are really only used for funding reasons. If you didn't experience any hardship, are well off and don't want to compete for the funding offered by diversity grants then don't answer the question. The statements are mostly a chance for students who have had hardship or feel marginalized have a space to express that. If you don't think it matters and you haven't faced much adversity, then don't answer it.

I think if its longer, you have a greater chance of scoring of higher, but not necessarily a perfect 6. The Princeton review book mentions that longer essays receive higher scores - but you should be careful here since they don't specify what they mean by "higher scores." Higher than what? Do longer essays score more 6's? 5's? More 4's than shorter essays that score 2s and 3s? My guess is that since its the Princeton Review, their research probably found that longer essays had a higher tendency to score 4 and above - since when you get to the 5 and 6 range, you do need really good writing and organization (both of which my essays had including length, I got a 5.5). Princeton Review generally tends to target for the mean, which is why their advice to write a lot probably will help those trying to score above 50 percentile.

You should be fine. I believe that they send your essay that you wrote on the GRE with your scores and the adcoms should see that you didn't finish vs. being a bad writer. Also, I would send an addendum to your app. explaining what happened to your GRE writing section. During the review process, they will look at your writing sample more and your addendum will be adequate explanation. Just draft a professional, brief letter explaining the situation - e-mail the department you are applying to, and gently request if you can have them add this letter to your file. I have a friend who had a comparatively low LSAT score and still was able to get into top ten law schools by writing an addendum explaining why the score was abnormally low compared to the rest of his app.