ThisSlumgullionIsSoVapid

David Gibson (previously at UPenn but recently hired by ND) does conversational analysis. Perhaps look into his work.

Most of all though, relax, celebrate, and enjoy yourself* I don't know how I left that out.

Definitely read a lot. Read for fun though as you aren't going to have time to set aside for that for a long while. I would suggest trying to get in the habit of knocking out a book and more a week. If you aren't coming from a sociology background then spend some times reading some intro text books and maybe some books about (or by) the "founding fathers" of sociology.

If anyone here is contemplating ND but wants more information, maybe stuff they were afraid to ask while they were still in the interviewing stage, feel free to PM me. Good luck with your decisions everyone!

Congrats everybody. This is really exciting seeing everyone getting their acceptances.

Notre Dame

Obviously biased, but Notre Dame is where it's at. Check out http://csrs.nd.edu http://cssm.nd.edu (new website coming soon for that) and http://mobilizingideas.wordpress.com/ The best thing (coming from someone with religious movements as my focus) is that there are a lot of faculty and a lot of grad students that will share interests in religion with you. We have weekly workshops for culture, movements, education, and religion that allows peer to peer support. It is a very collaborative environment. People present drafts, paper ideas, r&r's, etc. at these workshops and the professors and students who attend read the paper and offer constructive feedback. It's a great place to be, plus you can really get plugged in fast with the department. So, long story short, if you're interested in religion check out ND - especially if you also have any interests in culture, family, education, social movements, or social networks.

Great funding, collaborative, and very supportive faculty. Honestly, I couldn't be happier.

You think you're stressed now, wait til all of the posts about people getting responses! February/March are pretty intense on here. Best of luck to everyone.

I'm echoing what others said, check out Boulder Plus, Colorado is beautiful.

Were you at the PSU & friends reception at the ASA last year (2011)? I feel like I've met you... or at least I met someone with very very similar interests.

Thanks man. And not even summer, winter! I'll be back in December (possibly November). I still owe you dinner and drinks!

UNC, ND, Pitt are all social movements programs worth checking out too

As someone who took the Kaplan courses, my bit of advice: don't underestimate what stress can do to you. However well you are doing on diagnostic exams now expect to do less than that. When you take your practice tests its usually in a stress free environment but when you take the actual thing the stress goes up a few notches. Also, when you schedule your exam, keep in mind the time of day you are taking it. I took the exam the first time and had an 8am exam but was still a "night person" - this really screwed with me. The second time I took it I got into routine for months of being used to taking exams, doing work, being up and functioning early in the morning and I did a lot better my second time. Get in routine earlier on so that you can predict how your body will respond.

As low as ~$14,000 and as high as $30,000. The most common will fall between 16 and 22 if I recall. There was a survey we did this last application season that asked what our stipend was; I think if you look back in some old threads you can probably find it not too buried from new threads.

and their funding will have you living like a king

I don't get what you're asking. What is "this kind of religion"? Describe what kind of religion? You're making it sound as if there is some ritual/religious tendencies in the way sociologists study religion. edit: I'd also like to chime in on the notion of "the study of sociology doesn't turn us into atheists"....wouldn't it be "the study of sociology doesn't turn us back into atheists" I'd be surprised if anyone was born as a theist. Religion is socially constructed and, if anything, it would seem that through acquiring knowledge of the socialization process (and perhaps knowledge of other religions or an expanded world view) we can then reflect on how and when we were indoctrinated and, at that point, we might "undo" the indoctrination (or become more critical of belief systems).

<----- Also interested in social movements

Funny, I thought the second half was going to be a "and those are the reasons why I got a MBP." The lead up of on-site support and murphys law talk lead me on that you went down that road.

I just checked that out. The carbon is quite impressive too.

Fancy seeing you here. I actually came here to search for this same information haha. Glad you beat me to it. I'm probably going to wait til the new MBP's come out in June/July. I'm leaning towards picking up one of those but I've been asking the same questions that you raised in this thread. I'll probably just use VM to run windows at the same time; a buddy of mine does this on his laptop and he says it's no big deal.

^ Couldn't have said it any better. I'm grateful I didn't get involved with this board as early as some of you are. I was a nervous wreck during application season. I guess if you have super awesome stats and you just want to compare yourself to other people to make you feel better then I guess go for it but n the event you don't have the super duper all-star application you're likely to just stress yourself out.

In terms of influencing or capturing the attention of the general public I would say economists and psychologists. Though, maybe if people knew how to differentiate sociology from psychology then they might attribute some of their interests more towards sociology instead of thinking any and everything that has to do with human behavior is psychology. Although I am a double major in psyc and soc currently as an undergrad, I can't tell you how many times I have had to put up with people assuming sociology is psychology. "What are you going to grad school for?" "A PhD in Sociology." "Oh, that's interesting! Do you want to be a therapist? Are you analyzing me!?"

I'd be interested in this information as well. I know there are speciality power-houses (penn state demography, yale cultural, etc.) and I'm sure if we found where the best placements were for recent grads we'd get a good idea of which places have the most prestige for sub disciplines.