jenjenjen

Congrats Yale acceptees!! If you have any info on method of contact, if all acceptances have gone out, if they are having a visiting weekend, that kind of stuff - I'd love to hear it! Basically give those of us facing silence a little more insight haha

According to Michigan " The Statement of Purpose is the single most important item in your application ." I think a lot of schools take it very seriously. I couldn't believe that Duke didn't require a writing sample; as in, literally contacted the department so see if I was missing some place to submit it. But man, I would make the limit on writing samples like 30 pages. I realize it probably sucks to read a bunch of looong papers but the schools that limited my sample to 10 or 15 pages caused some pain. I'd get rid of the GRE. And I did well on it. But I studied really hard and everything I 'learned' was entirely irrelevant.

Could someone quickly explain to me the difference between 'academic jobs' and professor positions? I read that article you posted as saying there were 534 open faculty positions in comparison to the 638 phds granted (still not that bad of odds, but not fabulous). I was also under the impression that there were far more job seekers for positions in academia than job openings, but only from anecdotal reports.

Yeah I think it's good for anyone planning to apply for a PhD program in the future to realize the importance of letters of rec., especially having two or three good ones from faculty. One professor told me that the reason many graduate programs don't hold interviews is that the LOR essentially fulfills that role. It is an evaluation by a person who is familiar with what it takes to survive and excel in graduate school and academia, and ideally they know the applicant's history well enough to decisively say whether they are capable. The GREs are known to be flawed and a SOP can be bullshitted (or bought), so really it's your academic record in combination with your LOR that reveal your academic past, and your LOR with (some help from the SOP) that show your potential in the future. EDIT: That kinda sounded like i was undercutting the importance of the SOP. I think it's also crucial, but in showing a little more about who you are as a person, and demonstrating your grasp of why you want to pursue a PhD in sociology, and at that particular school.

This might be a better estimate http://www.gsb.stanf...du/finaid/cost/. We can basically ignore everything except living expenses, and I'm sure that estimate is not for an especially frugal student. Edit: aaaand it's basically equivalent living expenses to Berkeley http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/graduates/cost.htm

ooh that is great to hear sciencelady! All my info about the expense of living at Stanford came from (admittedly flawed) online calculation and friends who did their undergrad at Berkeley or UCLA, who would probably not actually be a reliable source of knowledge. So I pretty much was imagining it would be like paying rent in, maybe not Manhattan, but a kinda shitty apartment in Brooklyn haha. But $650-900 a month actually isn't much more than I'd pay to get a room in a house in Seattle. Go stanford!

hmmm sciencegirl that's a great point! I think the vast majority of the cost difference is due to rent and utilities (though transportation would matter some places) which wouldn't matter so much if you can get cheap on campus housing. I actually had no idea Stanford dorms were that cheap! Which I'm guessing means you could get a decent apartment for a couple hundred more a month. I think I start undervaluing any offer out of self-doubt and the general disbelief of any good news haha. Also my cousin got what looked like a great stipend at NYU and is now taking out loan in the second year and it's pretty much all housing costs, and I think her experience probably greatly skewed my perspective.

That's definitely what I was thinking too. Great money, super excited, but trying to keep it in perspective if I'm comparing other offers. The "funds for miscellaneous expenses" part did prompt a happy laugh from me though. I'll be at the visit, just got approved to take the time off work and immediately bought a plane ticket!

haha whoops crazy good. it's super cheap to live there so with an offer of $25,000 from Yale, your money would take you as far as a $50,000 offer from Stanford (where it's super expensive to live). But, uh, that might be a less positive sign of how desirable it is to live in NH.. Edited: This is a wild exaggeration, but the idea behind cost of living is still important.

I remember reading on their website that the stipend was $25,000 last year. Which if you compare cost of living for New Haven is CRAZY MONEY haha. $38,000 in Berkeley, $51,000 in Palo Alto... I spend too much time on this site http://www.bestplaces.net/col/ I applied there and my interest are stratification, social movement, race, gender. Haven't heard anyyyything yet! I have some offers already so I'm not panicking but it would be nice to have everything out on the table so I can finish the wondering (and constantly refreshing my email) and start working on deciding.

Sooo decision decisions? As in no interviews? Or is that still a question mark...

I'd like to know that too as I've heard nothing from them... I haven't noticed in UM rejections on the results survey though

days without clouds and mountains on the horizon, the feeling after a long run, opening a bottle of wine, the people i meet while travelling, cooking without a recipe, debating politics with my dad, trivia nights at my local brewery, sex, pretty much any live music, my little brother, okay all my family, finishing a bottle of wine, thunderstorms, reading a good book, reading a really trashy romance novel, thinking about the future, painting my nails to look vaguely reminiscent of an acid trip, volunteering with mentally or physically handicapped children, working with homeless adults, pickup soccer, really easy hip-hop dance classes, yoga, my therapist, turning off my cell phone, fireworks and bonfires, being on boats, OKAY SOMEONE PLEASE STOP ME

hey hopeful, so i actually don't have a background in soc either (i probably missed including a "not" when talking to sciencegirl haha) soooo they might reinforce that there isn't a need for having taken course work in sociology. the fellow at Cal I talked to expressed interest in the research ive done that was actually in the communication studies field, as well as my work in political science. but in my applications i stated very explicitly why i was pursuing study in sociology and how i had prepared for that field, despite no formal coursework in the discipline. i'd second sciencegirl in saying that if your history background is relevant to soc, and you make an effort during your MA to research sociological issues, you could certainly make a solid application for a phD. i do think however that transitioning from another social science, or at least having some experience with it (maybe undergrad?) is going to be more appealing and make your life easier than if you were straight humanities. and obviously you'd want to be very sure that soc was in fact your ideal destination before beginning the application process. though this is simplistic, i think a phd is soc basically will prepare you to be a professor in sociology. and if that's not your goal, it would be (IMHO) unwise to commit to a 5-6 year program (with a heavy workload and the expectation of relatively low wages) just because you think it would be interesting to learn about sociology.

I have an uninteresting job right now, 40-50hrs/wk, but it comes with great benefits. I'm a little torn on whether to hold onto it until august or leave early and take a vacaaay. Even if my vacation is "sit in my house and read sociology papers." BUT I could run off to Europe for a few weeks!! Or sleep on the floor of my cousin's apt in NYC!! Adventure! In general though, for the next few months I will be running calibration tests on small electronics and catching up on the basics of sociology in my "spare time."

Berkeley actually has things scheduled for 5 days.. FIVE! But I think it's partially because they have their own internal conference going on and some of the activities are in the vein of attending the San Fran farmer's market. I was told Fri and Sat were the most important days to attend and obviously Saturday wouldn't overlap with Stanford but it's going to be an interesting maneuver to say the least haha. @ohhello Thanks for the advice as I likely will be flying down and depending on public transportation as renting a car has pretty much zero appeal. @ everybody - Would you definitely recommend staying with grad students or do you think that's not so important? My SO graduated from Santa Clara and studied electrical engineering and has plentyyy of friends in the general Silicon Valley area. I'm tempted to fly down with him and stay/catch up with these people, whom my SO could play with during the day, and generally have him with me for company and support buuuuut I don't know if that would actually diminish some of the value of these visits. Advice please!

@sciencegirl Ugh right?? Technically Cal told me their "weekend" was the 15th-19th and I was already thinking it'd be hard to get off work but I could prob make it for half the time... so i guess now if i CAN get off work I'd be able to go to Stanford and miss the first couple days of Berkeley's. But man, you gotta think they might have done that on purpose haha.

I can claim that one. Received a personalized email from a professor today, and said he hoped to talk to me on the phone within the next few days. My interests were in race, ethnicity, inequality and gender. Mentioned they had 188 applicants and wanted a class of 14.

Stanford also March 15-16...

i actually had no idea how common it was to contact POIs until i read this forum. My profs in undergrad never recommended it, buuut i also went to a school that didn't even have graduate students in sociology. So I didn't contact any and have been accepted to 3 solid schools so it's def not a necessity. Though maybe it helps if you have a less strong "on paper" application but want to emphasize your dedication and interest?

Yo tambien. ohhh well.

University of Washington March 2-3

Anyone know what it might mean for those of us who haven't heard anything? I know some people have been accepted Stanford/Princeton/Michigan/Duke - all of which I applied to (all of to which I applied?), but responses have not been forthcoming. I'm tempted to write these off as rejections, but don't know if a lack of reply is more likely to mean I've been placed on some sort of unofficial waitlist. And I'm sure I'm not the only person wondering this... Any feedback from other years or people with "ins" at dept would be appreciated!

Princeton one also just showed up on results survey! Congrats and please share some details

Total GRE: 1450. GPA: 3.95 on 4.0 scale. Very good LOR, probably less stellar personal statements... Had undergraduate teaching and research asssistanships, and two papers published in undergraduate journals. Research interests: social movements, rhetoric, racial and ethnic politics, inequality and stratification, politics of abortion. Mentioned Drs. Kyle Crowder and Steven Ptaff in my statement of purpose, though didn't talk to any professors ahead of time.