FertMigMort

The West Wing is on Netflix? I also love spending time procrastinating by playing nerdy geography games at Sporcle. I've taught myself all of the countries in the world and all of the capitals of the world this way.

Just to clarify, I personally stayed away from this forum while I was on adcomm. When I was a graduate recruitment member, we often used these forums to determine where students might have other offers from (listing the schools you were accepted to at the bottom) which isn't always information recruits are forthcoming with on their weekend. Most schools (the 5-6 I have experience with) do look at these boards to gain more information. Right or wrong, I just feel that I should publicize that knowledge to anyone who thinks they are remaining semi-anonymous. It's not so much about judging as it is about gaining information. I hope that clarifies what I meant here. Darth, I've seen your posts here for a while (since before my service on the adcomm) and I'm sorry that happened. That's very atypical and I hope you know that very few people would go to those lengths to identify someone. I'm talking more about people who have a handle like MikeSmith and then are surprised that people can figure out who they are. Anyway, glad to be back everyone!

I would check out Cornell in addition to the school's others have mentioned. I wish you luck in your Ph.d. studies!

Thirded. I've been saying this since day 1. Please think before you hit the post button guys.

Hey everyone, I'm done with my service on the adcomm. I'll be typing up a longer post about that experience and tips for picking schools for anyone that didn't get in this round sometime in late February. One more time... PLEASE! Remember that you can be identified by what you post online. I deliberately avoided coming onto GradCafe while I was looking at applications, but I see many familiar names now that I'm back. If you do not want to be identified, use caution when posting. Don't put your location, use your real name, etc. Grad recruitment committees frequently troll this board for information (based on my experience and the experience of other senior students I know) without posting or signing in. I can't wait to meet the people I helped select during my service on the adcomm. Best of luck to all of you who applied!

@Faculty I'm a senior grad student and I agree that it's valuable to have your insight. I've been on recruitment committees and frequently used this website to get an idea of where else people were accepted. I was open about this though and frequently advised people to change their names so they were less obvious. I've been on hiatus of posting because I was on the adcomm, but we're done reviewing applications, so I'm back now everyone. I'll be making a post later this month about my experience and anything that might help people for their next round of applications.

I was awarded a prestigious full scholarship from a private foundation at my undergraduate institution and served on their panels to grant new scholarships twice. I feel lucky to have that experience, because I am daunted by reading all of these apps! Especially because I don't want to get it wrong or not admit someone that would be a great fit for our program. I'll definitely consider posting before the next round to give some insight. I'm interested to see how much things like GRE scores, GPAs, etc. are weighted when granting admission. I know that GRE scores are used to dole out fellowships, but nothing else is confirmed. Again, best of luck to everyone! If by some chance you are applying to my mystery school, I promise I will read your app carefully and give it my full consideration.

I've been posting here under one name or another in the past, but now that I'm a senior student, my posting will have to come to an end. I've been selected to be search committee for students this year and I want to follow the rules as strictly as possible, which means no posting on Grad Cafe. A friendly reminder to those applying this round: Getting in can be capricious. Try not to take it personally. Apply to schools that are a good fit for your interests. Apply to programs with multiple potential faculty members you can work with. I wish everyone the best of luck and look forward to reading applications this year!

I have an NSF and several non-refeereed publications. I think the important thing is that you don't exclusively have non-refeereed publications and that you're working towards peer reviewed publications. Several of my non-refeered work projects also produced peer-reviewed publications.

Also ask if you can switch between the programs once you get in. I have several crim friends that got into a top crim program attached to a top soc program and were able to transfer after their masters. It was relatively painless. I feel like my crim friends have had an easier time on the job market. It sucks for everyone, but it seems like they have more positions to apply for. It's kind of like a demography degree, you can do soc AND something else, which in my opinion makes you more marketable.

I would also add that it really depends on what sub-field you're in. We have several people who use instrumental variables almost exclusively as well as people who only use SEM. It's more related to their sub-field in sociology than when they got a degree or anything. What general area of sociology are you interested in realmadrid7?

We're not allowed to TA at all in my program because they only off full year TAships. I can teach in the summer, but that's all. It's very confusing though and the guidelines are really unclear. It seems to be up to the fellowship officer at your individual school. Basically they don't want teaching to make up the majority of what you do. Definitely contact your schools. I would be shocked if it didn't change things. I had a friend who was rejected across the board and then got the news about his NSF and he got into Stanford fully funded on top of his NSF award. I would contact the Director of Graduate Studies for the departments you applied to, not individual professors.

I think That Guy's advice above is excellent. I would add that if you have an idea of where you want to apply for your Ph.D. program you should also check out how they treat M.A. students versus B.A./B.S. students. Every department has a different culture. I agree with Chuck's sentiments: HOWEVER, in my own department Masters students are still unfairly penalized in some ways. They are given fewer years of funding, despite having to repeat classes or asked to do their Masters degree over again at our institution with an additional year of funding. They are less likely to be given RA positions initially and seem to be more socially isolated from their cohort. They are also pressured to take their comprehensive exams earlier. I don't have a sense of how widespread this phenomena is though. Perhaps my school is in the minority and the field is generally trending towards separate Masters and Ph.D. programs. I would just do some investigating about your ultimate Ph.D. schools you want to get into before you make this decision. Are most of their Masters students much older than the rest of the department? Do they ever make people with incoming Masters repeat coursework or worse their entire Masters? How are students with incoming Masters funded compared to those with just a Bachelors? That said, I think that the Masters option is better for a lot of students. It takes longer and usually costs more, but by then you're sure that you want a Ph.D. and if you don't want one, you won't waste another 3-5 years of your life getting one. I advise recruits with a Masters about this culture and let them make up their own mind. I don't know why our culture is so biased, because I work with lots of outstanding Masters students and lots of dipshit Bachelor students.

They are super draining. I actually went to a coffeeshop at all of my visits for a few hours one evening and called people at home to decompress and have some "real talk" about how the visits were going. Don't know if that's an option for everyone, but it can't hurt to ask. I also made sure to pack my Xanax (for the more anxious of y'all out there).

I'm an advanced graduate student and I'd second this. Also, abc123xtc brings up the excellent point that interests change over time. I know that whatever I said at my recruitment weekend has COMPLETELY changed compared to what I'm doing now. While it's a good idea to have an idea of what you want to do, I wouldn't base any decisions on how specific my future cohortmates interests are. The short answer... yes. It's a bigger problem at some universities than others. In the U.S. professors are still overwhelmingly white males and many departments have few POC or women to help guide graduate students through the complexities of those intersections. I know that my department has been woefully inadequate in this area. I would be more upset if I'd thought that other programs I'd applied to would have been less deficient. My specialty area (demography) has something to do with that though.

I think that rank is more important if you want an R1 job when you graduate. Rank is a rough proxy of networks and I know that people have mentioned before the articles showing that the top 20 schools are pretty inbred. Otherwise, probably pick the better fit where you have more potential people to work with.

Sorry I went back and answered these individually, I blame the jetlag. I didn't mention this in my original criteria, but it's an important one. Our school is almost exclusively RAships and that played a big role in my choice. That's why our matriculation time is much faster than the other school I was comparing it to. More research experience is better, unless you want to be a professor at a liberal arts college. In that case, take as many TAships as possible.

Our program has a diversity problem (the lack thereof). I'm a hidden minority and I've started counseling minorities on our recruitment weekend that they should think carefully before coming here. A lot of students who are a minority here aren't very happy and have a higher dropout rate. I try to only convince people that I think will be happy here to come here. Don't discount this.

Hahaha, I love this! It sounds like you're leaning toward those quality of life factors. My program is missing some of those, although we do have Chipotle. Besides, Amazon will ship anything to you overnight, so I got over the shopping.

I second this. I only know of three transfers, and they were all into our program. Two were after masters and before comps at their old program, so it was more like an upgrade to a better Ph.D. program than a transfer. One came in with an adviser. We have a lot more drop-outs.

It's true. We still talk about the guy who wore a blazer and tie from 3 years ago. Not in a mean way, but just in a "where did he get that idea" kind of way. I'd say dressy jeans (dark wash) are just fine. That was fine 4 years ago at my open houses. This is a pretty safe rule too if you're worried about being underdressed. As a rule though, current students tend to remember the overdressed, not the underdressed.

Good luck verdalantreas! I'm sure things will go fine.

That's the one thing I have no complaints about. I had an amazing radiation team with a world class neurosurgeon in a brand new facility and I paid nothing. My mental health insurance covers everything. That has been my saving grace in all of this. If I'd had to deal with insurance bullshit on top of being sick I think I would have had to take a leave of absence. I like the idea about medical notes. You would think that wearing a stupid eye patch to campus for 6 months in all of my classes would be enough without a note... I wish you all of the best too. Let's hope that this is the beginning of healthier times for the both of us!

Depends on your definition of terrible job placement.

Ha, Charlie, you would think so! Not at all. It made me realize how commodified graduate students are. When my advisor and others in my department (it's not just her shortcoming) found out their first question was always "well you aren't going to have to take time off are you?" Hardly the kind of support I needed. The other suggestions were helpful, but I'm way past that. That was step 1. I'm still struggling to recover while having an "invisible" problem. It's kind of like they want me to pretend that my brain tumor never happened, that the side effects of radiation never happened and I just go on with my life. Thanks for your insight washdc. That's more of my experience. Even though having a brain tumor was completely out of my control, my graduate program was pretty non-understanding. I didn't expect the same kind of treatment I had when I was diagnosed in undergrad, but I at least expected them to give a crap. I think I still have a lot of resentment towards the professors that were so non-caring about my situation. My DGS basically said, "well you're on a national fellowship, so we can't kick you out. Try to keep up with your work or we might anyway." I had my treatment over Thanksigiving and had two out of three professors who understood. They let me double up on their assignment, which meant that I finished classes without having to withdraw or drop anything. The next semester was hellish, because I was seeing double for almost 5 months (edema around my optic nerve). I guess I just needed to hear that my experience wasn't unique. I felt like I had done something wrong that made my program treat me this way, but it sounds like other programs have been like this too. I didn't expect flowers and candy after radiation, but it would have been nice if my DGS would have worked with me to explore all of my options. Something, ya know?