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splitends

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Everything posted by splitends

  1. Karlito, I think you're dead wrong here. I published in two undergraduate journals, and I know it impressed professors at my top ranked university, and I'm sure it helped me in the grad school admissions process. Yes, without question it is much easier to publish in an undergraduate journal than a professional one (and I'm sure that UG journals vary considerably in quality and competitiveness), but it's still an accomplishment and it says a lot about your ambition, your commitment to research, etc. Besides, you ARE an undergraduate-- it's a totally appropriate venue for your work. Maybe you don't want to include it on your CV when you're actually on the job market a few years down the road, but you're doing yourself a huge disservice if you don't mention undergraduate publications when applying to grad school.
  2. Again, just sharing my personal experience, no expertise here. I totally agree that once you're in, you're in-- they didn't make a mistake! But if you're concerned about saving face or something (which you really shouldn't worry about-- I wrote in the feelings about rejection thread about a grad student I know who was rejected from everywhere except Harvard. People get rejected for all kinds of reasons, and it definitely doesn't mean you're less suited to your prospective school than the other admits) then I would just say "Honestly, this is the only program I'm seriously considering at this point." Still true, but maybe sounds better than "This is my only choice."
  3. Hey, socscholar. I would like to hear from the expert too, but I just wanted to share an experience I've had along these lines. I've been talking to professors at prospective schools over the phone, which frankly I find pretty nerve wracking. During one of the earlier phone calls, a Prof at one of my top universities asked me a question about which other programs I'm considering. I just told her straightforwardly "I'm not really sure of the etiquette here-- I've never done this before. Do you actually want to know all of the programs I got into and so on?" At which point, she responded by also being very straightforward and explaining that part of why we have these conversations is so they can understand where else I'm considering and how likely I am to attend their program and etc. So I told her, these are the schools I got into, these are the ones I'm most strongly considering-- it's going to be a very difficult decision, but your school is definitely one of my top choices and I'm looking forward to learning more about it. It turned into one of the most relaxed and productive conversations I've had with profs during this process (outside my undergraduate institution, which I'm also considering). But in general I find that most professors are more comfortable in teacher mode than they are in sales associate mode. Even when I've gone to speak to professors that I know are supposed to be convincing me to attend their program, they usually just end up wanting to give me lots of advice. I think that the vast majority of the time, if you just answer questions honestly and politely, you'll find yourself having a much more productive time than if you try to think of what the "right" answer to any given question is. Also, I really want to believe that no one actually faults you for your success. If you aren't an arrogant person, and if you are sincerely grateful to have the options you have, then I think you should be able to talk about having options in a way that won't offend or turn off profs or grad students. I would think the hardest line to walk right now would be while talking to other prospectives, who may have fresh rejections and might be anxious about the decisions they have to make....
  4. Hey, Karlito. First off, I got into UCLA and am not planning to attend (I mentioned this in another forum and got a lot of PMs asking me why-- it's 100% an issue of fit/personal preference, not any info about the quality of the program, which I'm sure is wonderful.) But hopefully that will help you get off the waitlist and into a program you're excited about. I don't know anything about living there on a grad student's budget, but I have some friends that went there for undergrad and I can tell you that even if you can't afford a nice place to live, you will be able to spend your time on a beautiful campus in unbeatable weather. I know some people from outside California don't necessarily like the 365 heat, but I'm super envious. Most other top ten schools are in horrendous climates, and I have a feeling that wherever I choose to go, they're going to find my blue body frozen solid on my way to the library or something come January. Anyway-- congrats, and hope it works out!
  5. Haha....ohhello, we should really talk about this in person at some point.
  6. YES. The "sociological tour" of Greenwich Village definitely sounds exciting.
  7. Also, here's a good discussion (from real live sociology professors!) that sort of speaks to my point about different professors caring about different things: http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/sociology-and-management-phd-program-admissions-comments-and-open-thread/#comments
  8. So231160, I'm sure you're right, given a certain definition of what is a good and what is a bad score. There's a difference between saying you need to have a certain minimum score to pass muster with Grad School admins and saying that it's an important factor for a committee. School administrators may want you to have a relatively competitive GRE score, say in the 70%ile (I don't know what the cutoff actually would be, or how much it would vary from school to school-- I just grabbed a competitive but not super duper competitive number out of the air), before looking at your application. But once it's been sent to a committee of Professors and grad students, and its being compared to all the other applications that also passed muster with the admins, how much does it matter if you got into the 70%ile or the 80%ile or the 90%ile? Totally depends on what else is going on in your application, who you're being compared to, and the personal inclinations of the people comparing you. Brief GRE anecdote from a grad student in my department: He was an international student who did really well on the verbal section but completely bombed the quantitative one (sound like any SOC majors you know?). He was going to retake the test, but an advisor told him not to. The reasoning was: as an international student (from a country where people aren't typically fluent in English) he was expected to do badly on the verbal section and well in math. The fact that it was so extremely inverted would make it look like a fluke, and the committee would discount the score. I don't know that that's the actual logic that got used, but, hey, he got in.... Anyway, the same could be said about GPA. If you don't have at least a 3.0, virtually nobody will look at your application. But in a pool of people who all meet that basic criteria, how much does it matter if you have a 3.4 or a 3.6? Wil it make a difference if the 3.4 was from a traditionally more challenging major or notoriously non-grade inflating school? Some professors will consider that, others won't. At the end of the day, I don't think it's great logic to say "the ONE thing that REALLY matters is...." You never know who will be reading your application. The best you can do is to try to be as competitive as possible on as many metrics as you can. Play up the strengths you do have, and if you don't get in and this is really what you want to do, improve where you can (and of course, the one nice thing about the GRE is that it is much easier to improve your numbers there relatively quickly than to improve your GPA, which isn't going to budge much after a certain point) and try again the next cycle.
  9. I did want to make one more comment about admissions/rejections: Judging by a lot of the comments I've seen throughout this site, I'm not sure that enough emphasis gets put on fit for a program. I spoke to a lot of grad students and profs who had sat on admissions committees before I started applying, and what they emphasized over and over again is that they're not just looking for the "best students"-- they're looking for students who will do well at their program and who are likely to actually accept their offer. I've had profs tell me they've rejected totally qualified applicants because they said in their application they wanted to study topic X, but no one in the department researched topic X, so they knew the student wasn't going to get good mentorship and turned them down. I've also heard over and over again from grad students that people often get rejected from schools they consider "safety schools" because they were just mismatched, either in terms of research interests or looking "overqualified". I talked to one grad student at Harvard who told me he had been rejected from every school he applied to (something like 10), except Harvard. Anyway, I just wanted to make the point that being rejected from a school doesn't mean you weren't good enough as a student or a scholar. It often means that either the program didn't fit you well, or that you didn't articulate that fit fully enough in your application. And frankly, it most often just means pure dumb luck. Some of the best advice I got was from an incredibly cynical Professor in my department who had just finished a season on the admissions committee, and that's that the process is incredibly arbitrary. Different professors have completely different ideas of what is most important in looking at an applicant. Some are most impressed by the numbers, and totally distrust the authenticity of SOP and LOR. Others just want to see a minimum with numbers and then carefully read each SOP. I've heard one professor say that they completely distrust any student who says in their SOP that they want to work with him, since most undergraduates don't really understand his approach (I mean, wtf? Who would know that?!). The same cynical prof concluded that most faculty are just looking for people who remind them of themselves. So at the end of the day, who ends up on an admissions committee in any given year can change the outcome. This doesn't mean that things are completely out of your hands, or that there's no pattern among those who generally get in and generally don't. It's just that admissions committees typically have to decide between large numbers of equally qualified students, and ultimately the difference between an admit and a reject can be somewhat arbitrary. So of course you should do the best you can, of course being competitive on as many metrics as you can will help you, BUT not getting in doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong with you or your record. Anyway. Sorry for the rant. That went on longer than I thought it would...
  10. Chuck, I see your point, but I don't necessarily think anyone has nefarious motivations here. Top schools probably have to fight against their reputations to get stellar applicants who might be discouraged from applying because they're weak on one metric or another. I know they definitely admit students who are less competitive in some way, but shine in others-- that's certainly the case in my department, at least. Other schools probably have to fight the opposite reputation so that people don't treat them as "safety schools." Even schools with the least competitive admissions process still have to reject the majority of applicants. I can see where cynicism might come from, but having spoken to a lot of people on the other side of the admissions process, I honestly believe that everyone is just trying to do the best by prospective students.
  11. I have been fortunate to get into several PhD programs I am totally thrilled about, though I'm getting a little overwhelmed both by the prospect of making a really difficult decision and by the sheer amount of correspondance that comes along with acceptances. I want to decline some of the offers. I know there must be some talented and probably anxious people on the waitlist, and frankly I would like the tidal wave of emails to stop. But how quickly, and how, can I let a school know I'm not interested without seeming rude? I mean, if I email them a week later without visiting or even talking to any of the faculty saying "I'm sorry, it was a difficult decision, but I ultimately don't think your program is the best fit for me" doesn't that just smack of insincerity? These people will be my colleagues in the future and I don't want to come off as an asshole. A grad student at my undergrad institution told me to wait on it a while so as not to come off as insulting, but after seeing so many people nervously sitting on waitlists here, that just doesn't seem right... Anyway, thoughts?
  12. Totally agree on all things "different strokes for different folks." There are lots of good reasons to get a Master's outside of professional, prestige ladder climbing ones, and if you feel strongly about them, that matters. Just don't let someone convince you that dropping $50K will improve your chances of getting into a PhD program. You sound like you're pretty awesome already.
  13. I've gotten the impression that it's too early to start inquiring. Some websites I've seen say explicitly don't ask until at least March 15. But if it's really, really stressing you out... I would say screw it and email the administrator associated with the graduate program, not a professor. I'm sure if you're friendly and earnest it won't be an issue.
  14. Based on what you've said, I would sort of advise against it... Of course, I have no authority. My opinion is based mostly on a synthesis of advice I've gotten from professors throughout this process. 1. I've heard over and over again from students that their Master's took zero time off their track to the PhD. You'll at most get exempted from one or two methods courses. So it will be adding one or two years onto the whole thing and you will not be especially ahead on the PhD (if that was ever in the equation.) 2. (Assuming your ultimate goal is a PhD) Master's Degrees are mostly useful as a way of making up for deficiencies in your undergraduate record, which you don't seem to have. Your GPA looks pretty stellar, you were a Fulbright Scholar, you have a publication, you have research experience, so...you look like you'd be a really competitive candidate already. 3. Sociology is notoriously open to people who didn't do Sociology for undergrad. How much this puts you behind when it comes to coursework at the beginning of a program, I couldn't say, but I know for sure it won't keep you from getting in. 4. Almost anyone coming in with an undergrad degree is SOC is going to have very, very few little quantitative background. They just don't usually teach it at the level you need to know it. You will learn stats in grad school, no matter which school you go to. Having a background in stats from business (even if you didn't do as well as you would like) will still probably put you ahead of many in your cohort. (There's a chance this info could be skewed by the fact that I did my undergrad at a school notorious for attracting qualitatively minded grad students...but I do get the feeling that that is the general way of the world.) 5. You will learn all of that information (quant and qual methods/research design) once you are actually in grad school. I'm just not convinced that it will be any special value added to your skillset as a scholar in the long run. 6. I've heard that a lot of UK universities have set up gazillions of these one and two year masters degrees as a way to suck money out of Americans, and that the quality of the education you get might reflect this. This is just rumor and hearsay...but looking at the programs being offered at LSE and Oxbridge, I'm willing to entertain that possibility. 7. About the languages: from what I understand, it will be very helpful if you want to do research in that area/those areas of the world. It's not like undergrad where you stuff as many facts about how great you are into one application, so I don't know that it's important in and of itself. But it will make your research agenda look much more credible if you already have language skills in the area of the world you want to study. So yeah. That is all assuming you are paying out of pocket and/or taking on debt to do this. If you are fully funded (though I don't think most people in that situation are...) then I would say go for it. Enjoy the funny accents. If you're not...I would just be cautious.
  15. Like so many sociologists....I'm here for the gossip.
  16. Yeah, I figured that might happen. And I think I know who you are too? There is at least one other Berkeley person who'll be joining us, too. See you there!
  17. Well, I have a 3.9 and some change from UC Berkeley, GRE was 167 Verbal (98%ile), 156 Quant (74%ile), 6 Writing (99%ile). I have a ton of research experience, including three independent projects and a few stints as RAs (mostly for grad students in my department), I've presented at a ton of research conferences and symposiums (mostly undergraduate things, but also three professional ones), I have two publications (in undergraduate journals), and a few merit type awards, including a national fellowship called the Beinecke Scholarship. I've done a lot of service type work around the department, like peer advising and etc, and spent two years tutoring for a SOC methods course, but I don't know how much all of that counts for anything. I also have fairly good relationships with some big name people in my department who wrote me letters, one of whom I later found out chaired the admissions committee at Berkeley. Anwyay, that's like my entire application in a nutshell. I only mention the other stuff because I don't know that the numbers alone make me particularly stand out (I saw several higher GRE scores being reported in the acceptance forum thing). Judging from the feedback I've gotten, I think it was mostly the research experience and my writing sample that made me stick out, plus I think I happened to stumble into an area of research that a lot of professors are interested in pursing right now. In reality, I don't have a super clear idea of what I want to study, but my senior thesis was about whether and how the Great Recession has changed the way Americans understand unemployment, and mobility and opportunity in the U.S. more generally, and I think I wrote in my SOP that I want to study how/why Americans understand and justify wealth/poverty/inequality/etc, whether and how that may be changing, and mentioned things about the Great Recession and Occupy and etc. So, SOC of Culture, Economic SOC, and Inequality.
  18. Haha, thanks, and no worries on the stalkery-ishness-- it's a small forum, and I've been laying on the couch with a cold glued to my computer for the last 36 hours or so, so I've had a sudden surge of activity here... But, yeah, I've been really lucky with admissions: I'm into Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, Madison, NYU, Stanford, and UCLA. It will probably be between Berkeley, Princeton, and Harvard, maybe Madison, and maybe maybe NYU. Probably not Stanford or LA.
  19. Claiming the acceptance. Haven't heard anything official about stipends and etc just yet, though.
  20. Got accepted, but not sure that I want to attend. So many things about the program seem appealing, but I can't fathom living in Princeton, NJ for 5-6 years... If I did go to Princeton, I would want to work with Viviana Zelizer and Paul DiMaggio, maybe Paul Starr. I don't know-- any thoughts on life there?
  21. I just discovered this site while scouring the internet for advice on how to choose between grad schools, and I have to admit that I don't know what the results board is or why I would post on it...care to explain? The visit day is March 27.
  22. Total speculation, but I was an undergrad at Berkeley majoring in Soc and minoring in Demography and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the joint program was run on a different schedule. There are a handful of faculty that overlap between the departments, but they seem to have pretty autonomous administrative structures. Also, on the Berkeley v. Stanford comment: I'm pretty sure Berkeley has had similar numbers since before the budget cuts set in. I wouldn't be surprised if financial limitations have some impact on the size of the cohort they're going for, but I've heard that they generally have a lot more applicants than Stanford. It's a public school, but it's still an amazing department that attracts really competitive applicants.
  23. I got an acceptance via email February 11 without ever hearing anything about an interview. I'm not sure that that means they're done contacting people, though. I wouldn't give up hope just yet if you're still waiting...
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