magicunicorn

In regards to above quote, it was meant as an extreme example -- but just to emphasize the principle behind the rationale. Again though, its different for every school and program - and the school requirements (ie, some departments won't credit your work outside the department). It sounds like something you want to check on during your visits.

First year seems much more mentally challenging that academically challenging. I spent the winter break basically hibernating after my first semester. At my program, you'd probably get an eyebrow raise (in a bad way) if you asked to go into the econ department for econometrics instead of our quant. sequence. Part of it is that the sociology department is responsible for your training.. when you graduate, you represent the department -- and lets say you missed something completely basic in linear regression that wasn't covered in the econ department.. and showed up at another campus for a job talk and everyone was like "omg, so and so doesn't know OLS regression" -- your department looks bad. My department makes everyone take the methods sequence courses regardless of your background so they can ensure the quality of training everyone gets, and that its consistent for all of us. I think the biggest pressure in graduate school, especially at a T10 school is the constant push to "make your mark" and to get publications out. This is compounded by the fact that you are surrounded by superstar professors who were able to do just that, and do it well.. so you constantly worry you aren't going to measure up. So I don't think its the work load or whether or not you should be reading up more on theory right now -- my advice is to just enjoy life at the moment since the "work" and "pressure" that comes in graduate school isn't something you can really ameliorate with advance prep. Rather, build up a support network and do as much as you can now to rest up so when things really start slamming you around in graduate school, you are mentally up for the challenges. They constantly tell us that graduate school is a marathon, not a sprint.. not to burn out too early or too fast, but rather pace yourself and keep your eyes on the larger picture.. its great advice.

Also, every department is different - and things change from year to year. I think Harvard did one year and then didn't most years. MIght just depend on the person running admissions that year. Probably won't know for certain until someone posts that they were asked to do an interview.

One more thing -- I can't believe that its only January and people are posting about the decision process and etiquette etc -- but I want to really stress to just not be a jerk or be rude in this process (to both faculty, other grads and other admits). There are SO many horror stories about admits among current graduate students and faculty.. and your reputation is important. Don't worry about being smart -- your job in this process is not to convince people in the programs you are visiting that you are smart (you've already done that - they have admitted you already) -- but I think the most important thing is to be a nice and well-manered person with as little ego as possible. If you were stuck on a deserted island (which sometimes characterizes graduate school), would you rather spend the 6-8 years stuck with someone trying to prove how smart they are, or someone who is fun and an overall nice person. So with the phone call - don't try to impress the professor, talk to them like a friend and be genuine. Be gracious and polite, and relax. Also, people remember things.. I heard this one story about how this one job candidate was invited to give a job talk at a certain school, and that the faculty remembered her from her admit visit -- luckily for her, they thought she was an incredible candidate 6 years earlier and really nice to be around at the visit, and it helped her in the process (I can only imagine the flip side of this if they remember you as the a**hole).

It was almost always first an e-mail - then followed up by a phone call, then a snail mail letter later (sometimes also with a the same letter in pdf form emailed in cased). Here's some advice -- don't be scared and pick up the phone and answer it. The person on the other line wants to be your mentor and friend for the rest of your academic life -- the person/faculty who chooses to call you has a vested interest in getting you to their program. Give them the respect to pick up the phone if you are free and then just talk to them at a one-on-one level like you would any professional conversation you would have. They know you are probably super nervous on the other line - they were there many years before in that same spot. You may say something stupid - they will forgive you. A big part of being successful in academia is presenting yourself and your research interests -- and here's a chance to just have a nice convo with someone on your side. If you have a crazy stalker and don't pick up numbers you don't recognize, after getting into a program, look up the area code for the school so you know if the call is coming in from one of those areas. If you are in class or whatever, call them back as soon as you can. Oh - if they ask what other programs you are considering, decide beforehand if you want to say anything. I started off not telling anyone, then realized that was ineffective for me, so I was just honest about what programs I was deciding between. It really helped actually in my case (since schools were all very competitive, but differed quite a bit in funding and methodology), but I know others who didn't want to say anything about what other programs they got into and stuck with this strategy.

@incognegra. I actually considered this long and hard too.. and realized that the phD route was better for me. I could get my training paid for by a top 10 research university, and then eventually blog and "dumb-down/de-academize" my scholarship for the masses. Part of my decision was that journalism was perhaps an even harder route.. it was highly unpredictable.. I don't have the charisma of Rachel Maddow (nor her delightful on air wit), and I don't have insider connections that have allowed other journalists or raw talent to succeed as name-brand stars (in the likes of Lewis, Gladwell or Levitt, etc). During my time questioning "my route" -- some sociology students did bring up Matt Desmond and Adam Reich as examples.. grad students who managed to publish "non-sociology" books while graduate students).. and this actually gave me some encouragement. I was actually really surprised at how open some of my advisors now in graduate school have been to me trying to publish outside of sociology as well. Their suggestions have been to publish a few "sociology" type things in journals, and then to rewrite the material into more general articles/possible book chapters -- they seemed to understand the crossover that happens a lot now in the sociology field with that of the general interest one. It just seemed a safer choice for me -- I could get paid getting my phD, learn and read and have famous scholars read my writing that I do for their classes/dissertation -- while at the same time, exploring other routes to share my research (blogging etc). The other choice - sitting at home, freelancing on various journalism gigs, blogging, networking and trying to be famous, seemed like it was too unpredictable and hard to pull off financially. At least the phD route gave me more of of a safety net (and health insurance!).

To give some advice to @NotMyParty -- coming from someone in graduate school, I think everyone at one point in their first semester has their fair share of a panic attack, and wonders if the program/fit/discipline/life trajectory is the right or wrong one. The hard part of course in a phD program is the length.. and the intimidation from not being able to see the 7-9 year end point. Some suggestions or thoughts - how are your friends/cohort in the program? Do you feel that you can be frank and open with them about your concerns, or do you feel that you are in some ways competing with them (either for funding) or they are much younger and don't relate well? If anything, your cohort and friends you build on campus will be what gets you through the hard times. Even stupid things, like silly inside jokes about professors and things that happen in class go along way to building morale. In some ways, what you are doing here on the forum is great -- reaching out to other students in the same situation -- but you should also be doing this with a few close friends in the program who can help build a support network. Do you have program regret because of a hard decision from last spring? One terrible thing that happens in the first year is the whole "what if" mentality - what if chose that other program I was deciding between. This mentality is awful. After you make a decision, try not to look back. At least do your best.. since this will only heighten any insecurities. In regards to the discussion on interdisciplinary stuff - its very much possible and done really well by certain individuals still, so I wouldn't give up on it. The ones who succeed at it, manage to find their own support systems either with other departments and fields, or through mentors who share a similar trajectory. Of course, that path isn't as easy as the traditional sociology one -- but you got into a top 10 sociology phd program, so taking on new challenges shouldn't be too hard Seriously though, if a top 10 program admitted you, don't discount that vote of approval. You already have a very strong record of accomplishment, and even if right now things are tough, there are ways to do your public policy stuff, get through sociology, and succeed in what YOU want to do.

This is a really complicated question/post, and one of the major reasons is that the exact definitions of each one aren't clearly defined in sociology. Or more specifically, they are not fully agreed upon by the major players in sociology itself (a lot of time is spent debating and theorizing on exactly what the definitions are). Case in point, in my econ soc class this past semester, I asked what the definition of "fields" were -- and a fellow student gave a specific answer and was rebuffed quickly by the prof. that this was just one account of "fields" and that the exact definition was not yet fully determined. This also seemed to be the case with many of the above issues you bring up - and that its not so important to know the "one definition", but the various interpretations of possible definitions so you know what audience you are speaking to and how to appropriately use it in your own work.

Unfortunately, many graduate programs have greater grade inflation than undergrad programs, so an increase in change in GPA between the two might not be read as improvement by the candidate, but just the grading scale changing and inflating between the two. If you have a poor undergrad GPA (below 3) - I think this needs to be explained somewhere, somehow.. perhaps in a letter of rec by an advisor who knew you as an undergrad. Was it one bad semester? What kind of crap happened. Yes, young people are dumb, but you are also competing with other people who have 3.8 undergrad GPAs where the crap that happened did not as severely affect their grades. While I say that GRE's are less important, and to some extent GPAs, they actually do matter when they put you at a strong disadvantage against other candidates. On the other hand, the 4 years off from school, the masters work, etc.. will of course help.

No need to contact them. They are probably swamped at the moment -- at the time of turning in your application, everything was 100% honest and factual given the best information you had. There isn't an obligation to let them know of the changes you mention until you get in. At that point, I would talk to the office graduate admissions coordinator on your visit to the program to explain the discrepancy - and to see if that would affect your offer. Trying to fix and correct everything right now for something that seems to be just a slight change in your major and a job/TA thing, doesn't seem to be that big of a deal. I would of course suggest differently if you either were not going to graduate and get a BA degree this June, or if something serious came up, like you were being kicked out/suspended from school due to cheating/criminal conduct. In that case, I think you would have to consider telling schools, knowing that it would sink your apps. I doubt your admissions are going to hinge though on what you have mentioned above.

I think the more important question might just be why you got the A-... and if everyone else in the class got A's? I'm confused though by the OP's status as a student.. are you an undergrad taking grad level "200" courses.. or a grad student/phD student already who just got an A-? Often, you can figure out the seriousness of the "A-" from older grad students in your program... and getting below an A has almost no immediate effect, but rather the effect of doing poorly (the lower grade that is a result of that) may trickle down into a series of negatives... but often is not just because of the A-. Its a "symptom" and not the "cause" if that makes sense.

Something important that @econosocio mentioned that I wanted to highlight -- be really careful about naming people in your applications. I was told by too many people on this forum to name people I wanted to work with on my SOP -- and in my haste did stupid things like name assistant/associate professors who might have been moving to other schools, or in one case, listed faculty members that didn't get along very well with the certain colleagues that happened be on the adcom that year. I basically sent the same application to every school except for the "I want to work with" part, and realized that the schools I didn't get into, were ones where I might have been better off not emphasizing people I wanted to work with at all since it probably hurt my application. I think the best strategy is if you can't actually talk with the professors in the program, try to develop relationships somehow with graduate students in the program (this is probably too late for a lot of you now but helpful for those applying the following year). They can give you a lot of the gossip about the program and steer you towards the best route to take in terms of who to list and not list. (Some faculty might have even have a reputation for not working with any students). In hindsight, I think my big blunder with Berkeley's application was listing Willer, who as it turns out, isn't tenured yet -- and supposedly may have other offers from schools in the works. I didn't find this out until after the app process when a grad student at Berkeley mentioned this. And then I realized how stupid my application must have sounded to someone on the adcom.

Basically, you need to be an academic with a phd or someone who has a strong record in journalistic famous, or somewhat famous in broadcasting/political pundit circles. To the OP, are there people out there that resemble a kind of career you want? Is it along the lines of a Michael Lewis or Malcolm Gladwell (both who didn't go to graduate school but found successful careers in journalism)? Also, I think OP's characterization of publishing is a bit off.. right now the trend is for certain disciplines (such as history) to push their scholars into non-academic publishing since that is where public "impact" and sales are greatest... but non-academic publishing is dominated by non-phDs from either the journalism side of things, or from famous people. However, you don't see this push into non-academic publishing at all for sociology phDs. The discipline is divided into article people and book people (the former being more utilized by quantitative scholars). Essentially, in sociology, if you are a book person, and you get 2-3 books from top academic presses by the time you go up for tenure, you should be fine. I don't see any reason to worry that sociologists are now moving en masse into non-academic publishing and that will leave others out. Basically, if you want to publish academically, get a phD -- if you really want to only do mainstream publishing, follow a career into journalism or land a political talk show -- as this where current people who do each one seem to be. (With the exception of historians who seem to be publishing more and more in main stream presses but I don't think its something they want but just something they are being pushed into).

question for @econosocio - are all your recommenders economists? I'm studying economic sociology right now and if you want to study economic sociology, it would help to have a broader range of recommenders - as I don't think many economists speak in the same language as sociologists who study economic sociology... you can PM me if its better to have a more detailed conversation about this. (Your comment above that your writers are economists make me wonder why you are choosing to study sociology -- or do you mean some of your writers are sociologists who are doing economic sociology work...)

I honestly don't think Coursera would add any benefit to your application and could seriously hurt your application - simply because the bulk of the review of your application will examine 1. your undergraduate record, 2. your statement of purpose, 3. recommendations, 4, masters program work, 5. extra-curriculars. Where would Coursera courses get included? If they wind up in your SOP, that is a huge waste of space. The SOP is an incredibly short and concise statement by academic standards - and throwing in a line about taking an online course (who cares who taught it) would seem to most adcoms completely unnecessary and almost seem as if you either didn't have anything more exciting to mention in your SOP, or wonder why you even needed to take make up classes (did you bomb your undergrad?). Also, the way the online applications work is that there is a place to upload each item and there is really no upload space for a "certificate of completion" from Coursera. Including it in your CV too just screams that you are trying to pad since your aren't confident in whats there. For the CV, the rule is concise and less (but high quality) is always always better than a CV that has more in it, but is bad or "filler" resume stuff. Here is the benefit of those courses: you learn stuff about Sociology. You know more about theory and can incorporate these ideas into your writing and your SOP.. and you can learn more before you start your grad program so you can get a leg up on your classmates.. but just please save yourself a potential frown-face from an adcom and don't mention the coursera courses in your application.

It's probably safe to say that you are just as competitive in your late 20s as your mid-20s.. in a top 10 program that is fairly evenly distributed in age between 22-35.

Also - realize that the admissions committees for every school usually changes from year to year and only has maybe 8-15% of the entire faculty... and that often these faculty will have preference over students in their area. And sometimes the admissions committee is chosen based on what students they are looking for to fill in gaps. For example, if a school has too many graduate students who are cultural sociologists but not enough ones doing historical sociology, they may ask the historical sociology professors to be on the adcom and to have the cultural ones step back. So if you happened to make an earth-shattering connection with the cultural sociology professor at that school in that one cycle, you might be out of luck. Think about a program like Wisconsin which has 50+ professors, 20 "subfields," hundreds of applications, an admissions committee of 8 professors trying to decide. Making a connection with a professor may help, probably won't hurt, for some cases may be what gets you in (*that* professor sits on the committee that year), but in all likelihood is not crucial. I think what is more important -- and something you should spend time doing -- is reading up on the research of the professors you would want to work with at each program and to craft something in your statement reflecting something smart about that connection between your interests and their work.

If you are really concerned - it might be too late now to sign up but you could take it again, and now you only need to report your highest scores. If you did well in a stats class, the math GRE section should not be that hard if you sit down and really study for it. I think its all mental too.. if you think you aren't good at math, then surprise, you take the GRE and do bad at math (Social psych 101).

Having just started at a top-10 program mentioned in the above lists, I'll add some words of caution in terms of "placement" to think about that I hadn't really considered a year ago when applying. 1. Cohort size and funding make a greater difference and will affect the lists above. I go to a program with a small cohort (private school where n=under 10) where we all get equal funding, as opposed to a top public school closer to n=20 where funding is really competitive. I've only been in the program 2 months, but can see how a large program like UCLA could both produce frequent superstars, but also a lot of people who don't get jobs and don't finish. Having just started my first year, I have already had moments of "wow, this is really hard." Luckily, my cohort mates are super supportive and I know my funding is guaranteed. Basically, I was told, "go to the program that you will have the highest chance of finishing," -- it does you no good if you drop out, and other classmates get placed into top schools adding to your program's prestige ranking. I'm glad I followed that advice instead of thinking "Oh, this other program has all these Ivy League placements" 2. Any program in the top 15-25 will give you good training and prepare you for the job market. A lot of other factors will come into play when you are on the job market that have little to do if you school's name is "Princeton", "Indiana" or "NYU" etc -- and these are your publications, area of interest, letters of rec, and just dumb luck in terms of that year's job cycle. Trying to think that just cause X school landed 15 people into top 25 programs, while Y school only landed 8, and hence I will go to X since my chances are greater, is really bad logic. Final words of advice: do your best, apply broadly, visit every program, be prepared for surprises, listen to other grad students in this process and good luck!

I was fairly "out" in my application through details in my CV and SOP, and then my proposed interests of study in my SOP only involved research on LGBT sexuality. I was accepted to multiple top programs and will be attending a top-5 school this fall. On my school visits, my "out-ness" was not at all a factor - so I wouldn't "closet" yourself in your application. Since well, what's the use of going to a program that would have rejected you had you been more upfront about your sexuality and your interests.

Hi all - I am currently deciding on my offer from USC or not. USC is a great program - fantastic faculty, world class resources and amazing funding. I have some other offers though that I may be more interested in. So the deal with USC is that they are a very small program - as they aim for cohorts between 2-4 people. I believe they have admitted 6-7 already but have only secured funding for 4-5 maybe? This is what was inferred when I visited. I am really torn about the program - it is a really amazing one but I have some other offers that I may take instead. It may be a situation where they have spots that open up close to or after the 15th. I will do my best to decide soon if I definitely won't go so they can admit someone else instead. Good luck everyone!