Willows

That sounds like a good plan. I talked to my undergrad's program coordinator for our grad school, and his words to me were to "cast a wide net." So, that's definitely something to consider. I was also advised to draw attention to my work experience that is related to my research interests even if the job itself was not research related. For gender, as an example, I worked in a nonprofit (advocacy) which may help. I'm not sure if that advice helps at all, but good luck!

Oh, and I can't edit that at the moment, but I'm trying to focus primarily on fit.

Our situations sound similar. Comparable GRE scores and GPA's. I will have qual research experience for 2 semesters in developing my own survey, conducting interviews, etc. I'm interested in a lot (soc is interesting!), but narrowing it to gender, family, stratification, and mobility. I'm not sure exactly where to aim either. I'm focusing on rankings around 30-60.

I am loving all the opinions and insight! Thanks you guys. I have read some of your posts before, jacib! Particularly in regards to the admission process, they have all been very interesting and enlightening. I've been scouring the site for a while now reading up on 2010/2011 cohorts and their stats. Of course, I'm not among those of you vying for top 10-20 programs. Still, competition has blossomed in recent years even in top 30-50 programs or so it would seem.

This is a common question, I think. I posed this recently actually: Perhaps you would find the posts equally as enlightening since you are a fellow Soc major. Honestly, I think the main thing is beating the "cut-off" for programs. I have read a variety of posts all assuming that 1200 is the generally accepted cut-off for top 20 programs. I do not know if this is true. What I can tell you is that I've looked at some 25-60 ranked programs, and the cut-offs I have found from those universities (if listed at all) are so at 1100 then down the list towards 1000). I suspect that certain 25-35 programs probably consider the overall score more than others (Vanderbilt, etc).

Obviously this is a hypothetical because we aren't adcoms: When weeding out GRE scores, do you think they start by looking at your overall or do you think they look at each section individually? Say you have someone pushing the 90 percentile for verbal, but suffering at or below the 50 for quant. Do you think that carries more or less weight than the student who got 60-70 percentile in each section? I'm retaking because of Q, but I'm mostly just curious in general.

It depends on where you apply and what your program is, I think.

There are a lot of free online tests that are timed to match GRE's speed. I will say that for me, it was a test of endurance by the last section or so. The AW has two essays, both of which give allotted times of 30 minutes. The other 5 sections are around 30-35 minutes each.

Still in the process of deciding! Thinking SUNY, Vanderbilt, BC, and MSU. I need to investigate a bit further for fit (as well as a program that is will to accept a stellar verbal score with a mediocre quant score).

The PowerPrep II test was the closest to my real results, and I took it before even studying. I scored an average of a couple points higher in each section than the PPII test anticipated. I will say that I studied from Barron's, Magoosh, and Kaplan for the math and verbal. My test was heavily weighted toward geometry with none of the things I had really brushed up on (probability, ratios, drt, etc). I think the extensive reading exercises I did with Magoosh possibly helped bump my verbal score in regards to reading comprehension.

I think their quant section is unrealistically hard. That could be a negative or positive, depending on how you look at it. The verbal is great on Magoosh, but bringing up your verbal score requires a lot more time than bringing up your quant score, IMHO.

In your SOP, should you purposefully avoid discussing whether are not you are married and/or have a child? I could see how this could add to your application in that you've achieved certain things all while having many more responsibilities than a traditional undergrad. This could be an opportunity to show dedication. Plus, the ethics of not revealing are murky to me. Yet, adcoms might see see a spouse or a child as a potential distraction from your research, right?

This is an older post, but I'm interested if anyone else is. Program is Soc Sciences. I'm looking at early October. willows.soc [at] gmail [dot] com. (Please provide your site username if you contact me! Thanks!)

Thank you all for replying! I'm definitely feeling a bit better about things. Magoosh is still kicking my ass in quant, but I do feel like I'm improving. It raises my expected score a tiny bit higher in quant every day. True! I just read a post from a year or so ago about some Vanderbilt professor being really haughty regarding the quant score. I realize I'll continue using social stats through my research, but I really don't think my geometry skills (or lack thereof), which I haven't used in what - 8 years?, should be the reason I'm held back from some of my top choices.

Let me be clear: I have done absolutely zero prep. I decided to just waltz into a prep test to assess the situation, particularly regarding quantitative for me. My verbal score was 157, quantitative was 147 (ouch). Based on this, obviously I need to step up my game in regards to quant. I haven't taken a math course in years (sans social statistics), so I sort of expected this. I was honestly expecting a bit higher on the verbal, but I did take the test in the middle of the night on a whim. In short, do you think 1-2 months is adequate time to study to boost these abysmal scores? Quite frankly, I never see myself with a ridiculously high quant score. I think I can possibly hit 160 with a fair amount of diligence. Clearly, I'm in the social sciences, so hitting quant out of the ballpark isn't my goal. I would really like to hit 160, though. Also, I'd like to get my verbal up about 5-6 points.