sociologyinthepast

Worth noting - I think if your UG program involved research or especially substantive coursework in your desired graduate area, or if you had an especially strong relationship with a letter-writer, a letter from your UG program isn't necessarily a liability. Case in point, although obviously this is an n of 1: I had one letter from my graduate advisor and two from undergraduate professors. In my case, I was a research assistant for and eventual co-author with those profs, so it made perfect sense in my case. And I had stronger relationships with those faculty than with some of my grad faculty. I don't think the absence of a letter will mean nearly as much as the presence of other letters. If you have letters from faculty you've worked with recently in your grad program that can attest to your preparedness for the PhD course, then I don't think any ad comm will see red flags.

I did - funding does exist! idk how many full offers went out, since I haven't seen too many acceptances go up in the results, but I know that there are offers floating around and you've still got a shot if you're on the waitlist.

E-mail from the grad director; probably will be followed up with a phone call. Standard full package - 5 years. Pretty generous stipend. Thanks! I was worried that my MA from leaving one PhD program would read as a liability to some adcomms, but I guess not.

Just got the good news from Rutgers! Could not be more excited, seriously, the faculty there are a really wonderful fit for me. Other folks who interviewed with them should be hearing soon, I'll bet.

Thanks for the info! Yeah, earlier this month I went through every school's notification dates for prior years and estimated ranges for when they'd send out acceptances. I know it doesn't accomplish anything, but many of you (I'm sure) it makes me feel better to just be doing something. I'm just impatient and was wondering if anyone had taken more initiative than I and tried getting in touch.

Nobody's heard anything from Yale yet, have they?

Congrats! Thinking about doing an MA then reapplying for PhDs afterward? Is it funded? and @Zsick: I'm never sure how to handle communications like that with faculty at prospective schools. I just assume that they have enough random e-mails, phone calls, and other contacts that they don't really need a laborious apology for one accidental spam in particular. Unless it's really egregious or something.

Oops. Is there a protocol for butt-dialing your POI, thinking they called you, calling them back without realizing who it was, asking whether they called you earlier, hanging up sort of brusquely thinking it was a wrong number, and then going through your call history and realizing what happened? No? There isn't?

You can also try the NRC rankings at www.phds.org. They don't have data for some schools, and the data they do have are a little old, but there's some info about "percent of students with a job or definite commitment after graduation." It's not the best but it might help a little. Otherwise, I've put some effort into trying to hunt down CVs/publication records of current students, and simply google alumni, but it's not an especially reliable process.

@DarthVegan - you're telling me. I only applied to 6 programs both times around, and it's managed to work out, but there's definitely been a looming fear between December-January of not getting in anywhere at all and being stuck at my miserable job for another year! I just honestly am so drained by the application process that I have trouble getting more than six or so out. And MDK, congrats on Madison! 2 programs (especially 2 that are so competitive) sure is "living on the edge," but it's awesome that it's working out for you.

@Darin - I'll take a crack at it. This is my perspective as someone who went straight from undergrad in a big public school, entered a competitive PhD program, completed my MA, left the program, and is currently reapplying to PhD programs. You may find some of this useful, some of this pointless and long-winded, and some of this irrelevant; I'm just brain-dumping. Assume all my words are more haphazard suggestions than anything else, but this is mostly in the vein of "things I wish someone told me." Here's what you should prioritize: - Get strong grades (you're doing that; a good GPA is always helpful to have, but it might not distinguish you from many others) - Do as well as possible on the GREs (some programs care a lot more than others, but it's never a bad thing) - Get some research experience with undergrad professors - if you can be a research assistant, do so, and if you can squeeze that into a co-authorship, do that too - Build relationships with key folks in the department who you'd like letters of rec from down the road - just be engaged, friendly, go to office hours, cultivate a professional relationship. (Again, sounds like you're already doing that. This is pretty important everywhere in academia so it's good to make sure you enjoy or at least tolerate it now.) - Build your writing skills. Take as many taxing writing-intensive courses as you can without becoming overloaded. Being a good writer is one of the few skills that transfers across disciplines, methodologies, subfields, and departments. A good writing sample will help your application a lot. Find contests/scholarships/fellowships/other ways to test your writing in a competitive setting. In terms of "mental/emotional prep," a good resource to look up if you're interested in sociology grad school is Fabio Rojas' ebook/blog post series "Grad Skool Rulz." (Posts are free to read, ebook is a little more complete/fleshed out and costs two bucks.) It's written to provide lots of "straight dope" about the do's and don'ts of the PhD, especially in the social sciences. Some of it might seem a little harsh, but it's mostly just realistic, and I wish I'd read it before I started grad school. Also, in terms of preparing yourself academically, try to read a lot of work that's not necessarily the type you like. For example, you're interested in how media affects our cultural attitudes toward conformity; I'll guess that you probably read more qualitative/interpretive work vs big survey-style stuff (though I could be wrong). Even if you're a sociologist who does one thing really well, you will be expected to know what the "shape" of other subfields looks like. A key part of being a professional sociologist is being at least minimally fluent in the whole discipline. So, if you can take classes on topics that don't seem interesting at first, do so; and if you can drive yourself to read research on your downtime (like i would ever have done that in undergrad), do some of that too. Also: Don't commit to a substantive area now, or even while you're applying; it's good to have defined interests, but I found that I essentially knew nothing about sociology once I actually got to grad school. Your interests are likely to change, so be prepared to be flexible. Nobody expects your dissertation topic in your first year. Re: picking a school. Rankings are (mostly) supreme. A good rule of thumb is attend the most highly ranked program that you're admitted to, with full funding, and with faculty who you can see yourself working with. Don't go to a program solely because of rank if you can't see anyone there you want to work with (or if it's only one person; soc departments can be bumpy places and that faculty member might leave, go on sabbatical, or be full-up on students). And some programs with very high rankings might be bad environments for some kinds of students - i.e. could be highly competitive when you'd prefer a collaborative environment, or have very "hands-off" advising when you'd prefer to stay in touch with your advisor regularly. But in general, highly ranked programs tend to have more resources, better connections, (theoretically) better students, and reputations that will ease your applications for fellowships, grants, and other goodies. (A brief caveat/aside about rankings: like many academic disciplines, sociology as an institution is fairly status-obsessed. Can you get good training outside the top 10, 20, or 35 programs? Definitely, especially when a school is known for a given subfield. Will smart, motivated students attend programs outside the top 10? Of course. Will you learn a lot anywhere you go? Sure. But at the end of the day, the job market cares about rankings a lot and a highly ranked program is almost always a leg up.) In a similar vein: definitely don't go anywhere that won't fund you completely. (dunno how much research you've already done, but standard packages are full tuition plus a 15k-25k stipend for 4 or 5 years. Most are probably between 17-21k.) Grad school is headache enough without needing to worry about whether your funding will be renewed next year, and the sociology job market isn't so lucrative that you'll be able to easily pay off a PhD's worth of student loans. Hoo. Anything else, for now? That might be it. There are many others on this forum with more experience who are better able to speak to some of these issues, but I hope my thoughts are helpful. This is an awesome discipline, and academic sociology is a fascinating way to spend your career, so if you're interested then I say go for it! (You can feel free to PM with other q's, too!)

'Cause I'm a loon. Naw, but seriously, I ended up going to that top5 program and finishing my MA, having a pretty good time, doing well enough but ultimately deciding that I didn't think academic sociology was me. A few months after I leave, I'm having second thoughts, and a few months after that I'm back into full-blown applications mode. I think my big problem was picking a program that wasn't a great fit (because I didn't honestly know what I wanted to do), and wedding myself to a methodology and project that I didn't find satisfying. Now I'm reapplying, sticking in my home region of the Northeast, and couldn't be more excited. Already pumped about the options I have.

From the UW admissions FAQ: So, it sounds like they are one and the same program - you have, in fact, applied to become a sociologist, as you hopefully expected.

Same story here - nothing out of Yale. Hoping to hear soon! (And yeah, when I was applying soc phds 3 years ago I got rejected from programs in the 30s and got into a top 5, so ... yeah, no rhyme, no reason, no nothin'.)

Lemme give a +1 to Fabio's Grad Skool Rulz ebook. It's a great list of sober, reasonable tips for students that I wish I'd had before my first admissions cycle.

I'll throw something out there. My experience at Michigan was that the department is very collaborative, and the faculty (especially the junior faculty) are extremely supportive. More senior faculty not so much. But Michigan has recently hired a lot of very strong junior faculty who are a pleasure to work with, and most topical areas have a very strong weekly(ish) workshop where faculty and students can come together to share in-progress research and practice job talks (the style and tone of these workshops differs by substantive area; econ soc is run much more formally than gender and sexuality, for example, but they're all useful). One concern of some students (although I didn't have this problem) is that there are occasionally disconnects between admin staff, faculty, and grad students; not all faculty are necessarily up-to-date on the latest policies regarding things like funding, teaching/research assistant appointments, and degree progress rules. This means it's often incumbent on grad students to take the initiative and do a little fact finding of their own, though. I assume that's true almost everywhere - in general I think it's important for phd students to assume responsibility for knowing all dept. rules and regulations, especially pertaining to stuff that could seriously affect their degree progress. In general, Michigan is an awesome environment if you can handle the Ann Arbor cold.

I sure did! Trust me, I'll be hollerin and screamin on here whatever the news is the moment I hear it. Well, I guess if the news is bad, it'll be more of a sad whimper. UMass is one of my top choices based on the faculty, so I'm hopin'!

Lemme chime in here - I got the same message from Rutgers (request for a phone interview, made via e-mail). I haven't posted it in the results list because I'm superstitious (lol) and want to wait until I know more about my chances. But congrats, fellow potential Scarlet Knight! (Do students call themselves Scarlet Knights at RU? That seems awk.) Oh and CONGRATS to whoever just posted the U of Michigan acceptances! That's my former sociology home, and it's an awesome program. GO BLUE.

Hi folks, So, I just finished my MA at a top-5 program in my field (sociology). Now, this place doesn't have terminal sociology MAs - I actually left my PhD program after 2 years, having completed all the coursework and exams. I mostly left for personal reasons. I still want an academic career track, but I'd rather be in the northeast with my family and partner than the midwest. After a little soul searching, I've decided to reapply in the fall. I will still be in soc, but I don't think I'll necessarily want to keep my research interests entirely. Has anyone gone through a similar experience? I'm wondering if an MA from a highly ranked program is an asset, or, on the other hand, if having left a PhD program makes me look like a liability. Thanks all!

Hi all, I've got an interesting conundrum. I abandoned a top-5 program in soc this past spring, getting my MA in the process. After a little time away, and some reflection, I've decided I want to get back to work and finish my PhD. I mostly left for personal/family reasons, so I think a relocation is what I need (I was in the Midwest and all my folks/friends/partner are in the Northeast). I did well enough at the program - strong performance in classes, high passes on my comps, on track to get my first publishable paper sent away by what would have been my third year. However, I didn't actually get any pubs out (from my grad work at least - picked up one from some undergrad research) and I didn't build as many strong relationships with professors as I'd like - only one professor who I really connected with strongly. This was probably due to my research being narrow - I didn't really interact with quant or historical people at my institution, which was my loss. So - has anyone had a similar situation? Abandoned a program, wanted to reapply to other schools? Do you think the MA in soc (esp. from a highly ranked school) is an asset, or do you think having bailed on a PhD program already makes you look like a liability? I'm not looking to reapply to top-5 programs - I want my career path to involve small liberal arts colleges, community colleges, or programs with a teaching focus. I don't want to end up at an R1. I don't know if I can frame the move as a total shift in research areas, because honestly I don't think I want to shift that dramatically. Any thoughts?

I'm trying to stay regional - this is my second time through the process, as I completed my master's midway through a PhD program and left (mostly for personal/relationship/family reasons). So I'm limiting myself to stuff in the Northeastern area - probably a few that are "safe" picks (BC, UMass Amherst, UConn), some riskier ones (Yale, U. Maryland) and maybe some reaches (Penn might be a reach for me. Harvard is probably too much of a reach - I've already done my time in a top 5 program and don't feel like rolling the dice again). Probably will total 6 or 7 when all's said and done.

Has anyone heard of a school offering substantially less (like, 10k or less?) I'm asking because I'm looking at UMass Amherst (seems like a great fit) but one page on their site suggests that their average stipend for a 9 month academic year is only $10,700. Any other schools do this?