Sociology Prospective Graduate Schools

[agggrrrhhhh]

I'm an international student applying to US and Canada for a PhD in Sociology. I am applying for fall 2021 intake.

I'm in a city where there's no options to take the GRE. Luckily a lot of programs have made it optional.

I have average grades in my bachelors and good grades in my masters (not very good). I'm from the best university for sociology in India, which has a very competitive entrance exam. And it just doesn't give A+ to students enrolled in humanities. You get A maximum. I have a first Division. I am also doing my MPhil from the same University. MPhil is a 2 year research program. I will be done with it in May 2021.  I figure I will do well in my English proficiency exam (it's in a week). I have studied sociology from undergrad to now (6 years running, will be 7 by the time I am done with my MPhil) 

My areas of interest are popular and material culture, dress and clothing, gender and sexuality, fashion and sustainability, American culture, trans-culturality, new and old media, communication, and, media and surveillance. 

What are some universities I could realistically look at? I don't want to apply to Ivy Leagues and waste money and more importantly, time on applications, knowing how competitive it is. 

[lkaitlyn]

Hey! So Ivy League vs. not actually isn't really a thing for PhDs — some of the greatest programs in the country are at non-Ivy schools. PhD admissions are really about research experience, what you write in your application, and research fit with faculty, not as much about grades, so if those who share your research interests happen to be at highly ranked schools, you'd do better applying there than you'd do applying to less selective schools with no research fit.

This year, unfortunately a lot of programs have suspended admissions. Normally I'd suggested UW Gender Studies to you, actually, given your interests, but I believe it has halted applications this year (as has UC Santa Barbara, which also might be good for your interests). That said, many programs are taking applications, and if for some reason things don't work out this year, apply next cycle as well. Many people apply several cycles before they find the right fit.

Given your interests and coming from a gender studies background myself (though focused more on law and incarceration within that subfield), I'd be looking at the following this cycle: University of Michigan (also look at their American Culture PhD), Rutgers, Emory, UCLA, U of Arizona (announcing if taking apps mid-October; also check out Gender Studies), University of Southern California, UC Santa Cruz, UBC Vancouver, and U of Chicago (quant-heavy, but has some amazing trans studies scholars right now).

Beyond that, try looking at where people who have written articles you've found useful for your research currently teach. I found my programs by reverse-engineering like that. Your goal is to find programs where at least 3 faculty members share your research interests broadly, so going backwards by starting with faculty will save you time. Just make sure you check that the programs you apply to offer full funding to PhD students and have reasonable placement. You don't want to go somewhere that won't give you a shot at getting a job.

Edited October 4, 2020 by lkaitlyn

[limonchello]

Your research interests really remind me of Melanie Wallendorf at the University of Arizona who actually teaches in Marketing. Because of the super tough time sociology is having now and will continue to have going forward (said as a current sociology grad student), I'd actually recommend you check out programs like that and either minor in soc or push for a dual degree. Pure soc just isn't going to cut it anymore. 

[lkaitlyn]

12 hours ago, limonchello said:

Your research interests really remind me of Melanie Wallendorf at the University of Arizona who actually teaches in Marketing. Because of the super tough time sociology is having now and will continue to have going forward (said as a current sociology grad student), I'd actually recommend you check out programs like that and either minor in soc or push for a dual degree. Pure soc just isn't going to cut it anymore. 

Honestly this is true across most social sciences/humanities disciplines, so unless you have a career change to biomedical engineering, I'm not sure doing a "dual degree" (as a PhD? Very few schools do that ...) won't help you very much. Just know you might wind up outside of academia in the end.

[agggrrrhhhh]

On 10/5/2020 at 5:24 AM, lkaitlyn said:

Hey! So Ivy League vs. not actually isn't really a thing for PhDs — some of the greatest programs in the country are at non-Ivy schools. PhD admissions are really about research experience, what you write in your application, and research fit with faculty, not as much about grades, so if those who share your research interests happen to be at highly ranked schools, you'd do better applying there than you'd do applying to less selective schools with no research fit.

This year, unfortunately a lot of programs have suspended admissions. Normally I'd suggested UW Gender Studies to you, actually, given your interests, but I believe it has halted applications this year (as has UC Santa Barbara, which also might be good for your interests). That said, many programs are taking applications, and if for some reason things don't work out this year, apply next cycle as well. Many people apply several cycles before they find the right fit.

Given your interests and coming from a gender studies background myself (though focused more on law and incarceration within that subfield), I'd be looking at the following this cycle: University of Michigan (also look at their American Culture PhD), Rutgers, Emory, UCLA, U of Arizona (announcing if taking apps mid-October; also check out Gender Studies), University of Southern California, UC Santa Cruz, UBC Vancouver, and U of Chicago (quant-heavy, but has some amazing trans studies scholars right now).

Beyond that, try looking at where people who have written articles you've found useful for your research currently teach. I found my programs by reverse-engineering like that. Your goal is to find programs where at least 3 faculty members share your research interests broadly, so going backwards by starting with faculty will save you time. Just make sure you check that the programs you apply to offer full funding to PhD students and have reasonable placement. You don't want to go somewhere that won't give you a shot at getting a job.

 

Thank you so much. I have found a bunch of scholars I like, and I have started mailing them as well. 

Can I also ask if you think taking the GRE right now would be worth it or not? Most people here say you should take the GRE if your grades are low.

But the thing is, when you're an international applicant, more often than not your universities don't prescribe to a 4 point grade system.

Right now I'm doing an MPhil in sociology. I have research experience because MPhil (2 years). 

My university's socio program is ranked 51-100 in QS rankings. I also did my masters from here. But the tricky part is, they give you GPAs out of 9, and they also give you a percentage, but no one gets 80% or even close. I have a percentage in late 60s. So are my grades low or not? I actually don't know and it's driving me insane.

Any advice would be appreciated xx

 

 

 

 

[lkaitlyn]

2 hours ago, agggrrrhhhh said:

 

Thank you so much. I have found a bunch of scholars I like, and I have started mailing them as well. 

Can I also ask if you think taking the GRE right now would be worth it or not? Most people here say you should take the GRE if your grades are low.

But the thing is, when you're an international applicant, more often than not your universities don't prescribe to a 4 point grade system.

Right now I'm doing an MPhil in sociology. I have research experience because MPhil (2 years). 

My university's socio program is ranked 51-100 in QS rankings. I also did my masters from here. But the tricky part is, they give you GPAs out of 9, and they also give you a percentage, but no one gets 80% or even close. I have a percentage in late 60s. So are my grades low or not? I actually don't know and it's driving me insane.

Any advice would be appreciated xx

 

 

 

 

If you take a GRE practice test and are scoring 160/160 on it or something, I can't imagine it hurting to have that score. If it's not going to help your application, don't take it.