GRE topics across disciplines

[jacib]

This is just some random information I found that I thought might interest some of you (I was linked to it from Chris Blattman's excellent blog) :

Verbal vs. Mathematical aptitude in academics (from a discovery magazine blog)

It's actually using this (easy to read) data: GRE Scores by Intended Graduate Major

Average Sociology Scores are:

V: 487 (approx: 59%)

Q: 545 (approx. 36%)

W: 4.6 (approx. 65%)

A few things to notice: compared to the other Social Sciences we score:

lower than Anthropology in every category

lower than Political science in every category

lower than Economics in every category but writing (which is probably explained partially by the number of non-native English speakers in Econ departments)

higher than Psychology in every category

In the Humanities we score:

lower than History in every category

lower than English in every category

lower than Religion in every category

lower than Arts - History, Theory in every category

lower than Education - Higher in every category

lower than Foreign Lang & Lit in every category

lower than Humanities & Arts - Other in every category

higher than Communications in every category.

I'll be honest: I'm particularly surprised by the relatively low placement in the quant section. And that Anthropology is higher than us in everything. (Also, the data is six years old, but I don't know see why this would have changed all that much in six years).

edit: the subject should be GRE Scores Across Disciplines. It's really early in the morning.

Edited December 20, 2010 by jacib

[JohnBom]

This is just some random information I found that I thought might interest some of you (I was linked to it from Chris Blattman's excellent blog) :

Verbal vs. Mathematical aptitude in academics (from a discovery magazine blog)

It's actually using this (easy to read) data: GRE Scores by Intended Graduate Major

Average Sociology Scores are:

V: 487 (approx: 59%)

Q: 545 (approx. 36%)

W: 4.6 (approx. 65%)

A few things to notice: compared to the other Social Sciences we score:

lower than Anthropology in every category

lower than Political science in every category

lower than Economics in every category but writing (which is probably explained partially by the number of non-native English speakers in Econ departments)

higher than Psychology in every category

In the Humanities we score:

lower than History in every category

lower than English in every category

lower than Religion in every category

lower than Arts - History, Theory in every category

lower than Education - Higher in every category

lower than Foreign Lang & Lit in every category

lower than Humanities & Arts - Other in every category

higher than Communications in every category.

I'll be honest: I'm particularly surprised by the relatively low placement in the quant section. And that Anthropology is higher than us in everything. (Also, the data is six years old, but I don't know see why this would have changed all that much in six years).

edit: the subject should be GRE Scores Across Disciplines. It's really early in the morning.

This doesn't surprise me very much. Sociology is considered to be an easy major in a lot of colleges. That leads to many people applying to grad schools without knowing very much about the discipline, and taking the process seriously. Also, sociology attracts more first-generation college students and students of color than other disciplines. These groups have typically lower gre averages than other applicants. A better comparison would look at what are average gre scores needed for getting accepted into a phd program. In those, I believe, sociology would do quite well because, unlike in the humanities for example, the expected score is high in both quant and qual sections.

[Roll Right]

This doesn't surprise me very much. Sociology is considered to be an easy major in a lot of colleges. That leads to many people applying to grad schools without knowing very much about the discipline, and taking the process seriously. Also, sociology attracts more first-generation college students and students of color than other disciplines. These groups have typically lower gre averages than other applicants. A better comparison would look at what are average gre scores needed for getting accepted into a phd program. In those, I believe, sociology would do quite well because, unlike in the humanities for example, the expected score is high in both quant and qual sections.

I don't think its because of sociology's reputation for easiness. Why would we see history, poli sci, etc scoring much higher then? These are all majors that are considered "easier" than non-liberal arts majors. I think this understanding of easiness is just a stereotype. I think those who are studying sociology because of it's "simplicity" are not likely to pursue a graduate degree as well.

I'm surprised to see that sociologists do better in the quant section. I didn't realize undergraduates were getting a lot of quantitative experience in their BA sociology studies. I expected higher schools in the analytical writing and verbal sections.

Sociology is not pursued by a large number of students....could our small pool of applicants have something to do with it? Most people outside of sociology don't even know what it is.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Roll Right

[jacib]

I don't think its because of sociology's reputation for easiness. Why would we see history, poli sci, etc scoring much higher then? These are all majors that are considered "easier" than non-liberal arts majors. I think this understanding of easiness is just a stereotype. I think those who are studying sociology because of it's "simplicity" are not likely to pursue a graduate degree as well.

I'm surprised to see that sociologists do better in the quant section. I didn't realize undergraduates were getting a lot of quantitative experience in their BA sociology studies. I expected higher schools in the analytical writing and verbal sections.

Sociology is not pursued by a large number of students....could our small pool of applicants have something to do with it? Most people outside of sociology don't even know what it is.

I don't think Sociology has a smaller pool than say, Anthropology or Religion or Art History. Also, I don't know how much quantitative experience most undergraduate students get in Sociology (I wasn't a Soc major), but they would be expected to at least understand regression tables and stuff, right? Maybe see one or two papers with mathematical modeling in them, too? That's something that the students in the three departments above mentioned wouldn't be expected to know at all. English students got higher quant scores and economics students got higher verbal scores, c'mon! (a la Gob Bluth). In the top Religion PhD programs, a decent (let's say 500, 550+) score is expected in quant, even though most students will literally never be expected or encouraged to use those skills. I think this is something unique to Religion departments and not something indicative of a wider trend in the humanities (in.English and Comp Lit, I know it's widely stated that programs don't even look at the quant score) Also, people in English and Religion are I think more likely than us to reapply multiple years and therefore a competitive set of students may be retaking the exam with eyes on improving their scores and biasing the sample.

I think you're point, Astronautika, about first generation college students and students of color is a good one, and would probably explain a good portion of the variance. I don't know if I agree with you about a higher score for admitted applicants, and I certainly don't think that sociology has high scores "needed"-- I think even the top Sociology programs have more flexible GRE requirements than, say, the top Political Science or Economics departments. I think I read on the boards last year that in Poli Sci, to get into Stanford or something, double 700s, or at least one 700+ and one in the high 600s, are seen as kind of a minimum--in fact they even kinda hint that on their website. I can't imagine Michigan, Harvard, Chicago or any of the other top Sociology departments writing something like that because I think research compelling research interests and an excellent writing samples can make a student with slightly below average test scores look exceptional in our discipline in ways that is not possible in other disciplines simply because the field of Sociology is great that creativity is easier to see.

One thing last thing I was thinking of is that Sociology is taught more in community colleges than, say, Anthropology or Religion, and so there might be a greater demand for less prestigious PhDs here. Or that maybe a bunch of people who want to do Social Work checked Sociology instead, I dunno.

[Roll Right]

Jacib, how is grad school going anyway? Where did you go?

And on the topic of quant sociology in undergrad - I would be very surprised to see students from undergrad working on regression analysis. This is something not usually covered in undergraduate research methods courses. You might cover it briefly...but I don't recall doing any of it in my undergrad. Although, I took stats with the math department, during my undergrad, so it wasn't applied to sociological inquiry. I've only been working with regressions in my MA work, and its fun as hell. I didn't know what I was missing.

Edited December 23, 2010 by Roll Right

[jacib]

Jacib, how is grad school going anyway? Where did you go?

And on the topic of quant sociology in undergrad - I would be very surprised to see students from undergrad working on regression analysis. This is something not usually covered in undergraduate research methods courses. You might cover it briefly...but I don't recall doing any of it in my undergrad. Although, I took stats with the math department, during my undergrad, so it wasn't applied to sociological inquiry. I've only been working with regressions in my MA work, and its fun as hell. I didn't know what I was missing.

Grad school, it turns out, is not College 2.0. It's a little more like "Working Life 1.5". That's fine though, I just was expecting to drink more not less now that I'm a scholastic environment again. Sacrifices to be made, I guess. People aren't interested in throwing back a thirty rack with me (which is what I did while I was an undergrad with my friend who was finishing up his Plant Biology PhD ). But I'm being challenged, which is fun, and am surrounded by ridiculously intelligent people, all of whom I respect (I'm kinda a hater so that honestly surprised me) and am doing regression for the first time since my first year of undergrad. I took that as part of a"Social Science sequence" at my college. I know about 1/4-1/2 of kids at my Sociology undergrad school did quant stuff for their Bachelor's thesis. Most people did participant-observer ethnographies or a series of interviews, but not all of them. I think my dissertation will be mixed-method at best, but probably lean heavily on the historical/comparative.

Also, I decided since I'm still posting this thing, I'm not going to announce where I am right now, but I'll privately tell anyone who's curious. I'll hit you up in a private message, man. I was just working on some quant religious stuff that might interest you.

[rising_star]

Jacib, how is grad school going anyway? Where did you go?

And on the topic of quant sociology in undergrad - I would be very surprised to see students from undergrad working on regression analysis. This is something not usually covered in undergraduate research methods courses. You might cover it briefly...but I don't recall doing any of it in my undergrad. Although, I took stats with the math department, during my undergrad, so it wasn't applied to sociological inquiry. I've only been working with regressions in my MA work, and its fun as hell. I didn't know what I was missing.

Actually, we did univariate and multivariate regression in STATA in my undergrad stats class. I think regression was almost 1/3rd of the course. (And I say this as a nonsociologist whose intro grad stats course didn't cover multivariate regression.) That said, I don't think we really learned the thinking behind regression (or, if we did, I wasn't paying attention those days).

[Roll Right]

Honestly, I think I would have gotten some regression had I taken stats in the social sciences department. I cant even remember what we covered in the math department....probably because it wasn't applied. I'm not so good at taking in knowledge that I'm not interested in to begin with. Now that I use stats in sociology, its hella fun. Before that I just thought it sucked, hah.

I wanted to do mixed methods for my thesis, but I was shot down. It was going to be participant observation/ logistic, OLS and multivariate logistical regression, but I was told it was too ambitious. Honestly, it would have been easy to do and I have more time on my hands than I anticipated now.....quantitative analysis takes very little time!! I'm glad you're enjoying grad school Jacib. You can't find anyone to knock back a 30 with??? Haha, everyone in my program is probably an alcoholic (including myself). Keep wearing them down, when things get stressful they'll turn to you and the 30 rack.