2025 Cycle Results & Applicant Profiles

[swagboy]

‘Cycle Results & Applicant Profiles’ was one of the most helpful resources I came across while preparing myself for grad school apps (in combination with scouring PhD student CVs from department websites). I hope others will join me in posting using the following format: 

PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution: 
Major(s)/Minor(s):
Undergrad GPA: 
Type of Grad: 
Grad GPA: 
GRE: 
Any Special Courses:
Letters of Recommendation:
Teaching/Research Experience:
Other:

RESULTS:
Acceptances:
Rejections:
Pending:

Attending:

LESSONS LEARNED:

 

[swagboy]

PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad Institution:  T20, Private
Major(s)/Minor(s): Economics (Departmental Honors), Quantitative Social Science
Undergrad GPA:  3.99
Type of Grad:  NA
Grad GPA:  NA
GRE:  161Q 162V 4.0AW
Any Special Courses:  7 stats/data-science courses including one graduate stats course. Additionally, a healthy number of Phil and critical/contemporary theory courses
Letters of Recommendation: Tenured Soc Prof (highly cited but currency inactive), Tenured Econ Prof, Econ Snr lecture
Teaching/Research Experience: 2.5 years research experience, 2 first author papers (R&R, under review) + senior thesis. 3 years TA experience, for Economic Statistics + two upper level sociology courses
Other: Awarded 2 research grants and 1 humanities fellowship from UG institution. Subfields: econ soc/ political economy/ urban development. Applied straight out of undergrad.

RESULTS: 3a/14r/0p
Acceptances: Duke, Wisconsin, Harvard (Soc & Social Policy)
Rejections: Brown, Cal Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell (Development Soc),  Johns Hopkins, Michigan, MIT (Pol Sci), Northwestern, NYU, Princeton (Soc & Social Policy),  Rice, Yale, Stanford
Pending: NA

Attending: Harvard (Sociology & Social Policy)

LESSONS LEARNED:

1) Networks are much  more  important than I thought -
I did not previously understand how important it was to pick recommenders within your discipline, specifically, recommenders actively building and maintaining networks within your discipline\sub-discipline. Obviously this is not always possible, especially for international applicants, but if it is within your control, I believe that well networked recommenders are overly determinative of your placement as compared to other marginal characteristics, such as research grants, awards, TAships, and fellowships. For some background, my best friend and I formed a somewhat ‘natural experiment’ from which I derived this conclusion: Coming from the same university, with nearly an identical profile (same majors, GRE, GPA, but he had  slightly less research exp, no TA experience) and he was accepted into 12 of the top 14 pol sci PhD program. The independent variable in question: he had 3 well networked Pol Sci recommenders who are very active and respected -but not famous- within his sub-field. Couldn’t have been happier with my own results, but I do think his superlative success story is illuminating: 1) Having recommenders who adcoms recognize or are at least vaguely familiar with may help them, at least notionally, reduce some of the stochasticity and risk involved in admitting a given student who they have relatively little information about. 2) Selection of grad students acts as a form of status recognition for recommenders, and everyone knows that, so it is harder to reject a student with a strong recommendation from someone you know than a marginally stronger candidate with recommenders whom you are not familiar with. Nearly every email my friend received after admission (from POIs) praised his recommenders, which shows that not only do committee members know who recommends you, but they really think about it too. This is especially important given just how many qualified applicants apply to top programs each year.

2) The articulation of research fit. Everyone says this but it's true; Fit is highly personalized and specific to one's own interest but a topic which should pre-dominate both the application, and school selection process. Articulating fit properly in your SOP requires as much consultation, ideally  with your  recommenders and active faculty within your desired discipline.

3) Lastly, the most shocking element of this cycle was that every single rejection felt so much more personal than I ever could have imagined before being rejected. I could not have been more happy with my results and feel that I was extremely lucky to receive the offers I did, but even still it is hard not get caught up in all the rejections that are imminent. Try not to take any decision personally, there is so much stochasticity involved when there are so many qualified applicants, so sadly it really is beyond our control.

[strawberrypasta]

PROFILE:

Type of Undergrad Institution: medium-size public R2 (ranked ~400 by US News). very small sociology program (30 students who are majors or minors/2 professors)

Major(s)/Minor(s): Sociology (with High Honors)/WGS Studies Minor

Undergrad GPA: 3.79

Type of Grad: N/A

Grad GPA:  N/A

GRE:  149v/151q/5.5w

Any Special Courses: Grad-level Queer Theory Course, research-centered university Honors Program (12 credit hours), Advanced Qualitative Methods in Sociology

Letters of Recommendation: tenured English professor that taught Queer Theory Course; tenured Sociology professor that has been my mentor for 3 years;  tenured Sociology professor at T5 Sociology program who was my mentor at the summer research program I attended

Teaching/Research Experience: 2.5 years in McNair Program, 8 conference presentations (3 at ASA, rest at regional sociology conference), sole-authored paper published in peer-reviewed journal, TA for 2.5 years, 4 guest lectures

Other: President of university-level social justice organization, service on committees for ASA and regional sociology society, ASA Honors Program, Summer research program @ T5 program, outstanding graduate for CLA at my undergraduate university 

 

RESULTS: 8a/4r/1wl/0p

Acceptances: Columbia, Georgia State, Northwestern, UCSB, UIC, Michigan, Minnesota, Penn

Waitlists: UC Berkeley

Rejections: Brown, Chicago, Texas, Wisconsin

Withdrew Application: Princeton and Michigan State (already accepted my offer before results were sent)

 

Attending: Michigan

 

LESSONS LEARNED:

1. Get a hobby. Especially when waiting for decisions to be sent out. Refreshing GradCafe does not count as a hobby!!!
2. Set designated time aside to work on applications, and try to work in designated spaces. Don’t just work from home because it will be way too difficult to pace yourself and create healthy boundaries with your application.
3. Start drafting materials as early as possible. Continuously update your CV throughout undergrad rather than waiting to try to remember everything you did retroactively. Also send your materials to as many people as you feel comfortable with showing to review. It doesn’t even have to be people in sociology, but just having extra sets of eyes can help catch silly grammatical/spelling errors, clunky sentences, and help you think about your application differently. 
4. Keep a personal/junk journal as you do your research in undergrad where you can document your feelings, ideas, etc. and try to write in it every day. This will be super helpful to look back on as you craft your application. 
5. Make sure you have a clear understanding of what you want your research to be and how you want to be known as a researcher. Make sure that your application is a cohesive story about this identity and project. 
6. It’s also really important that your SOP is well structured and easily readable in a short time. I was told by professors at the summer program that 90% of time in the first round is spent on the SOP, and that they need it to catch their attention from the beginning. It should also have clear topic sentences to begin each paragraph. From what I was told, the SOP should be (in this order): 50% research agenda for grad school, 30% your past experiences that make you the perfect person to carry out this research, 20% why this program is the best place to do such research.