The Most Competitive Sociology Programs

[Derrick Rose]

I am just curious as to what people think as the hardest sociology program to get into

[maximus82]

I am just curious as to what people think as the hardest sociology program to get into

Can you explain why/how you decided to list those programs and not others?

[Derrick Rose]

Can you explain why/how you decided to list those programs and not others?

Obviously I can't list out all the sociology programs out there. Which other ones are you thinking about?

[Derrick Rose]

Obviously I can't list out all the sociology programs out there. Which other ones are you thinking about?

So here is my rational for listing these five. UChicago has been ranked #1 historically, except in recent years. Wisconsin is the current #1. Berkeley has been consistently ranked in top 3. Harvard and Princeton are also ranked in top 5 according to the recent ranking, and they are two of the most prestigious universities overall. So the hardest school to get into should probably come from one of these. Of courses, some others schools are also very difficult to get into.

[Sociologia]

So here is my rational for listing these five. UChicago has been ranked #1 historically, except in recent years. Wisconsin is the current #1. Berkeley has been consistently ranked in top 3. Harvard and Princeton are also ranked in top 5 according to the recent ranking, and they are two of the most prestigious universities overall. So the hardest school to get into should probably come from one of these. Of courses, some others schools are also very difficult to get into.

which ranking system are you using? there are two dominant ones i know of:

USWNR

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/sociology-rankings

interesting thing about these rankings. they are based soley on the survey of peers (very subjective). notice that many large departments who graduate/admit many students are ranked higher (wisconsin, berkeley) and a department like PennState is ranked lower and admits/graduates less students. now don't get me wrong berkeley and wisconsin are very good and very impressive, but knowing how the ranking scheme of USWNR works you have to take it with a grain of salt. what i can't understand with the USWNR is the ranking of PSU and UPenn despite the low number of first year students/graduates at these places.

NRC (outsourced to phds.org)

http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/sociology/rank/_MM_____________________________________________________________U

the tables are turned by these rankings which claim to be more objective. programs with a high student:faculty ratio like Berkeley (3.7) and Wisconsin (3.4) take a hit here, while a program with a low student:facult ratio like PennState (1.5) ranks higher. Wisconsin also takes a dive in these rankings because according to the data Wisconsin did not provide full financial support to all of it's first year students. in these rankings you can also glean information from the quality of their students because they list the average GRE Q score (in most cases 700+). what's wierd with these rankings is how poorly Wisconsin and Berkeley perform. (if i were admitted to one of these programs and went on a visit day I would be asking students how difficult it would be to work with a faculty member).

The most difficult program to get into IMO would be whichever program has the lowest admissions rate. Using the data collected by the NRC that would probably be UPenn, Harvard, or Michigan. (Which have 5,6, & 7 first year students respectively and are ranked highly by both sets of rankings.) Because I don't know how many offers were made and how many people applied this is purely speculation on my part.

[Derrick Rose]

which ranking system are you using? there are two dominant ones i know of:

USWNR

http://grad-schools....iology-rankings

interesting thing about these rankings. they are based soley on the survey of peers (very subjective). notice that many large departments who graduate/admit many students are ranked higher (wisconsin, berkeley) and a department like PennState is ranked lower and admits/graduates less students. now don't get me wrong berkeley and wisconsin are very good and very impressive, but knowing how the ranking scheme of USWNR works you have to take it with a grain of salt. what i can't understand with the USWNR is the ranking of PSU and UPenn despite the low number of first year students/graduates at these places.

NRC (outsourced to phds.org)

http://graduate-scho...______________U

the tables are turned by these rankings which claim to be more objective. programs with a high student:faculty ratio like Berkeley (3.7) and Wisconsin (3.4) take a hit here, while a program with a low student:facult ratio like PennState (1.5) ranks higher. Wisconsin also takes a dive in these rankings because according to the data Wisconsin did not provide full financial support to all of it's first year students. in these rankings you can also glean information from the quality of their students because they list the average GRE Q score (in most cases 700+). what's wierd with these rankings is how poorly Wisconsin and Berkeley perform. (if i were admitted to one of these programs and went on a visit day I would be asking students how difficult it would be to work with a faculty member).

The most difficult program to get into IMO would be whichever program has the lowest admissions rate. Using the data collected by the NRC that would probably be UPenn, Harvard, or Michigan. (Which have 5,6, & 7 first year students respectively and are ranked highly by both sets of rankings.) Because I don't know how many offers were made and how many people applied this is purely speculation on my part.

Thanks for the detailed info. Btw, how do you find acceptance rate for each school? I do think acceptance rate is a good indicator, but then there is also the issue with the quality of the applicant pool

[Sociologia]

Thanks for the detailed info. Btw, how do you find acceptance rate for each school? I do think acceptance rate is a good indicator, but then there is also the issue with the quality of the applicant pool

I don't. Read the last sentence of my post. It is pure speculation on my part.

[maximus82]

I don't. Read the last sentence of my post. It is pure speculation on my part.

I don't know how many people applied to any of the schools you mentions, but I wanted to make a couple of comments:

1) the NRC rankings have been criticized for being out of date. The US News have been criticized for a bunch of other reasons. I'm not saying they're completely useless, but I do think you should take those with a grain of salt.

2) I've heard that one of the reasons Chicago does so well in placing their students (which is a HUGE thing when it comes to rankings) is that they accept way to many people. I heard this from someone who recently graduated from Chicago. I've heard similar things about Berkeley and Michigan.

3) As far as I know, NYU was one of the most selective schools last year, with something like 5 spots for over 500 applicants. Weird, because NYU is not as good as some other schools. I also know that Duke, Northwestern, and Indiana were all quite selective, but not as selective as NYU.

that's all for now

[direshark]

I don't know how many people applied to any of the schools you mentions, but I wanted to make a couple of comments:

1) the NRC rankings have been criticized for being out of date. The US News have been criticized for a bunch of other reasons. I'm not saying they're completely useless, but I do think you should take those with a grain of salt.

2) I've heard that one of the reasons Chicago does so well in placing their students (which is a HUGE thing when it comes to rankings) is that they accept way to many people. I heard this from someone who recently graduated from Chicago. I've heard similar things about Berkeley and Michigan.

3) As far as I know, NYU was one of the most selective schools last year, with something like 5 spots for over 500 applicants. Weird, because NYU is not as good as some other schools. I also know that Duke, Northwestern, and Indiana were all quite selective, but not as selective as NYU.

I feel like this discussion may warrant a new thread comparing US News to NRC rankings. Now that I've received my first acceptance from Nebraska-Lincoln and am looking at statistics all over again, I'm amazed at how well Nebraska does with the NRC - ranked higher than, in fact, all of my other choices (Duke aside). And they were my safe school, too. Much thinking and comparing to be had in the weeks to come...

[faculty]

Neither the US News nor NRC rankings are thought of very highly in sociology circles. There was recently an effort made at crowdsourcing the rankings with some well-received results. The results are the "allourideas..." file here: http://www.stephenvaisey.com/socrankings/ and one discussion of the idea/results is here: http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/crowdsourcing-sociology-department-rankings/

[Derrick Rose]

Anyone know why Princeton is ranked so high these days. It was ranked outside top ten by most standards five years ago. Did it add more faculties or something?

[crouchingtiger]

Greetings, I've been stalking for a while but not yet posting... thanks for entertaining my obsessive tendencies and sharing your results.

One important thing to keep in mind is that we can't conflate the hardest-to-get-into with the top schools. Arguably there are many factors that make a school like NYU desirable... off the top of my head, excellent funding and location are easy examples. I applied to top schools but was limited in my geographic mobility because I have a partner already in a PhD program. Like me, there are many New Yorkers who don't want to leave New York, and I can guess this has something to do with the high volume of applications they receive, but that's just a guess.

~ct

[focused]

Thanks for the detailed info. Btw, how do you find acceptance rate for each school? I do think acceptance rate is a good indicator, but then there is also the issue with the quality of the applicant pool

A few top program acceptance rates (based on last year) were as follows: Harvard 3%, Stanford 5%, Berkeley 10%.