I need some advice

[milleu]

Hello everyone,

I am an international student from Turkey, and this is my senior year in a top Turkish university, Sociology department. I'm planning to apply for PhD and Master's programs for the Autumn 2009 term. My overall GPA is 3.35, major GPA is 3.50 and the GPA of last 60 credits of work is 3.55.

I haven't taken the GRE yet, but I guess my verbal score will be a moderate one and the math score will be quite high. I'll try to get LOR's from professors who know me closely and write a strong and passionate statement of purpose. I'm interested in qualitative methods, ethnography, political and medical sociology.

Which programs would admit me? Which ones should I go for? :?:

I'm planning to apply for the following ones:

Chicago MAPSS

Columbia PhD

Yale PhD

SUNY Stony Brook M.A.

Syracuse M.A.

British Columbia M.A.

NYU Humanities and Social Thought M.A. program (or should I go for the Sociology program?)

UW Madison MSc

SUNY Binghamton M.A.

Washington Seattle PhD

John's Hopkins PhD

LSE MSc programs on "Sociology" and "Culture and Society"

Indiana Bloomington PhD

Virginia PhD

Does anyone have any more suggestions? Am I too unrealistic? Which ones would admit me?

All advice is strongly appreciated Thank you!

[rising_star]

Chicago MAPSS and NYU Humanities and Social Thought may admit you but they only rarely offer their students any funding. Are you prepared to pay out of pocket? If not, I wouldn't have so many master's programs on the list. Apply to the PhD programs at those schools if you really want to go there. Obviously, admission to Yale, Columbia, and other Ivy League schools for a PhD is going to be very competitive so you may want to diversify your options a bit. I would focus on schools that have good financial resources for international graduate students and whose faculty are a good match with your interests.

[milleu]

Thank you for your advice!

An institution here is giving me some money, that's why I'm also considering M.A. programs.

[rising_star]

I wasn't saying not to consider MA programs. I was saying that you should consider MA programs that actually support their students. Unless the Turkish institution is giving you upwards of $60K, it won't be enough money to pay tuition and living expenses at NYU, for example.