Help~Please give me some suggestions...

[acron]

Hi, everyone!

I am a international student from China. I am currently working on my Bachelor's degree in Sociology in a top-2 university in China. I am planning for applying for Ph.D/MS programs in sociology in U.S for 2009 fall.

My background is as followings:

GPA Overall 85, Major 90 (since we don't have a 4-scale GPA system)

GRE Verbal 560, Quantitative 790 (also with a good quantitative background) AW.3.5 (terrible!!)

TOEFL 108 (Reading 28, Listening 29, Speaking 23, Writing 28)

Research experience: paticipated a funded project with my undgrad advisor. Some fieldwork experiences.

Some honor and award from the university

I'm writing my PS now....

Interest: Health, Life Course, Public Policy

I'm planning to apply for:

PhDs: Chicago, Yale, Princeton, Duke, Minnesota, Brown, Cornell, Emory

MSs: Columbia QMSS, Florida, Fordham, McGill, Michigan (survey methodology), USC

Since I have to fund my graduate study all by myself, I am looking for schools who have good financial resource for international students...

That's why I prefer private schools so much...

Would you please give me any suggestions? Is my stragety too risky? Any changes should be made in my school list?

All replys are strongly appreciated.

Thank you!!!

[misterpat]

Hi, everyone!

I am a international student from China. I am currently working on my Bachelor's degree in Sociology in a top-2 university in China. I am planning for applying for Ph.D/MS programs in sociology in U.S for 2009 fall.

My background is as followings:

GPA Overall 85, Major 90 (since we don't have a 4-scale GPA system)

GRE Verbal 560, Quantitative 790 (also with a good quantitative background) AW.3.5 (terrible!!)

TOEFL 108 (Reading 28, Listening 29, Speaking 23, Writing 28)

Research experience: paticipated a funded project with my undgrad advisor. Some fieldwork experiences.

Some honor and award from the university

I'm writing my PS now....

Interest: Health, Life Course, Public Policy

I'm planning to apply for:

PhDs: Chicago, Yale, Princeton, Duke, Minnesota, Brown, Cornell, Emory

MSs: Columbia QMSS, Florida, Fordham, McGill, Michigan (survey methodology), USC

Since I have to fund my graduate study all by myself, I am looking for schools who have good financial resource for international students...

That's why I prefer private schools so much...

Would you please give me any suggestions? Is my stragety too risky? Any changes should be made in my school list?

All replys are strongly appreciated.

Thank you!!!

I don't think USC or Michigan will fund (or possibly even accept) Masters students, so look into that.

You might want to apply to some PhD programs that aren't as high as those you have listed. Your decent verbal score and admittedly awful Analytics score (though I've heard some schools don't care about them too much since you are providing a writing sample) might get your application tossed at Chicago and Princeton, but who knows. If your GPA is good (I have no idea what an 85 would be comparably to on a 4.0 scale) you might get by since your Quant score is superb.

Given your interests, you should probably check out University of Illinois. I'm pretty sure their department is specialized in exactly what you're looking to study.