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PhD Applications--what are the strengths in your application?


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Posted

Alright, so I just finished reading a post by a user who didn't get accepted her first application cycle. I am a bit confused because she seemed to have a lot of qualities that would make her a strong candidate for a PhD program, though her Master's is in anthro. This is getting me concerned, though I have already seen a lot of students graduate from my program into fully funded PhD programs and they did not even have the same amount of experience as she did in terms of research. I am also concerned about GRE scores. I took the revised GRE and sucked shit at both sections, but have already wrote out my "I bombed the GRE, I will take it again for higher scores if it is contingent on getting into your program". Though, I know of students who have gotten into fully funded PhD programs with 1200 scores.

So what is everyone else doing? What is everyone most concerned about? I feel like everything in my application is strong: I did great in my undergrad, am getting my M.S. in sociology, received university awards, run two organizations (AKD-National Soc. Honors Society), work P/T as a researcher on an NCI-funded study, and my thesis is pretty damn good. I teach intro soc. at the community college. I am going to get good recommendations. My GPA is 4.0. My GRE scores are just the worse out of everything.

Posted

GRE scores are pretty important, but if the rest of your record is awesome then you should be able to get away with claiming that you just test poorly. How seriously a department takes the GRE differs a lot from school to school and from year to year, based on who is on the admissions committee. So just make sure you are applying to a whole lot of departments so that you hit some admissions committees that don't take GREs too seriously. From what you say about your record, it seems like you have a great shot.

Posted

I guess the thing that I was worried about (and I still kind of am) were the letters of recommendation. The PhD program I'm planning on applying to is very, very competitive, and the profs I want to apply to work with have really stressed just how important LOR are to them. My GRE scores are meh, but I was actually told to not worry about them, since they don't believe the GRE accurately portrays someone as a student. So, while I work on my MA, I'm going to really concentrate on getting to know profs better so I can have some stellar recommendations. They were good enough to get me into my MA program, but I definitely don't think they'll be good enough for a PhD program.

Posted

I guess the thing that I was worried about (and I still kind of am) were the letters of recommendation. The PhD program I'm planning on applying to is very, very competitive, and the profs I want to apply to work with have really stressed just how important LOR are to them. My GRE scores are meh, but I was actually told to not worry about them, since they don't believe the GRE accurately portrays someone as a student. So, while I work on my MA, I'm going to really concentrate on getting to know profs better so I can have some stellar recommendations. They were good enough to get me into my MA program, but I definitely don't think they'll be good enough for a PhD program.

I would definitely make sure you make those connections. I am in the middle of applying right now, but I do know that I worked my ass off to get those recommendations. I even had one professor who I TA'd for write the community college I teach at and tell them I am more of a colleague to him than a student. That meant alot. You need to make sure you get involved with the a sociology organization (maybe AKD has a chapter at your university--if not, start it), speak out in class even if nobody else is talking, schedule to meet with professors and talk ALOT about your thesis, volunteer to proctor exams and eventually you will be asked to guest lecture. In fact, I kept volunteering to do so much that three professors in my program only recommend me to other professors for guest lecturing. That's big when a professor asks you for a favor because they know you want them to return it (with a good recommendation). Basically, be every professors BFF. This is difficult when you have a job and whatnot, but it's still doable. Recommendations are really important from what I hear, and if you don't establish those connections, professors won't have much to say about you.

Posted

I would definitely make sure you make those connections. I am in the middle of applying right now, but I do know that I worked my ass off to get those recommendations. I even had one professor who I TA'd for write the community college I teach at and tell them I am more of a colleague to him than a student. That meant alot. You need to make sure you get involved with the a sociology organization (maybe AKD has a chapter at your university--if not, start it), speak out in class even if nobody else is talking, schedule to meet with professors and talk ALOT about your thesis, volunteer to proctor exams and eventually you will be asked to guest lecture. In fact, I kept volunteering to do so much that three professors in my program only recommend me to other professors for guest lecturing. That's big when a professor asks you for a favor because they know you want them to return it (with a good recommendation). Basically, be every professors BFF. This is difficult when you have a job and whatnot, but it's still doable. Recommendations are really important from what I hear, and if you don't establish those connections, professors won't have much to say about you.

Oh, I know exactly what I need to do! Now I just need to do it, hah. In undergrad, I didn't really spend a lot of time researching grad school or talking to professors about applying, and I'm really, really lucky to have gotten into any program. I had great stats, but the only really awesome and solid LOR I got was from my senior thesis advisor. Luckily, I've got all this year to fix that!

Oh, and thanks for all of the advice, it is all definitely stuff I'm going to put into action! :)

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