Sociology Program suggestions?

[alteregoista]

hello all,

I am looking at potential programs and am hoping that someone can offer some suggestions:

I am interested race, immigration, class and religion in the developed world (most likely either Europe or North America). More specifically, race relations between immigrants vs. natives in religious communities and how that affects political, economic, and social organization and social policy.

So far I have contacted profs at the following schools and gotten a Yay or neigh from them:

Columbia

Duke

Uchicago

UCLA

Harvard

Any other suggestions? Thanks

[Tritonetelephone]

You'll need some middle/lower-tier schools to balance out the ranks of those. Try looking at the rankings of soc programs, and pay special attention to the schools that are in the top ten for your subfield but NOT in the top ten for sociology in general. That's where you'll find your safety schools - and they'll be just as good of a fit.

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandr ... ocsci.html (Scroll down to see the options for subfield)

Also, if there's one particular person in the field whose work you admire, you can email them and tell them what you want to study and ask what graduate programs they recommend. I did that and it was a great start. I'm not sure if you want to use the prof's you've already contacted, though...

[slothy]

There probably aren't any professors out there that would perfectly match your research agenda as specifically as you've presented it, so you'd probably be looking for a department with a few good people doing varied work on race and immigration and a few people focused on the developing world. While the US News subfield rankings can be somewhat useful as a starting point, they might not be all that great for someone whose interests overlap on a lot of topics. Brown comes to mind, although it's not a well-ranked program - and while rankings are imprecise, as a general rule I'd say the job market prospects are going to be significantly better for grads from the top-15 programs than from below the top-15. Only you can decide whether it would be worth it to you to go to a low-tier program in spite of the difficulty you'll face on the market, and as has been said many times on these advice boards, it doesn't really make much sense to apply to places that you wouldn't actually be happy attending.

If those five schools are the only ones you've come up with that would work for you, you either have very narrow interests or you need to do some more Google searching. If you're finding that people you want to work with aren't at PhD-granting institutions (or are at weak programs), you could also look at where authors of articles you like did their Ph.D.'s. Also try searching the ASA conference program.

Sorry if you were looking for more specific ideas, but to be honest most of us aren't experts on the discipline outside of our subfields ourselves...

[misterpat]

I think Arizona might have a good program for what you are looking for, but I'd wait until somebody backs me up on this to get too excited. Their website is really laid out nicely, so check for yourself. Also, check the History faculty, which I think has some people who you could utilize.

But I could be wrong.

[coqui21]

I know that Milagros Pena (University of Florida) has studied VERY similar things and Peggy Levitt (Wellesley College) recently published a book on race, immigration, and religion in the United States. Wellesley does not have a graduate program, but it might not be a bad idea to contact either scholar and ask about prospective programs that could fit you well.

[socgradstudent]

Princeton should definitely be top on your list. Best in immigration. Among the best in religion. Check em out.