Wisconsin

[Applicant X]

HBE - They really, really want you.

[Applicant X]

I've heard that with University security processes and everything, letters reach international students MUCH slower.

Do you live in the US, International? Because I am an international student (technically) but have a US address and got the letter last week.

Dont fret about it though - if you have the emails, you are in.

[Tritonetelephone]

Do you live in the US, International? Because I am an international student (technically) but have a US address and got the letter last week.

I'm personally in the US. I've just heard through grad cafe that letters take forever to reach students overseas, I guess.

EDIT: I thought the comma meant "or". :oops:

[international]

Do you live in the US, International? Because I am an international student (technically) but have a US address and got the letter last week.

Dont fret about it though - if you have the emails, you are in.

thanks, i'm trying not to but its really hard :-)

and no, i don't live in the U.S so i'm hoping this is the reason for the delay...

[Applicant X]

thanks, i'm trying not to but its really hard :-)

and no, i don't live in the U.S so i'm hoping this is the reason for the delay...

STOP fretting. THAT is absolutely the reason. State School (so probably not Fedexing it) + US Postal System + Your home country's Postal System.

You have no reason to fret.

The last time I got acceptances, packages from schools came weeks after email notifications (I did not live in the US)

[nyghtfalls]

YAY visit day! im soo nervous.

[misscj]

I am also getting money for visit day

[waitinginohio]

They are giving me full funding for the visit day for travel expenses and housing.

Bob Freeland lies! :shock:

[Applicant X]

I am in shock !

[misterpat]

Bob Freeland officially hates you now.

8)

[nyghtfalls]

i don't know about anyone else, but i am very much looking forward to having a veggie garden and a pet cow in Madison! Yeah!

[living_in_paradise]

Just a follow-up:

To those who were admitted to Wisconsin but not offered funding, have you had any luck lining something else up or heard anything promising from faculty there about assistantships for next year?

I've been a bit lax in making contact as I've waited to hear the results of other apps, but now that I have a funded offer from another good school, I feel a bit more confident in feeling out the water and seeing what might be out there for next year. It's been a little bit off-putting, though, getting into such a highly regarded program but then being totally in the dark about funding. But I guess I shouldn't let that experience turn me off to Wisconsin in general, and that there might still some funding out there to make it a feasible option.

[waitinginohio]

living_in_paradise, in response to your post on the other UW thread, and I guess this one too:

I e-mailed Bob Freeland asking about funding options this morning, and haven't heard anything back yet. I signed up for the visit day this Friday on the off chance I decide to visit, and was contact by my host today. I wrote her back explaining how discouraging the lack of funding is, particularly when I have an acceptance with 4 years of guaranteed funding, and she responded with quite a bit of useful information. Hopefully she won't mind me just copy/pasting chunks of her e-mail...

I chose to come to UW without any funding (over a school that was offering me multi-year funding-though the program was of a much lower quality). Over the course of the summer I was offered a one semester TAship. Subsequently I was offered a TAship for this semester as well. This does mean that I'm currently in the process of securing funding for next year. I think there were nearly 10 of us first years in this same position, including two who were not offered funding until a day or two before classes started in the fall. I believe nearly all the others from my cohort had funding through project assistantships/research assistantships but I don

[living_in_paradise]

Thanks for posting that! Hope your contact doesn't mind. I'm going to see what might be out there in terms of RA/PA positions, but it does sound stressful to live with the kind of uncertainty she described. Given that my significant other is coming along with me (with uncertain job prospects), we may need a bit more stability and, if possible, a guaranteed source of support.

I guess the question is: how much better is Wisconsin (in terms of the experience and the value of the degree) than schools like Washington, NYU, Indiana, and Arizona? I don't argue that there's a difference, but I'm not sure if it's worth the cost (financial and otherwise). Any thoughts?

[waitinginohio]

I guess the question is: how much better is Wisconsin (in terms of the experience and the value of the degree) than schools like Washington, NYU, Indiana, and Arizona?

exactly! And then a follow-up to that: how much do you care? I think I would be totally happy teaching/researching at a place similar to my UG, which is ranked 30-something among liberal arts colleges. Some of my soc profs got PhDs from top 10 schools, and some went to grad schools ranked in the 50-60 range, and the rest are everywhere in between. I'm more concerned with doing good work (both researching and teaching) than the ranking of the school I'm working at, and it seems like any top 25 school (and probably many with lower rankings) will provide the experience and value of degree that are necessary to accomplish that.

update:

I got a response from Bob Freeland

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, it is the case that UW is probably (really almost certainly) unable to match your other offers. Because of the way funding works here (see statement below), the admissions committee controls only fellowship nominations, which were made at time of admission. Teaching assistantship appointments are made by the associate chair (Ivan Ermakoff). It is possible that Ivan will allow me to offer a small number of teaching assistantship positions prior to the 4/15 deadline, but I don't yet know if that's the case. (Teaching assistantships include a tuition waiver and salary. The offers, if I am allowed to make them, are for the first year of grad school.) All of our incoming cohort will be allowed to apply for TA positions after the April 15 deadline, and a relatively small number (maybe 20% of the incoming cohort) will receive such positions. Research and project assistantships are not controlled by the department but are offered through individual professors who have such positions available. (They are also sometimes available through other depts or units on campus.) On a more positive note, we actually do have a pretty good record of funding people once they get here, but it's relatively rare that the dept offers funding guarantees. Not all of us on the faculty are fond of this model, but I don't think it's going to change any time soon.

The statement below tries to give a pretty straightforward picture of how funding works at Madison and how this has played out for the last several years worth of cohorts. Please feel free to contact me if you have other questions.

Funding at UW Madison

The majority of students admitted to the UW sociology department are admitted without funding and/or without guarantees of funding. This is different than many departments across the U.S. and springs from the decentralized way in which funding is handled at Madison. (The admissions committee controls very little in the way of funding - it rests with individual professors who have RAships and with the associate chair of the department, who controls TA'ships.) On the other hand, I want to emphasize that historically, we have a very good record of supporting those students who choose to come (via research, project, and teaching assistantships, all of which pay tuition and salary). All members of the Fall 2006 and Fall 2007 (N=27 & 23) entering cohorts obtained funding in their first year, although many came to Madison without knowing whether they would have support or not. However, in this year's cohort (Fall 2008, N=28), two students were unable to obtain funding in the first semester; all are now funded for their second. We are trying to reduce the cohort size in hopes that we can avoid this situation next year. However, in all honesty, UW - like most universities - is currently facing some financial uncertainty due to the recession. That *may* result in a reduction of funds for TAs from the university to the department - we simply won't know about that until the university does its budgeting in the summer. I tell you this not to be discouraging, but to try to be as straightforward as possible. We do have a good record of funding students, but the current uncertainty makes it a little difficult to predict our funding situation next year.

Several of you have asked about a)applying for fellowships and support; b)when decisions on PA/RA/TA positions are made. Let me address each. Nominations for fellowships are made by the department. If you were nominated for a UW fellowship, you will already have been informed of that fact. The university then decides which of our nominees to award fellowships to. As to the issue of when decisions on PA/RA/TA positions are made - this is one of the things that is particularly frustrating to new students (and understandably so). The bottom line is that almost all of those decisions are made after the April 15 deadline, so students quite typically have to make a decision to come to UW or not without knowing whether they will have funding. This is a function of bureaucratic budgeting. In the case of teaching assistantships, the university will not tell us how many TA positions we have for next fall until around May of this year. So we do not know how many we have to offer first year students. (You will be asked if you want to apply for a TAship in the hard copy of your application packet. Again, the TA positions are allocated by the associate chair, sometimes in conjunction with myself in the case of first year students.) PA and RA positions are more variable, but most of those are funded by grants that are renewed/started in the summer months. So here, too, professors often do not know if they will have positions available until after the April 15 deadline.

Finally, a number of you have asked about strategies for applying for PA/RA'ships. Here, the answer is two-fold: a)you should apply to openings that are advertised on the website immediately. If they are advertised, that means the funding is secured. (Of course, in your case, you will probably have to limit applications to jobs that commence in the fall.) b)you definitely should contact professors in the department who you are interested in working with. The most likely response that you will get from them right now is that they don't have/don't know about positions. But there are sometimes exceptions, and it is definitely worthwhile for professors to know about you and your interests, because openings do come up. I would also urge you to be in contact with our current grad students, who will give you a candid assessment of funding in the department. (Prospective students who attend Visit Day have lots of contact with our current students and with various profs.)

[nyghtfalls]

in addition to the discussion on funding, is anyone else utterly disturbed that some people on the job market from UW Madison have been pursuing their PhD for 9 to even 15 years?

wtf?!

again, perhaps this is my naivete, but i really can't see myself in any graduate program for more than five years. i REFUSE! am i being unrealistic? and furthermore, is UW Madison worth it? i suppose it's up to the individual, but please feel free to share your thoughts my fellow gradcafe'ers.

[ewurgler]

in addition to the discussion on funding, is anyone else utterly disturbed that some people on the job market from UW Madison have been pursuing their PhD for 9 to even 15 years?

wtf?!

again, perhaps this is my naivete, but i really can't see myself in any graduate program for more than five years. i REFUSE! am i being unrealistic? and furthermore, is UW Madison worth it? i suppose it's up to the individual, but please feel free to share your thoughts my fellow gradcafe'ers.

Yes, you are being unrealistic. For a social science PhD, 7 years is about average, but 6 is not unheard of. 5 is unrealistic in my opinion, unless you have very little coursework, hardly a qualifying exam, and know right away what your diss will look like.

Don't bet on anything less than 6.

[rejectedloser]

I disagree. I think six years is the most common. Five is also quite common in most top 20 schools. There are even cases of 4 years, though it's generally not advised. But five years is certainly do-able. Many grad students and profs have told me so.

[waitinginohio]

I disagree. I think six years is the most common. Five is also quite common in most top 20 schools. There are even cases of 4 years, though it's generally not advised. But five years is certainly do-able. Many grad students and profs have told me so.

Do you mean AFTER the MA? According to phds.org, the shortest 20% of programs are MA and PhD in 6.1 years and below, next shortest 20% is 6.1-6.9 years, middle 20% is 6.9-7.7, next longest 20% is 7.7 to 8.5 years, and longest 20% is 8.5 years and above. Granted, I don't take phds.org to be the gospel truth, but I think this is pretty close to what we should be expecting.

For the record, UW Madison's median years required to complete a doctorate is 7.9, which means 20% of schools take even longer (according to phds.org). And from what I've heard, grad students who do quant work can get out of Madison quite a big quicker than qualitative people.

[rejectedloser]

If I'm not mistaken, isn't the MA optional in lots of sociology PhD programs? I'm talking about PhD programs that you get into straight after undergrad. Of course, staying 6 or 7 years or doing a post-doc can be worthwhile if you beef up your publishing record. Personally, I'd rather get out as quickly as possible and THEN, if my publishing record is weak, do a post-doc; as opposed to staying 7 or 8 years to complete your dissertation and publish more. My two cents...

[hoobers]

I talked about this to a senior faculty member at one of the schools before and he expressed the opinion that all the stats on this are dated, as most (top 10?) phd programs have recently made moves to shorten their graduation time.

[ewurgler]

If I'm not mistaken, isn't the MA optional in lots of sociology PhD programs? I'm talking about PhD programs that you get into straight after undergrad. Of course, staying 6 or 7 years or doing a post-doc can be worthwhile if you beef up your publishing record. Personally, I'd rather get out as quickly as possible and THEN, if my publishing record is weak, do a post-doc; as opposed to staying 7 or 8 years to complete your dissertation and publish more. My two cents...

Even if you don't have an official "MA" thesis or anything, they always give you a MA on the way to the PhD.

And yes, it seems like they have made an effort to shorten, and I would agree that quantitative people take less time--they just pull data sets that already exist (often).

But damn, look at berkeley. They have the highest % at top schools but their people take FOREVER!!! I am not expecting to get out in less than 6 years.

[nyghtfalls]

hmm, well hey, my mentor went to UMichigan with not an inkling of what PhD programs were about and he was out of there in 5 years... so if he can do it, i damn sure am gonna try. lol, when i asked him how he did it, he chuckled and said, "because ignorance is bliss."

how gangsta is that?

[nyghtfalls]

If I'm not mistaken, isn't the MA optional in lots of sociology PhD programs? I'm talking about PhD programs that you get into straight after undergrad. Of course, staying 6 or 7 years or doing a post-doc can be worthwhile if you beef up your publishing record. Personally, I'd rather get out as quickly as possible and THEN, if my publishing record is weak, do a post-doc; as opposed to staying 7 or 8 years to complete your dissertation and publish more. My two cents...

i agree 100%. people GET YOUR PHD and GET THE HELL OUT. THEN, do some hot work. But then again, my purpose here is a little different. I'm not necessarily hung up on landing a career in academia... i more so like the sound of the UN or the State Department, somewhere in Obama's administration perhaps? Assuming that I can get the hell out of grad school in time.

[alienatedlaborer]

Over the last several years, a lot of schools have adjusted their program requirements and funding packages in hopes of getting people out in less time, but five years is still pretty optimistic. But it also depends on what kind of work you're planning on doing. Doing ethnography or collecting massive data from historical records, for instance, is going to take at least a year or two extra, whereas quantitative researchers generally have more data available from the outset, and can get started on their dissertation work more quickly. The professors I've talked to have generally preached taking the right amount of time for my project, rather than setting unreasonable goals and doing less impressive work as a result. Easy for them to say, but I think it's sound advice all the same.