Where are you applying?

[sirio]

I'll play too!

 

UC Irvine

USC

U Florida

Florida International

Penn State

Brown

Arizona

Michigan State

UC San Diego

Illinois - Chicago

[CheckYourPrivilege]

I am narrowing my choices -- I have been trying to decide for years.  I am hoping to find time to study for my GREs.  I did my undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  I completed my J.D. at Penn State University.  I have been out of law school five years this May, so I am in the midst of practicing.

 

So far....

 

University of Wisconsin-Madison

UMass-Amherst

UCONN

Brandeis

UC-Santa Barbara

 

Still looking...

[jacib]

University of Wisconsin-Madison

UMass-Amherst

UCONN

Brandeis

UC-Santa Barbara

 

Still looking...

That's a big range of schools.  Can I ask what you're interested in exactly?  Madison is in the highest, most selective category of schools, and is pretty big.  If I had to give it a number, I'd say Madison is top-5 which is my most selective category.  UC-Santa Barbara is top 30 or so.  Maybe UMass is too, maybe.  UConn and Brandeis are much smaller programs, if I recall correct.  I have a friend at Brandeis, they're like 2 to 4 kids per cohort, and they focus on really specialized things, like I think she said most people there do gender or medical or.... historical?  I know Wendy Cadge is there, and she does religion, but I don't know if they have religion.  What I'm saying is, not only in terms of ranking, but in terms of experience, that's just a huge range of schools.  If you're competative at Madison, you should definitely check out top-25ish schools.  We talked about rankings (apparently, the image link in that post is no longer working, it just shows the address http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3210/sociologyrankings.jpg so I'll just post it below here, but read the post for it to make sense):

 

 

Well, several previous posts, actually.  is another where I talked about it, and there are some others that I can't find.  (I'm only saying this because you said "I'm narrowing my choices", which I assume means you haven't applied yet, but are still planning.  If you have already applied, I don't mean to mess with your head).  If you think you have a shot at Madison, you should really consider a broad range of schools on this list.  If you make a post sharing your interests on the main sociology forum, people can help make suggestions.  It's actually a pretty useful exercise if you catch people at the right time!

[CheckYourPrivilege]

Thank you for the helpful information.  I am just beginning my search.  I am sure that you and I are very different in our thinking.  I don't know your experience, but I choose a school for much more than rankings.  I will apply to schools that all around meet my needs and I could stand to be at for the length of time I will be there.  I spent my law school years in an area I absolutely hated.  I will never do that again.  I understand that it is a broad range of schools and you will probably be surprised at the other schools I end up applying to. My interest is sex and gender.

 

University of Wisconsin - Madison - This is my alma mater.  I still consider this my home.  This is a dream - I would love to go there.  My friends and family are there. I understand it is big and selective.  I went there.  I got my B.A. in Sociology there.  I am familiar with the program, the professors, and the prestige.  I have family that currently goes there.  

 

UMass - Amherst - I want access to all of the professors teaching at the schools they are affiliated with - essentially the consortium.  It is also a place I would not mind living for that period of time.

 

UC-Santa Barbara - This is great for my program.  I also am friends with a current full Professor there, who I have spoken with several times.  She suggested that program to me.  I believe her.  I am also heavily involved in non-profit work and they look for that.  In their application process, I can address my non-profit dream. It is a plus all the way around - not to mention the beautiful campus.

 

UCONN - I know it is a smaller program, but I like the school.  I like the location and I like how glbt friendly they are.

 

Brandeis - It is a small program that has my focus and access to the Boston consortium. I have always gone to large universities, so this may be a pleasant change.

 

I understand that you are trying to be helpful and I might check those out.  I have been through this process in narrowing down and applying to law schools.  In that process, I learned a lot about what I need and want.  I hope to avoid mistakes that I made in that process.  My way of looking at schools is, my guess, very different from yours. 

 

I may add University of Washington and Brown too. Oh and any school where Audrey Sprenger is at -- I took several of her classes at Madison. She is amazing.

Edited January 13, 2013 by SarahCharlie1979

[ohgoodness]

Thank you for the helpful information.  I am just beginning my search.  I am sure that you and I are very different in our thinking.  I don't know your experience, but I choose a school for much more than rankings.  I will apply to schools that all around meet my needs and I could stand to be at for the length of time I will be there.  I spent my law school years in an area I absolutely hated.  I will never do that again.  I understand that it is a broad range of schools and you will probably be surprised at the other schools I end up applying to. My interest is sex and gender.

 

University of Wisconsin - Madison - This is my alma mater.  I still consider this my home.  This is a dream - I would love to go there.  My friends and family are there. I understand it is big and selective.  I went there.  I got my B.A. in Sociology there.  I am familiar with the program, the professors, and the prestige.  I have family that currently goes there.  

 

UMass - Amherst - I want access to all of the professors teaching at the schools they are affiliated with - essentially the consortium.  It is also a place I would not mind living for that period of time.

 

UC-Santa Barbara - This is great for my program.  I also am friends with a current full Professor there, who I have spoken with several times.  She suggested that program to me.  I believe her.  I am also heavily involved in non-profit work and they look for that.  In their application process, I can address my non-profit dream. It is a plus all the way around - not to mention the beautiful campus.

 

UCONN - I know it is a smaller program, but I like the school.  I like the location and I like how glbt friendly they are.

 

Brandeis - It is a small program that has my focus and access to the Boston consortium. I have always gone to large universities, so this may be a pleasant change.

 

I understand that you are trying to be helpful and I might check those out.  I have been through this process in narrowing down and applying to law schools.  In that process, I learned a lot about what I need and want.  I hope to avoid mistakes that I made in that process.  My way of looking at schools is, my guess, very different from yours. 

 

I may add University of Washington and Brown too. Oh and any school where Audrey Sprenger is at -- I took several of her classes at Madison. She is amazing.

 

Really does sound like you would be a good fit for Northwestern as well.  Strong in Sex and Gender and a good fit for non-profit interests. Feels like one of the programs with the strongest momentum at this point.  And there are plenty of ties to Madison..

 

Re Madison - I dont think that it would be the most selective but rather having the strongest applications all around.  I got such cold feet even applying after hearing that they usually got a significant amount of 90-90% GREs from social stratification/demography applicants.. 

 

Good luck anyhow!

[jacib]

Thank you for the helpful information.  I am just beginning my search.  I am sure that you and I are very different in our thinking.  I don't know your experience, but I choose a school for much more than rankings.  I will apply to schools that all around meet my needs and I could stand to be at for the length of time I will be there.  I spent my law school years in an area I absolutely hated.  I will never do that again.  I understand that it is a broad range of schools and you will probably be surprised at the other schools I end up applying to. My interest is sex and gender.

 

University of Wisconsin - Madison - This is my alma mater.  I still consider this my home.  This is a dream - I would love to go there.  My friends and family are there. I understand it is big and selective.  I went there.  I got my B.A. in Sociology there.  I am familiar with the program, the professors, and the prestige.  I have family that currently goes there.  

 

UMass - Amherst - I want access to all of the professors teaching at the schools they are affiliated with - essentially the consortium.  It is also a place I would not mind living for that period of time.

 

UC-Santa Barbara - This is great for my program.  I also am friends with a current full Professor there, who I have spoken with several times.  She suggested that program to me.  I believe her.  I am also heavily involved in non-profit work and they look for that.  In their application process, I can address my non-profit dream. It is a plus all the way around - not to mention the beautiful campus.

 

UCONN - I know it is a smaller program, but I like the school.  I like the location and I like how glbt friendly they are.

 

Brandeis - It is a small program that has my focus and access to the Boston consortium. I have always gone to large universities, so this may be a pleasant change.

 

I understand that you are trying to be helpful and I might check those out.  I have been through this process in narrowing down and applying to law schools.  In that process, I learned a lot about what I need and want.  I hope to avoid mistakes that I made in that process.  My way of looking at schools is, my guess, very different from yours. 

 

I may add University of Washington and Brown too. Oh and any school where Audrey Sprenger is at -- I took several of her classes at Madison. She is amazing.

I absolutely understand what you mean by wanting to be in a location that makes you happy.  There definitely graduate schools that I "should" have applied to, but I didn't, because I didn't want to live in that place for seven years.  But that's not all, there is, I was actually more surprised by the size of the schools--Madison has a HUGE program and Brandeis (where I have a friend) has a tiny program.  The experience of those two would be so different, even if they were ranked the same and in neighboring towns.  One of the big things is also the quality of your peers.  At my university, one of my third year colleagues casually mentioned that he has an edited volume coming out soon.  Another just got two papers published.  That kind of things keeps me wanting to produce my best work.  On the other hand, I have a friend who turned down going to the top programs in her field (anthropology, she got into Michigan and Chicago) to go to a much smaller program that was in a much better location (a UC).  She's happy, she tells me that her peers are not nearly as good as at Chicago (where she did her masters), but she finishes her reading and then gets to go to the beach.  I think she made the right choice for her.  She definitely examined all her options.  I don't want to highjack the thread or shove advice down your throat, but I just wanted to share my experience that I found the collective knowledge boards useful for crafting my list.  And also, my dad is a professor so I had an extra step up in crafting my list--if I hadn't had that, I would have been "flying blind" and probably wouldn't have applied to nearly the right schools for what I wanted.

 

So are you interested in non-profits and LGBTQ/sexuality/gender and maybe law? 

Definitely not my areas of expertise, but I know Princeton (maybe not the best place to live, but no worse than Storrs, CT, definitely) has a whole center on non-profits.  I think cherub is totally right in suggesting in Northwestern--great for Sex and Gender, and I have heard very good things about the "vibe" of the program. Plus Chicago.  Kieran Healy at Duke works on non-profit organizations and is possibly the sociologist I have the biggest intellectual crush on right now, that dude is amazing (and Duke is a relatively small program), though maybe you don't want to live in Chapel Hill.  But seriously, he's so dreamy.  Berkeley and Stanford, also top Sex and Gender places.  Indiana does orgs and Sex and gender, though Bloomington isn't for everyone.  Davis might be another hidden gem for you to consider (a great place to live).

 

I wasn't trying to suggest you need to think about rankings in terms of MUST GET INTO THE TOP.  If Madison hadn't been on your list, I wouldn't have noticed it.  It just struck me as a list where I couldn't figure out the common denominator, and I was more curious than anything.  My interest isn't crossing off schools or telling you you're wrong, (heavens no), but I just think this community is fairly good at "filling in" and pointing one in the direction of schools that one might not take a serious look at otherwise, and I wanted to share that with you.

[Illusio80]

Is something wrong with Chapel Hill?  UNC is one of my picks, and the photos of campus look quite nice.  Please explain.

[jacib]

Personally, I've heard almost all good things about Chapel Hill.  One of my dear friends from college was from Carrboro, right outside of Chapel Hill, and made it seem like a little bit of heaven right here on Earth.  My other two close friends from college from the area also love the Research Triangle (which is Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, but for some reason I called just Chapel Hill).  I've heard people not wanting to go to Duke because, for lack of a better word, they found it "Bro-y" and I've heard people crossing off the South in general.  It's also fairly isolated; for better or worse, the Research Triangle is the cultural metropolis for miles around, you can't just "sneak down to Chicago" like you can from Madison or Ann Arbor or "get away to New York" like you can from Storrs, CT.  Where are you going to go, Charlotte?  I've also heard people say that the area felt "small", but as far as college towns go, it's pretty big (which is a problem for some people).

 

Mainly, SarahCharlie said she went to Penn State for Law School, and then also said she didn't like the area of her law school, and I thought, of all the schools I mentioned, Chapel Hill and Bloomington could possibly be seen as the kind of college towns most like State College, PA, though I've only been to one of the three.

Edited January 14, 2013 by jacib

[Illusio80]

Personally, I've heard almost all good things about Chapel Hill.  One of my dear friends from college was from Carrboro, right outside of Chapel Hill, and made it seem like a little bit of heaven right here on Earth.  I've heard people not wanting to go to Duke because, for lack of a better word, they found it "Bro-y" and I've heard people crossing off the South in general.  It's also fairly isolated; it is the cultural metropolis for miles around, you can't just "sneak down to Chicago" like you can from Madison or Ann Arbor or "get away to New York" like you can from Storrs, CT.  I've also heard people say that the area felt "small", but as far as college towns go, it's pretty big (which is a problem for some people). 

 

Mainly, SarahCharlie said she went to Penn State for Law School, and then also said she didn't like law school, and I thought, of all the schools I mentioned, Chapel Hill and Bloomington could possibly be seen as the kind of college towns most like State College, PA, though I've only been to one of the three.

 

Thanks for elaborating.  I did my undergrad degree in a small city with minimal entertainment, so I think I could handle being there.  Plus, it's not like I would have oodles of extra time for doing things.  I've read similar things about Carrboro.  This month sure is a special brand of torture.  Good luck everyone!

 

By the way, Madison is also very close to Minneapolis, which has one of the best theater scenes in the country. ;-)

Edited January 14, 2013 by Illusio80

[CheckYourPrivilege]

Mainly, SarahCharlie said she went to Penn State for Law School, and then also said she didn't like the area of her law school, and I thought, of all the schools I mentioned, Chapel Hill and Bloomington could possibly be seen as the kind of college towns most like State College, PA, though I've only been to one of the three.

 

Just a quick clarification - I may be dating myself a bit, but when I started law school at Penn State the law school was located in Carlisle not at University Park (State College).  The environment in Carlisle is vastly different than State College.