Princeton Sociology/Social Policy

[joss10]

Quick question:

For naming potential supervisors in the Princeton JDP application, is it better to name members of the teaching faculty in the Woodrow Wilson school? I'm interested in this program, but only one of the professors I'd like to work with are officially affiliated with the school. Should we just stick to naming professors in our discipline and not, for example, people from politics/population studies but who are affiliated with the school?

I'm nervous about applying for the JDP as opposed to just the PhD Sociology program, but I figure it's worth the risk..

Edited December 11, 2012 by joss10

[gilbertrollins]

I don't know. I spoke to Christina Bicchieri, a philosopher at UPenn who models social norms with game theory, about whether she would advise me if I were in the economics department or in a program at Wharton (Penn's business school). She said in that case she couldn't be my primary adviser, but could sit on my committee. I didn't apply to Penn, but I did just send Berkeley Sociology last night and mentioned conversations I have had with George Lakoff, who is in the Linguistics department. I talked about Fligstein and Willer mainly, though. I think it needs to be clear your interests lay mainly in the department you're applying to even if you're interested in ancillary faculty. I could be wrong.

[Palito]

I'll echo econosocio's advice: apply to faculty in the department to which you are actually applying. You might be more interested in going outside of the department to get essential mentorship, but those people won't be evaluating you from a pile of other students. To be clear, I think it makes sense to look outside the department, but I have been advised to do so after admission. Know your audience.

[amlobo]

Quick question:

For naming potential supervisors in the Princeton JDP application, is it better to name members of the teaching faculty in the Woodrow Wilson school? I'm interested in this program, but only one of the professors I'd like to work with are officially affiliated with the school. Should we just stick to naming professors in our discipline and not, for example, people from politics/population studies but who are affiliated with the school?

I'm nervous about applying for the JDP as opposed to just the PhD Sociology program, but I figure it's worth the risk..

I am also applying to the JDP, and I have been wondering the same thing. Technically, we are applying to be students of both the Sociology program and the Social Policy program... so, I am assuming that any dissertation committee could be made up from people within either program (which includes faculty from all of the disciplines). The thing about the JDP is that it is an interdisciplinary program, and the whole point in applying to the JDP instead of the "regular" Sociology program is that you will have the chance to work with other disciplines. I am taking the approach that it's best to discuss not only why I am a good fit for Sociology but also why my interests fit with the dual program, which necessarily includes discussing how my research would benefit from the other faculty/disciplines. I think it's important to remember that you are *not* applying to the regular Sociology program, and you are choosing this joint program because it is a better fit... so I think a big part is explaining why that is. That's my feeling, anyway. For the JDP program, I think it would be fine to mention affiliated faculty from any discipline or any Sociology faculty (even those not affiliated). The Sociology faculty member I am most interested in working with is not part of the teaching faculty in the JDP, and I don't think it really matters.

I agree - nervous about applying to JDP, but for me, it really is a much better fit. Might as well apply to the program you are most interested in, right?

[ohgoodness]

i did not apply to the JDP but I did list in my SOP that I was most interested in transferring into it after a year or two, if things feel right. I, even, went as far as to list Alicia Adsera as a POI despite her only being involved in the population/wws. I felt that the SOP gave me the opportunity to really declare why I wanted to go to princeton and her professorship is a main reason. If you have a situation as mine but still feel that the JDP is a better fit than any other program then just make sure they understand your reasoning and go with it.

[magicunicorn]

Something important that @econosocio mentioned that I wanted to highlight -- be really careful about naming people in your applications. I was told by too many people on this forum to name people I wanted to work with on my SOP -- and in my haste did stupid things like name assistant/associate professors who might have been moving to other schools, or in one case, listed faculty members that didn't get along very well with the certain colleagues that happened be on the adcom that year. I basically sent the same application to every school except for the "I want to work with" part, and realized that the schools I didn't get into, were ones where I might have been better off not emphasizing people I wanted to work with at all since it probably hurt my application.

I think the best strategy is if you can't actually talk with the professors in the program, try to develop relationships somehow with graduate students in the program (this is probably too late for a lot of you now but helpful for those applying the following year). They can give you a lot of the gossip about the program and steer you towards the best route to take in terms of who to list and not list. (Some faculty might have even have a reputation for not working with any students). In hindsight, I think my big blunder with Berkeley's application was listing Willer, who as it turns out, isn't tenured yet -- and supposedly may have other offers from schools in the works. I didn't find this out until after the app process when a grad student at Berkeley mentioned this. And then I realized how stupid my application must have sounded to someone on the adcom.

Edited December 11, 2012 by magicunicorn

[gilbertrollins]

In hindsight, I think my big blunder with Berkeley's application was listing Willer, who as it turns out, isn't tenured yet -- and supposedly may have other offers from schools in the works. I didn't find this out until after the app process when a grad student at Berkeley mentioned this. And then I realized how stupid my application must have sounded to someone on the adcom.

Welp, there goes Berkeley for me!

Edit: Wait - I just checked. Willer is listed as an associate professor, meaning tenured, no?

Edited December 11, 2012 by econosocio

[joss10]

Something important that @econosocio mentioned that I wanted to highlight -- be really careful about naming people in your applications. I was told by too many people on this forum to name people I wanted to work with on my SOP -- and in my haste did stupid things like name assistant/associate professors who might have been moving to other schools, or in one case, listed faculty members that didn't get along very well with the certain colleagues that happened be on the adcom that year. I basically sent the same application to every school except for the "I want to work with" part, and realized that the schools I didn't get into, were ones where I might have been better off not emphasizing people I wanted to work with at all since it probably hurt my application.

I think the best strategy is if you can't actually talk with the professors in the program, try to develop relationships somehow with graduate students in the program (this is probably too late for a lot of you now but helpful for those applying the following year). They can give you a lot of the gossip about the program and steer you towards the best route to take in terms of who to list and not list. (Some faculty might have even have a reputation for not working with any students). In hindsight, I think my big blunder with Berkeley's application was listing Willer, who as it turns out, isn't tenured yet -- and supposedly may have other offers from schools in the works. I didn't find this out until after the app process when a grad student at Berkeley mentioned this. And then I realized how stupid my application must have sounded to someone on the adcom.

Ahhhh, oooops.

So listing assistant professors should be avoided entirely then?

Edited December 12, 2012 by joss10

[jacib]

Two second break from grading but just to calm anxiety.

Ahhhh, oooops.

So listing assistant professors should be avoided entirely then?

No, not at all. They probably shouldn't be the first person you list, though, because they generally can't chair committees, etc. (who knows if they'll get tenure!). We have one hot shot assistant professor who everyone is pretty sure will get tenure soon and, even though they don't have tenure, they got their first student this year (that's very rare: part of the reason is the student's undergraduate adviser was the professor's graduate adviser). We have other junior professors who will probably not get students for years. However, it is perfectly acceptable (and probably encouraged) to list more than one person who you could work with (and not just a list of everyone famous at the department). It's probably encouraged to list a junior faculty member after the main faculty member (we have to assume that some people just list everyone famous at the department).

In hindsight, I think my big blunder with Berkeley's application was listing Willer, who as it turns out, isn't tenured yet -- and supposedly may have other offers from schools in the works. I didn't find this out until after the app process when a grad student at Berkeley mentioned this. And then I realized how stupid my application must have sounded to someone on the adcom.

Welp, there goes Berkeley for me!

Edit: Wait - I just checked. Willer is listed as an associate professor, meaning tenured, no?

Generally, yes. I have seen on CV's rarely "associate professor without tenure" before, but it's rare. It's a fine rule of thumb to assume that associates are tenured. That doesn't mean they can't and don't leave though. We have, in the past five years, scooped up two midcareer faculty from other prestigious programs (and I think only lost one junior faculty member, and that was to a failed tenure bid). Checked his CV and this He has been invited to be a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ) and will be a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford University) in 2012-13 makes me think he might be considering a move (though he might not be). Even if he is, it doesn't mean he will move. We've been considering one midcareer faculty member on and off for like five years or something (I don't really understand the details) but we haven't made a good enough offer for them (partly because of internal department politics). We've also made two senior offers in the past two years, both of which have been declined (though both professors came out here to look at us).

I'll echo econosocio's advice: apply to faculty in the department to which you are actually applying. You might be more interested in going outside of the department to get essential mentorship, but those people won't be evaluating you from a pile of other students. To be clear, I think it makes sense to look outside the department, but I have been advised to do so after admission. Know your audience.

On my application to my department, I listed only one sociologist and two people in other departments. One of them turned out to be my adviser's BFF who she runs an institute with. If they work on similar things, there's a decent chance they know each other and are part of some center or something together (and then you should say how excited you are about the center). The medical sociologists know people at the public health school, for example. That said, of course you will need to get essential mentorship within your department and you need to be an excellent fit for at least one person within the department (even if you change totally later).

Edited December 12, 2012 by jacib

[gilbertrollins]

I listed Willer and Lakoff. Willer does some social psych, and Lakoff is a cog linguist (branch of cog psych). Willer lists "moral cognition" or "moral psychology" as one of his leading interests, and such "moral" or "embodied" cognition is something Lakoff, and then Lakoff and Johnson founded. Moreover, Willer is doing economic sociology, and Lakoff is deeply interested in markets. I've had a touch of conversation with Lakoff, who is a fan of my adviser's work, and though I didn't discuss in detail for lack of space, the whole goal of the teaming would be to underline the ethical frames people draw on to navigate the market (a challenge to neoclassical assumptions). So I think the connections are there, even if I didn't nail a project proposal in the SOP. I also talked about Fligstein's theory in relation to my thesis work outlined in the writing sample. So I don't think I gave the impression that fawning across disciplines at an early age can -- that one is confused about one's goals and projects.

That concludes my rationalizing my potential mistakes for the evening.

[faculty]

Willer definitely has tenure.

Whenever it's someone who is the only of their kind in a program (like Willer is), it's more of a risk listing them. Even if he isn't leaving (and he certainly could be), he could already have an overwhelming number of students and/or the faculty on the committee could wonder who else you would connect to. If it seems like he is all you have in sociology, it might be a problem.

I've recommended in the forum before that the best thing to do is to apply to a department that has an enduring strength that you're interested in, not an individual that you're interested in working with. And certainly don't apply to a school - rather than a program - that has people that you like in it. If a faculty member isn't affiliated with a department (and even joint appointments whose tenure or teaching homes are in other places at the university), chances are that they won't be able to be that involved in your academic training or professional development. Even taking class in other departments is generally frowned upon in top programs. If you're not sure what you're interested in studying - which isn't the case for econosocio, but others in this forum - then choose programs that will give you the best broad training (e.g., methods, theory, major areas) and has a record of strong professional development and placement in schools/positions where you would eventually like to end up.

Edited December 12, 2012 by faculty

[gilbertrollins]

I've listed several heterodox or network economists at schools, but addressed the work of sociologists in the department in relation to my interests in the most detail. Does that convey that I understand how the game works, that I'm going to be publishing in soc journals and presenting and soc conferences, even if drawing from, criticizing, and posing alternatives to some work in economics? In some sense ignoring work on technology and growth in economics wouldn't be very scholarly. I have made, I think, clear in my SOP and writing sample that my preference for solving the problems I see, is in theories of networks and organizations, in sociology.

Edited December 12, 2012 by econosocio

[joss10]

So for Harvard, for example, if I've listed 3 established professors, should I mention Bonikowski as well or just leave him off? His research interests are very similar to mine which is why I am considering mentioning him, but he only started out very very recently.

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/bonikowski/index.html

[faculty]

I would mention Bart. It would seem strange to leave him off if his interests are closely aligned with your own.

[jacib]

Whenever it's someone who is the only of their kind in a program (like Willer is), it's more of a risk listing them. Even if he isn't leaving (and he certainly could be), he could already have an overwhelming number of students and/or the faculty on the committee could wonder who else you would connect to. If it seems like he is all you have in sociology, it might be a problem.

I've recommended in the forum before that the best thing to do is to apply to a department that has an enduring strength that you're interested in, not an individual that you're interested in working with. And certainly don't apply to a school - rather than a program - that has people that you like in it. If a faculty member isn't affiliated with a department (and even joint appointments whose tenure or teaching homes are in other places at the university), chances are that they won't be able to be that involved in your academic training or professional development. Even taking class in other departments is generally frowned upon in top programs. If you're not sure what you're interested in studying - which isn't the case for econosocio, but others in this forum - then choose programs that will give you the best broad training (e.g., methods, theory, major areas) and has a record of strong professional development and placement in schools/positions where you would eventually like to end up.

I agree with this in principle, but I would just add amendment saying if you are in a smaller subfield (i.e. you're not doing race, inequality/strat, urban, econ soc, orgs, demography, networks, etc.), you may have a harder time following that advice. My initially project was about state regulation of religion in the Middle East and how it affected minorities, so I was looking for people who did:

a ) sociology of religion, or

b ) work on the Middle East, or

c ) any one doing something that connects states and culture

I probably should have widened my search a little (I didn't know any better), and applied to at least two other schools, but there were really just a handful of people in the country who fit my bill in any of those categories at top 25ish places. Granted, in retrospect, I should have applied to work with d) more historical sociologists and e) people who work on ethnicity-outside-the-U.S. (like Rogers Brubaker) but regardless: there was a very limited pool of people who would have been interested in advising my project. And they mostly didn't work at the same schools. That doesn't mean I'm working in a hopeless obscure subfield, it just means I'm working in a small one. I'm sure other applicants who work on more obscure subfields (like social psych, religion, historical sociology, STS, environment) will run into the same problem. Where you can, list list list people in the department. Where you can't, try to find places with faculty you don't think are going anywhere and are excited about your project. If you can, list people from related departments so it doesn't look like you're too narrow mindedt.

A partial solution to this is of course bridging: say my project is "(obscure subfield) and health", or "and urban", or "and inequality", or "and social movements" or something like that. If you work on a religious organizations, make sure to list both Robert Wuthnow and Paul DiMaggio when apply to Princeton, even if you really just want to work with Wuthnow. For Minnesota, on the other hand, you might say your project is religion and historical sociology. But, clearly, that's not always possible, and you might not have the right kind of, say, "culture" person at the programs you're thinking about (you don't want it to see like you just looked at the website and saw that Professor Such Ensuch was listed with "culture" next to their name--you should be familiar with these people's work). At programs where there are multiple people who do something even vaguely similar to what you're interested in, of course list the people you can. But there are about four Top-25 programs in the country where you can go as a straight sociologist of religion (I'm not at one of them--I'm studying with someone who fits one of my other characteristics) so your options really are pretty limited to start with. That's fine, too. Not ideal, but fine, and just be happy you found a couple people scattered across the country who will be excited about your project (just try to make sure they'd be really excited about your project).

Edited December 13, 2012 by jacib