Chances of admittance to high ranking PhD program

[Darkroast]

Before I got a perfect verbal score on my GRE, I was planning to apply to second and third tier sociology programs. I'm now considering applying to a few top-tier sociology programs, including Berkeley and Stanford. My jr/sr GPA is 4.0 (in an interdisciplinary studies intellectual history major at UGA) and my GRE scores are 170 V, 158 Q, 4.0 AWA. I'm expecting to submit a strong writing sample and SOP, and pretty decent letters.

 

But because the top-tier school world is a little alien to me, I'm struggling to get a sense of my chances of admittance. Is this a reasonable ambition? Do the facts that I'm coming from a non-sociology major at a middling university and have a low AWA score mean a lot? Are they adequately compensated for? Can I count on the factor of my "life experience" of living and working in Asia for 3-4 yrs after graduating to help me?

 

Of course there isn't any magic formula for admittance, but I'd welcome input from anybody who has a better grasp of what it takes and maybe what to include or emphasize in my SOP to improve my chances.

[amlobo]

No one can tell you your actual chances, as you acknowledged.  While your perfect verbal may keep you "in the pile" at top universities, if you are an otherwise strong candidate (as you sound to be), your chances will largely depend on your fit at the university.  I wouldn't apply to top schools just to apply to top schools, if you don't have a good research fit.  Apply where you think you can do your best work, and explain in your SOP why that place is *that* school.  I would find schools that could support your research and are in a range of rankings... apply to a few top 10, 20, 30, etc.  

[gilbertrollins]

For everyone watching at home: the GRE is a reject criterion, not an accept criterion.  So if you bomb it, your application can get trashed before anyone reads it, but above certain thresholds, say roughly 90th percentile, it's pretty meaningless.  Grades also, are a a reject criterion.  There are lots of people who are good students and work hard for As, so this is a necessary but insufficient condition to get you in.  Committees are looking for good researchers, not good students.  

 

Your LORs, SOP, and writing sample will be the real deciding factors once you've met a reasonable baseline of quantitative measures and gotten a reading.  Your time is better spent discussing your research interests with and plans with your writers, and strategizing what you'd like them to emphasize about you, than it is worrying about bringing your GRE score from a 161 to a 162.  

 

Also, life experience is something that will boost your application for researchers who believe it's meaningful, but there are a lot of people who feel it's not.  So it's a wash.  Prattling on about life experiences is not appropriate in an application to graduate school unless you were engaged in research work.  Committees want to know what kind of skills you've acquired, not your motivation for acquiring them, like the socially interesting things you've been through as a person.  

 

I'm going out on a limb here with some conjecture, but you have to imagine that sociology programs get a lot of applications from people who have traveled and lived abroad, and that that kind of experience is no longer remarkable, nor does it signal a unique respect for or perspective on other cultures or our own.  On the other hand, if you acquired language skills that you'd like to use to conduct ethnography, have a particular interest in social issues that you observed while abroad, etc -- that's something to discuss in particular.  

 

OP: you can talk to your UG advisers about where they would rank you as a student compared to others they've written for, and whether they feel they can honestly recommend you for top programs.  

[gilbertrollins]

And don't worry so much about coming from a worse school.  If you are an exceptional student, your letters and writing sample will reflect that.  Sociologists, remember, are particularly egalitarian and interested in upward mobility.  

[LugubriousJones]

I'm going out on a limb here with some conjecture, but you have to imagine that sociology programs get a lot of applications from people who have traveled and lived abroad, and that that kind of experience is no longer remarkable, nor does it signal a unique respect for or perspective on other cultures or our own.  On the other hand, if you acquired language skills that you'd like to use to conduct ethnography, have a particular interest in social issues that you observed while abroad, etc -- that's something to discuss in particular.  

 

 

I agree with this.  A lot of people live and travel abroad after undergrad, and many of those I met while doing so ended up applying for different grad programs (some successfully, some not).  OP, your 3-4 yrs living and working in Asia could be a great asset, but you should directly relate your experience, or some aspect of it, to your research goals and intended academic trajectory.  Try to be specific (as mentioned, about language and other skills gained, issues you were involved with or observed, ways in which your academic purpose was strengthened and became more focused because of your experience).  I remember an advisor telling a group of students not to go on and on about "oh, and now let me tell you about when I traveled here and how great an experience it was" etc., etc.  I got the feeling that vague and/or rambling recounts of travel experiences was pretty common in SOPs (not that I'm assuming you were going to do that, just a warning).  To answer your question, yes you can definitely count on your international experience to boost your application, but you have to work it into your statement with clarity, reflecting purpose and direction.