I got into grad school and so can you. Or, how to instrumentalize this process and love your iron cage.

[AsdfEfnasdf]

This is a bit long and admittedly, I went a little crazy. However, I'd like to share the steps I took this cycle and the advice I received from graduate students and professors.

 

F14 was my first cycle. I got one rejection this year. I applied to top ten programs.

 

My background: I have a sociology degree from an elite institution. I worked for a bit before applying. I scored well in both sections of the GRE. I have a little research experience, but I have not published anything, nor have I ever stepped into a classroom.

 

 

LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION

I was told several times that letters of recommendation have very little value. Yes, having an outstanding one from a BFD sociologist (Lamont calls you "one of my best students…") is huge. A connection to someone in the department is obviously significant as well (social relationships matter, Granovetter 1973 etc). However, for the most part, professors send generic letters -- by virtue of the fact that most good students are pretty similar and professors always have a number of other thing to do. Furthermore, given that sociology is an incredibly fractured discipline, it is hard to have a single rubric to evaluate undergraduate performance. Red flags are the real problem. If LoRs convey immaturity or other similar issues, that can quickly kill an otherwise golden application.

 

 

GRE

The GRE is important for two reasons. One, it is an initial screening mechanism at most schools (unfortunate, but necessary).

 

The second way GRE scores are used is for merit funding that is dispersed by the graduate school or the social sciences division. How does one decide whether a economics grad student or a sociology grad student should get funding (besides the obvious morally correct answer)? GRE scores are one "objective" way to do so. My understanding is that GRE scores can thus be very important at institutions where funding is not controlled at the departmental level. Funding necessarily has consequences for admissions, and thus a good GRE score becomes a necessary condition.

 

This is what worked for me: This nova math book and then the 5 LB manhattan prep book. One must then also get access to sample digital tests so one can master the pacing and the feel of digital testing. I spent about 3 months preparing and did so nearly every weekday. Berkeley has on their website the average admitted student's GRE scores. One can easily get those if one sets aside the time to do so. Do not forget the writing section either. Every bit counts. I also had to teach myself the reading comprehension section. Apparently actually having a decent daily academic reading habit doesn't help much here.

 

 

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Universally decreed as the most important part of the application. One must cover three things: first, past intellectual trajectory. Two, a hypothetical research project that demonstrates knowledge of the field. Three, one must identify with whom one will work with. Ok, good, we have all heard this before: fit matters and so on.

 

Now, one may sit down and think, "Ok, I will write about my undergraduate thesis" or "I will describe my passion for subject X."

 

Well, hold on for one second.

 

If you reflect for a moment, perhaps you will conclude that you are not up to date on the most recent literature. You probably have "unknown unknowns". Regardless of how great your work is, perhaps it's not where the discipline is now. Furthermore, do you likely know what a really interesting project would be? For example, does sociology need yet another ethnography of an urban community? How about another survey finding that networks matter for health outcomes? Is there yet another way that we can demonstrate that economic actions are situated socially? I am not saying these topics are unimportant -- far from it -- but that if one really wants to stick out as an applicant, one must get strategic and try to move beyond some of the "tried and true".

 

I first did the usual POI selection by research interest. However, I also picked POIs by their career trajectory. One should identify, I think, a recently tenured professor in her early 40s. This is ideal because:

 

1. They are not going to get swamped with other requests to work with them.

2. Coattail riding can happen. If one wishes to work with someone who is already well established and close to retiring, they may not lead one anywhere. Plus, older professors are likely more epistemological or methodologically inflexible.

3. This is a little macabre, but worth keeping in mind: they will probably not die or retire soon. One's dissertation adviser is important for a long time, a quasi-marriage. You may need a LoR in 15 years.

4. Younger professors will usually have contributed to just one or two bodies of work which one can master in order to write a well-tailored statement. In addition, they are probably more flexible when it comes to your own work, so if you decide you want to be an interpretivist postmodernist while previously you were a b-school positivist, you may get away with it.

 

After I identified my POIs, I read nearly every article that they had published (getting access to JSTOR/academic article search from your UG institution is really essential), and used google scholar to track who was citing them and then read those papers. I had google alerts for a few of my POIs (hoping to catch if they posted working papers). I identified maybe three or four POIs per school.

 

I then crafted statements directly tied to the literature that my POIs are engaging -- not just what their views are, but their interlocutors as well. I did not just want to be a close fit; I wanted to be a glove. Furthermore, the research projects I described were closely tied to existing work. My research proposal was thus very feasible and grounded in the relevant literature. My real intention was to signal that I knew exactly what was expected of me by the time I was ABD. Only about 50% of social science grad students (even at very good schools) actually complete their PhD in the US. Many people can be great students, but the personal ethic required to finish a dissertation is very demanding. Signaling competence and fit is thus the most critical "functions" of the SOP. Nota bene that whatever you propose in your SOP is probably not going to be your dissertation (and if it is, that might be a little disappointing given US PhD's focus on several years of coursework.)

 

Of course, a literature review is not a statement of purpose. Regurgitation is for high school. I am simply suggesting that one should be very well-read and relevant. If one undertakes this route, one will also avoid trendy "buzzwords" topics (e.g. "A big data ethnography of the the neo-neoliberalization of online discourses: the case of shirtless Zizek Tumblr gifs in the age of Bitcoin" or whatever).

 

Here are some other tips I received (most of which I think are very obvious to gradcafe members):

 

1. One should probably eschew "activist research" or present one's self as some kind of 21st century soixante-huitard. Sociology dissertations do not end capitalism, sorry to say. Several professors bemoaned statements which contained long personal narratives about working in foreign countries or rough neighborhoods. Admirable certainly, but not necessarily relevant to the task that sociologists do (publish rigorous work). Furthermore, it is incredibly insulting and condescending to say anything like "I did TFA and now I care about poor people of color. Plus, I have seen The Wire." Though apparently every year, there are a few people who write this. Then again, Burawoy/Public Sociology movement also exists. Best not to wade in as a prospective graduate student I think.

 

2. The related iffy statement of purpose is the "personal problem" one. Several professors brought this up as an issue as well. First, just because one has come from a similar background as one's intended subjects does not necessarily make one a good researcher. For instance, I doubt that my ability to read Durkheim or run regressions connecting social facts to mental illness has been dramatically improved by the few bouts of depression that I have had. Second, by highlighting personal problems, one can raise questions of competency. A few professors did mention that they occasionally like hearing a few details about an applicant though. A brief personal anecdote as an introduction might work well, but I avoided the personal all together.

 

3. Avoid C. Wright Mills or other "pop sociologists". Mills was barely involved with the discipline (he didn't even mentor grad students). Merton and Bell dominated the actual enterprise of sociology at Columbia at this time. Speaking of Columbia, no-notebooks-tons-of-verbatim-quotes Venkatesh has been criticized by a few bright guys, most notably Bobo on issues other than his methods. Gladwell and David Brooks are probably just bad calls all around. Avoid citations like this and focus on "serious" work -- the bread-and-butter of sociology.

 

4. Do not have a grand theory of society. As noted above, one enters school to be trained. One probably know very little (or has an inflated sense of what one does know). Be a little bit humble. One professor explained to me that the SoPs he truly hated are persons who engage in grand theorizing or academic posturing. "They are so young, how can they think they have it all figured out? Who are they trying to fool? You know I've been at this 23 years and would never write that." In another instance, a graduate student described a statement of purpose that used a number of sports analogies / inspirational poster quotes as theories of all aspects of social life, from gender to the causes of macro state conflict (think Vince Lombardi in lieu of Weber). I do not think it really worked for the audience. Likewise, "I was hiking the Appalachian Trial and as the sun was rising over the mountain, it dawned on me; we are all social creatures," is probably not a good opening line.

 

5. I was told that at some places, teaching experience doesn't matter all that much. Sentences like "I know I would really enjoy teaching" may not be a good idea. One is entering a program to be trained as a researcher, primarily. Though I do understand that expectations on this probably vary greatly from department to department, particularly if significant teaching duties are core piece of grad student service. This is yet another piece that should be tailored I suppose.

 

6. Many sets of eyeballs should read over your statement (duh, but apparently grammar and spelling mistakes are common). It should both pass "the grandmother test" (be able to explain it to your grandmother in a minute or so) and ideally a current graduate student should be brutal with you. So, have many friends of different intellectual backgrounds read it over.

 

7. One piece of advice that I had a hard time following was that one should connect with current graduate students at your target schools and get a feel for the expectations of mentoring. At one extreme, there are departments that wish that one works very closely with one's adviser -- as Tilly once put it, be a little worker bee and add a little honeycomb to an existing hive of the literature. At the other extreme are places that expect graduate students to be very independent and only occasionally meet with their adviser ("benign neglect" was the phrase one professor used to describe places like Harvard and Chicago). Thus, an added dimension would be to not only signal fit in intellectual interests, but work style as well. However, I could not really figure out a good way of expressing this well with just a thousand words.

 

 

WRITING SAMPLE

This one you have less control over than the others. I was told that a class paper was ideal. It shows you in action. Apparently, even at very good departments, folks will argue very forcefully over whether an undergraduate paper is good or not. It's hard to imagine, but if you are a contender, perhaps Tienda and Zelizer are up late at night arguing about that barely coherent thing you wrote at 4 AM.

 

Do not edit this paper. Turn in a copy that has been marked-up by a professor or an original copy that you handed in and make sure that this is somehow indicated. Showing a bit of integrity can matter. One grad student told me a story of an applicant who hit all the right marks and they were deciding between this person and one other applicant with a comparable profile. The other student had clearly not "freshened up" his writing sample and he was chosen for this display of ethics.

 

I cannot really speak for folks who have publications. Perhaps I am very ignorant, but given that it is unlikely that a paper written by an undergraduate or a masters student is published in a very reputable journal, I am not sure how much of a bragging right one gets. I do suppose it depends on the type of paper as I imagine that a solid quantitative paper is probably much better than an undergraduate theory essay ("But this is not what Marx really means by capitalism!"). That said, if you are the third author because you did the data entry and there is some graduate student who was up late running stata or R all night, how much credit can one really claim? One professor commented that he preferred seeing high quality undergraduate work because it is exclusively the applicant's work and it gives a sense of the type of undergraduate education that the applicant had.

 

My sample was a class paper with a few glaring grammar mistakes and I reproduced the comments from the professor -- a few strong detailed disagreements, though he did like the paper and gave me a good grade.

 

 

RECAP

1. Don't have red flag letters in your letters of recommendation.

2. 3 months, 2 books and you can get  >160 on the GRE

3. Approach the SoP like a research paper. Dig in deep. Be strategic (well-read and relevant), original and humble.

4. Writing sample is important. Be honest with what you turn in.

 

Rojas' *Grad School Rulz* is really worth picking up. 

 

Above all else: know exactly why one is getting into graduate school and express that one understands the expectations  of the institution (in other words, signal homo academicus habitus.)

 

Good luck all!

Edited February 10, 2014 by AlasdairMacIntyre

[Dragon]

I agree with this post almost entirely, especially the section on sob stories. You want to convey professionalism and knowledge of the discipline. I would also add that sociology SOPs are different from political science or other disciplines. You really need to get a sense for what is typical/what the admissions committees want (for example in history they want a very specific research agenda - almost like a research proposal - whereas I recieved feedback that my statement was too specific in earlier drafts for sociology). You don't need to be married to this proposal - the admissions committees know that you research agenda may (and probably will) change over the course of your PhD - you are signaling with this your ability to think like a sociologist and knowledge of the discipline. I think a good general format for these things are introduction (why sociology - which will probably include some personal stuff), your background, research agenda, why you want to go to that specific school.

 

The one point I disagree with is that you should not edit your writing samples. This is not the advice i got - you want to put your best foot forward. If you were worried about submitting something that was far afield from what you originally submitted for a class, you could always explain on the first page header that this is a paper based off of a paper you wrote for xyz class. I agree that it's really important to be honest with the applications (as in anything in life!), but it's also important not to submit something riddled with spelling errors.

 

One thing I've realized through this process is that (among many other things) access to the information required to make a good application is very limited and unfairly distributed. I went to an elite private unviersity and got all the advice that Alasdair so kindly put together and published well before my application. I guess what's great about this site is that we have an opportunity to spread more of this information, although it's always so tricking putting things online. Good luck everyone.

[iht]

I agree with Dragon. I provided a condensed version of my undergraduate thesis that had been edited (with particular attention to the required length). While my analysis and conclusions did not change, I certainly rewrote sentences that needed to be clarified. I haven't been in school for several years and that undergraduate paper did not accurately reflect my (much improved) writing style that has developed as I've matured and had broader work experience.

 

I said as much in a disclaimer at the beginning of the paper. It's worked out well so far.

Edited February 10, 2014 by iht

[Dragon]

Umm...while that may have worked out in your case I'm not sure it's the best strategy? Usually it's pretty clear when you've messed around with the margins - the admissions committees usually print out the applications. I've heard faculty get annoyed when students try to mess with the margins and font to make the cut off. My advice for future applicants would be to through your application with a fine toothed comb and make sure all the parts are in the same font, same margins, etc in order to appear as professional as possible. First impressions matter!

[iht]

Umm...while that may have worked out in your case I'm not sure it's the best strategy? Usually it's pretty clear when you've messed around with the margins - the admissions committees usually print out the applications. I've heard faculty get annoyed when students try to mess with the margins and font to make the cut off. My advice for future applicants would be to through your application with a fine toothed comb and make sure all the parts are in the same font, same margins, etc in order to appear as professional as possible. First impressions matter!

 Let me be clear - I did nothing to the margins or the font. I just condensed the thesis by removing some sections and graphs, which was noted at the beginning of the sample.

[gingin6789]

Very detailed and elaborate advice.  My only addition would be that some people might do well aiding their studies for the GRE with some type of classroom prep classes. The face-to-face aspect of learning helps folks like me even more (in addition to studying on one's own, of course!!). Plus, I was studying for my GRE during the last semester of undergrad! I know I would have said "oh, I'll just study later ..." If I didn't have my classes and prep class teachers/tutor to hold me accountable.  I wasn't lazy or anything, I was just overwhelmed and swamped with thesis work, and I know I would have chosen tweaking my thesis over studying for my GRE because test day seemed less immediate than my weekly meetings with my advisor!

 

My quant GRE scores started in the 20th percentile, so I did manage to improve the quant score with classes and tons of studying.  Even more studying from the resources you listed would have helped improve it further, I agree.  I am just still thrilled that it's NOT in the 20th percentile now!

 

Also, I agree that reading constantly doesn't do much to help your verbal score.  That's a matter of knowing some really uncommon words and the testing format, itself, really well.

 

Writing was something I didn't focus on.  I basically dragged myself through it on test day just to get to Verbal and Quant.  I could have scored higher, but I wasn't too upset because I have a great writing sample that I poured my heart, soul, intellect, and experience into.  However, my thesis advisor presented this word of caution: sometimes adcoms may not know how much the thesis advisor was involved in the creation of the thesis. This made my head want to explode cause I worked so incredibly hard on my precious thesis.  But she's right in that the GRE writing score is a more standardized way of looking at writing.

Edited February 13, 2014 by gingin6789