Fall 16 Soc Applications! (need evaluation)

[goofylemon]

Greetings, 

I consider my circumstances very different from others

School: Top 50 Public University

Area:  Social and Spatial Demography, Marriage and Family, Life Course, Crime Law Deviance.

GPA:  (Junior Senior GPA): 3.6-3.7 range [but much lower cumulative GPA: 3.3-3.5 range]    (SOC Major GPA): 3.9-4.0 range   (Sociology Graduate Courses): 4.0

Major: Soc, Criminology, Poli Sci, Philosophy, Media, minor math+stat+psych+GIS  (320+ semester credits, explaining low cumulative GPA, that almost tripled the average)

GRE: Verbal 167  Quan 170  AW 4.5  (seeking to retake for a higher AW)

Demographic:  Need Funding, Ph.D. (absolutely no terminal M.A.), International applicant but attending colleges in U.S., so no TOEFL (not sure if it is positive)

Recommendation: 3 full professors in Sociology

Publications: 1 to a tier-1 journal in R&R process

4 submitted (including one to JIV, another to spatial demography)

Conference: 5 (ASA, ASC, AAG, an Asian sociological conference, PAA.)

All of the above are single-authored, with an exception of co-authored with a professor.

 

RA:      3 semesters, covering social network project and a criminology project. 2 semesters of intern for survey research center as data analyst.

TA:      1 TA for 400 level course (but it is for next semester) -  1 "TA" for lower level course (but perform independent lecturing, exam designing and many more as a lecturer).

Skills:  Certificate in SAS, very proficient in STATA and SPSS.  Good in R.   Proficient in lots of GIS and spatial analysis software, Python, UCINET and NodeXL.

Weakness: GPA (hopefully can be offset by others)  I'm not sure if I appeared to be too broad in my area...

Strength:  GRE, Publications and research(?) Graduate Courses Experience, Good letters?

 

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I don't like to use safe schools as a notation to schools I have more confidence getting into, so I list the programs I applying to with a rough ranking of preference..

Harvard, Princeton, Chapel Hill, Texas Austin, Wisconsin  |  Washington, Penn, NYU, Ohio State, Brown | Maryland

[Not sure if it is a good fit]: UCLA?

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Question: 1. Will my (very?) low GPA offset by the credits total I am taken/ other strength I have?  2. Are my listed strengths strong enough to expect one or two offers from the first five programs? 3. (related to 2), is the program list realistic? 

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Thanks a lot in advance for suggestions, critiques or useful comments!

 

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2015 by Pika

[gingin6789]

Your situation is unique in that I'm not sure I understand what I'm reading: you were a quadruple major and a quadruple minor in undergrad?

Also, did you take grad classes in undergrad? You mentioned "no terminal M.A" so I'm assuming you're not already in a master's program, but then you said you're a TA, too? So I'm a bit confused there!

To (attempt to) answer your questions

1. I don't think your GPA is horrendous to begin with, and you obviously have shown you can handle graduate-level work with your 4.0 GPA in grad classes

2. I think that those strengths are enough, but I can't truly speak for the admissions committee making that decision.

3. I say "go for it!" You seem like a really good candidate.

[oranges]

You're in R&R with a single authored paper in a "tier 1 journal," which I assume to mean either ASR, AJS, or SF? On top of that you have 4 journal articles submitted? That's amazing for an undergraduate. Your GPA won't disqualify you. Any of the top ranked graduate sociology programs will take a serious look at your application.

That said, you start off your #1 preference of grad schools with Harvard, which seems like a pretty bad fit according to your stated research interests. Only Mary Waters is listed as demography at Harvard, and she's a qualitative researcher. (I assume you are quantitative.) UCLA should be all right. Have you looked at Stanford as well?

Edited October 20, 2015 by iemons

[goofylemon]

You're in R&R with a single authored paper in a "tier 1 journal," which I assume to mean either ASR, AJS, or SF? On top of that you have 4 journal articles submitted? That's amazing for an undergraduate. Your GPA won't disqualify you. Any of the top ranked graduate sociology programs will take a serious look at your application.

That said, you start off your #1 preference of grad schools with Harvard, which seems like a pretty bad fit according to your stated research interests. Only Mary Waters is listed as demography at Harvard, and she's a qualitative researcher. (I assume you are quantitative.) UCLA should be all right. Have you looked at Stanford as well?

Thanks for the initial comments. What I really mean was JMF. Personally I will categorize ASR, Criminology or AJS as "beyond Tier-1". I don't know if people will say JMF is a 2nd tier, but it is among the top journals for family studies I think... 

I agree with you Harvard is not particularly strong on demography. I think Chapel Hill is a much better fit. I picked Harvard to be on the top of the list because family reasons (and I am a little tired of small town life).

It looks like Stanford is very strong in social stratification, social psych and critical sociology, but none of my fields. Correct me if I am wrong

My concern about UCLA is they do not guarantee funding for international student  

[goofylemon]

Your situation is unique in that I'm not sure I understand what I'm reading: you were a quadruple major and a quadruple minor in undergrad?

Also, did you take grad classes in undergrad? You mentioned "no terminal M.A" so I'm assuming you're not already in a master's program, but then you said you're a TA, too? So I'm a bit confused there!

To (attempt to) answer your questions

1. I don't think your GPA is horrendous to begin with, and you obviously have shown you can handle graduate-level work with your 4.0 GPA in grad classes

2. I think that those strengths are enough, but I can't truly speak for the admissions committee making that decision.

3. I say "go for it!" You seem like a really good candidate.

Thanks gingin!

I understand your confusion. I have quadruple minors, and quintuple majors (that's why I accumulated a 320+ credits in four years of college). 

I do take graduate courses, one or two each semester, depending on the availability of seats in my interested courses. The graduate school will not over-enroll undergrads when course is full.

I was a TA last summer and will be again a TA for a 400-level sociology course next spring. My undergrad institution allowed undergraduate students to be T.A.. 

Thanks for giving me heads-up on the language matters of the original post, I wrote them before my dinner, so i failed to do proofreading haha  

[oranges]

Thanks for the initial comments. What I really mean was JMF. Personally I will categorize ASR, Criminology or AJS as "beyond Tier-1". I don't know if people will say JMF is a 2nd tier, but it is among the top journals for family studies I think... 

I agree with you Harvard is not particularly strong on demography. I think Chapel Hill is a much better fit. I picked Harvard to be on the top of the list because family reasons (and I am a little tired of small town life).

It looks like Stanford is very strong in social stratification, social psych and critical sociology, but none of my fields. Correct me if I am wrong

My concern about UCLA is they do not guarantee funding for international student  

I don't know much about JMF or its rankings. But as an undergrad, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just publishing is impressive enough.

I mentioned Stanford because you mentioned you did 3 semesters worth of TA on a social network project, a field which Stanford is strong at. (Specifically I was thinking of Robb Willer.) But I did not see that you didn't actually list that as an interest. My mistake.

As for Harvard, by "family reasons" I'm assuming you're referring to the prestige associated with Harvard in your home country? That's really not a good reason to place Harvard as your first choice, or even to apply there at all. Your fit is not strong and the Admissions Committee will definitely notice. Anyway, why you want to spend the next 5-7 years at a place where you would get a lackluster training in the field(s) you are interested in? It seems like a waste of app fee to me.

And about UCLA: They may not technically guarantee" funding - I think because they're technically a public school - but you can all but be rest assured you will get funding. You could shoot them an email to check, but it's hard to imagine a school like UCLA suddenly being unable to fund their PhD students.

 

 

[goofylemon]

I don't know much about JMF or its rankings. But as an undergrad, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just publishing is impressive enough.

I mentioned Stanford because you mentioned you did 3 semesters worth of TA on a social network project, a field which Stanford is strong at. (Specifically I was thinking of Robb Willer.) But I did not see that you didn't actually list that as an interest. My mistake.

As for Harvard, by "family reasons" I'm assuming you're referring to the prestige associated with Harvard in your home country? That's really not a good reason to place Harvard as your first choice, or even to apply there at all. Your fit is not strong and the Admissions Committee will definitely notice. Anyway, why you want to spend the next 5-7 years at a place where you would get a lackluster training in the field(s) you are interested in? It seems like a waste of app fee to me.

And about UCLA: They may not technically guarantee" funding - I think because they're technically a public school - but you can all but be rest assured you will get funding. You could shoot them an email to check, but it's hard to imagine a school like UCLA suddenly being unable to fund their PhD students.

Dear iemons, Thank you very much. I researched through the Harvard website and now agreed with you that Harvard seems not a good fit for me even considered my family reasons. (By saying family reasons, I mean my parents expected me to apply and I cannot persuade them). A good side about this "lack of fit" is that my chances of getting in is very low, so I won't worry too much if I will have that tough decision to choose making my mom and dad happy (as their only child attend a prestigious ivy school) or receive a good graduate training for the next five (or more) years.

I completely agree with you that it sounds like a waste of money to apply, but it is just so hard in my culture to completely reject my parent's expectations... I guess I will apply anyway and look for other schools to matriculate.

 

[oranges]

Dear iemons, Thank you very much. I researched through the Harvard website and now agreed with you that Harvard seems not a good fit for me even considered my family reasons. (By saying family reasons, I mean my parents expected me to apply and I cannot persuade them). A good side about this "lack of fit" is that my chances of getting in is very low, so I won't worry too much if I will have that tough decision to choose making my mom and dad happy (as their only child attend a prestigious ivy school) or receive a good graduate training for the next five (or more) years.

I completely agree with you that it sounds like a waste of money to apply, but it is just so hard in my culture to completely reject my parent's expectations... I guess I will apply anyway and look for other schools to matriculate.

 

 

Alright. 

And I have to say, I like your username change.

[SocioEd]

Not sure if it's too late, but Harvard actually is an okay fit for you. Brinton and Killewald are family demographers. Also, consider it a department strong on spatial demography, e.g. Sampson and Western. Anyways, in case you applied and got an offer, you should seriously consider it.

[kameldinho]

How does one accumulate 320+ credits over the course of a single degree? Surely at some point the university must have forced you to graduate, either through cutting off your financial aid or rejecting your deceleration of an umpteenth major/minor. In any case if you have four papers in the works and three full professors backing your application you have nothing to worry about, except possibly adcoms viewing your number of credits as a negative; it communicates that you have difficulties finishing things in a timely manner and they'll worry that it will extend to graduate school.