NYU or UC Berkeley?

[ricorico]

Hey folks, I'm trying to choose whether to go to NYU or UC Berkeley for a PhD in Sociology. (I'm applying for Fall 2017 and I'm pretty confident I'll get into both.) My interests are labor, social movements, and comparative-historical sociology. There are good Marxist profs at both places that I'd want to work with, so the "fit" in that sense is similar. I realize that UCB has a higher ranking and that this prestige will presumably make me more likely to find a job eventually. But for personal reasons I'd much rather be in NYC for the next period in my life. Also, NYU's funding is amazing, they've had good placements in recent years, and many people say that the department will be in the top 10 soon. So I'm trying to figure out whether I would be making a mistake by (as I'm currently inclining to do) going to NYU over #1-ranked Berkeley. Any advice would be much appreciated!

[freeuser]

I'd expand your horizons. Apply to both, when you don't get in, those horizons will help.

[nevermind]

29 minutes ago, ricorico said:

Hey folks, I'm trying to choose whether to go to NYU or UC Berkeley for a PhD in Sociology. (I'm applying for Fall 2017 and I'm pretty confident I'll get into both.) My interests are labor, social movements, and comparative-historical sociology. There are good Marxist profs at both places that I'd want to work with, so the "fit" in that sense is similar. I realize that UCB has a higher ranking and that this prestige will presumably make me more likely to find a job eventually. But for personal reasons I'd much rather be in NYC for the next period in my life. Also, NYU's funding is amazing, they've had good placements in recent years, and many people say that the department will be in the top 10 soon. So I'm trying to figure out whether I would be making a mistake by (as I'm currently inclining to do) going to NYU over #1-ranked Berkeley. Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

Hmm...I don't know your situation or stats, but I would really encourage you to wait until you have your offers in hand (and visit the programs on visit daY to stress over making decisions. Funding packages often differ between programs (and even between students in departments), so there are a lot of variables that may come into play. Not only that, the admissions process is often capricious and many solid candidates get rejected from programs that they'd "fit" or that they'd normally get in, depending on the year. Rankings aren't everything, and I'm a big proponent over picking the program where you thrive (holistically, which includes a city where you'd enjoy living over 5+ years). Just be patient and wait and see. 

[IncomingPhD2017]

Yea, I'd have to agree with these two- it's worth your while to expand your options. What exactly makes you sure you'll get into both? You mention your interests but not the relevant qualifications, tests scores, published articles, etc. that would make you such a exceptional candidate. 

[1too3for5]

On 12/16/2016 at 4:58 PM, ricorico said:

Hey folks, I'm trying to choose whether to go to NYU or UC Berkeley for a PhD in Sociology. (I'm applying for Fall 2017 and I'm pretty confident I'll get into both.)

@ricorico, this comment is difficult to palate because it comes across as both very pretentious and altogether ignorant of the admissions process for doctoral degree programs. I have three quick points - hopefully some of these will resonate constructively, at least with respect to how you view the admissions process or choose to present yourself to potential colleagues.

Unless you have truly significant research experience (i.e., not just an undergraduate senior thesis or some second-author paper), you are not significantly distinguishable from many of the 400 people who applied to NYU this fall. Perhaps your letters of recommendation come from prominent faculty in the field, or you believe the contents of these letters ring superlative - this is still far from unique. Maybe a high GPA and exceptional GRE scores service the belief that you could simply walk into NYU or Berkeley; unfortunately, you're definitely still one of many applicants who can boast of the same credentials. I hope this doesn't sound rude - these characteristics are certainly accomplishments to be proud of, but they don't really set you apart from other highly-qualified applicants.

Above a certain threshold, none of what I described above actually matters, as the pool of people with these qualifications doesn't distinguish any applicant in particular at a program with a 0.5-2.0% acceptance rate. If you clear these baseline hurdles, faculty will really care about your research interests. Really care. In a far more meticulous fashion than the broad categories of "labor, social movements, and comparative-historical sociology" you've described. Faculty will not care that you are pleased with quality of the "Marxist profs" in each program, or even that you have some amount of fluency in Marxist theory, as this will be taught in a graduate classroom. If you cannot articulate personal research questions that relate to the body of knowledge specific faculty members plan to develop during the 5-8 years of your doctoral training, you will not be admitted. Even if you do this successfully, many other people will also have done so to varying degrees of efficacy.

Let's assume you have three years of relevant beyond-undergrad research experience₁, that your stats are exceptional, and that you are able to establish a cogent and highly relevant research agenda in your SOP. As @nevermind mentioned, this is still not enough for a level-headed person to assume they will likely be accepted to two of the most competitive sociology PhD programs in the country. Perhaps the faculty you mention in your SOP are not on the admissions committee this year or are on leave when decisions are made, and your expertise or research interests are not appreciated by those on the panel. Perhaps your professors of interest have been scouted by other universities (I noticed no less than four faculty profiles on NYU's site that are currently inaccurate for this reason), making your well-crafted statement now look a bit sloppy at best, and utterly irrelevant to any current faculty at worst. Maybe one of these "good Marxist profs" believes you appropriated a theory incorrectly, senses you aren't interested in research enough, or doesn't like that you inaccurately capitalized "Sociology" multiple times in your statement. Beyond a certain point, highly selective admissions processes universally become fickle and arbitrary.

That's not to say that people don't get into both. I have a friend who did last fall. He's a brilliant person. Brilliant people don't assume they'll win games of chance, and aren't excessively confident about the outcomes of processes they don't control. Those assumptions are most often made by people who lack critical knowledge about the mechanics of process.

 

[1. Undergraduate research is an important exercise and a small handful of research universities do it very well, but the average age of entering students in programs like NYU and Berkeley is often 25-26 in part because meaningful research interests and technical skills are refined more effectively in full-time research positions]

Edited January 26, 2017 by 1too3for5
precision

[socapp2017]

On 12/16/2016 at 4:58 PM, ricorico said:

Hey folks, I'm trying to choose whether to go to NYU or UC Berkeley for a PhD in Sociology. (I'm applying for Fall 2017 and I'm pretty confident I'll get into both.) My interests are labor, social movements, and comparative-historical sociology. There are good Marxist profs at both places that I'd want to work with, so the "fit" in that sense is similar. I realize that UCB has a higher ranking and that this prestige will presumably make me more likely to find a job eventually. But for personal reasons I'd much rather be in NYC for the next period in my life. Also, NYU's funding is amazing, they've had good placements in recent years, and many people say that the department will be in the top 10 soon. So I'm trying to figure out whether I would be making a mistake by (as I'm currently inclining to do) going to NYU over #1-ranked Berkeley. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Bump. OP should do an update now that both Berkeley and NYU released their decisions.

[ricorico]

hey, this is the OP. First of all, you all were right, I shouldn't have been so confident; I didn't get into either Berkeley or NYU, unfortunately  Lesson learned. But I did get in to one of my other top choices in California, which I'm really excited about too! Anyways, thanks to everyone for the critical feedback and sorry for writing an obnoxious post to begin with. Hope everyone else has had good luck this round...

[Puncherkid]

27 minutes ago, ricorico said:

hey, this is the OP. First of all, you all were right, I shouldn't have been so confident; I didn't get into either Berkeley or NYU, unfortunately  Lesson learned. But I did get in to one of my other top choices in California, which I'm really excited about too! Anyways, thanks to everyone for the critical feedback and sorry for writing an obnoxious post to begin with. Hope everyone else has had good luck this round...

Congrats! And seriously, I don't think you need to apologize at all. This was your first post and you deserved to be treated in a polite way, even though you had yet to learn about how PhD admissions work. Outright assuming that you were being pretentious (simply with your "pretty confident" sentence), from my perspective, is the last thing that a prospective sociologist should do. 

[1too3for5]

 

On 2/12/2017 at 0:08 AM, Puncherkid said:

Congrats! And seriously, I don't think you need to apologize at all. This was your first post and you deserved to be treated in a polite way, even though you had yet to learn about how PhD admissions work. Outright assuming that you were being pretentious (simply with your "pretty confident" sentence), from my perspective, is the last thing that a prospective sociologist should do. 

Reread my post. Nobody made that "outright" assumption. Congrats @ricorico!! Sounds like you'll be in a great program this fall

Edited February 13, 2017 by 1too3for5