UMass Amherst

[HKgal]

Dear friends of Gradcafe,

I have been accepted by U Mass Amherst with 5-year-teaching/research assistantship. But in fact, I have little knowledge about the school. I would like to ask:

1) her reputation of Sociology in the US in general and their strength. Does it match with my interest (i.e. gender and qualitative research method)?

2) As my lover and I want to get married soon in my hometown, is it possible for me to study U Mass Amherst for 2 years full-time and then I do my fieldwork for 3 years in my hometown? This is a real headache for me and my boyfriend.

3) Lastly, as I am not a particularly smart person, I am concerned about the graduation rate and the average years for an individual to finish a PhD.

Thanks a lot for your help! Wish you good luck for your application!

HKgal

[carolina45]

Has anyone else heard any word from UMass Amherst? Their website says it takes 5-6 weeks after the January 15th deadline to release decisions. We're now at the end of week 7... I emailed them twice, but have gotten no response. Does anyone know anything?

[tmor6]

Has anyone else heard any word from UMass Amherst? Their website says it takes 5-6 weeks after the January 15th deadline to release decisions. We're now at the end of week 7... I emailed them twice, but have gotten no response. Does anyone know anything?

Ha! I haven't heard from them either and their website does say the make decisions at the end of Feb.

[carolina45]

Hmm I saw someone just posted a Umass rejection on the results page. I just checked my application status online and it still says "applied". Does anyone else have any info?

[tmor6]

Hmm I saw someone just posted a Umass rejection on the results page. I just checked my application status online and it still says "applied". Does anyone else have any info?

Mine just went from applied to "waitlisted" this afternoon.

[carolina45]

Hmm.. I saw people had received decisions by calling and speaking to the Director/grad secretary. I just called and asked and they said final decisions would be made in 1-2 weeks and that they had no more information beyond that. This is so frustrating!

[Tritonetelephone]

To the OP: You're very lucky for being accepted without knowing much about them... My sincere condolences to all the well-qualified people who did their research and still got rejected.

Does it match with my interest (i.e. gender and qualitative research method)?

I got accepted to UMass last year to study gender. So the short answer is: yes. But I found that they accept a lot of grad students that do gender/sexuality, and it's a little out of proportion with their faculty interests. Janice Irvine is their "big name" gender scholar, but she doesn't even do that anymore. Amy Schalet is really cool, but there are a lot of grad students competing for her time/resources. Overall, it's a good program, though - great students, great health insurance (sounds trivial but seriously, it's really good). You also have access to all the faculty at Smith at the other colleges in the system. It was a close second choice for me.

The rest of your questions are good to ask when you visit the school (which you've probably already done by now...)