sciencegirl

While Foucault's ideas are certainly important, I think US sociology has generally considered his theories helpful alongside or as a back up dancer to the other more prominent sociology thinkers (Weber, Marx, Durkheim) - and if you are dead-set on focusing on Foucault to study sociology, and want to survive graduate school - best if you apply to an interdisciplinary program like American Studies/Modern Thought and Literature/History of Consciousness etc program.. and not traditional sociology programs. Just sparing you a lot of grief with this advice, though I certainly respect your approach and ideas.

Northwestern Northwestern Northwestern... arguably one of the best in terms of qualitative methods, ethnography, culture - I heard some phD sociology student recently did a documentary as a component of his diss.. (though not sure how confirmed this was). They seemed to be the most open to ethnography and qualitative methods of all the programs I was looking at.

Can add some experience into the dialogue.. I may have mentioned this in the past but negotiating is a bit of tricky one to maneuver and I got a lot of advice on this. In the end, my decision came down to two top-10 programs, where after adding up the total packages, one program was giving roughly $10,000 more than the other ($30,000+ vs. $20,000+). This put me in a weird bind to see if I could/should/would negotiate the the other program since it was maybe a better fit for my interests.. and was also actually ranked below the other (where the $30,000+ offer was from more or less a top-5.) In the end, it was made clear to me to not even begin negotiating unless I was 99% certain that if School B matched or came close to the offer from School A, then I would definitely go to School B... and honestly, I am not sure if the funding would have swayed me too much, so I made my decision without negotiating. I would add then - you should apply broadly to any program you might consider going to, if for any reason, that it may give you some leverage against another program... but at the same time, don't expect too many magical things... as many private programs seem to offer almost the same package to their incoming students. Goodies? Let's see here... I'm currently deciding when and how I will spend my computer fund.. and I can't wait for my "books and moving expenses" check to arrive in about a month... I mean, it's not a private plane or anything, but there are some cool perks thrown around here and there.

Don't worry about what your diploma says (humanities major here) - but just make sure you can show that you can write and think like a social scientist. I got into multiple top-10 programs without ever taking a "sociology" course (and yes, it was embarrassing for some apps when they ask you to list your sociology courses taken). I did however, take two months to write a completely new 20-page writing sample on a topic in sociology, doing new research and reading on my own -- and learning ASA formatting.. because all my writing in the past had been in English/Cultural Studies and in Chicago formatting, and I knew that I had to prove somewhere that I could think and write like a social scientist. And the nice thing is that I'm hoping to continue working on that essay/new writing sample in graduate school so it wasn't a wasted 2-months.

I don't think the issue has to do with numbers - but rather in the end, the process involves far more of a holistic interpretation of candidates than would be possible or efficient here. The only way to really reproduce it is if we all just uploaded our actual applications online for everyone to review themselves.. and then pretended to be the professors looking at them... and that's the only way we'd have a good sense of who might get in where and everyone's chances. Splitends and I were in the same cycle this past year, and I am completely in agreement that the process is highly unpredictable - and posting up your stats to judge "chances" is really futile. The only predictability really is if you don't make a certain type of cutoff (like I think if you have below a 3.0 GPA and are shooting for a top-10, your chances are very low)... but at a certain threshold where you are a "competitive candidate", your chance of getting into a school is really 0% or 100%. It's up to that committee of 5-7 professors looking at your application and deciding if you have 0% or 100% of getting in. (Also, note that "competitive candidate" can really include over 100 applicants at a given program). From my experience, plenty of people had "higher numbers" or "greater experience" somewhere on the list you posted, and then didn't get into the same top programs, or any at all (and then I also got rejected from programs ranked lower than ones I got into) -- so basically, don't take any of this personally, or think the process is a competition against other people in regards to your numbers and experience. I will also add that the program I finally chose to attend, which I'd rather prefer to not state publicly, was one where I thought I had very little chance of getting into. And honestly, now that I can see the bigger picture of that specific admissions committee - and I've met with some of those faculty personally as an incoming student, I'm now realizing that luck, timing and application cycle played a huge role in my acceptance this last year. I most likely might not have been accepted to that same program if I were applying in another year with a different committee/different circumstances. (I'd be more than willing to share more details and my insight in PM if any of you have questions).

Just a key to taking tests as I did the GREs for the last cycle.. but definitely relax - there is a pressure element that seems to really trip up test-takers on these standardized tests.. and yes, they are scams, and we also know as sociologists that good SAT results skew both towards certain socioeconomic and racial categories... so just don't let your scores define you too much or lose sleep over them.

One thing to consider is that rankings are often reflective of the size of programs - that most of the top ranking programs are all medium to large sized programs - where lower ranked programs are often smaller programs (this is somewhat due to the fact that rankings are determined by the publication breadth and records of faculty and larger programs will naturally score more in this area). Its important to keep in mind because the smaller programs - the ones that are lower ranked - also may only admit 2-3 students a year, maybe 5 at most, as opposed to the larger top 20-30 programs that may admit up to 20-30. So rankings and "chance of admission" can be deceiving, esp when the OP's stats are in my opinion "competitive." (You may get into a few random top 30 programs, and then also get rejected from programs ranked 30-50 if your interests don't match or you SOP is weak).

Question - if you don't want to go into teaching/tenure-track job.. do you want to do research then? (And of course I'm hinting at the question, why do you want to do into a doctoral program?) Is School B an American Studies program?

I think everyone at these visits and entering doctoral programs has a fear that they are just faking it really well... I had a good heart to heart about this with one of my letter writers and she made me realize that the field of knowledge is so incredibly vast that you will never know everything, you will never read or understand everything you want, and that someone else (or rather, many other people, are genuinely smarter and more well-read than myself) -- and the peace in just understanding and accepting this is key to getting through academia. What really hit home to me is that academia is not about being the smartest or best read, but understanding just enough of it so that you can be a genuine contributor in whatever unique way to the vast amount of scholarship being created. I will second @socscholar and say that I am genuinely amazed by everyone on my visits that I've met and its inspiring to know that these people will be my peers and collaborators for decades to come.

@tt503... I was saying 2-3 courses over the course of a year - not per quarter or semester. Which is the problem, since adjunct teaching doesn't give you enough courses to make a decent living/salary since you aren't getting enough classes and you aren't getting full time benefits.

http://chronicle.com/article/Chart-Average-Faculty/64999/ Although - the reason I find this chart deceptive is that it only looks at full time Instructors/adjunct.. so you might look at that and go, $50,000 is a great salary. Unfortunately, what a lot of my friends have told me is that for younger people/recent phDs, a trend has been for schools to hire adjuncts to teach just 2-3 classes a year so that the university can cut costs by not having to pay them full time salaries and benefits. (since if one person teaches 5-6 classes a year, they then qualify for full time benefits). One of my friends gets paid around just $5000 per class on the part time model.. so what happens then is a school can hire 2 adjuncts to teach 3 classes each, paying them each around $15,000 w/o benefits - instead of one person for 6 classes around $45,000 + benefits.. if that makes sense (it saves the school $20K). It's in my opinion a big issue that needs to be addressed at a union level - as I think its really terrible that schools are doing this in greater numbers, especially to their younger hires. Hence, my friends who are younger and teach adjunct are making A LOT less than the $50,000 amount indicated on the Chronicle.

I really want to add the caveat that university-level teaching is quite challenging, and a 500-person survey course is very different than leading a freshman seminar, and that non-tenure track teaching jobs (adjunct positions) are really not living wage jobs by any means - I don't want to publicly say how much my friends who are adjunct make (you can PM me though), but they are only able to do it because of partners who have both higher paying supporting jobs, and health care benefits. If you are single, or need to be the breadwinner in the family, a non tenure track position is incredibly difficult to survive on unless you are full time at a top R1 school. One thing someone told me to look out for with placement, is to make sure a program's phD graduates are in a TT track position.. often jobs that are "visiting assistant professor" or "lecturer" positions are not TT track, and are temporary (some schools even cap the time limit - say 1-3 years max in a row - someone can be a full time adjunct somewhere.) I just wanted to highlight this so that you can set your goals and expectations accordingly - since it seems like you want the information from these forums to help you succeed.

I would second @chuck - and then add that you should try to contact the recent graduates from the program in a friendly manner for advice. The ones who have jobs that you would love to have should be able to give you stellar advice -- who to work with, etc -- that will help you get to you goals.

Quick question - if teaching is really important to you, what is the placement record of the department? If they haven't placed any one into a TT teaching job that you would be happy with, then thats something to think about..

no probs! @ANLstyle.. how are your visits going? Any decisions narrowed yet?