Sociology Graduate Programs

[dirkduck]

Hey everyone,

I just took the GRE today and got my scores for verbal/quant, so I wanted to see if anyone who is familiar with graduate programs could tell me how competitive I may be in applying. My undergrad majors are sociology and psychology, both of which I was considering for grad school, but being as I have no psychology research experience (which is apparently a big factor in admissions decisions, according to program websites) aside from lots of participation in studies (getting paid to do EEG experiments is a hot deal!), I think I'll be applying mostly to sociology PhD programs. Right now, with one more semester to go I have:

3.83 GPA
1350 GRE (780 quant/570 verb)
And I'm expecting to be able to get at least 1 really good letter of rec. from a prof. I know well (and I'll have to get a couple more, which will probably be alright at least).

So far I'm pretty sure I'll be applying to (among others):

U of Washington
U of Arizona
New York University
SUNY Stony Brook
Colorado State University (in psychology)

So, does anyone know what kind of schools my "credentials" would be worth applying for? Thanks!

 

[ebola?]

I'm a current doctoral student in sociology at Berkeley. I had similar majors to yours (with Philosophy added in), from a third-rate state-school. Now, I'll outline where I was at upon entry, not to brag (that's a side-effect. ) but to give you a feel.

I had:
4.02 GPA
1350 GRE (730 quant/620 verbal), IIRC, with 6 on the analytical writing section.
Strong letters of rec' (I think. I elected to be unable to see them before delivery, which looks better.)
3 years experience as a research assistant
An undergrad thesis in Psychology
Assorted honors (blah, blah, blah)

The outcome:

Applied to:
UC Berkeley
U Wisconsin at Madison
SUNY Binghamton (for strength in world system theory)
UCLA

I got into all but UCLA (wha??). Only Berkeley offered me funding, and it was only adequate for part of a single term.

Teh advice:
1. Aim high. (Clearly) You won't get in to schools to which you do not apply.
2. What matters most: your letters of recommendation and statement of purpose. Regarding the former, it would be ideal for you to draw on personal relationships with Profs. I established mine doing research assistance. Regarding the latter, not only does your statement of purpose provide an example of your writing and demonstrate that your ready for serious grad. study, but it also allows the faculty to figure out if you're a good fit. You want to narrow it to a single "topic", but you don't need a fully formed research proposal. Mine contained 3 ideas on points of Marxist theory that I'd like to investigate. I ended up pursuing none of them.
3. My GRE was slightly below average for Berkeley, but it worked out fine. They weight verbal more heavily than quant, and at that point, the writing section was so new that they didn't really use it much.
4. Research experience and your undergrad thesis matter, but I'm not quite sure how much.

ebola

 

[dirkduck]

Thanks for the info ebola.

I'm surprised you only got offered partial funding at one school; your cred's are really strong. I'm banking on getting a tuition waiver and stipend as a TA/RA, otherwise I'm not sure how I'd be able to afford school. Did you have to apply separately for funding at each of those schools?

 

[ebola?]

>>I'm surprised you only got offered partial funding at one school; your cred's are really strong.>>

Thank you. The rub is that there were 25 other equally strong (some clearly stronger) applicants in my cohort.

>>. I'm banking on getting a tuition waiver and stipend as a TA/RA, otherwise I'm not sure how I'd be able to afford school. >>

This is the route that I'm taking. But really, the loans are usually a good financial decision in the long run.

>>Did you have to apply separately for funding at each of those schools?>>

It depends. Some funding is distributed (or not ) by the departments without any sort of application process. Then there are department grants and fellowships you can apply to, governmental bodies, etc.

Don't get me started on how inappropriate the NSA and Javitz fellowship application process is.

ebola

 

[dirkduck]

(Excuse the slow reply!)

Thank you. The rub is that there were 25 other equally strong (some clearly stronger) applicants in my cohort.

Yeah, seems this is the case all over. At my undergrad uni (CU Boulder), all grad students (at least in SOCY) are guaranteed a waiver+stipend, so I assumed this was the norm. Apparently not, arg!

This is the route that I'm taking. But really, the loans are usually a good financial decision in the long run.

True, I just don't really like the prospect of being tied to the lender for thousands of dollars years after graduating .

I have no experience with loans. Do you know about typical loans? For instance, is there a standard place to get one from for grad. school, or is it just whatever you can find?

 

[ebola?]

At my undergrad uni (CU Boulder), all grad students (at least in SOCY) are guaranteed a waiver+stipend, so I assumed this was the norm. Apparently not, arg!

Ah. I didn't even check at my undergraduate school. I'm guessing that the more competitive schools can "afford" to offer fewer financial incentives to snag grad students. Free minds, free markets, right? :/

Do you know about typical loans? For instance, is there a standard place to get one from for grad. school, or is it just whatever you can find?

I was able to snag a couple (maybe 1.5) tens of thousands of dollars of subsidized loans from the federal government, meaning that I don't accrue interest until I graduate. What more, I was able to refinance to lower the eventual interest rate to a couple percent above inflation. In sum, regardless of my financial situation, it would make sense for me to take out such a loan, if only to invest it, if I really didn't need it at all (although doing so would be illegal and drastically ironic for a Marxist graduate student).

ebola