My chances of getting into a Sociology PhD program?

[juandaniel]

So here's the deal: During my undergraduate I took several sociology classes: Intro, Social Problems, Social Stratification, Social Statistics, and Anthropology. I ended up getting my undergraduate degree in Human Resources, and I have gone on after taking a year off school to begin work on a Masters of Education in Adult and Higher Ed (right now I have a 4.0). My GRE scores are not that great (average), but I did get a 4.5 in Writing. I think my research interests lie in the realm of Social Psychology/Sexuality/Gender related issues, and sociology might be a better fit for me. What are my chances of getting into a sociology PhD program? How much would it help me to take Graduate level courses in Classical Theory, Methods, and Stats before I apply? Is it necessary? What am I looking at here as far as deficiencies? Any advice would be great! Thank you!

[Rosie_0801]

I think you'd be best off asking the colleges you'd like to apply for. They know who they will accept. Think carefully though, you don't want to spend all that time and money on a PhD and come out further in debt and without a job.

 

Good luck,

 

Rosie

[Bev in B'ville]

It's not as easy as deciding to apply to a program. When I applied to my Ph.D. program there were 250+ applicants and 5 slots. IOW, extremely competitive. I had research experience, had published with a professor as an undergraduate, had professional presentation experience, a 3.9 GPA, research experience, and decent GRE scores. I was still selected #5. The people selected above me had multiple publications/presentations under their belts and the undergraduate school and degree come into play as well. If you're going into sociology, you're probably going to have to go back and take a few of the major classes in that area. If the program you're applying to wants you to have undergraduate classes, they'll tell you to take them and then reapply to the program when you're done.

 

Professors are evaluated by their bosses in terms of publications and presentations; IOW, how much prestige they bring to the university in their area of specialization (how much grant money they get, etc.). It's all about publications in professional journals and professional presentations. At least at the university I attended, the professors' student evaluations played very little role in their job evaluations.

 

I don't know how research oriented sociology is (my graduate work is in psychology), but my program was very heavily into research and the stats required to do that work. I ended up with 10 graduate level courses in stats (in addition to all the other classes of course). (I hated stats when I started, but ended up teaching stats at a university when all was said and done. LOL) If you have little or no stats right now, I would highly suggest taking several undergraduate classes.

 

The bottom line is you need to make yourself as competitive as possible. Retake the GRE if you have to (everyone in my program had scores above 750 in all the areas to give you an idea). Some universities only look at a specific score. Some of the ones I applied to only looked at the math score and ignored the rest. Call the university's sociology department. Ask them what they evaluate and how they evaluate applications. I know from my experience that they used an equation for each student. The equation involved numerical scores they assigned based on what they valued. It's been years for me, but as I recall it was GRE-Math, GPA, research experience, professional publications (e.g. Journal of Sociology and others in your case), and recommendations. (I'm sure I'm forgetting something here, but for each university the equation was slightly different.)

 

The other really important factor is fit; IOW, how well your research interest matches with those of a professor. All professors have a research interest which is more narrowly defined than just "sociology." For example, my field of study was Industrial/Organizational Psychology, but within that broader classification, there were many sub-classifications (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, or, my chosen specialization - Work Teams - all of my professional publications and book is about Work Teams with the exception of one guest editorship I did). You will need to research each of the professors of sociology at the university(ies) that you apply to and in your essay make SURE you talk about your research interests and how they align with a certain professor's. It would be a good idea to schedule a meeting with that professor before hand, too, to talk about his/her research interests and whether he/she is taking on new students right now (this person would most likely end up being your graduate advisor). How well your research interests aligns with a professor will play a major role in whether you're accepted. In the program I applied to, several people had numerical scores (from the "equation") that were higher than mine, but their research interests didn't fit into the research interests of any of the professors.

 

I loved graduate school and sometimes wish I were still there. I could be a professional student, I think. :)

[TravelingChris]

I had an undergraduate degree in Economics and switched to Criminal Justice for my master's and later the doctoral program. There were two of us in the master's program who weren't previously CJ or sociology majors, the other was a psychology major. In our master's program, we had to take stat and research methodology classes. FOr the doctorate, you had to pass a rigorous stats and methods exam. MOst of the social sciences including sociology are very stat and research based. I was in a new program but even there, they wanted good grades and good GRE.

[Terabith]

I applied and was accepted into every sociology Ph.D program to which I applied. I did have pretty high GRE scores. For what it's worth, I was an English major.

 

Of course, I decided to go to seminary instead, which was probably a bad move. But my big question is why? Why do you want a Ph.D in sociology? The job market out there is so, so SO tough. Academia is very very political.....

 

You definitely need classes in Research Methods, Data Analysis, and Statistics. Theory would be good, but imo is not as important as research methods.