gre scores for sociology phd programs
Question for faculty: What is the range of GRE scores that is acceptable for your PhD program? Feel free to post anonymously, but indicate the type of program you work in (e.g., top 20, mainly qualitative).
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orgtheory.net 
Prof. Rojas, what GRE scores do YOU find acceptable? Can high GRE scores make up for below average grades, for example?
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andy
November 9, 2011 at 7:48 am
So we’re moving from “useless majors” to “useless departments” now? I’ll get the popcorn. Also, the orgtheory guys might like to know that this post looks _even more promising_ to those who aren’t logged in. There is now a Pepsi ad containing a clip of a Britney Spears video running below Fabio’s ads. Doubleplusgood!
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Steve
November 9, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Andy: I’ve only done admissions once at IU, which is a top 20 program, and it was about 5 years ago. My memory was that you were a plausible candidate if you scored in the top 30 percent on each section. Some candidates had 90 plus pctiles in all sections. I’ve also been told that some students have been admitted with lower scores and have done well.
My memory is that GPA is often more important than GRE. Many think: If you did well in GRE, why are your grades so bad?
Of course, the point of the post is to get more data from other faculty to see if my memories are accurate.
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fabio
November 9, 2011 at 1:18 pm
One can think of there being two parameters. 1) Selectivity of the institution/department and 2) Relative weight of GRE vs. other factors
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Michael Bishop
November 9, 2011 at 3:28 pm
The economics side of this question is, of course, well covered, here.
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untitled
November 9, 2011 at 3:33 pm
The quant scores can be mostly imputed from the NRC data. http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/sociology/rank/funding Assume a normal distribution with n applications (take a guess), go two standard deviations down and that should give a decent approximation of the cutoff.
Law school students are better at keeping up with this stuff: http://harvard.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/
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Craig
November 9, 2011 at 7:04 pm
@Craig,
Beware of law school admissions data. The fallout from an investigation of the misreporting of LSAT scores and GPAs of law students at the University of Illinois is that this misbehavior is the norm for law schools. Luckily, there is no relationship expected between ethics and the law.
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Randy
November 9, 2011 at 8:49 pm
@Randy Lawschoolnumbers aggregates the self-reported admissions outcomes/attributes applicants, so I’m sure the problem is even more problematic there! Still interesting to look at (some schools have an obvious quadrant/triangle of acceptable students, depending on how they weight GPA and the LSAT).
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Craig
November 9, 2011 at 11:50 pm
I was hoping for more info here :/
Is it true that programs have some cut off number and any application that doesn’t make that cut off (1100, 1200, 1300) just gets set aside in a first-cut/denied stack?
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undergrad
November 10, 2011 at 7:43 am