Ph.D. Application Instructions
INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPLICANTS FOR GRADUATE ADMISSION –
FALL 2010
DEADLINE DECEMBER 14, 2009
Read carefully this and all other materials regarding your online application before filling out any forms or submitting any materials.
There are 5 items to your application that are to be submitted in the following ways:
On the Graduate Division Application website you will do 2 things:
· Complete the Graduate Division Application which includes the Statement of Purpose and Personal History Statement and space to report your GRE scores. This is the only application you will need to fill out. (When reporting GRE scores, put your most recent scores. You may not mix and match quantitative and verbal scores from different exams.)
· Submit names and email addresses for your the three Letters of Recommendation on your Graduate Division Application. The letters, preferably from social science faculty familiar with your recent work, can be easily uploaded onto the online system by the writer and you can confirm their submission by checking online.
Here, on the Candidate Registration, you will self-register, create a password and upload 3 things.
You will not be able to access the Candidate Registration page until you have completed the Graduate Division Application. We will upload the new applications onto the Candidate Registration Page each Monday morning, so the system will recognize you the week following your application submission.
In the last week before the December 14th deadline, we will be uploading the new applicants daily. So after December 7th it is likely that the day after you complete the Graduate Division Application you should be able to logon to the Candidate Registration page.
You must submit your online Graduate Division application by Monday, December 14, but as we won't be able to upload Monday's applicants until Tuesday, December 15th, it is alright to submit your supporting documents to the Candidate Registration page through that week (December 14-18) though sooner is better.
If submitting your Graduate Division Application on the 14th you may not want to wait until 11p.m. PST as the system gets very busy and you may not be able to successfully submit if you wait until too late in the day.
· One Writing Sample of your work in English (e.g. term paper, thesis, publication). Written work should be nonfiction and conducive to evaluation on its own merits. Thus, short stories and take-home examinations are poor choices. Admission committee members are especially impressed with writing samples that attempt to link theoretically informed arguments with empirical evidence. The average length is 15-30 pages. You can upload your document in .doc or .pdf
· A complete set of official transcripts for all post-high school education (whether or not you got a degree). You will need to obtain a transcript, create an electronic copy (please black out your Social Security Number) and upload it as a .pdf file. Most local copy shops have the ability to scan a hard copy document and create a .pdf for you. Please ensure that your electronic transcript is no more than 3MB in size. If you are creating your own pdf file you may need to try a few times to ensure you get a readable copy while keeping the file size within the 3MB limit. You will also need to have your educational institutions send a sealed official transcript to our office (see below).
· Upload an electronic copy of your official Graduate Record Examination (GRE) score report (general test only) You will also need to have the scores sent to UCB directly from ETS.
You will need to have mailed:
· Your official sealed transcripts (in addition to uploading your electronic copy on the Candidate Registration page) to Graduate Office, Department of Sociology, 410 Barrows Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1980
Please note that there is no other street address available for deliveries, so keep this in mind if using options other than the US Postal Service to send us mail.
Also note:
· Pay application fee at time of submission, which is $70 for U.S. citizens/residents and $90 for international students or complete the Request for Waiver of the Graduation Application Fee form (PDF) which is available for domestic applicants.
· GRE codes for Berkeley are: 4833 for the institutional code and 2102 for the sociology code. You will need these to have your scores sent directly to Berkeley Sociology from ETS.
· Please compute GPA after 1st two years, if you went to a university in the U.S. If you attended a university outside of the U.S., the GPA calculation is not necessary.
The deadline for all applications is December 14, 2009.
That means that all documents required for your file should be here by then.
If you applied for admission for Fall 2008 or for Fall 2009, and would like to reapply, contact the graduate office for instructions as we have your material on file. You must still submit a new online application, and if you have done further academic work since your last application you must submit updated transcripts.
You are responsible for the completion of your application file. If you apply online you can check the Graduate Application page and the Candidate Registration page to confirm that your electronic documents are here. We cannot always notify applicants about any missing documents. You may email us at socgrad_admit@berkeley.edu, or call the department's Admissions Assistant at (510) 642-1445, if you cannot see them online and need to confirm your documents are received.
Applicants will be notified of department action by mid-March. Applicants for fellowships may hear from the department earlier about the outcome of the fellowship competition.
No application materials can be returned to the applicant nor can copies of materials submitted be provided to the applicants or other parties. Applicants do not have access to faculty evaluations of their application files and do not have access to letters of recommendation written for their applications.
Hardcopy Applications
It is much easier, if you have computer access, to apply online, but if this is not possible for you, you may access a hardcopy (see below). You would complete it and then have all your materials (GRE scores, letters of recommendation, official sealed transcripts, writing sample, application and application fee) sent to:
Graduate Office, Department of Sociology, 410 Barrows Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1980
Please note that there is no other street address available for deliveries, so keep this in mind if using options other than the US Postal Service to send us mail.
Request for Information or Application
If you have more questions after reading the Handbook and the FAQs, please email the Sociology Department Graduate Office. Also if you don't have regular access to a computer to read these, and would like a hardcopy of the Handbook, please let us know and we can send one out. Include your full name and address in your request. We encourage applicants to apply online. You may also download the application yourself in .pdf format . If this is not possible for you, email us and we will send out a printed hardcopy.
Download Forms
Using the links above in the Graduate Application for Sociology Ph.D. program section, you can download some part of the application or use the online application form.
Downloadable documents are formatted in Adobe Acrobat PDF Format. Download requires Version 3.0 or higher. Click here to download current free version of Adobe Acrobat PDF reader.