Admissions Procedures

Admission to the Sociology Graduate Field is restricted to students who plan to complete a Ph.D. Students can, in consultation with their Special Committees, take a Master's degree on the road to a Ph.D. A terminal Master's is also available, but is reserved for students whose goals change part way through the program, who decide they are not cut out for doctoral studies, or who, in the view of the Special Committee and other Field members, are not making adequate progress toward doctoral-level research.

Admissions to the program is extremely competitive, with relatively few offers made each year. You do not need to have an undergraduate or Master's degree in Sociology in order to apply or to be competitive in the admissions process.

How are Applicants Chosen?

The Graduate Admissions Committee decides who to admit each year from among the applications received by the Graduate School. The admissions committee consists of three or four Sociology faculty, including the Director of Graduate Studies. Its decisions are collective. Offers of admission are not allocated on the basis of a match between a specific faculty member's need or desire for a research assistant and a specific applicant.

The Graduate Admissions Committee typically reaches its decision by making two passes through the pool of applicants. In the first pass, members of the committee individually read each file and rank the applicants. Committee members differ in the criteria by which they generate their initial ranking of applicants, but for most committee members GRE scores, grades, and other prior scholarly accomplishments are especially important. The DGS collates the initial rankings and generates a "long list" of applicants who received the highest rankings from the most committee members.

The Committee then makes a second pass through the "long list" of candidates. At this point, focus shifts to all a careful and holistic assessment of all of the elements of the file, but especially writing samples, statements of purpose, and letters of recommendation. Finalists are chosen on the basis of an extensive committee discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of all of the candidates on the "long list." Occasionally, committee members will interview applicants on the "long list" to flesh out the information in the written files.

Applying to the Program

Application requirements

Applicants should submit an online application and statement of purpose to the Graduate School. College transcripts, two letters of recommendation, Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores, a sample of written work, and, if necessary, TOEFL test scores should be submitted to the Sociology Department. The Graduate School charges a nonrefundable application fee ($70 in 2007), although this can be waived in special circumstances.

The writing sample should be a short paper, published or unpublished, that will help the admissions committee understand the applicant's potential as a sociologist and distinguish among the many well-qualified persons who apply each year. Co-authored papers are discouraged, unless the applicant's contribution to the joint effort is clear. Also, long documents (e.g., Master's theses) should not be sent. The paper need not be in sociology, but it should convey some of the qualities of the applicant's analytic abilities and communication skills.

GRE scores are required of all applicants residing in the United States during the year preceding matriculation in the Graduate School. There is no need to take the advanced test in sociology.

Applicants should take the GRE in October so that scores arrive by the January 15 deadline and can be considered with the rest of the application materials. The institutional code to have GRE scores sent to Cornell is 2098, and the department code is 2102.

Students whose native language is not English must take the TOEFL language proficiency test before admission. The Graduate School minimum is 580 (paper test) and 213 (computer test), but this is typically not sufficient for entry into the Sociology program. In recent years, successful applicants have scored, on average, 280 on the computer test. The institutional code to have TOEFL scores sent to Cornell is 2098, the department code is 96.

An applicant whose file is missing one or more of these components is at a severe disadvantage in the selection process. We encourage applicants to make sure that their letter-writers send letters of recommendation promptly.

Application and Decision Deadline

Students are accepted once a year into the graduate program, for a fall matriculation.

Applicants must submit their application, including all supporting documentation, in time for us to receive it by January 15. Application decisions are typically made in late January or early February, and all of the intramural fellowships are filled by mid-February. However, we occasionally make offers later in the spring if it looks like yield rates are unusually low or if additional funding from the Graduate School or Arts College comes in.

You will be notified by a letter from the Director of Graduate Studies of the status of your application once all of the admissions decisions have been made. Because letters of admission contain legally binding information about the funding package under which students are admitted, they do need to be cleared by the Graduate School before we can send them out. Please be patient with us (and them)!

Cornell, like most graduate programs, asks students who receive offers of admission to make their decisions by April 15.

Contact information

Additional information about the admissions process can be found on the Graduate School's web site. If after reading this site you still have about the admissions process, please contact the Graduate Field Assistant.

If you have more general questions about the Graduate Program, feel free to contact the Director of Graduate Studies, individual faculty members in whose research you are especially interested, or the chairs of the Graduate Student Association.

If you wish to visit Cornell, either before you apply or after you have received an offer of admissions, please contact the Graduate Field Assistant, who will help you arrange your visit and schedule appointments with faculty members and students while you are here.

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