portlandian

My acceptance letter included the following scholarship information "We are pleased to inform you that you have been recommended for a tuition scholarship in the amount of $16,128 to be used in the 2013 - 2014 academic year. The terms and conditions of this award, and any additional financial assistance will be sent to you via email from the Office of Financial Aid." The "recommended" bit is throwing me. Is that normal phrasing? My guess is that they just say that as protection so that I'm not awarded if I get straight c's from here till graduation. However, the scholarship will make or break my attending the school so I don't want to accept their offer of admission if "recommended" means I may or may not receive it.

I want to teach high school English for maybe a decade or so and then pursue a doctorate and teach at a college level. If I needed no degree after this one then I would go with UTA as it is much, MUCH cheaper. However, since I will be eventually be applying to doctorate programs, I'm wondering how much (if at all) the ivy league repuation would aid me. Is it worth the extra loans? US & World News ranked UTA above TC, but I also don't know how important that would be. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This is my first time posting and I am uncertain about the right place to post this, so my apologies if this is in the wrong place.... If all goes according to plan, I will likely begin teaching in Portland in the next few years. My undergrad GPA is not fantastic due to digging myself into a whole my freshman year. I eventually want to go for a PhD in English, so I thought getting a better GPA with a masters in English could help. In Portland my options for a relevant degree are Portland State University for a M.A. in English or Reed College for a Masters of Liberal Studies. Reed has an excellent reputation, but I don't know how that applies to its masters program and the degree is less specific. Does anyone know anything about Reed's graduate program? How important is specificity v. rank in this situation? At the point of applying to doctorate programs I'll have either a M.Ed. or a M.A.T. from a top ten education school so does it even make sense to go for a second masters? Any help is greatly appreciated!