I was accepted into my 2nd choice grad school for an MA in English Lit program on Conditional Admittance (rejected from 1st, but oh well). All I need to do to make it Regular Admittance is get a 3.0 or better in one of the required English classes. I don't feel like that will be a problem, as my goal is to eventually work towards a PhD and if I can't get a 3.0 or better I'm pretty sure that will kill my chances of getting into a PhD later.
The issue, though, is I had applied for Graduate Assistant positions, but as a Conditional Admit I'm now ineligible for those. In anyone's experience, is it an option, and a wise one at that, to contact someone in the admissions department and see if I can be admitted under Regular admission to remain eligible for an assistantship? On one hand, if they didn't feel strongly enough about me to give me regular admission in the first place, they might not have granted me an assistantship anyway. On the other, I felt like I was a strong candidate for the assistantship because I had spent almost two years working as a teacher's aide for a professor in undergrad who wrote an excellent letter for my application, which I thought would be strongly in my favor. What are your thoughts?
Also, I did get regular admittance to my 3rd choice school, but that is also no funding, and it's more expensive per credit hour. So I'm thinking the 2nd choice on Conditional is better than Regular to the 3rd choice, but am I totally wrong in that?