manateeluv

I got into my top choice planning program at UCLA and received no funding, but as a California high school grad who did undergrad in California for 4 years and has since then been an NY resident, am hoping to at least be granted an exception for in-state tuition which is around $17K for me to got there as a possibility. I received 85% tuition remission for my second choice program at Rutgers, which is a Dean's scholarship for 2 years, which means I'll walk away with very little debt, and on top of that was told I should be able to get a paid research position. I had reached out to the faculty I wanted to work with at UCLA before the application deadline twice before the application deadline, and didn't hear back, while the Rutgers faculty were all very responsive and made time to do zoom calls with me as a prospective applicant, but it's the UCLA faculty that I really want to work with in addition to the centers which really align with my interests. I am hoping to reach out again to the faculty that I would like to work with at UCLA again, but am wondering how realistic is it to expect that they will reply to me before the April 15 decision deadline, and that the UCLA program will reconsider me for scholarship funding and/or give me some sort of guarantee that I'll get a paid graduate position (at ucla I understand my pay would go toward tuition remission). Is it true that faculty can also advocate for you to get funding as a masters student? Also if centers at UCLA that I want to do research at have recently gotten a lot of funding, does this mean more paid grad opps will become available? I am wondering what else I can do try to get scholarship or fellowship $ to attend UCLA as most that I have come across are for currently enrolled students. I would really like to be able to move back to LA to attend, but am hesitant to take on debt to move back since the cost of living around UCLA has always been quite high even with covid. Post-grad I'm hoping to get a job at a foundation job or fellowship in California or NYC around BIPOC community development work and UCLA seems like it may have a network better suited for that, but not sure if paying $17K a year will be worth it toward this goal. And as someone who has been working for almost a decade since graduating and went from jobs with good benefits to progressively lower paying nonprofit community development jobs with bad or not health insurance, I am eager to be able to get decent health insurance due to some ongoing health issues I'd finally like to be able to properly address. Not sure how health insurance works in grad school or how I'll be able to afford that with tuition expenses. I was really excited about getting into UCLA, but feeling the pressure to figure out how it's going to work out financially for me before the April 15 decision deadline...