ZeChocMoose

I would not go to an unfunded PhD program. At most private universities, you're looking at tuition of $30-40K per year and living expenses between $20-25K per year. If you only have to fund yourself one year, you're looking at $50-65K, which can be doable if you get full funding your second year and beyond. Most jobs for PhDs will pay around that I suppose, so assuming that you don't have big debt from undergrad that can be manageable. I wouldn't recommend it, though.

However, if there's the risk of funding more than 1 year on your own, your costs shoot up to six figures and there's no way to manage that debt - either in academia or in the vast majority of jobs. It doesn't really matter if it moves you towards the PhD and academia - academia doesn't pay well enough in the early years for you to pay off six-figure debt.

If your decision was only between HKS and the state school or perhaps another ranked outside the top 20 I might say just bite the bullet and take out the minimum amount of loans needed to attend Harvard. But from what I understand you also have a great offer from Duke's Sanford school which has one of the top public affairs programs in the nation. I do not foresee a substantial difference in post-graduation prospects, salaries, or networking opportunities (unless perhaps you are thinking international) that would warrant the extra debt of choosing the Kennedy School over Sanford. Harvard is of course the "top" school in the world but Duke itself is in a handful of elite schools, especially in the area of public affairs. You should also consider the very significant cost of living differences between Cambridge and Durham. You have a range of choices from wildly expensive Harvard to the fully funded state school option, Duke seems to be a reasonable middle ground that would be hard to go wrong with.

I agree with you that in an office setting the priority on who gets time off or a more flexible work schedule tends to go to those coworkers that have children. (i.e. Sally can't work late because she needs to pick up Little Sprout at soccer practice, but Mary can work late because she is childless.) My understanding of being a professor (however) is that they are more autonomous on choosing what hours they are going to work and I can't imagine the scenario that you described really being relevant to the academic setting because they are not covering the operating hours of an office.

However, I could see it come to play in other ways such as scheduling classes, committee meetings, the tenure clock, course load, etc. A "family-friend" department would try to accommodate those members of the department whose schedule might not be as flexible. I don't necessarily think a "family-friendly" department has to be bad for the childless though as I would assume this environment would strive for a better work-life balance for all its members.

I agree with you that in an office setting the priority on who gets time off or a more flexible work schedule tends to go to those coworkers that have children. (i.e. Sally can't work late because she needs to pick up Little Sprout at soccer practice, but Mary can work late because she is childless.) My understanding of being a professor (however) is that they are more autonomous on choosing what hours they are going to work and I can't imagine the scenario that you described really being relevant to the academic setting because they are not covering the operating hours of an office.

However, I could see it come to play in other ways such as scheduling classes, committee meetings, the tenure clock, course load, etc. A "family-friend" department would try to accommodate those members of the department whose schedule might not be as flexible. I don't necessarily think a "family-friendly" department has to be bad for the childless though as I would assume this environment would strive for a better work-life balance for all its members.

What would go wrong between now and matriculating at your program? If you have the final offers from all the programs, accept the one that you think is best and reject the others. In any case, it is pretty unethical and may cost other people spots in programs. Of course, if you need time to weigh your options, definitely take all the time you need. But once you've made up your mind and accepted a program, there is absolutely every reason to send in your official rejections to the others.

What exactly does "family-friendly" mean? I'm not trying to be a hair-splitter, and I'm not trying to start a flame war, but this seems to be one of those terms that is never quite nailed down before a discussion begins. What exactly would constitute a "family-friendly" policy that was not unfair to a non-family entity? Does Joan get preferential consideration because she wants to go to her kid's play, but Mitzi, who wants to get her hair done can go pound sand? If someone sticks his head in my office and says, "Is it okay if I leave an hour early? I have a ball game to get to" am I supposed to give that less flexibility than "Is it okay if I leave an hour early? I have my kid's recital to get to." The reality for me is that in either case, I'm short one person for an hour. If I can manage it, sure, why not. But if I can't manage it, am I being "family-unfriendly"?

excuse me, I'll be having the last word here.

can we stop littering the forum with some pointless clarifications?

That's a tough choice HREeducation. I assume you are looking into the education field for a job after your master's degree. Are you going into teaching, policy, admin, or research? Different jobs, have different entry salaries-- although finding any to really off-set the 100K will be difficult. Can you find a job now w/o a master's? Sometimes working a couple years may help you save and be competitive for funding when you apply again. Can you go part-time for your master's? For the schools that offered you half funding, can you make them work?

I was faced with a similar situation when I applied for my master's programs. I applied to 5 schools and got full funding at 3 and no funding at 2. My top choice (when I was applying) was one of the schools that I received no funding. Since the prospect of going 60K in debt for a master's degree did not appeal to me, I quickly shifted my priorities to the 3 schools where I received full funding. After the campus visit, one of the schools out of the 3 really stood out. I enrolled there and had a great experience for a master's degree. Therefore, sometimes you can make a 2nd or 3rd choice school really work for you.

Good luck!

Re: Roommates. You just never know. Even if it's a friend of a friend, you will have no way of knowing if your roomie "chemistry" is right. When I was a freshman in college, my roommate was a girl I'd known all throughout high school. The experience of being roommates destroyed our friendship. I was a night person, and she was a morning person, and we drove each other crazy )she got up at 7am to study---shudder). Many times, I lived with people (both male and female) who worked out great. I am a BIG believer in first impressions, too. Sometimes just talking to someone for 10 mins (and asking the right questions!) can give you a great idea of how you would be living together. Here are the key issues that you need to know, in my opinion:

Are they a night person or a morning person?
Do they like to listen to loud music while studying?
How often are they home (it can suck to have someone home ALL THE TIME)?
Do they have a bf/gf or frequent overnight guests? (no need for the dreaded "third roommate"!)
Are they messy or clean freaks?
Do they like to have parties, frequent get-togethers?
Do they have pets?

Stuff like that can really give you an idea if you can live with someone or not. Also, it's a good idea to set "ground rules" before moving in. I always tell my roomies: If you get a bf/gf, that's fine, but they can't be over all the time. If you want to live with your bf, you have to agree to move out. Since I am home a lot, I always love having roommates who are computer science majors or pre-med or whatnot--they're never home!

I've used internet sites to get roommates. Once, I put an ad in for a roommate in the local paper, and it was great. I interviewed all the people and the person I chose later became one of my best friends.

i would chose school A from what you described as well. feeling like a "superstar" might feel nice but i'd rather go to a better school and not be the best there then go to a more average school and be the standout grad student. you don't want to standout from your cohort too much, that means you're probably at the wrong place. plus, the feelings of "superstarness" will quickly vanish once you're competing against other super stars for professor jobs.

I dunno; I think you two are in pretty different situations. Maybe it's because I could not afford to go to a school that wasn't fully funded. Any school that was at risk of not funding me would be pretty much off the list if I had a funded option. But I'm already in massive amounts of educational debt so . . .

But when it comes to choosing between two fully funded programs, but just one with a bigger fellowship, all kinds of other stuff would come into play:

(1) Research fit: Which is the best fit, and do you know you actually would get along with your POIs at each place? Who's going to support you, not just by throwing money your way, but by giving you the research support you need to succeed in your chosen field?

(2) How much ACTUAL love: I don't know how to phrase this but it's connected to (1). During this recruitment process professors blow a lot of smoke up our asses. I mean, a lot in the form of both praise and fellowship money. And it's easy to fall into believing the hype about yourself and the school. The whole goal of this is to lure you in, but the question is whether they are going to keep all that love for you once you get there. This is why fit has to trump everything, in my opinion. Once School 1 has you, you're still screwed if once you get there, no one's doing the exact work that interests you and no one wants to be on your committee, etc. School 2 may not have recruited you as hard, but if they have a couple people you know would fit well with your project, that's the kind of interest that will sustain you over the long haul. So maybe this is just a more detailed restatement of (1).

(3) Placement records: It won't matter if you got more fellowships at School 1 if, in the end, School 1 doesn't get you a job. The point of all this is to get a job at the end.

(4) Cost of living: Being broke is stressful and may impact your ability to focus. If you can't live on the School 2 offer, that's something to think about - esp. since you mentioned above that School 1 is in a lot less expensive place.

All of this sounds like I'm leaning School 2. I'm not considering that I don't know your research interests and how they fit at each place. I would just hate to see anyone make a consequential decision on the basis of a few thousand dollars in the short run, when what really matters is the research fit and where Ph.D. will take us in the long run. That said, you definitely need enough $ to live on. Have you mentioned to School 2 that you have a $9k larger offer from School 1 and that the cost of living is a lot different? They may adjust your funding even if they don't give you a named fellowship.

Again, if you're just gonna turn it down anyway, let someone else have it sooner than later.

Thanks for the advice!

I definitely need to start emailing profs/grad students. I've been a bit shy about it, to be honest. I'll be visiting both schools at the end of the month, although I'm expecting to 'feel good' about both places, especially since I'm a sentimental sucker for any well-stocked English department.
I will try to make a point to be "frank" when it comes to the questions I ask - I hadn't really thought this was a possibility, but I'm thinking now that this might be the only way to get a real sense of what to expect.

I have to disagree with you again, Polly_Sigh. Please don't bypass federal student loans to take out private grad school loans, warpspeed (or really anyone!). You can't discharge private grad school loans like you can with federal student loans through programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness or through education awards from programs like AmeriCorps and Teach for America. Also, a lot of them collect interest while you are in school unlike the subsidized Stafford loans. Also the interest rates can be variable and can increase over the life of your loan whereas the Stafford loans have a fixed interest rate at 6.8%. (You can argue that is a bit high, but they can't increase it on you if you miss a payment unlike private grad school loans.) Sometimes there are hidden fees in private grad school loans that will charge you extra for paying them off early. And those private grad school loans may or may not be eligible for in-school deferment if you decide to do a PhD after your master's degree.

I have witnessed and read about people who get into some serious financial trouble with relying on private loans to fund their education. Before you take out any money for school (federal or private*), please really understand the terms and conditions of the money that you are borrowing because you are going to be stuck with paying it back.


* I don't advise taking out private loans because the terms and conditions are favorable to them not you. Please be very careful if you decide this route.

The general adage I've heard repeated over and over is "if you don't have funding, you should go somewhere else". It varies some from discipline to discipline, but really- grad school without funding is very difficult, and depending on the discipline can give you a debt load that you will essentially carry the rest of your career.

Completely not worth it if you don't have the funding. Don't kill yourself with student loans. You'd be surprised how hard they are to pay back once you are in the real world.

I am not sure if even working a year to save up money is going to put a dent in the 80 - 100K. Is that just the tuition? Or is it tuition and living expenses?

If it was me and I was faced with self-funding my master's degree in the humanities, I think I would pass on this year. In the meantime, I would retake the GRE to see if I can get a high enough score to secure some fellowships or TA/RA positions from the school. If I was a US citizen, I would look at my home state to see if they had programs that I am interested in since their tuition is usually more affordable. I also would look at more schools to see if they typically offer funding to their master's students.

In my opinion, 80-100K just seems like a lot of debt to me especially in the humanities where salaries are typically lower.

I have to disagree with you again, Polly_Sigh. Please don't bypass federal student loans to take out private grad school loans, warpspeed (or really anyone!). You can't discharge private grad school loans like you can with federal student loans through programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness or through education awards from programs like AmeriCorps and Teach for America. Also, a lot of them collect interest while you are in school unlike the subsidized Stafford loans. Also the interest rates can be variable and can increase over the life of your loan whereas the Stafford loans have a fixed interest rate at 6.8%. (You can argue that is a bit high, but they can't increase it on you if you miss a payment unlike private grad school loans.) Sometimes there are hidden fees in private grad school loans that will charge you extra for paying them off early. And those private grad school loans may or may not be eligible for in-school deferment if you decide to do a PhD after your master's degree.

I have witnessed and read about people who get into some serious financial trouble with relying on private loans to fund their education. Before you take out any money for school (federal or private*), please really understand the terms and conditions of the money that you are borrowing because you are going to be stuck with paying it back.


* I don't advise taking out private loans because the terms and conditions are favorable to them not you. Please be very careful if you decide this route.

I'm assuming this is a response to my post. I did plenty of research before applying, and only applied to schools where I felt I would be a great fit. Every school I applied to is a top program in my field with excellent professors working in my specific area of interest and in locations I found liveable. I had one clear-cut top choice (I was rejected) but other than that, I didn't spend too much time "ranking" my choices -- I didn't see any reason to debate whether I'd rather attend Princeton, Yale, or NYU since there was a good chance I could be rejected by all of them. I knew I'd be happy at any one of the schools I applied to, but they were all very different programs with various pros/cons, and once I knew what my options were, I started comparing them specifically. Considering I'm still waiting to hear back about funding at one program, I don't see any reason why I should make a decision before feeling like I have all the information I need (and, by the way, I notified the programs that I'm no longer considering.) Just because you managed to visit schools across America and made your decision months ago doesn't have any bearing on my decision, or anyone else's. I don't need an "excuse" -- we're obligated to notify programs by April 15th, not before, and I don't feel remotely apologetic about taking the time I was allotted so that I can walk into a program in September feeling like it was the absolute right choice.

And yes, I do work full time, which meant that I didn't have time to do extensive visits at all the schools I applied to. Once I found out where I was accepted, I was able to do longer visits, hang around campus, attend some lectures/public events, get a feel for the program and the university. I certainly had no intention of making a decision based on a brief campus tour back in October. I'd guess that most "thoughtful" individuals actually take the time to "think" about their options before "pulling the trigger."

I just (as in, 10 minutes ago) sent the official email declining my alma mater's offer of admissions. It is a little sad, but the faculty I am most close with here were completely understanding that it would be in my best interest to accept another, better offer if I were to receive such (which I have! yay!).

In the interview weekend at my alma mater, I met some really great people who will flourish in the program (probably more than I would have--it really wasn't the best fit for me research-wise) but who were wait listed. I'm mostly happy to be giving someone else a chance at a program they loved!

For you it may be true that your prof's are just professionals doing a job, but for many of us these people are family. I think of my advisor as family, I have lived in his home, he has at times supported me more emotionally than any blood relation of mine and I would be deeply sad to reject an offer of admission if he made it. This level of personal relationship isn't normal I know, but some of us have become FRIENDS, true friends, with our professors and making a decision where you have to reject "your friends" because of money is hard for some of us. Please try and respect that.

There are so many factors that comprise a school's "affordability" that it's hard to gauge from a simple list of tuition prices.

If you're looking strictly at dollar amounts, then in the US, generally speaking the cheapest option will most always be the PP/PA school of a public university in the state where you're resident (and there are many excellent options in this category as well). However, I see that you're in India, so if you're a non-US citizen that probably won't help you. At any rate, I don't know if there's a side-by-side tuition comparison of the major programs out there, but one would be easy enough to compile for yourself with a web browser and a couple of hours to spare.

I would advise looking at financial aid trends, which are just as important, if not more, than tuition rates. What percentage of accepted students receive merit and need based aid? What is the dollar amount of the average award? Are there opportunities for teaching or research assistantships? Are there special scholarships for international students, or students who match your profile in interests and work experience? How many loans does the average student have to take out? Some schools, like USC, have high tuition but have very generous aid policies and are able to give out full or half scholarships to a large number of students, while others are notoriously stingy.

If you're looking for a good deal, the best advice I've heard is to find programs that are reputable, but whose accepted students have average grades and test scores that are somewhat lower than yours. Good, but not "top-tier", schools will sometimes offer great packages to entice students who they know will boost their institution's prestige.

Another aspect of affordability is a school's job placement record. How many students are employed after they graduate, and what is their median salary? Many people are willing to go into debt to go to a big name school that has a great employment record for its grads. How much faster this kind of thing will actually help you repay your debt is debatable, but still something you might think about.

Anyway, please keep in mind that this is all very subjective and coming from a non-expert. Hope it helps. Good luck!

Go with your head. Michigan and Washington are still highly ranked in Biostatistics right? Is Harvard a better fit for you than Michigan or Washington? I would say that you should only go with Harvard if it's that much better a fit for you and they're doing stuff there that isn't available at the other schools, because essentially you are choosing between a free, quality degree from Michigan/Washington versus incurring debt for a Harvard degree.

Don't wait to find a plan B. Start now. I only applied to one school because it is the only one with the best fit for me. If I don't get in I plan to work save some money and move out west in Canada or maybe even the US for better job prospects (and a change of scenery). Or I'll apply to more schools the second time around.

Start looking around for interships and jobs. Also look into graduate certificates to gain some more academic experience and keep busy. Don't just sit around. Be proactive. This is your life and future. Only you can push yourself. Hope this helps.

I am surprised that your advisor said that to you. I don't think transferring is recommended for a lot of different reasons. In that situation, you would have to apply to transfer in the first couple months of being in your program. I don't see how you would really assess that the program is a bad fit in that short amount of time unless something drastic happens (i.e. lost of funding, your POI leaves, your department is cut, etc.) The other complications would be who to ask for LORs and how to explain why you transferring so that it sounds reasonable and legitimate to the adcom. Since graduate classes don't tend to transfer, you'll probably lose a year.

Are you sure your advisor wasn't suggesting to enter a PhD program and if you didn't like it to leave with your master's and apply somewhere else for your PhD? That would make more sense and is more common.