morningcrafter

I'd recommend not taking unfunded offers, especially for the PhD. It's true that there are one-year renewable TA-ships for which unfunded PhD students can apply after the first year, but these are totally variable based on the leftovers of year-to-year funding. I know of someone who was really jerked around by that process; he was awarded a package that was later rescinded due to budgetary nonsense.

More importantly, it's difficult to network with faculty (and other students, for that matter) when one is unfunded. This is in no way a denigration of Nebraska's program, but a fair assessment of the realities of unfunded graduate study. My Masters was unfunded, and while I learned a lot and grew intellectually, I often didn't feel like a part of the department. Plus, the loans add up quickly, even at public institutions.

After that Masters and three doctoral application cycles, I've found that the most important factor is that a program *wants* you to be there. I'd say that it's fair that if by the end of the week we haven't heard about a funded offer, we probably didn't get one. I'm also leaning more towards accepting that those of us whose GAMES has not yet updated were not even accepted *without* funding.

Congratulations! That's wonderful news. I see you were accepted to Mizzou too (that's just down the road from my undergrad institution). Hooray for the midwest!

I just called Sue Hart about when we would receive notifications and she was quite cheerful in saying "I'm working on it! I should get everything loaded in just a few minutes." I hope that's true! I'll be waiting patiently at my computer until then.