cath2024

Add me to the make-a-decision-and-THEN-we'll-tell-you-about-funding-(maybe) club. I've asked twice already, trying to wait another week before asking again. I want to be the just-greasy-enough-but-not-annoying wheel. I'm loving the dashes tonight.

Seems like the ranks are thinning around here (the site in general). I guess many people have received all their offers/rejections and/or accepted places. I'll just keep waiting to hear about financial aid in this thread. Hello? Schools with no funding decisions? Are you there?

Entry level nonprofit and NGO jobs have notoriosly bad pay. (And they're hard to get!) I'd check out a loan repayment calculator to figure out the difference in your monthy loan payments between these two amounts, but I'd lean heavily toward GSPIA.

Still haven't heard from SFSU, others have, so it's a rejection. I wonder what happens if I accept the financial aid they offered me. :roll: Appalling disorganization was my experience with them.

I would give the prof at school A another 10 days or so, that is give him as much time as possible before 4/15, then ask again about funding. If he can't tell you, then take school B's offer. That's my take.

OK, one more question. What is your primary goal? I know this mught change, and you might not be entirely sure yet, but what do you *think* it is, with the information you have now? One point is that you mention going back to India for work only in case of emergency, but you talk about your wife not wanting to raise kids in the US. Is the main goal to get a job (in the industry?) or teach at the university level in a country besides either the US or India? Also, if you get your MS in Music Technology, you still won't have an undergrad degree in the field (as your advisor in India recommended). Is the idea that the MS would make you eligible for jobs that the PhD wouldn't because it is in Music Technology as opposed to Linguistics or Psych? Just tring to figure out why that degree means more career options. I guess that's 2 questions. ( It's kind of nice to think about a school dilemma other than my own!!)

From what you have said here, I think you should eliminate McMaster. That does not seem like enough money to live on, plus the job prospect thing would make me rule it out. This does seem like a very tough decision. My gut instinct is that OSU has the least number of significant drawbacks. A couple of other questions: How are OSU and NU ranked in their fields? Does your wife have a preference?

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Guys?

Top Ivy seems like the way to go. The Fulbright ETA is not quite as prestigious as the other Fulbright; if you know that you want to be in the field of your PhD admission, I'd definitely take it. Congrats on both.

Take the high road! No more arguing!

I did this--the very nice part. The person was very nice in return, but did not know. I even asked the person to estimate my odds between "basically no chance" and "some chance."

Oh, so out of your choices, I vote for #1 and #4.

I'm in the same boat. My first choice school gives out some TAships, but not until after they have their class put together (that is, AFTER you commit to going.) I applied for one, they know I really want one, and I know I am in their first round of admissions offers. Here are the complications: 1. I don't know how much the funding would even be, if I got one of the TAships. I know a best case scenario number, but maybe they'll divide them up to partially fund more people. 2. I don't know if the decisions are based on need, merit or a combination of the two. 3. I don't know when I'll know. (He said "late spring") 4. I definitely cannot afford the school if I don't get aid. 5. I have a full tuition offer at another school--I would still have to take out loans to live on--but since I've gone through the interview process I've realized that my heart would not be in it if I went there. I am about to decline that offer. Now, both of these schools have asked me to give an answer before April 15th (I know!) but I don't even feel like it is worth asking for more time. I've basically decided that I don't want to go to No Tuition School no matter what, and that I would go to Top Choice School with funding, but I cannot go without. I don't really need more time to decide those things. I'm still waiting on a couple of answers from one schools that *might* change things, but probably not (it will likely be more expensive with no aid.) So I'm going to say yes to Top Choice and hope for the best. The really frustrating thing is that I thought this process would be over soon. Instead I'm about to be in a place where I will be waiting until who knows when to find out if I will go to Top Choice school in the fall. So, Tulip, after all that rambling about my situation, my answer to you is NO, I don't think maximizing your ability to go somewhere with funding is unethical. The school should be able to to tell you if you get funding when they ask you to make a decision. It is unfair (and really irritating and out of touch with the realities of paying for these programs) to not give you all the information before asking you to make a decision. If they can't tell you, well, they should know you're a flight risk if you get a better offer. If my program were to tell me "look, there's no money" I would be sad, but I would be able to tell them, "then I can't come. you can offer my place to someone else." But since they can't tell me, I'm just going to accept my offer and then pull out if no money comes through or something changes with one of the offers I'm waiting on.

I almost can't imagine living in a world where I know if and where I'll be going to school in the fall. Then I can finally start making plans for SOMETHING.

This is a definitely possibility. They are still saying that they don't have one of my transcripts, and I have received no communication from the department I applied to. Don't send me a financial aid package unless you have admitted me! And if you've admitted me, then tell me! :x

This exact thing happened to me. SFSU, yesterday. But they keep emailing me saying they are still missing one of my transcripts. So I sent them an email basically being like "I sent you that transcript forever ago, so what's up? Clarification please." Here's what they wrote back: "As of 3/20/2009 your application is incomplete because we are still waiting for the following transcript: Official Transcript from XXX COLLEGE. Th Financial aid award letter means that you are qualified for Financial Aid only based on your income and other eligibilities, but it does not mean that you were admitted to the school." Uhhh...what? This is super annoying. Was yours for just loans, or loans and grants?

I had my first applications related dream last night! I was at the dept of my top choice program and a very attractive guy (he was in the program, a year or two ahead of me) was telling me that'd I'd gotten in with a full scholarship. It was amazing. I woke up thinking I'd have an email. But I didn't.

I PMed you.

I'd be interested to hear what you ultimately end up doing. I may very well be in a similar situation in the next few weeks. My worry is about the loan repayment: the payments on 200k loans are about $1400/month (standard repayment) and around $750/month (if you extend it to the 30 year maximum). I'm not convinced that an MFA, even from the top schools, will necessarily get me a job that will allow me to make these payments, especially with the sheer number of MFA grads these schools are now pumping out. I think I've concluded that the big schools with their insane price tags are not worth it, though I love hearing the thoughts of those who are considering both options. (And I'm crossing my fingers for one of the few big scholarships from one of the big schools to come my way. Pleeeeeeeeease.)

But also the worst because you can NEVER discharge it, even if you go bankrupt. And you can only consolidate it once, even if interest rates drop.

No. My dream program would set me back about $175k by the time it was all over. I suspected and now have confirmed that they offer hardly any funding to anyone and I find it horrifying that they charge so unbelievably much more than it takes to run the place. (Not my dream program anymore.) I've seen even $60k (even! hah!) worth of debt absolutely crushing a friend of mine who wanted to work in international affairs/development. She had no idea how high the loan payments would be and for how long she would have to make them and how much additional would be added in interest by the time she was able to start making any payments. Should she have figured this out before she took on the debt? Of course, but just like us, she had gotten into a program she was excited about, and figured it would all just work itself out later. I would be prepared to take on debt to fund a little bit of the cost, say maybe 10k-15k over the life of the program, but no more than that. Reading these comments on this blog solidified that instinct. http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/0 ... t-pay-off/ I think I actually read all 400+ of them.

I probably would tell them, too. Doesn't seem like it could hurt. It would make me suspicious if I got an email like this from one of my programs, because usually there are only few funded spots at the places I'm applying, so I would figure they were trying to see if an offer would be "wasted" on me because I wasn't planning to go. Anyway, not applicable to you with the guaranteed funding. Congrats on the acceptances!

Have they offered you funding yet? Have the other schools that have accepted you offered you funding?

0. cath2024 1. 1 2. 8 3. 2 (with more to come, I'm sure) 4. personal statement could've used some revision, better work samples, should've spent more time on apps, and gotten my shit together early enough to apply to more schools 5. no 6. I'm looking to go to an MFA program with funding and that is EXTREMELY difficult. I don't see it getting any easier, and I'm ready to put the idea of school out of my mind if it doesn't go well this year. 7. hmm. I just got laid off, so look for a new job in my field, try to figure out how to pay down some debt, really commit to working on some of the projects I have been putting off.

Wasted potential? Too soon to tell.