[Accepted by one school, but with no money]

I got accepted to another school, a much better one, but again with no financial aid.

[Accepted by one school, but with no money]

Mind if I ask what field you're going into?

Mathematics. I have a 3.1 gpa but I only got in the 30th percentile for the subject GRE (I did much better on the general: 650 and 800 and 5.0).

Study again for the GRE and work for a year and reapply. Most programs if you don't wander in with funding then you won't get it as funding is reserved to bring fresh blood into the program.

This is looking like what my plan will be. It's strange, several of the phd programs I've applied to switched me over to the master's application because they want me to get that before the phd.

[Accepted by one school, but with no money]

I've heard back from 4 of the 8 schools I applied to, and been rejected from 3. The fourth, which was intended as my safety school, has not offered me any sort of fellowship or teaching position or anything; they want me to pay them around $9,000 a semester and find my own room and board. I was expecting grad school to support me and, if I was particularly frugal, let me start paying off my student loans. I certainly wasn't expecting to take out more.

If I don't get in anywhere else, should I go? I've been told, mostly by people who haven't interacted with a graduate admissions board in decades, that if they don't offer me money, they don't really want me. I've also heard from some (but not all, nor even a majority, iirc) of my peers that getting into grad school and getting funded is a lot harder than they expected.

So what do you think?