echolikebells

Jazz388, I think it has to apply to other academic areas. OSU's fellowships are almost exclusively university-wide competitions. Department nominates students, those students are in competition with students from every other department, OSU's Graduate School decides, school notifies department, department notifies students. I'm sure your department has some department specific funding, I know Teaching and Learning does, so that might make the package notification different for each department, but I'm pretty sure fellowship decisions are made for everyone at the same time.

Aubergine, mind reporting back about how the commute to campus is from that far out and your thoughts about said commute? It would be super helpful for those of us who may not be able to visit.

Thank you to all three of you for your help! I really appreciate it.

board room

New Dilemma. I just don't think I can make it happen at Vanderbilt unless I get significantly more funding. But how do I go to Ohio State, which is my undergrad university, without sacrificing the elements of additional networking, breadth of capability, etc. that people see reflected in degrees from more than one university? I'm not planning on getting my PhD, but crazier things have happened, and I am planning on getting my M.A.English eventually.

Just crunched some numbers. I'm hoping Brown comes through with a decent funding offer (which I'm still waiting on, they said I'd get the letter by yesterday) that I can either accept or use as leverage for Vanderbilt, because otherwise, the only school I can afford is Ohio State. And right as I had decided it was Vandy or bust! Bummed, to be honest. Ohio State is a great school and Columbus is wonderful but I hate that money has made my decision for me. Plus I've already been here for three years! Oh well! Still keeping fingers crossed about Brown's funding...

Interesting. I was under the impression that the fellowships for the entire university had been determined in February and recipients had been notified already. Glad to find out that is wrong!

Air ball

Have tons of tun!

I'm sorry if this is a completely ridiculous question, but I'm a little lost here. I've seen people talk about using offers from one school to negotiate with a school you'd rather go to, but got less funding for. I think I have a pretty good feel for how you go about doing that, but who do you contact? Like if I have an offer for financial aid from School A and I'd rather go to School B, I'm going to approach someone at School B and tell them I really would love to go there but since I have a funding offer of X amount at School A, I'm not going to be able to attend unless there is some avenue to proceed down to get more funding at School B. But who is the someone I approach? The school I need to negotiate is a huge chain of institutions, starting with the program, then department, then college, then graduate school, then university, and everyone has different contacts.

jbriar, OSU is incredibly hard to negotiate with. Not sure if it is because it is so large or so complexly organized or what, but I'm not sure I'll make any progress negotiating. I'll give it a shot though. coonskee, first, thank you for the congratulations! I am afraid that having only attended one school for my undergrad and grad degrees will negatively impact my job prospects. It is less networking possibilities and I'm concerned that employers will write me off, assuming I couldn't get in anywhere else. OSU's funding is apparently so strapped right now that they only awarded a select number of fellowships that every prospective grad student (campus-wide) competed against one another for, and I was excluded from even competing for most of them due to my score on the Q section of the GRE. I'm looking into outside scholarships and things of that nature, but I'm not sure how much progress I'll make there. new_to_kin, I am already significantly in debt (over $35k) and have approximately $65k in costs I would rack up (tuition and cost of living) over the two years at Vanderbilt. I'm not anticipating doing a PhD, not immediately anyway. I have no work experience in my field and I have to start working before I rack up more degrees. Not to mention, I'll probably get my M.A. in English before I get a degree in Education even more advanced than the Masters program.

It looks like that info is for 2010/2011! I will definitely try to get to something if they do one this year. Not entirely sure though-- like I said, from Ohio, so travel cost to Rhode Island is pretty steep.

Fast cars

Another person that is heavily considering Brown! Hey! Also, if you get any insight through this forum about Brown's program, mind sharing? I have found alarmingly little online.

Hey everyone! Program: Secondary Education, English Admitted: Vanderbilt, Brown, Ohio State, Indiana Bloomington, Dayton Rejected: None! Top Choices: Vanderbilt (1), Ohio State (2) Like many of you, it's going to come down to funding for me. OSU is cheaper, plus I'm an in-state student, but they didn't offer me any merit-based aid. Vanderbilt offered me 1/3 tuition, but that's it, and I'm going to have to take out a ton of loans to attend. Brown included the ambiguous statement that I'd been awarded "financial support," but I don't get to find out the amount til later this week! If funding didn't factor in, my choice would definitely be Vanderbilt. I didn't expect the decision to be so hard. I never thought I'd get in everywhere I applied and I didn't think I'd end up having to decide whether to go where I really, really want to go or where I am going to pay less money.

It is hard! I love basically everything about Vanderbilt and would go there without any doubts if I had funding, but the fact is that Ohio State is going to be so much more affordable. I know we can both get this figured out and happily at that, I just wish I knew how! haha

tin can

Just curious-- what programs are these that you've been admitted to and are comparing? I'm an M.Ed/M.A.T. prospective student as well! I wish I could help with this... I'm making the same choice you are, essentially, and posted asking for advice, so I don't have anything to offer you other than well wishes that you can get it figured out!

Fall2012Hope, thank you for the congrats. I'm sure you'll hear back soon! They could just be going in rounds so as to not crash the system!

Thanks, LLajax! No clue... I wish I did know though. I'm from Ohio and our cost of living, including rent, is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than just about everywhere else. I'm sort of freaking out about the cost of housing at some of the places that've offered me admission!

They did send me an email through the Embark system that I could log on and view my decision at the same place I did my online application. The email says they never send admission decisions via email, only the notification that there IS a decision. Just try logging on to Embark and see if it says a decision has been made!

I've only ever been to Knoxville one night for a concert and then Nashville one night to rest before I went to Bonnaroo. Those 6 days represent the whole of my time in Tennessee, so needless to say, my experience with the area is little at best and consists almost entirely of seeing music and sleeping in cheap motels (or tents!).

Just received word that I can now consider Brown as a possible destination for my Education studies next year-- was admitted into the M.A.T. program!

Just heard back from Brown's MAT program-- accepted! Luckily enough, I managed to make a full sweep of acceptance this go 'round. Keeping my fingers crossed that everyone hears from Harvard today!

I am pulling my hair out over this. I have been admitted to a 3 term program at my current institution (a public state university, Ohio State) and a four term program at a much more prestigious private university (Vanderbilt University). Both are highly ranked nationally, with Vanderbilt being more highly ranked. I prefer to go to Vandy, and even received a partial scholarship to their program (1/3 of tuition), but it will still be more expensive than the program at OSU. I didn't get any sort of scholarship, fellowship, or grant for OSU. My problem is that I just don't know what to do. I already have $35,000 in debt from undergrad, so I should be frugal for my graduate studies, but I am already going to have one degree from OSU and I prefer the Vanderbilt program. I mean, that is where I *really* want to go. Help! Offer me advice! Anything is an improvement over what I have now.