Is this normal?! Accept first, apply for funding second?

[Pennk]

I was recently accepted to a program with no word on funding.  Received a follow-up email with the following wording:

Financing Graduate Education at UTHealth School of Public Health

TA/GA positions: Once an applicant  has been admitted and they have elected to accept our admissions offer, they may request access to our JobOps portal through our Career Coordinator at sphcareerservices@uth.tmc.edu to view what positions are available and they can apply. Feel free to review the attached link on Financial Assistance. Lastly, once you are a student for a semester, you are able to apply to our current student scholarships to help fund your education.

Please note: Being awarded a New Student Scholarship of $1,000 or more and/or a GA/TA position within UTHealth, may make a student eligible for in resident tuition.

Me again: So basically, I have to accept their offer to get access to a list of open TA/GA positions.  I emailed for further clarification about basics of the TA/GA positions - tuition waiver, stipends, etc. - but I just got another email with the same information above.

I feel a bit like I am being forced to accept prior to knowing if I can afford to actually join the program.  If that is how the program wants to run things, that is fine, but is this a normal process/procedure?  I am planning to accept just so I can find out if I can even afford to attend, but it feels disingenuous as I am still waiting for responses from six other programs.

[Eigen]

How normal this is depends on the type of program. Is this an MPH?

[Pennk]

2 minutes ago, Eigen said:

How normal this is depends on the type of program. Is this an MPH?

It's a PhD.

[Eigen]

Then that's very abnormal, and I'd hesitate to accept. 

The only thing I've heard close to this is schools that garauntee funding but not source, and you have to apply. 

But a PhD without garauntee funding is a huge red flag, IMO. 

I also wouldn't just accept this early- the CGS resolution (if they're on it) puts April 15th as the agreed upon acceptance deadline. 

[Pennk]

Thanks for the point of view!  I guess I am a little nervous that this will be my only offer (just turned down yesterday from a more competitive program) and I want to get a head start on understanding whether I can actually attend/pursue a PhD.  I will be leaving full-time employment and I guess I feel like waiting until closer to deadline might leave me with a lot of loose ends in a short time frame.  I think I will sit on this a bit and see what happens with the other programs.  I should likely know within the next 4-6ish weeks what my prospects are.  I still haven't received my official acceptance via mail which my original acceptance email stipulated was headed my way, so perhaps that will have more information but I have been waiting nearly 8 weeks for that!

[TakeruK]

Yeah, I agree with @Eigen that this isn't something you'd want to accept unless you had no other options that worked for you and you think the risk is worth it.

The least-secure type of funding offer for a PhD that is still somewhat "normal" is something like: "You will be funded through TAships or RAships which you will apply for each year, subsequent to available funding". Many schools have policies that do not allow them to automatically grant students a job (TA or RA), especially if the school is unionized. So, you have to apply each year so that the school can demonstrate that only qualified students are appointed etc. In a situation like this, you will have to talk to students and professors to find out the funding environment. If they know they usually have X positions and always ensure their student population is below X, then you should be okay. But if only some fraction of their students gets these jobs, then it's not great. Note that in this example, I'm just saying that it's the least-secure scenario that is "typical", not that it's even a good offer to have.

[Pennk]

6 minutes ago, TakeruK said:

Yeah, I agree with @Eigen that this isn't something you'd want to accept unless you had no other options that worked for you and you think the risk is worth it.

The least-secure type of funding offer for a PhD that is still somewhat "normal" is something like: "You will be funded through TAships or RAships which you will apply for each year, subsequent to available funding". Many schools have policies that do not allow them to automatically grant students a job (TA or RA), especially if the school is unionized. So, you have to apply each year so that the school can demonstrate that only qualified students are appointed etc. In a situation like this, you will have to talk to students and professors to find out the funding environment. If they know they usually have X positions and always ensure their student population is below X, then you should be okay. But if only some fraction of their students gets these jobs, then it's not great. Note that in this example, I'm just saying that it's the least-secure scenario that is "typical", not that it's even a good offer to have.

Thanks for the advice!  I am going to reach out to current students for clarification.  It definitely raised red flags and was a disappointing turn of events to receive the TA/GA info from the program and no clarity when I asked a follow up question.  Here is to hoping another program accepts me!