Deferring for work

[druggable]

Hi guys,

I was lucky to enough to be admitted to my choice program. However, I'm currently working in a related industry and am developing skills that would potentially be helpful in graduate school. For various job-related and personal reasons, I'd like to defer my admission for a year (I'd start in the fall of 2019). Does anyone have experience with this process? What is the best way to approach this? Perhaps speak with the admissions officer on visit weekend? Write an email, and if so before or after accepting the offer? Please let me know your experience. 

Regards.

[TakeruK]

I think the best way to approach it is to: 1) tell the school that you would like to accept their offer and are very excited to attend, 2) but, you would like to stay in your current position at XYZ for another year because of [reasons: include the academic ones (skills) for sure, include the personal ones if you feel comfortable)]. Ask them if this would be possible and what the terms of the deferral are (i.e. you want to know if your funding is still secure, etc. They might not permit deferrals at all, or they might make you compete for funding again.

Definitely ask before accepting the offer and get whatever you need down in writing! You don't want to be starting in Fall 2019 and be surprised about the status of your funding or that you now have to TA when you were expecting a fellowship etc. 

As for who to speak to, it should generally be the person who sent you the acceptance notification, as they can probably redirect you if necessary. If your program assigns you an advisor right at the start, then maybe talk to the potential advisor first. Speaking with these people at the visit weekend could work out but you don't know for sure if you will get to meet with them. However, given that I think you should ask this only when you are ready to accept their offer, this can probably wait until after the visit dates (in case you actually don't want to attend after all!). So, you could wait and see if you can talk to the relevant people during the visit dates and if not, do it by email afterwards. Even if you talk to them in person, be sure to follow up with an email to confirm things and to get things in writing.

[singinglupines]

I was wondering this as well for financial reasons. Thanks for the helpful info.