To Accept or Not

[ReluctantTheo]

I've received a 30% tuition waver from the Claremont PhD program (philosophy of religion and theology). It is the only place I was accepted. However, I've received positive feedback from another school that is probably of greater preference, strongly encouraging me to apply again next year. Provided I have stable employment, etc. for the next year, what should I do? Is this too low of a funding offer for this year to be reasonable? Thoughts anyone? Thanks!

[AN74]

 Find out if you can apply for advanced standing next year, with some of the program you are accepted to completed. That is, see what your options are for transferring. Not to be too cynical, but encouragement towards applying again is nowhere close to an offer of admission. Bird in the hand and all that.

[Postbib Yeshuist]

I'll preface this by saying I don't know your situation or Claremont's. That being said, 30% is almost insulting. I know Claremont's a great school but 30%? Seriously? I didn't even know Ph.D. programs went that low (I thought 75% was usually the lowest offer). One thing you might be able to do would be to see if Claremont will defer your acceptance to next year. That way you could reapply to the other school but still have Claremont as an option. They might not, but it'd be worth a try. I can't imagine you'd be even remotely satisfied working on a Ph.D. while having to either earn or borrow what will likely be $35k+ per year...

[thees]

I heard that 50% of tuition waiver was the best offer from Claremont this year. they are going through financial crisis... btw, i got the same thing(30% tuition waiver). I wonder whether they can offer more scholarship next year(in the 2nd year), once I start the program. Do you have any thoughts? Claremont graduate school is a good one, but their finan. aid is too horrible this year...

[PhdWannabee]

Claremont is a great school; I have several friends there who speak very highly of the program. I know their normal package split is 2 admits at 100%, 2 at 50%, and 2 at 0%, so it appears they are under even more financial stress. I remember reading an article about the UMC considering cutting funding (I believe to Claremont School of Theology, a grad school member) due to their pluralistic mission statement . I looked for the article again but couldn't seem to find it to post. Although this is conjecture on my part, that may have affected their ability to fund incoming students.

As far as your situation ReluctantTheo, if Claremont is not a good fit for you I would suggest not accepting; even at a 50 or 100% tuition waiver the cost of living in the Claremont/LA area are exorbitant, and unless you find a stellar job (one of my friends there has a church job that pays the other 50% of tuition, subsidizes his living, and pays him on top of that), you're going to be saddled with sizable debt payments in a very poor job market. Sorry to be Debby Downer, but it would be hard to justify the cost-benefit.

[ReluctantTheo]

Thanks everyone. This is really helpful so far.