Financial aid for only the first year?

[gr4vity]

I was accepted to Simmons for a M.A., which was my first choice, but they only awarded me $4,000, compared to Brandeis who awarded me $18,000 a year. In the letter from Simmons it says "This award is not automatically renewed, you must speak with your program director about further awards." I have already been in contact with the director about other things and I am visiting next week, so I don't want to send too many emails, but does this sound like they are only going to give me $4,000 for the first year and that's it? Or does it sound like it's contingent upon good GPA?

I called today and was put on hold for a half hour so I'm going to try again tomorrow but I'm just wondering what people think. I have a 3.8 GPA, I'm in 2 academic honor societies, I'm about to be published and I'm writing an honors thesis, so only receiving $4,000 is a little strange to me, to be honest. The program director also told me she was excited by my application, and it's a small program so I have a feeling they do remember specific applicants. Simmons also only costs about $30,000 for the whole masters compared to Brandeis which is around $38,000 a year.

Edited March 16, 2010 by gr4vity