Accepted but Waiting for Funding

[StudyMom]

Anyone out there accepted in early Feb. for PhD but waiting for funding? How likely is it to get funding if you are accepted? Does anyone know? I am waiting for UFlorida and they say late March.

[ollie cromwell]

I feel your pain.

Don't have any real advice, but I'm in the same boat with you.

[rising_star]

Thirded. I'm waiting on notification of funding from two schools that already accepted me, something I find quite frustrating.

[keepcalm]

I'm also waiting to hear about funding. I've been accepted to 2 schools, one of which is at the top of my list, but I feel like in the end funding is going to affect my decision. It doesn't help that I still haven't heard anything from three of the schools I applied to!

Good luck to everyone, I hope we all get lovely funding packages!

[StudyMom]

Hi Keepcalm,

I guess we just have to be patient! I feel impatient because UF is my first choice (for program and faculty) and I am so psyched to have been accepted that I just want to get started making plans. Hope you all get good offers that make the wait worth while!

[obamaforyourmama]

I'm in the same boat too. I heard from U of Chicago 2 weeks ago via email. I was told that funding decisions for Humanities programs would be released March 5. So maybe tomorrow the mail will bring some news.

This is rougher than waiting for admissions!

[whentostop]

I'm waiting to hear on Masters funding, but the school said they wouldn't be meeting until the end of March and will make offers around 1st of April. Killing me. Plus, I have yet to hear accept or reject from 7 schools. How normal is that? It seems like everyone else only has 1 or 2 schools left in the bucket.

[ollie cromwell]

Try asking "have funding decisions been finalized yet?" and you'll get the answer you're looking for, it seems. Worked for me.

[Minnesotan]

I'm waiting to hear on Masters funding, but the school said they wouldn't be meeting until the end of March and will make offers around 1st of April. Killing me. Plus, I have yet to hear accept or reject from 7 schools. How normal is that? It seems like everyone else only has 1 or 2 schools left in the bucket.

The majority of my schools have not notified yet.

And to the poster above, waiting for funding is not worse than waiting for acceptances. Having an offer is a huge relief!

[ollie cromwell]

The majority of my schools have not notified yet.

And to the poster above, waiting for funding is not worse than waiting for acceptances. Having an offer is a huge relief!

I disagree. For some of us, funding determines whether or not we get to continue on. A new batch of loans ain't an option.

[snagsby52]

Joining the waiting for funding party. I have a couple of really secure offers, but UNC-Chapel Hill was one of my first choices, and I am still waiting to hear about the first-year funding (years 2-5 seem good, but I am even a little unsure whether all the funding is secure for these years). It makes me feel crazy not to know what I'm being offered! If I don't get the funding, I can't go. I guess it is better to be offered a place without guaranteed funding than not to be offered a place at all, but in a way that is ego (at least for me), because I can't go without funding. If they don't offer it to me, I'm off to Boston or California. Maybe it would be a blessing in disguise. :?

[ollie cromwell]

My first choice has 7 funding slots available.

I'm "up near the top" of the second batch of 5. The school has a history of going through the entire list of acceptance (15-20, any given year, including 19 this year) before giving away all of their funding.

The issue is that students often will withhold their decision until the last possible second (p.s., stop waffling) leaving me in the lurch until at LEAST late March-early April...but they said they could be making offers as late as the middle of May. They claim to usually get through the list with their offers, but can't offer any guarantees. I went up and met with the professors -- very nice, very much the people I want to be working with...but they can't commit to anything as well.

I was also told I could accept and just hope for funding. I don't know what to do in that case -- but frankly, even though I'm 3/3 on acceptance, I'm 0/0 on any funding. Without funding, I can't do any of them. I have a two-body/two-undergrad-debt problem.

[hopeful grad]

Waiting for funding is the worst. I got all excited that I was finally accepted and now I'm not sure if I can even go....I feel your pain

[keepcalm]

Still waiting

I'm really excited about one of the schools I got accepted at. But since I have no idea about funding I feel like I need to wait and hear from everyone or I'll end up making a rash decision.

[hopeful grad]

When I called my school they said March 15th. Well here it is March 15 and no emails....yet...this is killing me!

[CIIP]

I applied to only one school (stupid move!), and luckily got accepted, but now I'm waiting for funding info... they said decisions might not be made until May. MAY! :cry:

[keepcalm]

I applied to only one school (stupid move!), and luckily got accepted, but now I'm waiting for funding info... they said decisions might not be made until May. MAY! :cry:

Whoa! May is really late! I don't know how I feel about that since you have to decide whether or not you want to go there in April!

[winkatme]

I got accepted to all of the schools I applied to by early February. Now I am just sitting and waiting to hear about funding. My close friend got all of her acceptances and funding offers in the same letter. We even applied to two of the same schools. Now I am sitting and bitterly waiting as my envy grows inside. It truly is a sickening feeling. I definitely agree that waiting on funding is harder, because like so many of you, I can't go without it.

My top two schools said they would make funding decisions by mid-March. Well, here we are and I still haven't heard anything. I did get an email from one of the schools stating that they are still deciding on assistantships and they would let me know something definite in 3 or 4 days. What does that even mean? It got my hopes up, but I have a feeling it shouldn't have.

I feel everyone's pain. I hope we all get amazing offers, and soon.

[StudyMom]

A lot of schools were on break last week so we should all, I HOPE, hear within the next week! It is a little strange how some departments send the acceptance and funding decisions at the same time or near to the same time while others at the same university accept and then have huge delays until we hear about funding. While we want to celebrate and make plans, we can't because most of us can't go without funding...ugh! Anyway, I think our anxiety will be eased in the next week. Good luck to you all.

[CIIP]

Whoa! May is really late! I don't know how I feel about that since you have to decide whether or not you want to go there in April!

I know. Plus, instead of the usual April 15 decision deadline, they want a confirmation by April 1. Oh, and the earliest I might hear is late March, so they basically expect every student to give intention with funding still up in the air. If my application process hadn't been so painless and if the staff and faculty hadn't been so prompt and just generally wonderful, I'd be seriously upset with this stunt.

[whentostop]

This waiting for funding thing, it certainly has a higher potential of being heartbreaking. Does anyone know how common it is to offer no funding to a PhD in English straight out of undergrad. I don't understand why it would happen. I think, personally, I would just prefer outright rejection.

[StudyMom]

This waiting for funding thing, it certainly has a higher potential of being heartbreaking.

I am so stressed waiting for the funding info my stomach hurts. I was accepted the first week of Feb. and have been waiting something like 7 weeks for funding! It has been a long 7 weeks -- I have trouble concentrating at work and M&Ms are making a mini fortune off of me -- I've been eating a bag a day (okay they're small bags but still I hardly every eat chocolate). The thing with the M&Ms is they take time to eat -- first you sort them into color piles and then eat them in order to keep the piles even...OMG this grad school application process is turning me into a crazy person!

I contacted the department right after acceptance and they said funding decisions would be made towards the end of March. I'm wondering now whether I could contact them again, or would that be pushy? Any thoughts?

[CIIP]

This waiting for funding thing, it certainly has a higher potential of being heartbreaking. Does anyone know how common it is to offer no funding to a PhD in English straight out of undergrad. I don't understand why it would happen. I think, personally, I would just prefer outright rejection.

In my field, it's pretty rare to be accepted to a Ph.D. program without some sort of funding. English Ph.D. programs are more popular than anthropology, so I'm sure that might up the chances of acceptance w/o funding. But when my friend's husband went straight from undergrad to grad school for an English degree, he was rejected or accepted to MA programs if they didn't have funding for him, rather than accepted and then turned down for funding. It's not true across the board, but it might make you a bit more hopeful.

[keepcalm]

I'm still waiting! I feel really silly because I want to be excited but feel really nervous about the whole funding thing!

In my field, it's pretty rare to be accepted to a Ph.D. program without some sort of funding.

I'm in anthro too! What subfield are you interested in? I hope we get funding, it's going to be very hard without it!

[whentostop]

Thanks for the encouragement CIIP. My confidence level is on a surprisingly large and sensitive spectrum. Some points in the day, of course, I either can't sleep from the sureness of not seeing money; or sometimes I feel funding is an imperative for the program (how could they not love me?); but most of the time, I am like a pong blip, back and forth, back and forth. I'll take what I can get in moving to the positive side of that spectrum, even if the "last ding dong of doom" is echoing its way towards me as I write.