Asking for application fee waiver: does it look bad?

[lorenzen]

I qualify for most application fee waivers because of my income. However, I worry that asking for one could create a bad impression among the graduate committee.

 

 

What do you think?

[lkaitlyn]

This won't hurt you at all! They don't admit based on income whatsoever — grad students all get paid the same stipend/cost the same for the school, so being low income isn't a disadvantage or something to worry about.

[socparty]

Not at all. I direct our graduate program at University of Colorado Denver and we actively recruit students from groups that are underrepresented in the academy, including first-gen learners and working-class scholars (most of our faculty fit this description). Waivers make it easier for such applicants to consider our program, and while we can't always get the fee waivers from the graduate school sometimes we can pull from department resources to cover the cost. 

Related to this, the university is offering free applications today and tomorrow (10/19-10/20). Our terminal MA program has recently graduated six students that have gone off for doctoral studies at Princeton, Washington, Maryland, Wisconsin, Northeastern, and CU Boulder. If you're keen to learn more about the program just email me!

Adam

[lobster_pancakes]

I asked for an app fee waiver at a university whose process was, you email most of your application materials to the department for review, and they'll grant the waiver based on what they see. I got the waiver, applied, and later got accepted to the program. So no I don't think it hurts your chances—depending on the waiver application process you might even have a better shot at getting into the program, if they already found you strong enough to grant you a waiver.