Overlapping funding

[JoeySsance]

Hey everyone! I recently submitted my applications to two fellowship funding programs. Furthermore, the graduate departments I'm applying to all guarantee full funding and generous stipends. In the (awesome) event that I win one or both of these fellowships and end up at one of these fully-funded programs, how would the overlapping funding work? I'm sure in the end it would depend on the specific funding sources, but I'm wondering if there is any general advice about these situations.

This is what one of the fellowships says about the overlap scenario:

"You would typically be asked to accept a total combined award package that would not exceed full tuition, required fees, plus a $30,000 stipend."

Could any current grad students receiving both internal and external funding corroborate this with a similar turnout? Would the grad program essentially cover less of the tuition or stipend to allow the fellowships to do so? I'm just curious how this might work. I'd appreciate any and all input! Thanks in advance.

[UnlikelyGrad]

Hey everyone! I recently submitted my applications to two fellowship funding programs. Furthermore, the graduate departments I'm applying to all guarantee full funding and generous stipends. In the (awesome) event that I win one or both of these fellowships and end up at one of these fully-funded programs, how would the overlapping funding work? I'm sure in the end it would depend on the specific funding sources, but I'm wondering if there is any general advice about these situations.

This is what one of the fellowships says about the overlap scenario:

"You would typically be asked to accept a total combined award package that would not exceed full tuition, required fees, plus a $30,000 stipend."

Could any current grad students receiving both internal and external funding corroborate this with a similar turnout? Would the grad program essentially cover less of the tuition or stipend to allow the fellowships to do so? I'm just curious how this might work. I'd appreciate any and all input! Thanks in advance.

This might vary by school, but my sister (who won a fellowship but was required by her department to TA) said the school just reduced her TA stipend by the fellowship amount. I think the fellowship didn't quite cover tuition, so the school handled that.

[Eigen]

From what I understand, you won't lose money going from internal to external- as you suggest, the internal funding will be reduced accordingly.

Our program allows for internal+external = 125% the max internal fellowship.

[JoeySsance]

Thanks to both of you for your helpful responses! @Unlikelygrad: darn... at least the school covered tuition. @Eigen: Thanks for confirming that. By the way, your program sounds really generous.

My dream scenario is to win both of my fellowships. If that happened, it looks like it might be a tricky but not impossible situation to work out.

Fellowship A:

• Each fellowship supports up to two years of graduate study
• Each award is for up to $25,000 in stipend grants and up to $20,000 in tuition support for each year of graduate study supported, a total of as much as $90,000
  
  • Annual stipend: $20,000, renewable over three years ($60,000 total)
  • Award to the institution in lieu of tuition and fees: $2,000, also renewable over three years

Here's what both fellowship programs I applied to stipulate about the start of funding:

Fellowship A: "If you were not in a graduate program in February of 2011, you would take up the fellowship in the fall of 2011." [in my case, I would be starting grad school in the fall 2011 term... well, hopefully...]

Fellowship B: "Fellowship recipients must begin the first year’s tenure on September 1, 2011, and must remain on tenure full-time for the academic year. After the first year of fellowship tenure, fellows may choose to defer funding for up to two years. All three years of support must be used within a five-year period."

Again, if I'm lucky enough to win both of them, it would seem like I'd be working out some sort of agreement between both fellowships and my grad program for the first year since both fellowships require that funding begin as of the fall 2011 term. But then, I could defer Fellowship B for a year, continue with Fellowship A and then resume Fellowship B's support for two years. In all, I would have four years of fellowship support in addition to my grad program's funding and then the remaining time until the Ph.D could be funded by just my program and/or other fellowships. If you were in this situation, given the specific fellowships in question (based on the details I've cited), would this seem like a plausible way to work out the overlap? Of course I have no idea which grad program I'll be attending yet and I can't know for sure whether I'll win both or even either of the fellowships (but I can dream, can't I? ). I'm just intrigued by this "what if" scenario and I'm wondering if anyone has experienced something more or less like it... Any more thoughts?

[kaykaykay]

Your gains:

A little money depending on how much your dept wants to make external funding search insentivise (they will deduct the rest from the internal funding)

Possibly you do not have to TA or you can decide when and how much to TA, which can be helpful in busy years

You do not have to depend on the mercy of your advisor/ department (in hard sciences this matters a lot but I am not sure about humanities)

In admission decisions: you are not going to cost money for the dept which helps even at the most affluent universities if you are a borderline case.

[JoeySsance]

Thanks, kalapocska! I was actually thinking that if I won even one of the two, and if my grad programs were still deciding or if I were waitlisted, that I would contact them about it. I'm sure it could only help that I'd be a cheaper candidate to accept... I'm not exactly sure when the fellowship decisions will be made but I'll keep this in mind as a possible strategy.

...And now, I have to actually win at least one of the fellowships and well... also finish my grad school apps and be accepted somewhere for any of this to have a chance of occurring...

Thanks for indulging my momentary flight of fancy. All other views are by all means still welcome.

[StrangeLight]

an example that might run somewhat counter...

a colleague of mine had internal funding, including a fellowship for her research year abroad. then she won a big multi-year award from her home country, something our department hadn't had to deal with yet. they tried to take away her internal fellowship and she basically told them no.

so what ended up happening is that she's living off of her external fellowship and then submits receipts of her expenses to her school and they reimburse her with the funds from her internal fellowship. when all is said and done, this'll give her around $35,000 or $40,000 for the year. pretty sweet deal.

if the department has a set precedent for your particular award situation, odds are they'll follow it. if you're the first person to win that particular external competition, you might be able to talk them into compensating you a little bit. it depends how flexible your DGS is, i guess.

[eucalyptus]

In my department, external fellowships take the place of internal funding, with up to a $4000 incentive bonus depending on the fellowship amount. Getting external funding also releases you from TA-ing obligations (the internal funding is structured so you get free/fellowship money for years 1, 2, and 5 and TA for years 3 and 4). If you choose to TA on top of an external fellowship and there are TA positions available, the TA pay is extra (about $14000 per semester). If you win more than one major fellowship, you generally have to pick one of them, or at least wiggle the timing so you're not holding more than one at once (this would probably mean giving up the first year funding from one fellowship in your "dream situation").

[JoeySsance]

StrangeLight and eucalyptus, thanks for the input! That's all really good to know. If I find myself in this position, I will definitely be talking it over with my department... I suppose there's not much else I can really do now but wait and see if I win any fellowships... and keep working at these grad school apps. Here's hoping things work out!

However, if I am awarded any fellowships, then I could probably use them as a good leveraging or negotiation tool, both during admissions and even long afterward, apparently. Sweet!

[rising_star]

My department is like that of eucalyptus: if you get external funding that is greater than the department's funding, then it replaces your dept funding. What usually happens is that someone wins an external fellowship that is 2 or 3 years. Our department funding is guaranteed for four years, but requires TAing. So, what most students do is take the fellowship money in their first year and final years (if two year) or first, third, and fourth (if it's 3 years), then use department funding for the other year. It frees up time from TAing during the busiest times of graduate school (which generally are the first year, comps, and when you're writing and on the job market). I don't know whether it's just not possible for people to take the fellowship and the internal money or whether people just don't because they'd rather have as many years of funding as possible.

[JoeySsance]

Thanks rising_star! You're lucky to be in such a generous department. You've only helped make it clearer for me that I'll have to look very closely at whichever admissions offers I get and compare the different proposed ways of handling external funding (...if, of course, I do get the fellowships). It looks like they could turn out to be a powerful negotiation tool with certain programs!