Fully Funded....better odds?

[ginsu_]

Hey everyone....long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm in a fortunate situation where the government will pay my full tuition for grad school.....whereupon I'll be assigned to instruct at a military academy.

My GRE scores are mediocre (very mediocre) and I have a 3.1 undergrad, 3.7 grad school GPA (previous Masters degree).

My question is, do you think adcomms will take my full funding into consideration when making admit/reject decisions? Or is it not really relevant?

Thanks and good luck to all.

[starmaker]

Conventional wisdom (usually applied to students who win multi-year fellowships) is that bringing your own funding does help you get admitted. It won't help you if they actually think, based on your qualifications, that you can't do the work. But usually admissions decisions come down to choosing between good, qualified, applicants. And people who bring their own funding free up the department's funding for other students or other purposes.

[Emerson]

Did your applications specifically ask if you could fund your education? If they did, then I think it is definitely a major point in your favor.

Of the six schools I applied to, only one of them has a specific question of whether I was able to provide my own funding or not. But it may be a department thing.