Funded English MA programs

[kekule12]

Oregon State University offers a fully-funded MA in both Rhet/Comp and Literature.  It is a great place to spend a few years!

 

http://oregonstate.edu/cla/wlf/

[mikers86]

I'll throw in University of New Hampshire. Not everyone gets funded, but there's the chance of getting a TAship for the two years or a full/partial tuition scholarship. You are also in charge of your own First Year Writing class, grading included.

[Tweedledumb]

I might have mentioned it before but I don't feel like re-reading all my posts, so, Missouri State offers English GTAs for MAs with tuition waivers and $8k stipends. You teach two FYC classes a semester with the option to teach higher courses in your second year. They give out up to 15 or so GTAs each fall. 

[Katia_chan]

University of Minnesota Duluth has a similar set-up to New Hampshire.  GTA-ships where you are in charge of a freshman writing class with a tuition waver, or paid TA-ships.  Not everyone gets funding, but they give it to as many as they can.

[pure titanium]

It is hard to know for sure where and when funding will come. I have seen posters here say they applied to a school because the school stated on their website that funding was available for Masters level study only to find out later that it was not offered after all. D was just accepted to a program with 2/3 tuition waiver and a stipend after she was told in December that no money was available for Masters level students at that university. 

[pure titanium]

Oh ignore the Speech Path program above. I am not usually on this site. That was for two years ago and D1.

[Strong Flat White]

Oh and Colorado funds, but not the first year.

 

No they don't. Unless you count sporadic TA-ships-for-tuition-remission. But nothing is guaranteed and there is no stipend.

[Strong Flat White]

I can't believe nobody has said it yet, but as a general rule, do not get an MA from a university that offers a PhD unless you are planning to also get your PhD there.An MA from one of these schools is like writing "Do Not Have What it Takes to Complete PHD" on your CV. Many of them hand MAs to the students in their PhD programs who are unable to complete their exams and/or workload as a sort of consolation prize. Also, at a research I or top 50 school, you may not receive the attention and feedback from professors that you need to grow as a scholar, especially if there are PhD students there as well.

 

Um, no.

[Strong Flat White]

 

 

First of all, my comment is a year old, and if you actually read my other posts you would see that I came around to the logic of other perspective. That post--which I certainly wrote, but which I no longer agree with--was me passing on the advice I received in a PhD-application workshop offered by a current PhD student at U of Iowa. She gave lots of good advice, and I believed most of it, but clearly she wasn't right on everything. Such is life.

 

 

 

Ha, I also didn't look at the date of that post and I also didn't read any of your other posts...just following up the thread as I think is probably a pretty fair and common way to go about things. So, excellent.  Glad you came around. And I hope you bopped the PhD candidate at U of Iowa on the head for us all, because that is a shockingly retarded angle on things. 

[Alex Stinson]

Kansas State University

 

I would like to +1 the recommendation for Kansas States's MA program. A handful of us (3-5 of us), applied late in the season and still got fully funded, and the department is extremely supportive and cooperative, and pushing literary studies in a number of interesting directions via Cultural Studies and Children's literature (Where else can you take classes on Harry Potter, Dr. Suess, Downton Abbey, alongside major canonical works). Plus, most people who want to go on to PhDs do within a year or two of graduating coming out of the program. 

[Romanista]

University of Central Florida provides at least some applicants with a tuition waiver and stipend. Also they are still accepting applications until the end of the month. 

[Yanaka]

Well now since I'm freaking out about applying to PhD's with only a BA, I'm looking into fully-funded MA's. I see the list is not exactly up to date, I might change that later (when it's not 3 in the a.m. over here). How likely do programs like UCF provide funding? How does "merit-based" funding work when you're a US citizen like me who's done a BA in another country? @Romanista do you have any info?

Also, Boston college's MA seems to be very teaching-oriented. I am guessing it might hurt for certain PhD applications...

Edited December 2, 2016 by Yanaka

[Yanaka]

Hi! I'm back. I think I'll build up a list of MAs to apply to that have late deadlines (typically March, because until late Jan might be too complicated for my referees). 

This might be a stupid question, but is there any difference in quality between schools that have very late deadlines and multiple applications processes (i.e. Spring, Summer, Fall) and others that have not-so-late deadlines and have only 1 as for PhD programs? 

Also: is there any info regarding competitiveness -- anybody have insight of how important is having an MA from "name" schools? I read over here it doesn't matter where the applicant received their MA from, but I'm not so sure that's really accurate... 

And again: I guess choosing the MA with regards to the desired PhD program would be the ideal way to go: to speak to my Boston College example again, the fact that it seems to be teaching oriented might not suit all PhD programs, e.g. those who emphasize research and lab skills?

Thanks. Sorry for posting so much. It's all so new!

[WildeThing]

Well, since in academia you need a PhD for most of the positions out there (and all of the top end ones), there are no job placement records for MA holders. No one has ever compiled a PhD placement record for different BAs and MAs either, as far as I know, nor a 'reverse placement' record where you check where people came from to certain programs. You could certainly compile one and you might find some trends (like Ivycentrism) but it will only serve to psych you out, as MA prestige is probably on the lower end of factors. It might help to compensate for bad GRE scores if you have a good GPA from a respected school, but it might not.