CUA funding

[divreihayamim]

Hey

I've been accepted to the PhD in Biblical Studies/OT at CUA, and was wondering if anyone has experience or knowledge about their funding practices. How long does it usually take to make decisions about funding? Do most people in the PhD program there receive funding? It is hard to find out much from their website, so any insight into this would be helpful. Thanks!

[Lux Lex Pax]

According to http://admissions.cua.edu/graduate/finaid/index.html:

Academic Scholarships

The Catholic University of America bases teaching assistantships and merit scholarships on applicant's academic history and their Graduate Record Exam results. In order to qualify for a university scholarship, students must submit a GRE score. The university-wide scholarship competition starts February 1st of each year and funds are awarded on a rolling basis after that deadline. Each academic school also has scholarship funds that are distributed to qualified applicants.

[divreihayamim]

Thanks. I was aware of this and that there is a university-wide competition of grad students who will get funding fundamentally based on the GRE score. Does anyone know approximately what level of GRE score could expect to get funding?

[hawkeye7269]

Howdy,

I'm sneaking over here from the English Literature forums (he said, by way of apology) because I've been accepted to CUA's English Ph. D and I've been looking for anyone else who might be going to school there.

In any event, it's my understanding that A) The funding isn't entirely based on GRE, it just plays a role - and not an excessive amount, at that. Funding is initially discussed at the departmental level, depending on how much money individual departments have to offer. For instance, English offers a number of TAships because they have a large need to for handling freshman writing courses. So the nature of your department plays a role there. Finally, C) the university-wide fellowships sometimes delays funding information for a bit.

I have a friend who got into CUA's Theology MA to Ph. D, and he's waiting on funding info because his department is going for a university fellowship for him. I hope some of this information is helpful, and not just re-iterating things you already know. Also, biblical studies sounds pretty cool. Do you think you'll accept at CUA?

PS. If it helps, my GRE's were 163 reading, 158 math, 5.0 writing. And I'm fully funded. But I can't say if that's just my department's standards, or if it plays no part, etc. But it might help.

Edited February 24, 2012 by hawkeye7269

[hanbran]

Based on this (http://policies.cua.edu/enrollment/finaidgradfull.cfm) it appears as if you need at least a 1300 on the GRE to be eligible for a full tuition waiver.

[divreihayamim]

Thanks for the help hawkey and hanbran. English sounds pretty cool too, I used to be an English major in college. My GRE is almost exactly what your's is. If I get funding I will definitely consider it.

[hanbran]

Have you heard anything about funding, recently?

[divreihayamim]

Nope, haven't heard. I'll email them tomorrow and ask when they will be deciding and let you know.

[hanbran]

Wonderful! If you get any sort of a solid answer, I'd be very interested in hearing it.

[divreihayamim]

Hey Hanbran,

I heard back today that I am waitlisted for funding. If you are offered funding you should be receiving a mailed letter next week. They offer about 1/3 of applicants full funding + 18K stipend, no partial offers. If some from the initial round choose not to accept their offers, then they will do another ranking and send out another round of offers until all the scholarships are accounted for. Im not sure how far down the ranking I am.

[binimya]

Folks I don't know if this is helpful but STRS also has a list of fellowships/scholarships from their website:

http://trs.cua.edu/resources-students/funding/strs-funding.cfm

Latest I heard was that scholarship offers will begin rolling out end of this week/early next week (3/9 - 3/13 or 14) via post.

Good luck to all!

Peace.

[short22]

Hello everyone, I recently got accepted into Catholic as well, but not for religion. I was wondering if those who received funding had any sort of update on their cardinal station under financial aid. I am still waiting to hear back about funding, and I have been checking on cardinal station every day to see if anything changes!

For those of you that already know about funding, did you hear about it from your department??

Good luck everyone!

[divreihayamim]

I would email the director of the department you are accepted into. For Biblical Studies, they sent out the initial offers for funding about a week after admissions decisions were made. If you weren't on the initial list of offers, then you didn't hear anything from them, only emails urging you to enroll and submit your deposit for the fall semester. It is possible that if the initial offers are not taken, then they will be passed down to those further down the list of rankings in a process that has been known to last till june/july even.

[binimya]

Folks, this just showed up on the results survey:

The Catholic University Of America Systematic Theology, PhD (F12) Other via E-mail on 15 Mar 2012 A 16 Mar 2012

• Email notification of scholarship received. 8000 for two years with full tuition remission for three years. Going to turn it down for a better offer today!
  

Looks like they do offer partials in funding, if I'm reading this correctly. Have a great weekend!