UC Berkeley PhD Funding Info

[anacron]

I was just wondering if anyone admitted to Berkeley's CS Department has received funding information. Seems like they sent out generic emails saying that in-coming students will be funded but nothing about the type or amount of funding.

Is everyone waiting for detailed info, or are there people who started receiving this already?

[zep]

I was just wondering if anyone admitted to Berkeley's CS Department has received funding information. Seems like they sent out generic emails saying that in-coming students will be funded but nothing about the type or amount of funding.

Is everyone waiting for detailed info, or are there people who started receiving this already?

I got an email about funding from Berkeley on Feb. 24. I've pasted the body of the email here:

As a first-year doctoral student, you will receive full financial support consisting of 9-month stipend/salary of approximately $2,250 per month, registration fees of approximately $16,200 and $15,100 in nonresident tuition (if applicable), as well as health and dental insurance. This offer totals approximately $55,600. These two semesters of support will come either in the form of a department fellowship or research assistantship, or a combination of the two. In the event that you have external funding, university funding will be used to bring your stipend to these levels.

During summers, most of our graduate students continue working on their research, funded by Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) appointments with faculty in the department. The current full-time GSR summer stipend can be up to approximately $13,000. Thus, our total offer for a calendar year comes to approximately $68,600. Many students also choose to spend one or more summers gaining additional research experience at an industrial or governmental research lab. Teaching assistantships are also available during the summer.

Our Ph.D. program requires that all students work as teaching assistants for one and half semesters. During your first year, you are not required to teach, although you are welcome to do so. In your first year, we want you to start actively participating in research by joining a research project, ideally by the end of the first semester. We hope that you will find a research adviser by the end of the second semester.

Your financial support will continue for the duration of your studies, assuming good academic progress under the guidance of your research adviser. Your financial support will typically come as a research assistantship or a fellowship, except for the required teaching appointments. Teaching assistantships are used to support the rare cases of students who have not yet found a research adviser, or whose advisers have a gap in funding.

Many of our incoming students apply and win external government or industrial fellowships, such as the NSF Graduate Fellowship. If you win one of those, please let us know. Our Department has a policy of encouraging faculty to supplement external fellowships (if allowed) by partial research assistantships.

tl;dr

- ($2,250/mo)(9 months) = $20,250 stipend per academic year.

- Full-time RA GSR summer appointments are available, and the pay is ~$13,000.

- You have to TA for 3 semesters. There seems to be plenty of RA GSR money, but Berkeley wants us to get some teaching experience.

- The department and/or your advisor will take care of your funding, so don't worry about getting stuck teaching for more than 3 semesters (unless you want to).

- If you get an external fellowship (NDSEG, NSF, etc), your advisor might give you money IN ADDITION TO your fellowship money.

If you haven't gotten a letter about this, it might be worthwhile to ping the EECS department about it. I think Sam Rifkin would be the best person to contact about this.

[anacron]

For future reference, it seems like Berkeley sends out funding info 1-2 weeks after admissions email. So, if you've been admitted but haven't received this info within that time email the admissions assistant.

In my case the email was not delivered the first time.

[einstienbond]

This question may be out of context but when do we fill out the Statement of Intent to register ? Will this be after the visit day ?

[anacron]

Not sure... but we were supposed to receive a "formal" letter of admission. I can only imagine that this letter would contain info about accepting the offer. I have not received this email but then again I had issues with the funding email.

I was planning on sending an email (about something unrelated) but I can ask about this as well. I'll let you know what I find out.

[einstienbond]

Have people from EE filled up the statement of intent to register ?

[ProspectiveGrad12]

By the way, what do you guys think about the amount Berkeley offers? It seems to be close to the lower-end offered by other programs and cost of living near Cal is supposed to be quite high....

[anacron]

Well, based on the visit it seems like the grad students are managing pretty well (at least the ones I talked to). I guess it would be tight for the first year but once you start doing industry internships (in the summer) you'd make it up pretty quick. Their stipend for the summer isn't bad either.

[einstienbond]

How many days does it typically take to get a response after submitting the SIR ?