Baited and switched??

[butterfingers2010]

So here's the story. In January the director of my graduate school program notified me via phone that I was accepted into the program. She informed me at the same time that I was also accepted for an assistantship for a specified amount of money. Fast forward to the end of May and I received my financial aid letter from the school. To my surprise, my award was not listed on there. I figured that perhaps it was a mistake and e-mailed the director to clarify. In response, I received a short, terse response stating that she doesn't know what I'm talking about and that the department''s financial aid letters have not been sent out yet. Okay, fair enough, but about a month later, I still have not received this letter. In the meantime, I was required by the school to specify what loans I was accepting and for how much. Not being sure about whether I was getting the assistantship, I went ahead and took out loans to cover that amount, figuring I can always cancel it if I have to.

Now from a financial standpoint this is not a huge deal. To be honest, the assistantship award is not that much in comparison to tuition and I was still able to get the loan I needed. It's the principal of it that bothers me. I know it's hard to read others via e-mail, but I got very bad vibes from the response I got. Maybe I am just overly-anxious and my department is slow with getting their letters out, but the more time goes on, the more I am skeptical. I'm a non-confrontational person (unless it's absolutely necessary) and I don't know how or if I should approach this. At the same time, I don't want to be a doormat. Presumably I will be crossing paths with this person at least ocassionally, if not often. I don't want to start off on the wrong foot but if it turns out that I was mislead, it will really put a bad taste in my mouth. I already turned down acceptances to other schools ( the deadlines occured before I found out about my financial aid for this school) because it's my dream school and was so thrilled to get in, seeing as it's very competitive.

Any insight/advice would be appreciated...

[Physwimic]

Tricky situation. I'd like to believe that the director is just super busy and sent you a curt reply because the department honestly hasn't sent out their aid letters yet. I feel like very often directors are a little out of the loop on some of the administrative sides of the grad school process. I'd send another email to the director and ask for an update. If you have the contact information of your departments administrative assistant, they might be a better person to contact about this. If not, then the director it will have to be.

[jeffster]

That is difficult. Given that it wasn't a deal breaker either way, you might consider letting this one go. Misunderstandings develop easily over electronic communication, you'll likely need to interact with the person when you're there, and I'm assuming it's already settled that you're going there regardless of what you find out about this issue. Why light unnecessary fires?

Give them the benefit of the doubt for now, assume there was some confusion somewhere and that it wont happen again. Then start on good terms with the department head.

[TakeruK]

I would also advise to wait until you get there and discuss this matter in person since it doesn't seem like confronting the issue now will change anything (i.e. it doesn't sound like you would reconsider this school even if they don't give you the award, and it doesn't sound like you would be able to convince them to give you the award over the phone/email anyways). Once you arrive though, if it turns out that they did actually mislead you, then I would make an issue of it -- maybe they will be able to find funding from another source for you later on.

[butterfingers2010]

Thanks for your thoughts! I think I will wait it out and see what happens. I much prefer talking about serious issues in person anyway, and I'm sure it will come up at some point.