HELP! Stanford vs. Berkeley Fellowships

[ArizonaState21]

Stanford Graduate Fellowship is full tuition + 36k for 3 years and Berkeley's Fellowship is full tuition + 28k for 5 years. 

 

I'd prefer Stanford, but how hard will it be to secure funding for the final 2 years? What are my chances? For example, if I only would have a 30-40% chance of funding the last two years at Stanford, Berkely would be an obvious choice because that would be very expensive final two years.

 

I'm trying to sort through which is a better option. Please advise.

 

 

[tarrman]

It should be pretty easy to secure funding from your advisor or a TA position by your 4th year.

[ArizonaState21]

Thanks for the answer. That's sort of what I was figuring. 

 

Any advice on what other awards I should look into and apply for? I see the NDSEG above, what are some others? Pardon my ignorance.

[tarrman]

NSF GRFP and NDSEG are the big ones that offer 3 years support. You can apply for NDSEG up until December of your second year. I'm not too sure how late NSF is, but the earliest would be November of your first year. There might be a few others for people doing CEE.

 

To be honest, I think anyone capable of getting a 3-year $36k fellowship in Stanford CEE wouldn't have an issue getting funding at a later point in time.

[juilletmercredi]

Those are questions to ask your advisor.  I took a $32K package for 3 years here at Columbia, and I got an NSF for 3 years and have pretty good chances of securing another external grant for my final year (one of my years of NSF and Columbia funding overlapped, but I took the NSF for a reason).  Some schools are very successful at assisting graduate students in obtaining external funding or even just internal funding as a GRA or something.  Stanford is probably one of those places, but I wouldn't just assume it; ask.

 

NSF you can apply for in your first and in your second year; after that, most people are no longer eligible.

 

Also, find out if it is possible to negotiate your offer with Stanford to 5 years instead of 3.  I recently found out that some of my colleagues here at Columbia, in my department, successfully negotiated their offer to 5 years even though we typically offer 3 years instead.

[SRE]

Watch out! I am a current Stanford CEE student who also had 3 years of funding and I'm now transferring out because they don't fund you if you don't get a large grant. I have seen over 10 people leave in the past 2 years, and I'm now joining their ranks! If I could do it all over again I would have chosen my fully-funded offers.

[ssingh]

SRE - is the large grant thing an expectation following the end of your 3 year SGF? 

[ArizonaState21]

Juliett- Thanks for the advice. Very helpful. Any thoughts on how valuable the 5 year at Berkeley would be if Stanford isn't interested in anything more than 3? Like deal-breaker, or still take the Stanford fellowship but concentrate on finding more funding? Also, how to go about negotiating/broaching the topic. 

 

SRE - Check your inbox.  

 

I'm heading to both schools in the next week, so I'll see if I can come up with some answers. 

[Sharovella]

Of course go to Berkeley. I don't think they offer funding for 5 years right away to everyone. You should appreciate it and forget about money for the next 5 years.