Negotiating Funding Offers

[Stratix]

Hi all,

 

I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but it's worth a shot. I have officially been accepted into 3 different universities and I know specifics about funding from 2 (yay!). Both are teaching assistantships, but one offer is about 4k less than the other one. My question is this: How do I go about negotiating with this university to see if they can give me a more competitive offer? Do I just blatantly state "this so and so university is giving me this, what can you guys do?"

 

Thanks! 

[fuzzylogician]

 Do I just blatantly state "this so and so university is giving me this, what can you guys do?"

 

I've never done this myself but I imagine you do something along the lines of the direct approach you outlined, but maybe a more refined version. I might say "I really want to attend your school but I find the financial package to be difficult to handle. School Y has offered me funding in the amount of $XX (or: $ZZ more than you are offering) and I believe that that would make attending School Y financially wiser. However, I would still prefer School X for many other reasons so I am wondering if there is any way you could increase my offer to match that of School Y." This is to be done (1) if you actually are interested in School X, and (2) if you know that they have the ability to raise offers (or at least you don't know that they can't); you may want to ask something less strong if you feel you might get a better offer but not as good as School Y's. So it's really a question of what kind of offer would make you happy. I think asking for that quite directly is the best strategy.

[Stratix]

Thanks for the response! This helps a bunch.