Advice on choices and funding.

[boneh3ad]

Ok, now I want to preface this post with a statement that in no way is this a case of me asking for people to make up my mind for me. You can take your guesses as to which two schools in my sig I am talking about, but I don't plan on saying which is which.

School A: Admitted without guaranteed funding. Visited recently and hit it off pretty well with one of the professors, whose research group is absolutely perfect for me in almost every way as far as my interests go. However, this professor said that he probably wouldn't know if he could offer me funding of any kind for at least 4 or 5 more weeks for one reason or another (not sure if he was waiting on funding or waiting on seeing who else was interested to weigh his own options).

School B: Admitted with full funding guaranteed. Visited recently and made a good connection with 3 or so professors, all with interesting research groups, but, while very interesting, none are quite perfect. They all are places I feel I could find a niche and get some very interesting work done, but none quite as perfect of a fit as the one professor at School A.

My question is, is there any way that I can try to talk to the professor at school A again and see if I can get a more definitive answer on funding? I don't exactly have a lot of spare change, and it would be awfully hard to pass up a fully funded offer for one that is a very slightly better fit but isn't guaranteed that I can even get into that group in the near future.

At the same time, which do you think would be the better choice? School A is a little better regarded, but it is nearly a wash.

Thanks in advance.

[cath2024]

I would give the prof at school A another 10 days or so, that is give him as much time as possible before 4/15, then ask again about funding. If he can't tell you, then take school B's offer. That's my take.

[fuzzylogician]

I would give the prof at school A another 10 days or so, that is give him as much time as possible before 4/15, then ask again about funding. If he can't tell you, then take school B's offer. That's my take.

That would be my advice as well. Better to have a guaranteed place than to be left with nothing. I also think you should consider contacting the professor at school A and letting him know that his offer is your top choice, that you'll wait until the last minute but if there's no guarantee of funding, you might be forced to let go of his offer. It might prompt him to look for more funding options (or he might not be able to do anything about it, but you've got nothing to lose by trying).

[Jordan+AirForce1]

hey bone,

im almost in the same situation, and i plan to do what the poster above said...