Asking about funding

[Porshyen]

So, I received my first offer of admission to a Master's program and while no word about funding was offered with the letter of admission. I received a follow-up congratulatory/introductory email from a professor at the school to encourage me to look for their many funding opportunities. She told me to email her with any questions I might have. Is it okay to ask her about potential funding opportunities and assistantships with the preface of, if I don't get aid, I can't go? 

 

What is typical protocol about being nominated for departmental or school wide fellowships, assistantships, etc.? I know the potential for funding for Master's programs is lower than with doctoral programs, so I already know it is an uphill battle.

 

I hope that made sense. Thanks in advance for the help. 

Edited January 26, 2014 by Porshyen

[LeoBixby]

So, I received my first offer of admission to a Master's program and while no word about funding was offered with the letter of admission. I received a follow-up congratulatory/introductory email from a professor at the school to encourage me to look for their many funding opportunities. She told me to email her with any questions I might have. Is it okay to ask her about potential funding opportunities and assistantships with the preface of, if I don't get aid, I can't go? 

 

What is typical protocol about being nominated for departmental or school wide fellowships, assistantships, etc.? I know the potential for funding for Master's programs is lower than with doctoral programs, so I already know it is an uphill battle.

 

I hope that made sense. Thanks in advance for the help. 

Yes, it is absolutely appropriate to ask about possible funding sources.  You probably want to approach it very open-mindedly, using phrases like "do you have any advice on..." or "do you suggest I look mostly for funding outside of the department, or are there possibilities inside...."  I have found that funds rarely, if ever, find you.  You have to go ask questions and then you suddenly find sources abound in many cases, competitive as the process might be.  On that front, departmental funding is your best best.  University-wide competitive sources of funding are so hard to get these days, you pretty much have to have a taylor-made record.

[overworkedta]

Ask.  You can't know if you don't do so and they are basically counting on it.  Our dept. had a guy in from Michigan this week who gave us all a bunch of advice about the market (most of us are ABD) and his repeated advice was "if you don't ask, you can't get".  That applies the same with grad offers.  

 

I think LeoBixby gave you some excellent advice.  The way it works in our program, offers are given to most PhD students first. The best, most competitive are put up for fellowships that are competitive university-wide.  The rest goes to MA students.  If you don't ask, they won't extend the offer until like August when they have leftovers and ask you if you want it.  However, people I know that asked, got a funding offer almost immediately - or at least by April.  It may not be FULL funding, but they get a full remission of tuition and half of their health insurance paid for as well as half what "full" funded students get.  Most, if they do well, will get bumped up to that funding level after a semester or a year - but even then they have to ask for it.

[Porshyen]

So, I sent the professor an email yesterday (still haven't heard anything back), but of course I am freaking out because I think I may have worded it wrong.  

 

I thank you for this great opportunity, I am very interested in being part of the KU community. However, due to financial difficulties, I would need to receive funding in order to attend the university.

 

Do you think the first two sentences are too crass, especially the second one pertaining to financial difficulty? There is more to this email asking about specific funding opportunities, obviously, but I just pasted what was necessary here. Am I over thinking this? This email has already been sent, so there is nothing I can do... 

[overworkedta]

I don't think it's crass at all.  I sent a similar email to UNL when I was comparing their offer to my current institution.  They first didn't talk at all about funding so I sent an email similar to that one.  They responded positively and offered me a specific fellowship (award letters hadn't gone out yet, apparently).  The offer still wasn't as good at this one, so I called and tried.  They offered me something else but it just wasn't enough and I went with this one.  It's about playing the game.  And, honestly, this department had a better focus.