Grad school for parents?

[Rini]

How do you start looking for a parent friendly grad school?  Also, does a part-time program that also waives tuition exist anywhere?

[BiochemMom]

I highly doubt you'll find a part time program at all unless an industry job is paying your tuition while you're working.

Lots are parent friendly. I'm completing my ms in chemistry under a PI and at a school that has been amazing and let's me work when I can on a daycare schedule because I'm productive.

When I interviewed at UNC I was amazed at the sheer numbers of married students with children. They offer subsidized on campus daycare for graduate students too--which has seemed to be a good indicator. The programs I've looked into with that offering tended to have more parents. The ones without it tended to have less. And every POI I interviewed with had young kids and students with kids and/or pregnant women in their lab. One even discussed (unsolicited--he brought it up) how maternity leave works at their school if I want more while I'm there.

So full time kid friendly programs are definitely out there. But again, you'll be hard pressed to find any part time programs at all, much less a funded one (again unless you work for a few years first and your job pays for it)

[funkydays]

I'd also look at the general age range of the graduate students in the program you apply to in the future.  If the program has mostly younger students (most are straight from undergrad, etc) then they might not be as flexible because they are not equipped to deal with it.  I found programs that had a mixed group were more open about their support for students who have/will have families (as @BiochemMom states, daycare support, flexible schedule, etc) and may have had more experience to deal with it.  

Edited February 20, 2015 by funkydays

[stygldbby]

I know UPenn has a lot of great family resources, including a grant you can apply for to help with family-related costs.

[Shamrock_Frog]

How do you start looking for a parent friendly grad school?  Also, does a part-time program that also waives tuition exist anywhere?

I think finding part time is going to be impossible, to be frank. You may consider looking at private institutions and ones affiliated with religion. I interviewed at Notre Dame a week or so ago, and they have child care facilities. At least it said so in the material they gave us. No one I interviewed with was a parent (or seemed to be in a relationship for that matter) so no one asked these questions.

[notsaxophones]

I think finding part time is going to be impossible, to be frank. You may consider looking at private institutions and ones affiliated with religion. I interviewed at Notre Dame a week or so ago, and they have child care facilities. At least it said so in the material they gave us. No one I interviewed with was a parent (or seemed to be in a relationship for that matter) so no one asked these questions.

 

To add to the child care portion, when I interviewed at University of Washington they told us that Fred Hutch has some really good child care facilities for people who work there. (So if you would join a lab at the Hutch, you could access those facilities). UW-Madison also boasted about how their grad students were having children as a show of how good the health care and stipend-to-living ratio are in Madison. Also, at every school I interviewed there was at least one current student who is a parent and they usually put one of those people on the student panel so that you could talk to them about being a parent in grad school.

 

One other thing I was told is that PI's who have children are more likely to understand that their students actually have lives outside of lab. So talk to students about how their PI's are in regards to how much they want their students to be in lab 24-7

[Navita]

Ofcourse there are options. Just look over the internet first and then research on it.