Grad offer

[XYZ1234]

Hello,

I have a graduate school offer that I need to make a decision on. It's at a Canadian university in Winnipeg. The offer is 21000 and no tuition waiver (which I'm finding is common in Canadian universities). I'm very interested in the research and proposed projects in the lab (ecology and evolutionary biology), but I would be the professor's first Ph.D. student.  Also, I would need to pay my own airfare to come visit the place. I heard from other students who applied to graduate school is that they got their airfare covered. However, I'm wondering if I could hold out for better and take another year to reapply. Thoughts? 

Thanks for feedback

[fuzzylogician]

Whether you could do better next time around depends on your application, which you told us nothing about. So I don't think we can give advice there. The question you need to ask yourself is whether you think you would be happy at this university in Winnipeg, whether you can afford it, and whether it fits your research and future career goal needs. Those are things we can't really help you with. But ask yourself if you fell like you got along with the potential advisor, and if there are other potential substitutes in case you don't get along or simply need advice from more experienced folks. Once you go on the job market, is the university you will attend good at placing students in the kinds of jobs you want? Conversely, are there other schools out there that would be a better fit and would better support your interests and goals? Do they take students with profiles that look like yours? Do some of this research, and you'll be better equipped to make an informed decision. 

[eternallyephemeral]

The school likely will not change their policy on airfare from one year to the next, and you don't know what kind of competition there will be next year. If that's the reason to wait, it's not a good reason.

If you don't want to go to this school, then don't accept it. It doesn't sound like things are really pushing you towards saying yes here.