How much does external funding scholarship help?

[polscimajor]

Hey all,

I'm planning to apply to top graduate schools this fall and am wondering how much an external scholarship funding would help me.

I'm an international student and just received a five year full funding offer by my government; how much does that raise my odds of being accepted to top PhD programs?

I mean, scholarships wouldn't hurt my chances, but I'm not sure if they help out enough so that I can go straight for some of my dream schools (the top ten) instead of rigorously writing applications to some twenty, thirty schools.

Thanks.

[TakeruK]

You will see many people with external funding at top ranked universities---in my program, it's something like 1 out of 3 students will hold some sort of external award at some point in their grad career, and maybe around 20% enter with such an award. However, I think it would be naive to say that the awards made a big difference in their admission.

The reason, I think, is that winning a significant external award usually means you are already going to be a very desirable candidate for graduate programs. So I wouldn't say that winning these awards helped those candidates get into top programs, but rather, it's not a coincidence that someone who wins an external award would also be selected for graduate programs!

In addition, while saving the school a ton of money would be nice, at top programs, money is not the only limiting resource. My school is trying to fundraise a ton of money so that every single graduate student will be on an (internal) fellowship and will be "free" to each department. But this doesn't mean we are going to double our graduate student population. This is because the other limiting resource is time/energy of the faculty to supervise and train the graduate student. 

I don't know what the norm is in your field. But I think 20-30 schools is way too many to apply to (unless you are trying to do something like get into the same school with a partner or limiting yourself to certain areas only etc.). 

[polscimajor]

Hmm okay,

Thanks a lot for the answer. No, I'm not trying to get into the same school with a partner or anything of that sort, but just getting queasy as the application season closes in =)

 

21 hours ago, TakeruK said:

You will see many people with external funding at top ranked universities---in my program, it's something like 1 out of 3 students will hold some sort of external award at some point in their grad career, and maybe around 20% enter with such an award. However, I think it would be naive to say that the awards made a big difference in their admission.

The reason, I think, is that winning a significant external award usually means you are already going to be a very desirable candidate for graduate programs. So I wouldn't say that winning these awards helped those candidates get into top programs, but rather, it's not a coincidence that someone who wins an external award would also be selected for graduate programs!

In addition, while saving the school a ton of money would be nice, at top programs, money is not the only limiting resource. My school is trying to fundraise a ton of money so that every single graduate student will be on an (internal) fellowship and will be "free" to each department. But this doesn't mean we are going to double our graduate student population. This is because the other limiting resource is time/energy of the faculty to supervise and train the graduate student. 

I don't know what the norm is in your field. But I think 20-30 schools is way too many to apply to (unless you are trying to do something like get into the same school with a partner or limiting yourself to certain areas only etc.). 

 

[Warelin]

What field are you applying to? The top 10-20-30 programs differ a lot in what they offer to each student. A good match at school 4 might be a terrible match at 2 and 16. There are a lot of other factors to consider when applying to schools to maximize your chances.

[polscimajor]

I'm applying to political science.

Yes, A LOT of other things would count, not to say that they would be more important, but I was just wondering how much leverage an external funding would give me.