dealing with a potential advisor

[Bigground]

I haven't received any offer yet for my Fall 2017 enrollment. But one of the professors in a school recently interviewed me. He seemed to be satisfied with my background and invited me to join him. He had experiences in industries and as a researcher in college. But since he is relatively new on his current position, he does not have funds (which means I will have to pay full MS tuition myself). He seems very nice and enthusiastic. He sent me some related publications and asked me to respond him ASAP (preferably in a week). However, I am waiting for 5 other schools' decisions and I don't think they'll arrive in a week.  My answer to him was that I would be VERY likely to accept the offer (which is true) but I do need some extra time to wait for other decisions. I feel that, if I reject the offer at the end of the day, it would be like me cheating him. He asked me to decide whether I am interested in the program in a week but I honestly DON'T know unless I have a couple of other decisions in hand.

Right now I have his email attaching some papers on the research topics. I don't even know what and when should I respond him. I feel rude if I don't reply him after a week.

What would you do if you were me?(Sorry for my bad writing as an international student.)

[fuzzylogician]

I think asking for more time is fair. If he pushes you and forces you to make a decision before you have all your answers back from other schools, I think the next move is to say 'yes', and see what happens. If eventually you get a better (funded) offer, you'll just have to write and say that you're very sorry but you just received a funded offer, and given the cost of the degree, you can't afford to pass this opportunity up. You really appreciated the opportunity and hope you didn't cause too much trouble, and so on and so forth, but you have to accept this other offer. For right now, just reply and say thank you for sending along the papers, and you'll be in touch again soon. 

[Black Beauty]

1 hour ago, Bigground said:

My answer to him was that I would be VERY likely to accept the offer (which is true) but I do need some extra time to wait for other decisions.

This is a good response.

I believe that asking for more time (especially if funding is a criteria for acceptance), without committing to this program, is very reasonable on your part.

[Bigground]

1 hour ago, fuzzylogician said:

I think asking for more time is fair. If he pushes you and forces you to make a decision before you have all your answers back from other schools, I think the next move is to say 'yes', and see what happens. If eventually you get a better (funded) offer, you'll just have to write and say that you're very sorry but you just received a funded offer, and given the cost of the degree, you can't afford to pass this opportunity up. You really appreciated the opportunity and hope you didn't cause too much trouble, and so on and so forth, but you have to accept this other offer. For right now, just reply and say thank you for sending along the papers, and you'll be in touch again soon. 

 

Thank you so much for the advice, I would definitely do this and I think he would understand me.

[Bigground]

23 minutes ago, Black Beauty said:

This is a good response.

I believe that asking for more time (especially if funding is a criteria for acceptance), without committing to this program, is very reasonable on your part.

 

Yep, although I'll feel sorry if I finally reject the offer, this is just what I have to come through.

[Badger123]

I know this is late, but I would actually suggest that if he continues to push after you say you need more time, you should turn him down. There is a reason that most graduate schools agree to not force applicants to make a decision before April 15th. 

In this case, if he pushes you to make a hasty decision, he likely does not have your best interests in mind. Any professor or advisor I know would totally respect wanting to receive a funded offer. It looks like you are in industrial engineering and statistics? I don't know about statistics, but for engineering my professors always tell me that one should never have to pay for graduate school; I would imagine similar may be true for stats. That said, if this advisor is being pushy for you to make a major life decision, forgoing all other outcomes well before you should have to make a decision, imagine working with that individual over the next year. or two years. or the next five years if you end up doing a full PhD with him. It sounds like he would not really care how things affect you if it meant helping his career. Maybe I am extrapolating too much, but I would not want to work with the person.

 

Edit: that said, you should definitely ask for more time. if he agrees to give more time, I wouldn't consider it an issue.

Edited January 31, 2017 by Badger123