PhD Admission without funding

[Stallion66]

Ok I havent scrolled through the forum so pardon me if similar threads already exist.

I am an international student. And I have heard it a lot that more than 95% PhDs in USA are fully funded. This statement sounds more of a myth when I myself applied for PhD this season. I have got three PhD admits for fall 2017 without a single penny of financial assistance. And I was told that engineering is supposed to be generously funded.

I am most disappointed from Texas A&M. They get hundreds of millions of dollars research grant and yet can't fund their PhD students. I have tried to negotiate with them but with no success. The department coordinator and International student office didn't give an encouraging response, prospective supervisors didn't give a response at all.

Is there anything I can do to secure a funding for myself?

Secondly, in case of Texas A&M, if I manage to self finance my first semester, should I join the program hoping that I would get assistantship or funding from second semester onwards?

Having searched for decisions on gradcafe, I know that other students who applied to TAMU are in a similar situation. So I would like to know their feedback as well.

[fuzzylogician]

I would advise against doing an unfunded PhD. And I would advise against assuming that anything is going to change. If they're not offering funding now, when they're trying to recruit you, what's going to change after you commit? The most likely scenario is you spend a lot of money on that first semester, don't get funding, and then have to choose to take the loss, or take on a whole lot more debt to try and justify that expense you're already made. If you are in a field where students are normally funded, take the lack of funding as a rejection. 

[Stallion66]

Yeah I most likely wouldn't go unfunded.

However what tempts me is that being an international student, I am not yet eligible for TAship. They require international students to give an English Language Proficiency test before they can apply for TAship. I intend to clear that test early in the first semester so that I can get assistantship for next semester. Of course that's not guaranteed. Furthermore, I anticipate that some other international students would have self funded their first semesters expecting themselves to get TAship. So competition would be tough.

I find myself in a frustrating situation with two Master's and three PhD admits without any financial assistance.

Edited March 30, 2017 by Stallion66

[Itachi_Uchiha]

Hey I'm in the same situation here. Sucks tbh. Offered PhD admit at CU Boulder but haven't heard about funding. On asking, the grad coordinator told me that all financial offers will be made sometime near April 15. But I've heard from ppl studying there atm that funding situation sucks there, especially for the ECEE dept. One of the students had to go unfunded for 3 goddamn semesters. They didn't even have the courtesy to waive her tuition fees. I also feel the same way about US univs now.

[TakeruK]

On 3/29/2017 at 9:58 PM, Stallion66 said:

However what tempts me is that being an international student, I am not yet eligible for TAship. They require international students to give an English Language Proficiency test before they can apply for TAship. I intend to clear that test early in the first semester so that I can get assistantship for next semester. Of course that's not guaranteed. Furthermore, I anticipate that some other international students would have self funded their first semesters expecting themselves to get TAship. So competition would be tough.

I find myself in a frustrating situation with two Master's and three PhD admits without any financial assistance.

I don't think this (emphasis added by me) is the right way to think about it. There are tons of other schools that actually fund their PhD students and these schools have no problem funding international students in the first few semesters. I think the school might be using the English test as an excuse to not sound as bad when they don't fund their students. I second the advice to treat an unfunded offer as a rejection.

I also would say that 95% funding isn't a myth (unless your field is in a weird place?). However, almost all top schools in their fields receive way more international applicants than they are able to fund because international students cost a lot more than American students. Most schools like TAMU will receive 70%+ of their applicants from international schools but only have spots for like 5 international students. So, they fund the top 5 and to avoid denying anyone a chance who might be able to self-fund, they might offer admission to others that are good. On the other hand, since American students are much cheaper to fund, they likely will fund a lot more American students. 

Applying to grad school in the US as an international student is hard. There will be lots of rejections and pseuo-rejections (i.e. unfunded offers). I would advise against an unfunded offer, personally!

[zaphyr]

I need to add that TAMU is the most disappointing experience I have ever had in entire my life. I had got an offer to a PhD for fall 2014. I was in the same boat as you are now. But I accepted the offer. Then I realized many other students also did the same job--accepting an offer without any funding. RAship is being offered in a semester base with huge competition among PhD students. I haven't been able to secure one yet. The TAship is being offered after passing ELPE. However, passing its writing section is really subjective and notorious. I haven't been able to pass it yet. so no TA yet!!!. There is no generous fellowship though. I think they are treating us like this because they want to keep their undergraduate tuition as low as possible to attract BSc/MSc/MEng as many as possible.  As well they are able to hire one exceptional PhD to pay some small money only to him/her. It's really sad.  For my MSc I was fully funded  in a different school and I had a better life style. I chose A&M as I thought getting a degree from a top 20 school would reflect its value later on, but totally it got let me down.

[Stallion66]

12 hours ago, TakeruK said:

I don't think this (emphasis added by me) is the right way to think about it. There are tons of other schools that actually fund their PhD students and these schools have no problem funding international students in the first few semesters. I think the school might be using the English test as an excuse to not sound as bad when they don't fund their students. I second the advice to treat an unfunded offer as a rejection.

I also would say that 95% funding isn't a myth (unless your field is in a weird place?). However, almost all top schools in their fields receive way more international applicants than they are able to fund because international students cost a lot more than American students. Most schools like TAMU will receive 70%+ of their applicants from international schools but only have spots for like 5 international students. So, they fund the top 5 and to avoid denying anyone a chance who might be able to self-fund, they might offer admission to others that are good. On the other hand, since American students are much cheaper to fund, they likely will fund a lot more American students. 

Applying to grad school in the US as an international student is hard. There will be lots of rejections and pseuo-rejections (i.e. unfunded offers). I would advise against an unfunded offer, personally!

While I agree with most of your post, I think as far as funding is concerned, they treat non-resident Americans and international students in a same way. Yes it's more economical to fund state resident students but non residents have same tuition fee as international students in most cases. And funding is usually tuition waiver + stipend (sometimes medical insurance isn't granted) which is same for both international students and non residents.

Moreover, in my program (ECE), majority of the current students are international students in Texas A&M.

However, I concur that unfunded offers should be treated as a rejection.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Stallion66

[Stallion66]

12 hours ago, zaphyr said:

I need to add that TAMU is the most disappointing experience I have ever had in entire my life. I had got an offer to a PhD for fall 2014. I was in the same boat as you are now. But I accepted the offer. Then I realized many other students also did the same job--accepting an offer without any funding. RAship is being offered in a semester base with huge competition among PhD students. I haven't been able to secure one yet. The TAship is being offered after passing ELPE. However, passing its writing section is really subjective and notorious. I haven't been able to pass it yet. so no TA yet!!!. There is no generous fellowship though. I think they are treating us like this because they want to keep their undergraduate tuition as low as possible to attract BSc/MSc/MEng as many as possible.  As well they are able to hire one exceptional PhD to pay some small money only to him/her. It's really sad.  For my MSc I was fully funded  in a different school and I had a better life style. I chose A&M as I thought getting a degree from a top 20 school would reflect its value later on, but totally it got let me down.

It's sad to read your experience buddy. If I may ask, are you financing your education yourself since 2014? It's close to 3 years so it's a long time. And in what program you are undertaking?

[TakeruK]

52 minutes ago, Stallion66 said:

While I agree with most of your post, I think as far as funding is concerned, they treat non-resident Americans and international students in a same way. Yes it's more economical to fund state resident students but non residents have same tuition fee as international students in most cases. And funding is usually tuition waiver + stipend (sometimes medical insurance isn't granted) which is same for both international students and non residents.

I think this depends on the school. For most states, non-resident Americans can gain in-state residency after 1 year. For example, the University of California schools will require all out of state Americans to get California residency after one year or the students must pay the difference between resident and non-resident tuition themselves. This is straight-forward for Americans: you just get a California driver's license (or state ID), register to vote in CA, and live in the state for a year. 

However, international students remain at the non-resident rate the entire degree. So for a 6 year degree, an in-state American student might cost something like $120,000 in tuition, an out-of-state American around $150,000 but an international student would cost $300,000. 

[zaphyr]

54 minutes ago, Stallion66 said:

It's sad to read your experience buddy. If I may ask, are you financing your education yourself since 2014? It's close to 3 years so it's a long time. And in what program you are undertaking?

Frankly it's not fair. Being self-funded is something I never imagined even at nightmares. My suggestion is if you have other admissions in hand you may go for them. Some schools are open-minded toward offering at least TAship for PhDs. 

[zaphyr]

1 minute ago, zaphyr said:

Frankly it's not fair. Being self-funded is something I never imagined even at nightmares. My suggestion is if you have other admissions in hand you may go for them. Some schools are open-minded toward offering at least TAship for PhDs. 

I know friends of mines who started PhD self-funded at Stanford which is considered an ambitious school with a huge competition. But they got funded soon. A&M treats us badly.