Am I digging a hole to bury myself financially if I take it?

[downtownchick]

I’m in humanities. It's a Ph.D. program. I have just gotten a 1-year tuition remission plus 1-year stipend of still-an-unknown-amount from a UC. It was said that I might get the rest of the years with TAship but the current status of that was “unknown” and the school would not know until “maybe in the following months when a spot was freed up”. (I already assume they won't know by April.) What’s worse? I was also told that if I didn’t get TAship after the 1^st year, I wouldn’t get fee remission either. Guess they come as a “bundle” or some sort in the system?

The school is very tenacious to “talk to me in person about how they can find something for me” when they tell me about the details of their visitation day for admitted students. I don’t know it includes some haggling or is solely a show-you-around type of thing. Feeling a bit worried now.

What might help a little is this school is reasonably close to home so little/no support for living expenses may still be a feasible option for me since I have a few thousand in the bank, live with an employed boyfriend and may be able to live on student loan and freelance work. I think I have some money on an IRA too but I don't know if I can take it out; haven't gotten to that yet. But no tuition fee remission? I can't imagine how that will work.

What’s your opinion on this? Am I digging a hole to bury myself if I take it? I am still waiting to hear from other schools but so far this is the only solid “offer” I have gotten. Plus, that way, my boyfriend doesn't have to move/change job and may be able to support me more. Am I just crying over nothing in this kind of economy?

[rising_star]

Don't panic!! It is still really early to hear from schools. Plus, if you get another offer, you may be able to negotiate your way to something better.

To answer your question, yes, you would probably be digging yourself a hole. Think about how it would affect your relationship if you didn't get funding, had to take out loans for tuition/fees, and rely on your boyfriend for rent and food. I imagine the stress of that alone is probably not worth it.

[sciencegal]

Visit days at UC's often include some time where you can haggle a bit. If they don't plan one-on-one time for you to sit with the chair or your proposed advisor, ask for it and you will get it. Explain how interested you are in the program, but that it would be difficult to accept without a more firm offer for funding after your first year. If they know this, when someone else declines an offer who had multi-year funding they will immediately throw it to you. Or if some fellowship money comes free it's then yours. Perhaps even by April. This is based on what happens in my department at Berkeley but it's worth a shot since funding decisions may be similar elsewhere.

[downtownchick]

Thank you for the advice, sciencegal. The prof has already sent me a schedule of the visit. It says specifically there's one-on-one time with faculty. Oh gosh, what a process. How'd you guys go through all these? This is worse than a colonoscopy!

[UnlikelyGrad]

I really enjoyed those one-on-one visits with faculty. OK, I admit, there were some faculty members I didn't really like meeting. But I still walked away from those meetings with a VERY solid idea of what I thought of individual faculty members/program in general/department as a whole.

[downtownchick]

Getting to know the people, very nice. Haggling, not so nice...

[downtownchick]

Just want to report the result of overcoming partial funding: I had done exactly what sciencegal told me together with other "standard actions" for campus visits which other fellows filled me in on this forum and here-and-there, and soon after my visit, I got full funding.

[jacib]

Just want to report the result of overcoming partial funding: I had done exactly what sciencegal told me together with other "standard actions" for campus visits which other fellows filled me in on this forum and here-and-there, and soon after my visit, I got full funding.

Allow me to be the first on this forum to congratulate you! That's really, really awesome.

Out of curiosity, was it your haggling skills or was it a they-were-testing-to-make-sure-i-play-well-with-others type situation?

[downtownchick]

Out of curiosity, was it your haggling skills or was it a they-were-testing-to-make-sure-i-play-well-with-others type situation?

Good question! I think it's the later. I'm pathetic as a negotiator in general anyway. It was a pretty big gathering with lots of people attending (faculty, other joint departments' faculty, grad students, staff, etc). So I pretty much just mingled as much as I could and showed them my strength. That's about it. But you're probably quite right on their checking to see if you can work well with others. It probably differs from school to school but I don't think you will go very far if everybody hates you or says they don't know much about you after that. You just have to give a clear idea to them in very limited time what you are there for, what kind of a person you will be like among them and blend in.