Would visiting help me get funding?

[hairu]

I've been accepted to my first choice, the funny thing is I accidentally learned that I was accepted while the letter is still somewhere out there... (Why do they ever use postal service? God! E-mail costs nothing and is delivered instantly!)

I asked the department secretary if the admission included funding, she said the nominees have already been notified... and partial funding might or might not be there...

Would visiting the professor in charge help me get any funding? Or am I just spending money on an useless, hopeless idea?

[mudlark]

It depends on the sources of funding that you're trying to find.

Fellowships, entrance awards, university-awarded scholarships, and some TA and RAships will have already been set based on the ranking decided by the admissions committee. When I applied last year, my funding offer did go up a couple of times after I got accepted, but that was because I was on a wait list for a couple of things. That is to say, my rank was already established and could not be changed. Most of these awards are adjudicated, approved and/or administered by larger university bodies, and they have early deadlines.

You might be able to scrape together some informal sources of funding (a prof paying you out of a research grant they hold, last minute replacement teaching) but I doubt that one visit would be enough to secure you that. Those are the kinds of jobs that people get through established networks after the people doing the hiring know them well. And there's never a shortage of people looking for work.

So my opinion is pretty much no, it wouldn't help, but you might scrape something together for your second year if you perform well and make connections.

[rising_star]

In a nutshell, most likely not. Email and set up phone conversations with people you think might be able to offer you RA positions.