Econ PhD Funding

[KingOfConvenience]

Boston College offers funding to all admitted students (unless the director of grad studies is blatanly lying!) Last year, they received over 500 applications and admitted about 35, of which 18 enrolled.

http://fmwww.bc.edu/ec-c/docs/GradFinAid2004.pdf

[tobewithU]

How about Purdue?

[lyos]

Does anyone know what the funding situation is like at U Mich or U Wisc. I heard that U Mich was having trouble supporting students but is the condition particularly worse than other well know public school econ depts like the U CA schools or U Maryland.

[user_name]

Originally Posted by tobewithU

How about Purdue?

The econ PhD program is administered by the business school, and business schools usually have good money.

[poleringer]

I'm applying for NSF, and I read on some posts from last year that people applying to MIT didn't find out until late because they thought MIT was waiting to hear the NSF results. WHat is the relationship here? Would MIT accept only those that it wouldn't have to fund itself?

Also, if one were to win the NSF, is it true a school would not give any funding to you at all? Basically I"m deciding whether to finish the NSF app or gamble on getting full funding from admission.

[snappythecrab]

Does anyone know what the funding situation is like at U Mich or U Wisc.

If you were to apply to Wisconsin, I'd encourage you to find outside funding. Out of our 29 entering students (28 now) that will be sitting for the prelims, only 6 were funded by the University for their first year. Assuming that you were to pass the prelims - and that seems to be a big assumption - Wisconsin does guarantee funding for years 2-4. In the 5th, you're kinda on your own.

[Antichron]

Originally Posted by poleringer

I'm applying for NSF, and I read on some posts from last year that people applying to MIT didn't find out until late because they thought MIT was waiting to hear the NSF results. WHat is the relationship here? Would MIT accept only those that it wouldn't have to fund itself?

Also, if one were to win the NSF, is it true a school would not give any funding to you at all? Basically I"m deciding whether to finish the NSF app or gamble on getting full funding from admission.

It is true that if you accept the NSF, you get the NSF money in lieu of whatever fellowship offers you have at the schools to which you are admitted. However, the NSF funding comes with fewer strings attached (i.e. no TA/RA responsibilities) and is generally larger (22.5k for the academic year, 7.5k over the summer) than most fellowship offers.

In addition, winning the NSF sends out a good signal that will probably result in offers in addition to the NSF funding.

It is true that MIT waitlists quite a few people and offers admissions with no funding initially in an effort to hold off making final decisions until the NSF results are announced. A classmate of mine was offered admission off the waitlist after being awarded the NSF.

Admittedly, it is a pain to apply for (I am in the process of re-applying), but the potential rewards are very high in terms of financial offers, prestige, fewer responsibilities during graduate school, and increased chances of admissions. I highly recommend completing your application.

[poleringer]

don't adcom decisions come out much earlier (late feb, early march) than NSF decisions (late march/april). if so, how does NSF acceptance help admission to programs; do progs wait to hear from nsf?

[asquare]

Originally Posted by lyos

Does anyone know what the funding situation is like at U Mich or U Wisc. I heard that U Mich was having trouble supporting students but is the condition particularly worse than other well know public school econ depts like the U CA schools or U Maryland.

Michigan funded a smaller than usual fraction of the current first year class. The problem was a one-year cash flow issue and will not affect funding for the current first years after this year, or future incoming classes. I'd guess that about 1/2 to 2/3 of my (second year) class had funding first year. All first year funding is in the form of fellowships; first year students are not given TA or RA positions. After first year, all students in good standing (this year, that meant had either passed the micro prelim or sustained at least a B-average; I think the definition will be a bit different for the new class since the prelim schedule has changed) get TA (called GSI at Michigan) positions.

[lyos]

asquare, that's good to here. I have a friend who started this year over there and said things should be a bit better next year too. I still haven't decided whether to apply to the Ford School's joint program or just the econ dept. Since I still want to open up the possibilities that I could focus on fields that would be less suitable in a Policy School, like international or macro, I become hesitant. At least, now I can expect higher probabilities of funding next year than this year.