<p>I am new to site/forum and I am looking to get some advice from some of you fellow scholars that have been in, or helped someone my position before.</p>
<p>I applied to several schools for my PhD in electrical engineering and got into both USC and Stanford for Fall 2011. Ordinarily, I would pick Stanford as my first choice but the problem is funding. I have been offered a research assistance-ship and most probably a USC funded fellowship to go to USC (I say most probably since I was recommended as an excellent candidate by a well respected professor at the school).</p>
<p>I do not, however, have any funding from Stanford, nor have I been picked by a professor for research opportunities - yet! The email stated that I would hear from them regarding possible funding by April. I applied for national fellowships but will not hear about their decision until April either. </p>
<p>Stanford expects me to confirm matriculation by April 15th and I am trying to find out whether there is a better way for me to go about looking for, and getting a more definitive answer about funding before the beginning of April.</p>
<p>I would not pick Stanford if I had to pay for my own way when I can go to USC for free and get funding through a define RA/probable fellowship. Any help/advice would be appreciated.</p>
<p>If you are looking for more info regarding my grades/work experience here they are:</p>
<p>BSEE - 3.74/4.00 from UF
MSEE - 3.45/4.00 from USC</p>
<p>4 Years work experience at the Boeing satellite division as a systems engineer II
1 Year work experience at Northrop Grumman as a antenna design engineer II</p>
<p>Congratulations on your acceptances. I suggest posting your question in the graduate school forum on CC. They will probably be able to give you some answers.</p>
<p>At many schools, it’s very early to be hearing about fellowship awards. Typically, too, even when the school already knows which candidates they want to offer money to, there are limited funds and the candidates are “stacked” in order of desirability, so that somebody needs to turn down a fellowship before it’s offered to the next person on the list. Graduate admissions directors can’t just spray offers around to every plausible candidate, because if everybody accepted, they would have way overspent their budget. As a result, there’s a lot of movement in late March/early April, as the tippy-top kids decide where they’re going and the graduate admissions directors start moving down their lists.</p>
<p>The standard deadline for responses isn’t until April 15. So my advice is to sit tight with your USC offer and wait to see if Stanford offers you something acceptable. If it does, take it and immediately relinquish the USC offer (so it can go to the next person on their list). If it doesn’t, go to USC.</p>
<p>It’s my understanding that any technical PhD is paid. USC may pay more to attract students, but I would be shocked if Stanford didn’t pay their PhD students in engineering.</p>
<p>I agree with the previous poster (collegealum314). Stanford is a great opportunity for EE. Is there a reason you’re reluctant to simply call the head of the department and talk the situation through? They’ve made you an offer and that means they are very very interested in having you attend. In practice the head of the department and key department professors are very involved in the selection process for PhD candidates. So they would understand your situation, and would be eager to talk it through.</p>
<p>Most graduate EE schools in the US provide full funding to their graduate students. A lucky few students get fellowships, but most students get RA or TA positions, which require some hours per week of research or teaching responsibilities. </p>
<p>Stanford is well funded, so I would be surprised if they didn’t offer funding to all of their admitted students. If you haven’t heard anything from Stanford a couple of weeks before the April 1 deadline, I would suggest that you contact a someone from Stanford to inquire, either in graduate admissions, or perhaps the chair of the EE department.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your quick responses, and I apologize if this is on the wrong board.</p>
<p>I am also under the impression that all entering PhD students get some form of funding (TA, RA, Fellowship) and I hope that is true. In hopes of improving my chances, or at least getting a more concrete answer I have emailed a couple of professors in whose research projects I am interested as well as the chair of the department. </p>
<p>FYI - it is really hard to get in touch with somebody besides the general help line (who are really of NO HELP with it comes to these things).</p>
<p>I know that Stanford has an Admit Weekend coming up mid march and by attending I hope to get some more answers regarding the possibility of funding.</p>