<p>I'm anticipating a bit of a problem in the coming weeks and I'm not quite sure how to handle it. I have been accepted into a PhD program with a teaching assistantship, but I have to let the school know by April 15 if I intend on accepting their offer. The problem is, I'm still waiting on five other schools to send me their decisions. The school that has accepted me isn't at the top of my list, but I would feel foolish passing up 4-5 years of funding if I didn't receive any other offers. Do people ever accept an assistantship and then change their mind? How bad would it be if I did that?</p>
<p>I also have another dilemma. In addition to the school that has offered me an assistantship, I have also received an offer of admission that doesn't include funding (at least not for the first year). The school that has offered funding isn't as highly ranked as the school that didn't offer funding. Beside financially, how important is a TA to hiring committees after you graduate? Is it more important than a school's US News and World Report ranking?</p>
<p>Once the April 15 deadline has passed, you are bound to a particular school that you have accepted. It is considered unethical to attempt to change programs after that date without specific permission from the program.</p>
<p>TA funding is far, far more important than anyone’s “USNWR ranking.” In the real world, NOBODY CARES about USNWR rankings, least of all academics who understand how useless and pointless that magazine’s criteria are.</p>
<p>More to the point, getting tuition paid and a living allowance for a few years is absolutely essential to success in a Ph.D program and afterwards. You do not want to have to work an outside job to cover your living expenses, and given the terrible market for English Ph.Ds in the academic context, saddling yourself with six-figure debt loads is a recipe for your personal financial disaster.</p>
<p>The other programs you’re waiting on also likely abide by the April 15 deadline, and you can expect to hear back from at least a few of them before that date. You have a month - quit stressing and enjoy the fact that you have funding in your back pocket :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the sage advice, polarscribe! I have definitely lost perspective in this long and arduous process, and it’s nice to be brought back down to earth.</p>
<p>Follow the money. Don’t do an unfunded PhD. <em>Especially</em> not an unfunded English PhD.</p>
<p>Teaching experience varies depending on the field. As a general rule, it’s more important in the humanities and some of the social sciences and gets less important as you move into the life and physical sciences. I think it would be very hard to get a professor position in English without ever having taught before - and sometimes in addition to TAing, they want to see that you have taught your own classes (which you can sometimes do in your later years by adjuncting at local colleges in your area. It also would depend on what kind of jobs you want - you’d need less teaching experience if your goal is to teach at a RU-VH or even an RU-H, but if you want to go to a smaller school or an undergraduate-focused institution, more TA experience is essential (as long as it doesn’t detract from your research).</p>