<p>Hi,
I am sort of a borderline case for PhD programs in EE at the top schools. Many people have advised me to go in for a MS first and then think about my next step.
However, I'm pretty unfamiliar with the general route for MS in terms of tuition. Do most people take out a loan, apply for scholarships (which ones?), or work full-time?</p>
<p>If you take out a loan but then want to continue for a JD or MBA, how do you pay for that?</p>
<p>Sorry if these seem like pretty obvious questions, but I dont know many students pursuing a masters. I know mostly PhD students who have received fellowships.</p>
<p>Also, if anyone knows about this ... what if you're awarded the NSF fellowship, but don't get into any grad school? (This may seem like a ridiculous case, but seeing how most programs don't have enough money to accept many PhDs this year due to the economy, this might very well end up happening).</p>
<p>MS students do not get funded. The only exceptions to this are if your company pays or you are a top applicant (Cornell and MIT will fund 2 or 3 MEng applicants a year). Otherwise, you are expected to shell out loans and for any subsquent schooling you will do as a JD/MBA student. As for your second question, its highly unlikely. If you get the NSF, you will get in somewhere as the NSF (depending on the field) with its 10% acceptance rate is more selective than most schools out there. This won't happen unless you applied to places like MIT, Stanford, Princeton, etc. only. Some of the schools will even wait until the NSF winners are posted before giving admissions or funding information also.</p>
<p>GT gives a decent amount of funding to MS students. I have no clue the actual rate, but if I were to guess I would say it's about 50% since there is no teaching requirement that I'm aware of for PhD students.</p>
<p>The NSF thing is a pretty giant what if. You're more likely to get into MIT than you are to get the NSF fellowship. Further, I'm sure there are people out there that get the NSF fellowship before matriculating somewhere but I think most people wait until their first or second year in grad school to apply for it because the fellowship requires you to propose a plan of research that is fairly specific.</p>
<p>MS students do get funded. I don't know how it works at all universities but at UIUC you will generally get a RTA offer. What this means is once you're admitted, you can seek out an RA with a professor and if he accepts he will fund you. They certainly want PhD students before MS students which means you will have more difficulty getting on with professor whose research you're interested in. Worst case scenario is you can't get an RA, then the university will give you a TA position. Both the RA and TA positions on a 50% appointment (20hrs a week) come with a tuition waver and enough money to meet personal expenses. Like i said, this is for UIUC, i'm not sure about other universities but i would imagine they are similar.</p>
<p>i can tell you from first hand interviews and students that this is generally not the case for Stanford, MIT, Princeton (Unless you are MSE, which again is different from the typical MS/MEng student), Cornell, JHU, and Columbia.</p>