<p>I've been accepted to Construction Engineering grad. program at Oregon State. All I need is my financial statement (since I'm international). The problem is, Im still waiting for announcement regarding the available teaching/research assisstantship vacancy.</p>
<p>When do university usually announce the TA award? My program starts on Fall 2012 quarter (Sept. 26th 2012). Do they usually announce it like 1 - 2 months before the program starts? or even way later than that?</p>
<p>Anybody who's a TA/RA wanna share experience?</p>
<p>(ps: they invited me for a Graduate visit already, so hopefully the chance of winning is higher :P)</p>
<p>Thank you</p>
<p>You need to contact the school to find out. RA positions are usually awarded pretty quickly, along with admission, because the admission and the specific RA position are tied together. TA positions are sometimes not awarded until a few weeks before classes start - it depends not only on the department but on the professor supervising the course, and what their schedule is.</p>
<p>Plus, the costs and details can vary wildly even once you have an offer. One department spelled everything out when they sent my admission - how much, when, for how long, what I would do, etc. Another department told me that I had my choice of a couple of RA and TA positions, but didn’t budget until the end of summer and therefore would not be able to tell me if my stipend would be $13k or $31k until a week or two before I showed up!! I went somewhere else instead…</p>
<p>Thanks for the info! anyway, where is/was your university at? and what kind of graduate program you applied for? engineering/business/nursing?</p>
<p>I am at UIUC in an engineering PhD program.</p>
<p>Oh ya, there’s one thing I dont really get here, “RA position will be awarded at the same time with admission”</p>
<p>So does it mean I have to complete all applications first (including sending the financial statement)?</p>
<p>regards</p>
<p>Normally grad admissions follows this process where the top few applicants are offered whatever fellowships the department and college have to offer. Next, professors with open spots in their labs and funding for RA’s go through the applications and select their students - this is what I was referring to, that those who get RA’s are generally selected specifically for them during the admissions process.</p>
<p>The remainder of the accepted students will either be admitted as TA’s or admitted with no guaranteed funding but the opportunity to compete for TA positions. It sounds like this is your situation, and you need to check with the department and see what you need to do to apply for a TA gig - it varies by department so I cannot give you any more information.</p>
<p>Thanks for the infos! I have checked at the departments like 2 months ago, (after the open house), they said they currently dont have any opening. So I guess I have to wait a little bit again then.</p>
<p>One last thing, what are the deciding factors to get TA/RA positions? do these things count?
-> Cum. GPA
-> GRE scores
-> whether I am from the same college or not
-> Citizenship
-> work experiences </p>
<p>I’ve heard rumor that they will prioritize US students first right?</p>
<p>Basically all of those count to some degree (except perhaps GRE), but how much varies between departments and professors based on procedures. For example, I know one Chinese-born professor who only selects ethnic Chinese RA’s and TA’s, and only has one US citizen among then dozen he currently supports. Think of it as applying for any other job - the criteria depend on who is making the decisions.</p>
<p>oh i c! depends entirely on the professor I guess! good thing I saw only one Chinese prof. during my visit! …but no Indonesian professor…kinda make me really nervous!</p>
<p>So GRE is only a formality? since it doesn’t really count?</p>
<p>The GRE counts very little in admissions, serving primarily as a check on the rest of your application - someone with great GPA and letters of recommendation but low GRE’s suggests a weak program or some other problem. Outside of admissions, GRE only matters for financial awards (i.e. fellowships) where you are competing against people in other departments or colleges, for which there are few consistent and fair methods for comparison.</p>
<p>Ah, I see…so actually the one that counts the most are both GPA and LoR. </p>
<p>I’ve applied for some fellowships/scholarships, and all of them also ask for the same things, GPA - LoR - GRE. Therefore, the awarding will be decided mostly from GRE, while the others are just additional deciding factors, when they encounter 2 people with roguhly the same GRE.</p>