<p>I'm thinking about going to graduate school in the United States, but I want to know whether I can afford it before spending thousands of dollars in GRE preparation, applications fees, etc.</p>
<p>Here's the deal: I'm not a US citizen/resident, which makes funding even more difficult than for most of you guys. I know a lot of international students get aid from their government to pay for their education, but I'm thinking that this isn't going to happen for me as I do not live in my native country. That means that my country of residency does not pay because I'm not a citizen and my country of birth does not pay because I'm not a resident. </p>
<p>I want to know how hard it would be for me to find a work-study grant, and how much you guys think it would be safe to take up in the form of loans. I'm a journalism major looking to get an MA in liberal arts (or related), so I don't have the same indebtness capacity (does that expression even exist?) as an MBA, to give an example. </p>
<p>Also, could you guys recommend some top programs in liberal arts or humanities? I want good programs, but not so good that I won't get into them :) I'm comfortable with 20-40% admission rates (I'm using my undergraduate logic here, but I don't really know how selectiveness for graduate programs is measured). </p>
<p>If you are well-qualified in your discipline of interest, then you should not have to pay anything at all for graduate school. When applying to graduate schools in the US, one finds the programs with appropriate faculty in one's subfield of intended specialization, and then one applies widely enough so that if rejected from one's top choices, one should still have good chances of acceptance from one's next group of choices. </p>
<p>Also, in graduate admissions (particularly in the humanities), one also assumes that one should be able to achieve an award such as an assistantship, which carries full tuition remission as well as a stipend.</p>
<p>You did not mention your intended subfield of specialization, so we cannot recommend any programs to you. You should know, however, that graduate admissions are not so much about statistical chances as they are about an applicant's "fit" with faculty fields of interest and specialization.</p>
<p>I cannot really speak to the positions of MA and PhD programs in the sciences, but in my humanities discipline and other academic (rather than vocational, like education, psych, social work, etc.) disciplines, it is absolutely the case that MA programs care very much about "fit." However, in terminal MA programs, "fit" is conceived a bit more loosely. But the critical question in admissions remains, "Can this applicant be well-served by our faculty, given our faculty's fields of expertise?"</p>
<p>While each engineering/CS PhD program has its variance, the "fit" is perhaps the single most important factor. E.g. for some programs, the "fit" is about admitting the most qualified candidates whose interest match well with the few professors that are accepting students in a particular year. However, this is less true in programs that rotate incoming 1st year PhD students through a number of research labs before an area of interest is determined. </p>
<p>So, the bottom line is, as professor X noted, the adcom wants to make the admitted students have sufficient preparation, can benefit from the program and most likely be successful after the program. The burden on the applicants is to demonstrate that they understand the program and are indeed a great match. I often see people applying to XYZ top engineering department simply because of its reputation (or for that matter USNEWS ranking!!). If one were willing to do a bit homework upfront, he/she could have saved everyone a lot of time and some application fees!</p>
<p>Other than professional schools, e.g. law, business, med, IR etc, most graduate programs usually come with enough financial aid that does not involve loan. </p>
<p>This may not apply to humanities. In some engineering programs, specific funds (DoD, DoE etc) are only available to US students.</p>
<p>Im really not so sure for master's programs in the field of humanities. I know a lot of well qualified students at strong programs in their respective fields who received only moderate funding, and took out loans to cover the rest.</p>
<p>This is standard practice but worth it. If you want to dig deeper into your field with only a masters, and forgo a phd, be ready to pay some money out of pocket to get one.</p>
<p>The humanities MA program I direct fully funds an average of 80% of our students with assistantships that carry full tuition remission as well as a living stipend. </p>
<p>Other programs in my field, and in many cognate fields do the same. (I know my "competing" and "benchmarking/aspirational" programs well. That's "adminispeak" for programs ranked at the same level as, and above, mine.)</p>
<p>would u say most programs basically everywhere, are always trying to improve their rank? i mean, most PEOPLE try to advance their careers. for those working in any given dpmt of a university, they might collectively try to do better, which means getting better results on external measures.</p>
<p>would u say this is largely the case? that efforts are perpetually underway in every department in every field, on trying to improve their rank? if not, in what situations would this not be the case?</p>
<p>I would agree that all programs everywhere are always trying to improve their rank, or perceived rank, or other measure of status. All university administrations are very hyped up on this sort of thing. They love to be able to tell potential donors "If you give three million dollars, we will be able to accomplish this, this, and this, and rank first in that and that." They put in place university-wide initiatives like "First In 2011." It's really all just marketing, and does nothing but make for a ton of paperwork for us lowly professors.</p>
<p>Wow--- I can't say I've done a lot of research as to how master's degrees work in the US, but I'm very surprised to hear that most of them come with funding opportunities. Does not being a US citizen lower your chances? I'm guessing that if the grant comes the school there's really no reason to exclude international students (it would be logical if it were federal financial aid).
As for my specialization, I haven't really given it much thought yet, since I won't start the application process until next year. I'm a journalism undegrad, but I doubt I'll go to journalism school...I find that what I'm doing right now is too focused towards the technical aspect of the profession (design, technology) and what I really want out of my master's is to be given the freedom to pursue my own interests: literature, writing, sociology, and so forth. I know it's supposed to be the other way around: a generic bachelor's degree and then a specialization, but the bureaucrats who make the study plans here in Spain won't understand that for another ten million years. So anyway, I'll leave my *****ing about Spanish education for another occasion...Can you guys throw some ideas at me?</p>