<p>How likely is it for a graduate student to get accepted to top graduate schools such as Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, etc. with funding for a PhD in the sciences? My friend is going to Harvard with a funded PhD and I'm wondering how difficult it is to get this funding? Let's assume you are a strong applicant as far as grades, test scores, research, and internships go; is funding extremely competitive, or do most qualified students get it, or is it in between?</p>
<p>Also, to clarify, funding means free tuition plus a stipend, right? E.G. You're paying for room and board, but they are basically giving you a salary to get your PhD. And what's the difference between a "funded" PhD and a fellowship, if any?</p>
<p>Impossible to say precisely, but extremely unlikely. Top programs are very competitive. Acceptance rates, for the most part, are lower than the undergrad equivalent. Think in the 5% and lower range.</p>
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<p>First, it’s incredibly hard to get in. If you get in, funding is (usually) not a problem - the top programs typically offer their students funding. </p>
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<p>Getting in is extremely competitive. Being a strong applicant is nowhere near enough. Almsot everyone who applies is strong - you will need to be among the absolute best.</p>
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<p>There are different funding packages, but yes, full funding usually involves a tuition waver and stipend.</p>
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<p>A fellowship is one possible source of funding.</p>
<p>OK that’s basically what I was asking. I know that actually getting in is extremely hard, but I wanted to know, if you get in, how hard getting funding is. I’m not qualifying for financial aid for undergrad, and so I would really like to get funding for graduate school otherwise I probably wouldn’t go at all because of the huge impact it would make on my finances. However, you seem to have answered that question. I know the stipend isn’t usually a lot, but it’s basically being paid to do something VS paying to do it, which is a pretty big difference.</p>
All top PhD programs in the sciences, bar none, offer full funding to all admitted students. It’s not based on merit or financial need.</p>
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It depends on your field – biosciences stipends at coastal schools are around $30,000 per year, which is actually a decent amount of money to be paid for going to school.</p>
<p>Yeah, 30k for a single person isn’t too bad. It’s not like in the humanities where you have to pay… you get paid when you are a science grad student</p>
<p>This isn’t necessarily true. All of the top humanities programs that I’m familiar with fully fund their students. I’ve heard the stipends are a bit smaller, e.g., $18K versus $26K, but still.</p>
<p>Also, to clarify, funding means free tuition plus a stipend, right? E.G. You’re paying for room and board, but they are basically giving you a salary to get your PhD. And what’s the difference between a “funded” PhD and a fellowship, if any?</p>
<p>Varies by school, but typically yes, funding means a tuition waiver, a stipend, and health insurance.</p>
<p>A fellowship is one type of funding. A funded PhD means that in some way, the university or another source besides you is paying for the tuition and other associated living costs of you obtaining a PhD. There are several ways in which this works. The best way is a fellowship that has no strings attached - this can be awarded by the university for merit, or by an external agency like the NSF or Department of Defense. It’s basically a stipend + tuition and health insurance simply so that you can get your PhD. It allows you to pretty much work with anyone; you aren’t tied to one professor for research. And you have time to concentrate on your research.</p>
<p>Many schools fund students through a combination of an RAship and TAship. In these schemes, you get a stipend in exchange for completing what they tell you is 20 hours a week (but is in reality more) of research for a professor and/or for serving as a teaching assistant for classes in your field. RAships are fine because you need to do research anyway; the only ‘downside’ is that they sometimes tie you to a particular professor who has funding for you, so it can be hard to switch advisors if you need to. TAships are time-consuming and won’t do much to help you get a job; they’re better than nothing, but are nice to avoid if you can help it.</p>
<p>I know that all of the top humanities programs “fully” fund their students, but I’d like to know if the stipend is enough to cover the total costs involved (books, food, rent, etc.). How much is it per month?
The stipend would be my only source of income…
thanks</p>
<p>That depends on your source of funding (=your department unless you have external funding) and where you live. In my own field (not in the humanities), I’ve heard of annual funding offers between $14K and $36K in addition to health insurance and a tuition waiver. $14K is enough to live on in some places and not others.</p>
<p>You won’t know what you get until you apply. Even within one program, some students might get a lot more money than others. (For example, I was offered $30K/year from Michigan while some other admitted students got as little as $16K. The graduate chair openly admitted that he could and did distribute funding in any way he saw fit. A few universities offered me a $5K/year “top-up” fellowship in addition to the standard departmental funding. And so on.)</p>
<p>I would encourage you to compete for outside funding (e.g. national fellowships) so that you are less dependent on department politics.</p>