From: chakrsa@eng.auburn.edu (Sanjoy  Chakraborty)
Newsgroups: soc.college.gradinfo
Subject: Re: Any financial assistance info?
Date: 13 Oct 92 07:35:02 GMT
Reply-To: chakrsa@eng.auburn.edu
Organization: Auburn University Engineering

In article 00150224@ysub.ysu.edu, 00150224@ysub.ysu.edu () writes:
>I need some info regarding ways of seeking financial assistance to graduate
>schools.  My plight is that I don't want to spend a couple hundred dollars
>applying for admission and/or assistance to schools, only to find out there
>isn't anything available.  The furthering of my education depends on some
>type of assistance.  Any help is very much appreciated.
> 
>Alan G.
> 

Hi Alan,

maybe I could give you some pointers; at least some which seem to heve worked for me. 

I will assume that you have a specific area of interest in the Major in which you plan to seek a graduate degree. If you are going for an MS, you could get away without being too specific in that respect; however, the better you define the area you would like to work in, the better are the chances of being noticed by a faculty member who holds similar research interest. 

I'll just give you a broad outline of the steps I followed :

1. Look up Peterson's Guide to get the names of the schools which offer grad programs in your area. You'll probably get the names of faculty in your specific dept. at some of these schools, by looking up the detailed (1-2 pages) writeups. You could also write to the dept directly (some kind of a preliminary application) and they will send you information about their teaching staff, research interests etc.

2. Write letters to the Professors (whom you might be interested in working with), telling them a little bit about your educational qualifications, your interest in his dept/his line of work, and anything else that you feel might qualify you better for funding. Be direct about your needs; if you cannot go to grad school without full financial assistance, don't hesitate to mention it. Also, mention any test scores that might already be available to you. 

3. You should receive some form of reply to these letters within a month or so. Some depts will simply send you more information packets; very general and very noncomittal. If you are still interested in that school, you can always call up the dept number and ask to be connected to the prof you are interested in (you won't believe how hard it is to get hold of some people sometimes :-) 

4. Some replies will be more direct, one way or another. Some will be encouraging, to a greater or a lesser degree. Talking to the professors would then be the best way to decide where to apply to. Most of the people I have spoken to over the telephone have been pretty straightforward in telling me about my chances of getting funding at their school. 

5. Nobody will commit himself at such an early stage, so don't expect that. However, you should be able to at least get a fair estimate of your chances, upon which you base your final decisions. Of course, the more the number of places you apply to, the better are your chances. 

6. Another thing you could do, would be to write letters to the depts and the prospective graduate schools, asking for a waiver of the application fee, or at least a temporary deferral till you were admitted. You would be surprised at the number of schools which considered my application without this fee. 

Well, I guess that about wraps it up. Hope things work out for you,

sanjoy


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