Can I negotiate a better grad school offer?

March 19, 2006 12:06 PM

I have been accepted at three graduate schools, and each offers a different financial package. Having spent many years in the technology industry, my immediate reaction to realizing I have multiple offers is to want to negotiate better deals from all of them, or at least some of them. Having never been to grad school before, though, I have no idea if the schools give you their best offer up front, or if there is room to negotiate, or whether trying to negotiate is considered bad form, etc. So, can I go back to the schools that have accepted me and negotiate a better deal than the ones originally offered? If it matters--and it does, I'm sure--these programs are in the humanities. Thanks.
posted by lustra to Education (16 answers total)

Best answer: It's not considered "bad form" in my department, so I'd say give it a shot.

Not sure how similar your field is to architecture, but here are a couple tips:

-- I'd phrase your request in terms like "making ends meet," since academics tend to be a bit less accepting of the raw-profit motive than business.

-- The department's financial aid budget is fixed, so most of what they can give you will come out of other people's offers (good if someone else turns them down, for example).

-- They may have already sent these offer letters to everyone and thus have their hands tied.

-- But the right people often have other sources of money besides that one fixed budget. So, try to find out who those people are, and be prepared for seemingly-odd offers, like "we can give you an additional $2000 if you commit to leading a 2-week trip to Rome's historical sites next summer" (the budget being for that class trip).

-- There may also be university-wide resources that the head of graduate affairs (or whoever is managing admissions) can direct you to.

Good luck! I really wish I'd put more effort into securing long-term funding for my grad school experience, so I encourage you to get the best deal you can.
posted by salvia at 12:23 PM on March 19, 2006

Let's pretend I'm at a top-tier department in your field.

If you'd prefer to go to my department, but we didn't have the best financial offer, you might bring that up and request some additional sweetening -- especially sweetening that doesn't need to come out of this year's grad student budget, as salvia notes. This wouldn't annoy me, this seems reasonable bargaining in good faith. This says "I want to come to your program, but..."

But if you were to request additional funds from all of the departments that accepted you, you might look like a cynical asshole. I don't think there would be any serious consequences to this except that people's ex ante opinions of you might drop a little bit, especially at the departments you chose not to attend.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:44 PM on March 19, 2006

I interned in the admissions office of the business grad school at GMU and we had a few people calling which your idea in mind, the general reaction in the office was not a positive one.

Although I do remember one individual making some ground I recall it being directly related to a medical issue they had..

anyway, in todays world these institutions can have their pick of the best crop, I dont think you would make much ground. In the tech field I'm sure you've come to a situation where ther were come companies willing to work out a better deal but the "best company" the company known to produce the best product probably moved very little or none on their offer to you.. I would assume that schools work the same way, the lower level might be a bit more inclined to get you into their coffer then the big boys would. Again if they are a less school, you have to ask yourself if its worth it, or even, if they would have the resources to offer anything additional. In the end with all of that being said, I guess it doesn't hurt to try.

Good luck
posted by crewshell at 12:54 PM on March 19, 2006

Best answer: Another way to go about this is to ask for a larger stipend conditional on the receipt of extramural funding. The National Endowment for the Humanities may have graduate fellowships. Some scholarships offer to pay a portion of the graduate tuition, which is usually offered as an "award" to the incoming student, and effectively comes out of the operating budget of the university.

Advantages:
1) This will be very well-received, because it demonstrates initiative, and a willingness to work for a better deal.

2) If you land the fellowship, both you and the school will benefit financially

3) When you get out, a record of landing funding will be EXTREMELY important in being hired as junior faculty.


Disadvantages:

1) You may not be successful in your applications for funding.
posted by Maxwell_Smart at 1:05 PM on March 19, 2006

I did this when I applied to grad school but I ened up going to the one that consistently got people out in the shortest period of time by not making them take on lots of additional tasks for minimal money. I was already earning a good salary before I went to grad school so that was worth it to me but YMMV if all you have to lose is your time. Cost me more up front but worth it in the long run.
posted by fshgrl at 1:06 PM on March 19, 2006

I had a bunch of friends who got accepted at multiple top-tier phd programs in the languages/humanities. All of them got sweetened offers after they let the schools know that they were being sought after by other schools. It all seemed to be part of the game in that field.
posted by nyterrant at 1:20 PM on March 19, 2006

Best answer: Lustra, you don't mention whether you're applying for a doctorate or a master's program (though since it's in the humanities, I suppose the former is a fair assumption). Supposedly, master's programs are much less willing to extend financial aid, but I did the same thing as nyterrant's friends--via a very politely-worded email about the difficulty deciding between schools--and got the proverbial blood (a bigger scholarship) from a stone (top-tier professional master's program). I was lucky enough to have been encouraged to do so by current students I'd met.

Try it. At worst, you'll be in the same position then as you are now.
posted by kittyprecious at 1:47 PM on March 19, 2006

It matters what kind of school it is. The odds are that a humanities dept. in a state school won't have a whole lot of room for flexibility, and can't easily be competitive in terms of stipends with a private university in the same field, so playing a pair like that off each other simply isn't going to work (and may well make people mad, or at least annoyed).

Also, (on preview) I think this is going to be highly specific to the field -- I'm in linguistics (which might seem very close to humanities/languages) and what nyterrant describes does not happen, and I think bargaining is not so highly regarded. This might be because the top few universities are evenly split between relatively poor state schools and rich private schools. So ask your advisor.
posted by advil at 1:49 PM on March 19, 2006

I doubt your negotiations will accomplish the desired purpose, unless you're an astonishingly stellar candidate that multiple programs are drooling over. If you're not such an incredible candidate, the other candidates who have received offers will likely have comparable credentials to yours, and thus the department will have no particular desire for you (rather than the other candidates) to attend the program. Your effort to negotiate a better deal will just irritate the department and make you seem like an asshole.

Humanities fields are not awash in money, and as a first-year graduate student, you are unlikely to bring to the table a lot of specialized skills that you can use as leverage in your negotiations. Other than just a phone call asking if there's any way to get a bit more funding, I wouldn't negotiate for more.

When I applied to grad school, I got an offer from one very attractive school, but there was another school, closer to home, that was also desirable to me (that didn't offer as much money as the first school). I call the second, closer-to-home school, and told them about the first school's attractive offer. The chair of the department said, "Take it."
posted by jayder at 2:15 PM on March 19, 2006

A friend of mine tried a similar approach. One place rescinded their offer, and the other two said that their offer stands -- no change.

I would approach each place in reverse order of your intended acceptance. So ask place #3 what they can do, then #2. If you get nothing from either, don't ask #1. Good luck.
posted by maxpower at 3:01 PM on March 19, 2006

I would add this - see if you can get any sort of info from current grad students, especially people in their last few terms, in the same department at the schools you're applying to. Just because you got offer of $N this year doesn't mean it's going to last between budget cuts and the omnipresent Department Politics.

As for experiences, if you did this at the school I'm at, you'd probably have your offer kept firm or possibly rescinded, like maxpower says. (I'm at a state school, and I was going to do my PhD.) You might suffer social demerits if anyone found out you played the department and ended up with more $ than they.
posted by cobaltnine at 3:12 PM on March 19, 2006

Many people close to me have been or are in grad school, and it seems like all the departments where my friends are happy do everything they can to assist students. My friends all seem to think that if money isn't being given away, it's because there isn't any more. I mean, the departments aren't hoarding money that's earmarked for student funding, right? One friend recently got into some trouble (car, family, housing, all at once) and majorly blew his budget for the semester. The department chair worked her butt off to try to find additional sources of funding for him to at least apply to. Maybe the best approach would be to try to determine which department will endevor to support you if you do wind up, desperately, needing that extra money.
posted by lalalana at 3:53 PM on March 19, 2006

Good friend is months into her MSW at a prestigious Chicago school. Was having a hard time making ends meet. Came out in the dean's office about the financial stuff. She wasn't even asking for help, just having an unrelative discussion. Dean turns around, handful of keystrokes later my friend had her financial package doubled.

YMMV
posted by FlamingBore at 6:01 PM on March 19, 2006

Money for funding graduate students is not typically coming from the department but from a university wide pool that is adminstered by the graduate school. The stipends are typically set to amounts specific to each department with a limited number of stipends in each school - these are typically fixed prior to any recruting of graduate students. The only leverage that departments have that I have seen are 1) special fellowships, often but not always from sources outside the university given to highly desirable candidates 2) research assistantships that are typically tied to an individual faculty member with a federally funded grant 3) stipend enhancements usually from the graduate school also offerend to highly desirable students. All of these sources are typically made available with the initial offer. If on the initial offer papers, you were not on the receiving end of one of these packages, it is unlikely one will be made available to you by asking. The situation with borrowing money might be different but what I have described is fairly typical for programs who fund their students with assistantships and tuition scholarships. Individuals who have tried to play one school against another have typically, IMO, come off as amateurish and manipulative.
posted by bluesky43 at 7:26 AM on March 20, 2006

As previously mentioned, it depends on what kind of package it is, but it's possible that all of the students are on the same system as you. For example, my friend is in a Ph.D. program and the pay is not great, but each and every student in his year at his program makes the exact same thing he does, regardless of where the funding comes from (same as above). Each year they usually get a raise, so you may want to ask about the possibility of that.

Also consider the location and cost of living; a seemingly sweeter deal in a major metropolitan area could actually net you less than a less attractive deal in a cheaper housing market.

Compare your scores to the averages of the program; if you are stellar, you'll have better luck. Because you're coming from technology into the humanities, you may not be as strong as some other candidates with a more similar background to the study area. Programs are willing to pay more for students who will make them look good (i.e. high scores or accomplishments to help them attract more prospective students or gain an edge in rankings). If you're just so-so, count your blessings and just pick a school.

And finally, if you are set on trying to get more, I'd do some research and attempt to negotiate on cost of living, I think you'd run into less hostility if you say, "Look, I really want to go here but I'm not sure that I can afford it on this package because I have a family and the housing prices are XYZ." or something along those lines. If I were making the decision and it seemed like someone genuinely wanted to come to my program but needed a little more money to make ends meet (rather than trying to play me against my competitors or get themselves more cash) I'd be more receptive.
posted by ml98tu at 10:00 AM on March 20, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone, for the excellent discussion.

To provide more detail, the degree programs I am considering are all master's degrees--MFAs in creative writing. I doubt seriously that I have anything but the slightest prospect of ever being employed as a college-level writing teacher--latest stats are that schools pump out as many as 3,000 MFAs a year, and there are 20-50 jobs a year posted nationally. This degree, for me, would be much more of a life-enhancement exercise than any kind of career "investment." But I would like to do the degree with as little cash investment or debt as possible.

I doubt I am any kind of superstar, but I do have an excellent publishing record, teaching experience, some minor literary awards, and very high GRE scores. So I think I look attractive as a candidate who may bring future glory to a school. As several have pointed out, though, there are MANY highly qualified people who would like to get into the schools I have been accepted at. They all have waiting lists.

Kittyprecious, could you possibly say more about how you worded your e'mail. This is indeed a most delicate writing job.

Finally, I am not thinking of trying to get schools to sweeten deals for any reason other than to try to make ends meet while working as a TA for a couple of years. The stipends, while typical for the degree, are laughable to think about living on, even in less expensive areas. Again, I can take on debt, but going into much debt at all for an MFA degree is something I would like to avoid.
posted by lustra at 11:00 AM on March 20, 2006