My grad school offers

After searching for schools, taking the GRE, sending in applications and waiting about a month, I heard back from the three schools I applied to.

I applied to The Ohio State University Master’s of Arts Communication program, Kent State University Master’s of Arts Communication program and The Ohio University Master’s of Science Journalism program. I was accepted to all three schools and received a graduate assistantship with stipend at all the schools as well.  

Ohio State offered me free tuition and a stipend for working 20 hours a week as a grad assistant. My duties would involve either assisting with research or teaching. 



I was so excited when I received my acceptance letter
from The Ohio State University.

 Kent State offered me free tuition for up to nine credits a semester and a stipend for working 15-20 hours a week as a teaching assistant. The fact that I was not offered free tuition in full made me nervous. However, when I asked a professor from the communication program, she told me I would typically only take nine credits a semester. My Kent State stipend amounted to about half of what Ohio State offered.

Ohio University offered me free tuition and a stipend to be a grad assistant, but they never gave me an actual amount for my stipend. I was told the normal stipend is about $9000, but I was never given an exact amount. The details of my assistantship and what I would be doing were never explained either, but this was my third choice for a school, so I didn’t ask a lot of questions or try to find out all the details.

All of my offers covered the nine months of the school year when I would be working. I would get breaks between semesters and my summers off as well.

My plan was to only go to graduate school if it would be free and if I would get paid for it. If I was going to have to pay to get a master’s degree, I would apply to jobs instead. Because of this plan, I only applied to schools where I knew funding was available. I was lucky enough to have all the schools I applied to offer the funding I was looking for.

The Chronicle of Higher Education allows you to search for schools and look at the stipends they offered graduate assistants during 2008-09. Although these numbers may be out of date, it is helpful to know how much money students made three years ago. The website also explains if the school offers health benefits to its students, how many grad students were enrolled in specific programs and the amount of hours grad assistants were required to work.

Of course, if you have specific questions about a program, the school itself is always the best place to go for an accurate answer.