Negotiating funding offers

[wiped]

One school has made me an offer of admission with 50% tuition, which is still too expensive for me to afford. However, I am still waiting to hear back from the other schools I applied to. If I want to negotiate funding with the school that made the offer, is it crucial that I respond right away and politely beg for more funding, or can I wait to

Comments

[shil]

This might be kind of bad-ass, but what's to stop you from telling them that you've already received another offer with full tuition (other than the rather large fact that it's not true!)? Sure, it's clearly not entirely honest, but it's a pretty good bargaining tactic and it's not like they're going to check up on you (especially if you don't name a particular school)!

[wiped]

my major hesitation in doing something like this (aside from dishonesty) is that i spoil my chance of having a stronger bargaining hand later, if i start negotiating now and then later get an offer from another school that i want to bring up. i guess if the other schools i applied to don't make me competitive offers, i can still bluff with this one.

[shil]

That is true, a specific awesome offer later would probably be a stronger position. Good luck!

[fizzykitty]

I've actually had a department ask for a copy of my funded offer to use as evidence for giving me a bigger stipend (the graduate school required it because they suspected people of scamming them). So tread carefully with this suggestion.