Financial Support

Financial support is provided through university fellowships or departmental assistantships. Contingent on satisfactory progress, the length of guaranteed student support is four continuous years for those with no prior graduate work and three continuous years for those with one year or more of prior graduate work.

FELLOWSHIPS: The University awards fellowships to incoming graduate students on a competitive basis upon the recommendation of the departments. We must receive your completed application by January 5, to compete for a university fellowship (new graduate students). If you wish to be considered for a research or teaching assistantship, your completed application must reach the Department by January 10.

 

We admit only a small fraction of the students who apply to Astronomy. One important reason is that we ordinarily provide four years of financial support for each graduate student, contingent upon satisfactory progress towards the Ph.D. Another is that we want to keep our graduate program small in order to maintain its high quality. Applications are accepted annually, starting in August.

 

International applicants please note: In order to be considered for a teaching assistantship, all applicants whose native language is not English are required to take a SPEAK test when they arrive on campus. This is the institutional version of the Test of Spoken English (TSE). The SPEAK test is intended to rate a candidate's ability to speak English. The scores range from 0-300.You needs to receive a score of 230 or higher in order to be awarded a teaching assistantship. If your score is from 190 - 230, you may be awarded a teaching assistantship, but you must also enroll in an "English As A Second Language" course. Should you receive a score of 190 or below, financial aid may be withdrawn.