We made a big mistake

[Hegemony]

I'm a member of the graduate admissions committee for my department.  We normally have enough funding for every student we admit. This year our funding was cut back, although we were allowed to admit as many students as usual. (And we need a certain minimum to run seminars; the university doesn't let us offer seminars that are too tiny.)

So we sent out our acceptances. We admitted a good number; all the admits are excellent and we would be happy to have any of them.

Then came the usual period where some applicants turn us down and we pass the funding down to the others.  So we finally got the final list of students who accepted us, and distributed our lessened amount of funding we had as best we could so that everybody got some. Two students are fully funded and the rest are 75% funded.

Then our secretary says, "You haven't yet sent out the welcome letter to [let us say] Johnson."

"We admitted Johnson but she has declined to come," I say.

"No, she accepted," says the secretary.

"No, she declined," I say, and produce the email in which she declines our offer.

"No, not Emily Johnson," says the secretary. "Emily Johnson is the one who declined. Philomena Johnson is the one who's coming."

"What?!" I say. I consult the other members of the committee. They all go through the same conversation. "No, she declined." "No she didn't."

Well, it turns out that when Emily Johnson declined, we somehow applied that to both Johnsons. And the other admitted students had been in correspondence with us, but Philomena Johnson never sent a personal email, just sent the acceptance form to the secretary. This was just at the time the other Johnson was declining, with a lot of email back and forth between us and her. So we missed the fact that there was another Johnson who had actually accepted. She told the secretary and the secretary put her on a list, and we didn't realize the list had been updated. So when we went to look at the list, we used one from the week before, which was missing Johnson.

Philomena Johnson was actually second highest on our ranking of top candidates. Other students who were not as stellar now have funding, and Philomena Johnson has nothing. Because we were confused and overlooked her.

I immediately went to administration and pleaded for some extra funding. I was given a dressing-down about budget crises and how we were lucky to have any funding at all, etc. I fully get that. At the same time, here is a student going in to thousands of dollars of debt (and she is indeed coming) because were confused. This is not right.

We have looked at every source of funding we know about, and there just is no more. But the other students have made their choices based on the funding we offered — withdrawing any would just move the injustice around, not solve it.

I don't know if there is a solution to this, but I thought I'd throw it out there just in case anyone has any thoughts.

I feel sick.

[theblackbox]

What a mess indeed. Are your funding offers for the year or do they guarantee multiple years at the same funding level? Please say it's not a multi-year disaster.

Are there scholarships or grants locally that your faculty could really support her in applying for? She has no teaching responsibilities, I assume, if she has no funding, but gracious. I'm sorry. This is bad. It does highlight the importance of personal touch and networking but what a rough way to learn it. My condolences.

[Parasaurolophus]

Damn.

I don't suppose you can commit to admitting one or even two or three fewer students next year, to beg the admin for funding for PJ?

Any chance the research budget can be converted into something for her, instead of conferences and books?

Crowdfunding led by donations from the committee?

I'm very sorry.

[Parasaurolophus]

Or perhaps she can be enticed to defer? If, say, you can throw extra goodies her way next year?

[Mobius]

Master's or Ph.D.? Interesting students would even commit without knowing if they are funded.

[Hibush]

This is the graduate directors analog to the undergraduate dreaming they have a test the next day in a class they didn't realize they signed up for. Yikes!

With the issue being the #2 student, my grad school would probably let me borrow a 22-23 assistantship to use in 21-22. That would give a year to find sources of money for two assistantships. But I understand that the grad school overall overyielded a bit, so the kitty is empty.

It's a tough situation, so good luck shaking the bushes.

[dismalist]

...

With the issue being the #2 student, my grad school would probably let me borrow a 22-23 assistantship to use in 21-22. That would give a year to find sources of money for two assistantships. But I understand that the grad school overall over yielded a bit, so the kitty is empty.

It's a tough situation, so good luck shaking the bushes.

Yeah. Where I worked, the department had a similarly structured problem one year -- a surprise massive rise in the share of admitted students who threatened to come. The department succeeded in borrowing extra resources from the university, to be refunded in future years.

Best of luck.

[arcturus]

Are you in a field where there are other departments that might be able to provide a TA position for this student? My department is in the opposite problem, where we have more TA spots than we have students who need them (due to the unusually high number of external fellowships earned by our current students). We do not want to admit more students this year, as our program would then become out of balance between younger students and older students. Fortunately, a cognate field has a larger-than-usual incoming class, so we will almost certainly draw from their graduate students to fill our TA positions.

[Hegemony]

We are a field which has a terminal MA (think Creative Writing MFA type thing), and it's a two-year program. We normally have second-year funding in place for all students, but the administration has cut that funding too (a little late in the day) so we may not have full funding for the second-years next year, as we usually do. It is a complete train wreck, not helped by the university changing their minds about funding levels at bad times, but also of course not helped by our mistake here.

I will think about the possibility of trying to borrow a slot from the future — that hadn't occurred to me.

Unfortunately there is fierce competition for the few relevant TA positions, and they have already been given out for next year.

Tearing my hair out.

[Vkw10]

If you're on decent terms with library or other campus units, you might ask if they have any assistantships or grad student positions available. Our library usually posts several assistantships in summer, but they also take referrals early if student has skills that match their needs. One of mine is doing assistantship in library assessment office this year, where they needed someone with basic statistics knowledge. At former university, I had a couple of students who worked for disability services, which offered hourly wage and flexible schedule, but not tuition waiver.

Good luck finding some funding.

[Ruralguy]

The gofundme and search for other jobs around campus sound like the ethical thing to do, but how do you really keep that going if there's no funding in the future? She can't search for apartments with the promise of gofundme money.  I think you have to tell her the truth, or at least a lot of it. If she decides not to attend after all, then problem solved. If she decides to attend anyway, then you have an obligation to help her, but it really is partly on her at that point since she knows the situation.

[Aster]

Yuk.

Finding a silver ling for this is rough, but it's probably a foregone conclusion that everybody on the graduate committee will never make this same mistake again.  The "Johnson Incident" will be scarred into the collective experience for years to come.

Also as usual, it is the departmental secretaries that seem to always have it right. Bless the departmental secretaries.

[Puget]

Not to pile on, but there are two types of people: those who use spreadsheets to track things, and those who will learn the hard way to use spreadsheets to track things. -- signed, dedicated updater of our admissions spreadsheets.

Asking the grad school to borrow a slot from next year still sounds like the best thing to try. Ours would probably give it to us, after a stern talking to about over-admitting students. Some groveling may be required, as may going up the chain of commend to those empowered to make exceptions.

[Mobius]

So why is the OP going to the administration? Is the OP the grad coordinator or the department chair?

[Parasaurolophus]

So why is the OP going to the administration? Is the OP the grad coordinator or the department chair?

IIRC Hegemony is chair of two departments, yes.