The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

indecisive wrote:

Guest wrote:Remember that after you get an M. S. and pass candidacy (I did it one year and 10 months into my PhD program) you will be getting $41,800 per year.

How much did your monthly stipend checks come out to during the year and 10 months prior to passing canidacy?

Also in answer to Guest's question:
Say you hypothetically get $25,000 per year stipend. Then you get checks each month for $25,000/12 when you are not doing your internship. When you are doing your internship you get paid a similar amount, but directly from your SF. You also get alot of extra stipend for housing if your school address is more than 60 miles from the SF where your internship is. But then you have to pay back 15-17% in taxes later.

Indicisive,
I was answering your question, not asking.

-Guest

Indecisive,
First, congrats that's awesome. You'll want to explore the starting salary for PhD's at your SF. For instance, my SF doesn't use the GS scale for PhDs and we are instead on pay-banding. Meaning the minimum one makes (after the cost of living adjustment) is roughly $100,000. I understand that by some standards (and degrees) this is still 'underpaid', but it isn't bad.

I'll be interested to hear what options SMART is open to. Just because something makes sense doesn't mean they can put it through even if they want to. It is the government after all and red tape abounds!

It sounds like you're going straight from bachelors to PhD, so this may not help, but I am PhD (non-candidate as of now) with a master's degree making $36,000 annually ($3,166.67 per paycheck). However, i seem to recall that PhD non-candidates without prior masters degrees make less? It may be in the handbook.

Guest wrote:Remember that after you get an M. S. and pass candidacy (I did it one year and 10 months into my PhD program) you will be getting $41,800 per year.

How much did your monthly stipend checks come out to during the year and 10 months prior to passing canidacy?

Also in answer to Guest's question:
Say you hypothetically get $25,000 per year stipend. Then you get checks each month for $25,000/12 when you are not doing your internship. When you are doing your internship you get paid a similar amount, but directly from your SF. You also get alot of extra stipend for housing if your school address is more than 60 miles from the SF where your internship is. But then you have to pay back 15-17% in taxes later.

"Guest" again.

Sorry I forgot your other question.

You get the monthly stipend in addition to full tuition as well as an annual $1000 for books and and additional $1200 per week during internships.

Hi, it's the same "guest" as before.

Prorated is sort of a confusing terminology. Just divide how much you would get per year by 12 and that will be your monthly stipend for as long as you are in the program (assuming MS and candidacy passed). You would only be getting paid for 9 months if you were being supported by the program for 9 months; i.e. getting the scholarship in August and graduating the next April.

Guest wrote:Remember that after you get an M. S. and pass candidacy (I did it one year and 10 months into my PhD program) you will be getting $41,800 per year.

To the OP- option 3 seems like the best option. 7 years of service is a long time to be required to work somewhere. Like you said, even though you like the SF now, you never know where it will be in 7 years. You won't necessarily be underpaid, though. You might make less money than in private sector jobs you might get, but job security in the terrible economy as it is now as well as all of the government benefits are worth a lot.

To the guest, I assume you are a PhD student who received the SMART Scholarship. Is the 42k the yearly salary rate so you actually get only 75% of it (prorated to nine months from 42k/12 months) or do you get 42k over those nine months to make it actually a 56k/year salary that is prorated? Also, is that the amount you receive in check in addition to the cost of tuition? Or is your tuition coming out of that? Thanks for the answers in advance.

I am a PhD candidate who applied this year. I am in the semi-final round and am now waiting until April 9 to see if I am selected as a recipient. Thanks again in advance.

Remember that after you get an M. S. and pass candidacy (I did it one year and 10 months into my PhD program) you will be getting $41,800 per year.

My situation is described below. Anyone have any advice especially about option #3?

I got the SMART scholarship for my last year of undergrad this year ($25,000 stipend, $1000 books, $8000 tuition). I applied for the smart scholarship again as a follow-on to get my PhD. I also applied to many PhD programs. I just found out that I got into Harvard with full tuition and health insurance paid, plus a $32,000 a year stipend. Now I don't know what to do. My options as I see them are:

1. Take out a loan to pay back the money SMART paid so far ($34,000) and go to Harvard to graduate without owing any time to the D.o.D. Anyone know if they will let you do a payment plan?

2. Take the SMART scholarship for grad school and make an additional $8000 per year in comparison to the university stipend. Then graduate and owe the D.O.D. as much as 7 years of service.

3. Try to convince the SMART program to defer the one year of service that I owe them until after I graduate with a PhD. It seems like this option would work out well for everyone because I would only owe a year, and they would get a PhD for the price of an undergrad.

In general, I like working for my SF. I wouldn't mind working for them after my PhD, but I don't want to owe 7-years of being underpaid, especially with the uncertainty of how government research and funding will be structured 5 or 6 years down the road.

Any advice or prior experience?