How many do you apply for?

abi2007 · 03-09-2008 8:44am #1

I'm in my final year of college and I was hoping to do a masters or PHD next year. Does anyone know how hard it is to get accepted on a course? are there certain colleges it very hard to get in to? is it harder to get on to a PHD? and should I just apply for all postgrad courses that interest me? should I do my thesis on a subject I hope to study next year and does work experiance help?

Esmereldina · 03-09-2008 12:38pm

abi2007 wrote: »

I'm in my final year of college and I was hoping to do a masters or PHD next year. Does anyone know how hard it is to get accepted on a course? are there certain colleges it very hard to get in to? is it harder to get on to a PHD? and should I just apply for all postgrad courses that interest me? should I do my thesis on a subject I hope to study next year and does work experiance help?

All of these things will really depend on what subject you are doing... or at least, broadly, whether it is in science or the humanities. So, at little more info would help

Seraphina · 03-09-2008 12:42pm

i only applied for the one i really wanted, and i got into it.

i dont think there's any point in applying to loads. what if you get accepted to loads? then you're still stuck with the same decision. research them well, and apply to the ones that interest you the most

CathalMc · 03-09-2008 5:22pm

Well it depends if you are including universities abroad or not, in which case you'd be mad not to apply to a few. 6-10 is a much cited range for universities in the states for instance, where you choose universities you'd be happy to attend across a number of tiers roughly equivalent to difficulty of entrance and reputation of quality.

If you are looking closer to home, then you should go talk to people in all the departments you are interested in before the application goes in. It will help your application, you'll probably learn a lot more the research and personalities you would be working with, and usually you will about be able to get a good reading on how likely you are to get in.

abi2007 · 03-09-2008 7:26pm

my current degree is bio pharma science. really interested in a phd in reproduction in ucd, was also looking at cancer research. there are a number i'm interested in but i would really really like the one in ucd.

CathalMc · 03-09-2008 7:47pm

It's a fair enough assessment to just pick one if your answer to "would I be happy earning a PhD in these other universities" is no. So I'd still advise picking your top three, for example, and applying away. Hopefully you'll get your pick, but you'll have no options for a year if your only application gets rejected.

abi2007 · 03-09-2008 7:52pm

yeah I'd be heart broken if i ended up with nothing at all. when do you apply for them? when you get your exam results or before?

Shiny · 05-09-2008 10:28am

When I was thinking of doing a Masters, I mentioned it to my
supervisor in April I think.

He said to wait until the exams and come and talk to him again.

It was good advice as I went and did a different masters than
the one he was offering. :rolleyes:

I applied to PAC after I got my results but if you were applying
for a PhD then I assume you would have made contact with someone
before then.

GothPunk · 11-09-2008 3:08pm

abi2007 wrote: »

yeah I'd be heart broken if i ended up with nothing at all. when do you apply for them? when you get your exam results or before?

It depends really. Here it's usually between March and July, although IRCSET (which provide funding to students who make research proposals) take applications in February-March usually. For advertised PhD/Masters, you generally apply before your exam results, and your supervisor for your thesis project or the Dean or someone will have to give you a reference saying what grade they expect you to get. Then after your exams if you accept your offer of a PhD/Masters you'll get a provisional offer from the college in question that requests you to send in a copy of your exam results - must achieve at least a 2.1 etc.

I applied to one PhD program and got it - the Molecular Medicine program in Trinity. It was exactly what I wanted to do but I didn't get in initially, but someone didn't accept their offer so I was next in line. I finished a degree in Cell and Molecular Biology this year in UCD and would have loved to have stayed there for my PhD but the research going on there wasn't exactly what I wanted to study.

There is some excellent cancer research ongoing in colleges all over Ireland. UCD would be more focused on apoptosis and mechanisms behind cancer than a specific type of cancer, so that might suit your bio-pharm education quite well. Just ask the particular researcher some questions, you could even start looking now so that you're better armed come next year. (Out of curiosity, who was it that you wanted to do research on reproduction with, I might know them.)

I left my searching far too late and when I found the PhD program that I wanted to do it was the day before applications closed! So my advice would be don't leave it too late, especially if you plan on making personal applications to researchers. It's worth it looking early because a lot of researchers post whether or not they have vacancies on their section on the college website. This advice only applies if you've actually decided what you want to do though, I'd wait until you were towards the end of your final year project to start looking if you weren't so sure yet.

How many do you apply for?

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