10 considerations for applying to UK PhD programs

Acknowledgement: Thank you to Niranjanraj Ramasundaram for providing comments and editing an earlier version of this blog.

Overview

I sometimes get questions about how to search for and apply for doctoral (PhD) programs. I thought I would create a short post describing my experience of searching for and applying for programs in the UK in 2022-2023, particularly as an international student.

There are many great blog posts and other resources on the Internet that talk about applying for PhDs in general. I will mention two of them: this wonderful post which I keep recommending to everyone. It’s the best summary I have found of the differences between the grad school application system across UK, Netherlands, USA and Canada. Another recommended blog is this detailed one about applying for PhDs. I also recently gave a talk to Masters students on applying for PhDs in the UK, slides for which are available here. These slides have a more detailed overview about the process of selecting and applying for PhDs. The current post is focused on my personal experience as an international student, with the context that I was based in India and had some years of work ex in India when I decided to apply for PhD.

How did I decide where to apply: country?

1. When I decided I wanted to do a PhD outside of my home country, India, I initially considered several different English-speaking countries, such as USA, UK and Australia. An extremely valuable piece of advice that I got from someone at this point was to focus on applying to one country. After some thought, I chose the UK, because I had already done a Masters here and so I felt some degree of familiarity with the academic system here as well as with the idea of living here. Focusing on one country made my job easier in terms of understanding the system in depth and being able to write competitive applications.

How did I decide where to apply: program and university?

2. My preferred way of finding things out is to use the Internet. Once I’d decided I wanted to apply to the UK, I spent many days first just reading various blog posts, university websites and other resources for information and made notes to help myself understand the types of programs available. This helped me to formulate specific questions I was still unclear about that I could then ask people I contacted.

3. One super important aspect to understand was funding availability for international students, which is often different and harder to find than for home students. I wanted to find a program that would cover, at the very least, full tuition fees and stipend. In 2017, I had got accepted to a PhD program in the UK, but as this was pre-Brexit, there was very little full funding for international students and this program made me an offer that included funding of “home tuition fees” and a stipend. This meant I would have to cover the difference between the tuition fees for a home student and an international student. This difference was substantial (up to £20000 per year) and was the reason I rejected the offer.

My experience looking for programs in 2022 was different. Many programs, such as DTPs (Doctoral Training Partnerships) or the Wellcome PhD programs, often made clear whether they had funding for international students, what they funded and how many places they funded. However, I found that advertised PhDs (where the project already has funding and the PI is recruiting a PhD student) were sometimes less clear. Sometimes, programs would invite applications from “home and overseas students” but state that the funding was for tuition fee at home rates, leaving me to intuit that I would have to find some other way of covering the difference. So I narrowed down my list of where to apply by isolating the programs that had at least, my minimum levels of funding for international students: full international tuition fee + stipend. It was also important to figure this out before contacting potential supervisors, as it is usually expected that you will mention to a potential supervisor how you are planning to fund your PhD.

4. In terms of deciding how many programs to apply to, I eventually ended up applying to 4 programs. I wanted to apply to more than one because I wanted to maximize my chances of getting in to something. However, I didn’t want to apply to too many as that would simply take up too much energy and time and dilute the quality of my applications. I only applied to programs where I thought I had a good chance of getting in. The way I determined this was fit with the program and response from supervisors (if the program required contacting the supervisor beforehand). Once I’d identified that the program orientation and potential research topic were of interest to me, I only applied to a program if the supervisor had responded and shown interest (if required by the program; note that there are programs that expressly say not to contact potential supervisors).

How did I establish contact and build relationships?

5. A big part of applying for a PhD involves contacting potential supervisors and the subtle art of building relationships, often through cold emails. I managed to speak to someone who’d already done their PhD in the UK (I was able to reach out to them through another friend) and to get a sense of the culture around contacting supervisors. I then started sending cold but careful emails to potential supervisors. A draft of one of my emails is available in the presentation I’ve linked above.

I will be the first to admit that my previous experience of the UK was a privilege that certainly gave me a leg up in the system (in terms of being perceived as credible, familiar, knowing the language that academics in the UK speak, the interpersonal culture), but do not let not having experience deter you in any way. I generally found that supervisors were open to me and welcoming, even if they didn’t know me. One of the very best supervisory experiences I had during my PhD application process was with a supervisor who didn’t know me at all from before and whom I had cold-emailed; we developed a great working relationship and they supported me immensely to develop a research proposal and funding application.

How did I prepare my written applications?

Most PhD program applications in the UK involve first submitting a written application (usually involving a CV, personal statement, other specific requirements) and then appearing for an interview (usually done online) if you are shortlisted. I was preparing my applications along with full-time work. This meant that much of the application work had to be done in the evenings/nights and cut into the time with my family. Some things that I would recommend during the application prep:

6. Being organized: This is crucial, especially if you are applying to more than one program, like I did. There are several deadlines to keep track of, including crucially, enough time to contact potential supervisors and referees and get a reply. I would really recommend having a table or a spreadsheet or some document that notes everything in one place, whatever format works for you.

7. Being authentic about limitations: I knew that my recent experience in research was limited and not the type of experience that students already in the UK would have. For example, I had much more limited statistical training and was only used to running basic correlations and t-tests or doing manual coding for qualitative studies, rather than more sophisticated forms of analyses. So, I acknowledged these things in my applications by mentioning the reason for them as well as mentioning what I hoped to learn and improve upon. After all, a PhD is a training program and I think the self-awareness is usually appreciated by those who read applications, having been on that side as well.

8. Taking time and writing well in the application: I do think the personal statement and research proposal in an application act as demonstrations of your writing skills. Editing and re-editing the personal statement and research proposal, to make it as clear and engaging as you can, is important. It’s also important to “show rather than tell”, that classic writing advice, meaning that rather than just saying “I have experience in quantitative research”, it is useful to describe the specifics of what experience you have. More examples are provided in the slides I link above.

How did I prepare for interviews?

I’m not the best at immediately responding to questions – I usually do better with having some time to think and formulate my answer – so I tend to always over-prepare for interviews and try to anticipate questions. Some things that helped me included:

9. Familiarizing myself with the work of the interview committee: I sought to familiarize myself with the work of the potential panellists on the interview panel. This helped me to anticipate the kinds of areas they might ask questions in, the opinions they might have about certain things and to defend my own ideas and previous research. I also familiarized myself with the research themes, phrases and language used and methodological paradigms they mentioned in their research; this helped me align to this language and also explain why my research was different. For example, I wasn’t really used to epidemiology in the context of mental health research from my experience in India and reading some of this work helped me understand where some interviewers might be coming from.

10. Mentalizing the interviewers: This is similar to the above point but is more about questions which elicit a more contextual response, for example, being asked about previous experience about a conflict in an interpersonal relationships. By mentalizing, I mean thinking of the experience and perspective the interviewers have and what they may require more information to understand. I actually think I didn’t do this as well as I could have. For example, when answering questions about interpersonal conflicts, the nature of conflicts I was discussing was quite unique to the Indian context, and I now think that providing more background to this would have helped, otherwise I could see some interviewers seeming a bit flummoxed as to what I was talking about.

I hope these 10 points have been helpful for you if you are thinking about applying to the UK for a PhD! One last thing I would say to sum up is that the application process itself is a learning process. I got rejected pre-interview from the very first program I applied to and that made me go back to my personal statement/application and think of what I could do better. At the same time, I recognized that some factors are out of my control and it’s important to not take rejection personally and keep going. All you need is one acceptance - good luck!