University Scholarships for South African Students, Inc. is a small non-profit organization, endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that gives scholarships to deserving Black students attending universities and technikons in South Africa. Students seeking scholarships, and individuals interested in assisting their effort, can visit our site and learn more about them.

Don't be afraid to contact your supervisor for advice - if they've offered you a place, they want you to come and should be happy to help if they can.

University Scholarships for South African Students, Inc. is a small non-profit organization, endorsed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, that gives scholarships to deserving Black students attending universities and technikons in South Africa. Students seeking scholarships, and individuals interested in assisting their effort, can visit our site and learn more about them.

Sorry about the 'View All' threads problem, which has now been sorted. You can click here to see the message Anon is refering to.

By the way Anon, it may be easier to pick a different, but equally anonymous name - lots of people use anon and it can make it confusing for other forum users.

Obtaining funding can be very difficult for many overseas students. Our Funding pages are a good place to start. We do not recommend writing to as many academics as possible. It is a waste of your time, as well as theirs. You should only contact individual academics if you have a strong interest in their research and very relevant research experience. Merely writing to every microbiology lab you can find will do you know good - academics receive many such emails every day and usually do not even have time to reply.

Work-load varies, but you should be able to indulge a hobby a couple of nights a week. You might not be able to go hill walking every weekend (particularly when you get towards the end), but you should be able to get out most weekends.

The RAE (research assessment exercise) rating is the national scheme which ranks university departments for the standard of their research. This is a big process and is only done every six or seven years. The last one was in 2001.

I wouldn't really worry about it. They are probably just looking for consistency in the projects you are applying for. Either that or they want to analyse who there competition is. They will only be interested in recruiting the best possible student - you won't offend them by applying to the competition.

A Masters degree (usually either an Master of Science, MSc, or a Master of Arts, MA) can be an entirely taught course, entirely research or a mixture of the two. The course duration is usually one year. Research for a Masters degree does not need to be novel, it can be confirmatory research which repeats the work of other research teams.

A PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) is almost entirely research based. Research must be novel (i.e. carried out for the first time) and make a significant contribution to knowledge. PhDs in the UK take between 3 and 4 years, which is shorter than in most other countries.

Most universities have standard application forms. Write first with you CV and they will send you a list of what they need from you.

A 5* RAE rating is a very good indication.

There are very few scholarships available for Masters degree course for either home or overseas students. The British Council in your home country will have information on any schemes which relate to you. Some universities provide a small number of scholarships to international students - these would usually only cover the diference between home and overseas course fees.

You can only apply for an ORS award after you have been accepted for a place at a university. So you need to apply to a number of universities and then , once you have decided which university you wish to attend, you can apply for the ORS. The ORS only covers part of the course fees (bringing your fees to the same level as paid by home/EU students), it does not provide anything towards living expences. You best chance of funding will be from your own government. Contact the British Council in your home country for details of the schemes available to you. See our Funding pages for further information and links.

We cannot specifically recommend any courses, but in future we will be adding student course reviews to the site (if you wish to submit one email [email protected]). Look at the RAE rating of the departments you're interested in for a guide on the quality of research within the department (although good research doesn't always mean good teaching).

You may well have to wait a long time, but if you've been waiting for over a month then nobody is going to think you're rude or pushy for sending them a note asking about the progress of your application.