Just wondering while I browsing through the database.. how many PhD positions have you guys applied for? I've gone for 6, possibly 7 depending on how well I do in my MRes project but when I went for my first interview yesterday (scary as hell!! :(), I was told I should be going for 10 or more!! Surely that's over doing it and I'd end up applying for projects that I'm not 100% interested in... Also, one of the students I met there said she just went for three!! :D

So yeah,.. just a bit curious is all. Not really after advice on this! XD

i applied for one at a time. like, when they came up. got turned down twice before arriving where i'm now (which was kind of second choice because i didn't really want to go abroad).
that's not talking about funding though.

having worked at the local careers service, we were told to tell students not to make too many applications. make three really good, well researched ones, rather than 50 lousy ones. that was for non-academic jobs but i'd say it counts in academia too.

i guess it also depends a bit on how much time you have available to devote to applications.

Could you find ten that you really want to do, with supervisors you really want to do them with?

I applied for two. Got turned down for one. Got offered the other (after interview etc). When i was searching for projects, i came across quite a few that interested me, but I decided it was only worth investing the time and effort into applying for projects I was likely to get, given my research interests and experience.

Just this one.

I applied to about 30-40 different supervisors. Can't remember the exact amount. I was advised to do that by my personal tutor at my university. Some of the best advice I was ever given.

Think I applied for about 10 got about 6 interviews (5 of them were during my final year exams and got offered just the one poisition in the end

not to mention about 30 emails I randomly sent to people whos work interested me, to inquire about positions etc - but to be honest the don't really like that - and prefer you to go through the jobs section.

It seems a lot, but it wasn't just any old one would do, there were elements in all of the ones I went for that interested me - except one, which I realised as I sat in the car for the interview so it was to late not to go in - and I pretty much said to them oops sorry don't think I'm interested -they still gave me a 4 hour interview! lol

I applied to three got interviewed for two and got both offers ! My advice to you , is to concentrate on applying one at a time , and make sure you understand the research topic you applied for . Also you have to ask yourself if this is really what you want to carry out research in .