I have applied for a dfe studentship at qub and uu.

I am yet to hear back from Ulster. however I heard back from qub a d they told me that they meeting to decide nominations soon and there would be no interview.

Can anybody be more helpful regarding the whole process and what I can expect both universities have been incredibly vague

Hi Naomi,

Your message is somewhat vague too :-) I'm not sure what the timescales are, how long it's been since you applied. Unsuccessful candidates are not always notified immediately and sometimes not at all.

The process of PhD recruitment is different in every university and it depends a lot on funding situations, number of applicants, and the amount of workloads in the environment. Covid-19 has caused a lot of disruption to universities and many are in the process of having to change their entire teaching strategy once again for the new semester. Many are increasingly understaffed, some departments have lost staff members or are under a recruitment freeze. PhD recruitment is complex even in normal years. Academia can be chaotic and ever-changing even in normal years. This is not a normal year.

I'd say that if you are already stressed out by ambiguity at this stage, then a career in academia may not be right for you...

Every university deals with applications there own way on their own timeline, so general advice would be worthless. However, it is perfectly acceptable to email the admissions department and ask about you application or when you might hear back from them. Most admission departments are happy to reply with some basic details so that you have an idea of dates.

Hi, I have applied for this too in QUB. I received a formal offer to study in the school about a week and a half ago which means they have nominated me for funding but said I wouldn’t find out whether I was receiving funding until later this month, but hopefully before the Easter Break. The timescales depend on the school though. My friend is a Professor in another school and said they had already done they’re DfE rankings but couldn’t let the applicants know until the research councils allocated their funding too. I hope this helps.