I am wondering if any of you UK PhDs have had experience with applying for american grants which require a transcript indicating your grades in your PhD course, from your university. As most UK PhD do not include taught courses, I am wondering what would qualify as a proper substitute.
The application guide said to include a letter explaining why I don't have a transcript- do they mean for me to write it, perhaps an administrator, or my supervisors. I would really appreciate your opinions if have had any contact with large grant giving foundations in the USA.

I don't know any English students that have applied for US grants but I will tell you my limited knowledge on this subject. Which grant are you applying for?

Many classes taken by US PhD students are actually undergrad classes anyway. If I were you, I would just explain in the letter (I think it's ok coming from you) that UK students don't take classes (you'd be surprised the amount of US academics that don't know this!) and then send your undergrad transcript. You could also detail any courses/seminars that you have attended as a PhD student.

There seems to be no equivalent for UK students, in the same way that there is no equivalent for GPA/GRE and our 1st / 2.1 / 2.2 system is irrelevant in the US since most students get an A (90%+) there anyway.

Are you sure? I'm asking because in some US and Canadian universities these courses lead to MA or MPhil enroute PhD. Also, some of the US and Canadian PhD courses are taken after successfully completing stand alone MA and MSc degrees. Are these also undergraduate courses? I'm just curious to know! lol.



I'll add many of them display their ignorance about UK universities in general. Someone on this site once moaned that academics at a US university he applied to knew nothing about the University of Bristol, asking if it is a good uni. Can you imagine?

Well I can only really comment on the ones at the US university I'm at.

They have different class levels but anyone can take any level class regardless of the degree they are on. There are 3 tiers: lower undergraduate, upper undergraduate and graduate.

MSc and PhD students have to have a certain number of units/classes to pass, and some of these can be the upper undergraduate classes if they didn't take them previously. I attended a few of these lectures and it was very basic so I can't imagine what a lower undergraduate class must be like! I think this is why the graduate level classes are similar to our third year classes. Which if you think about it isn't that surprising - when I took classes for my MSc in the UK the level of difficulty was no different from my third year either.

You are right in that the students can't just take the upper classes though - a certain amount of units has to be from graduate classes in order for them to pass their degree.

There is a lot of arrogance from Americans about every aspect of life. They really do think the US is the centre of the universe and there's something wrong with you if you don't aspire to be like them/their country.